Kittoh's Archives 2006

June 5, 2006
We were out at the family cemetery the other day "visiting our dearly departed relatives". They didn't have much to say but I took note of one particular very old headstone. Not the usual "May she rest in Peace", here's the verse:
Think of me as you pass by
As you are now, so once was I
As I am now, so you must be
Prepare yourself to follow me.
 
That's about as deep as it gets without being too religious. The dead person in this case was a 3 year old girl.

We also noted one headstone where the deceased person was a young man born days before my daughter. As I stood there with her, I considered what it would be like if she were not there: an unfathomable emptiness. The parents had obviously spent a lot of time planting flowers beside all their family headstones. They had put in geraniums including some very appropriate white ones.

I've been reading Sam Adams' "War of Numbers: An Intelligence Memoir". Adams was a CIA agent in Vietnam during the war in the '60's. He wrote his book but died before publishing in the mid '90's. His family completed publication and the CIA did not oppose it.

In the introduction to Adams' book, Colonel David Hackworth says, "The Vietnam War, from beginning to end, was an enormous deception." Until his death in 2005, Hackworth was a strong critic of US military policy, calling Rumsfeld an asshole and demanding his resignation.

According to Adams, the Pentagon deliberately kept down the numbers of Vietcong strength in their reports because they feared that the truth would demoralize the American public too much. But the truth always comes out in the end and this is fine.

What really gets me though is the way people never seem to learn. Too much lapse of time, a whole generation since the Vietnam War means the lessons from it are lost on many who just don't bother to study history.

Even Hackworth said pretty much the same thing.

Right now, the US-led aggression/occupation of Iraq is more and more of a disgusting disaster no matter how you look at it. It is well known that the American government lied to the people when they said there were weapons of mass destruction and Iraq must be brought down before they attack America. Many of us knew this at the time.

All the revelations about torture by Americans including civilian translators such as those employed by Titan Corp at Abu Ghraib and massacres of civilians by US Marines at Falluja and Haditha help to bring down support for the war. For this reason, the media is gripped by a mad scramble to damage control, issuing spurious versions of events. The US mass media persists in failing to report on the devastating toll of Iraqi dead, women, children and men and the incredible rate of cancer that now attacks up to 40% of Iraqi people including horrible birth defects.

The US casualties, nearly 2,500 dead and over 20,000 evacuated for either injury or illness, continue to mount. And what about all the traumatized American soldiers who will eventually come home, another type of casualty of war? Their families and communities will pay the price of "shattered minds, broken hearts and homes". The first round on Iraq, the "Gulf War" has left one hundred thousand on disability, many with "Gulf War Syndrome", a form of environmental illness. This does not include the vast number of US vets who number among American cities' homeless hordes.

In the midst of all this, the USA contemplates attacking Iran for the same spurious reasons, Iran, ancient Persia, a much stronger and bigger nation than Iraq, even whispering about nuking them. Who has weapons of mass destruction?? Who is the only nation on earth who has used weapons of mass destruction???

Meanwhile, the mythical nation of Canada, the legendary global peacekeeper as Canadians like to think of themselves, is off in the mountains of Afghanistan flexing her muscles. Once again, no one seems to consider history, how many previous invaders failed to subdue the hardy people of that hardy land, from the Brits to the Soviets. Now Canadian soldiers are sacrificing their lives and limbs to aid the plunder of that strategic locale, pipeline access to oil and gas and in the south of Afghanistan plenty of opium poppies to make heroin for the Bush drug cartel. Even in the short term, people forget or just don't know that the CIA created the mujahadeen and guys like Osama bin Laden Frankenstein and that the war on Afghanistan was planned well before 911.

Here's the link for Canada's military. I was not able to find casualty statistics there but other articles of interest. You can even write to "our troops". Do you think they'd deliver my message: YOU ARE BEING USED, BUDDY!???

It upsets me to hear of a young Canadian woman killed in Afghanistan and the endless memorial services they hold for her as if this makes it ok. David Fraser, Canadian general and head of the US-led force in Afghanistan, said it was a good thing that she died because it proved we were winning the fight against the Taliban. Canada currently has over 2,000 soldiers in Afghanistan.

Worst of all, is the pretense that Captain Nichola Goddard, a 26-year-old woman, died to liberate the people, especially the women of Afghanistan. Canadian soldiers all psyched up, believe that their cause is noble instead of being the low down, criminal dirt that it is. How Nichola's parents would weep and rage if they read my blog, yes, I'm sorry to say, your daughter died in vain. The only way to turn that around is to tell the truth about what is going on in Afghanistan before many more of our young people die there for plunder and pillage.

"War is a Racket," said General Smedley Butler and he certainly knew what he was talking about.

Now the Lebanese and Iranians in Ottawa are conspiring to cut costs on falafels, putting in what tastes to me, like huge amounts of wheat flour instead of the appropriate bean. I was wondering if anyone could tell me if it is the same in Toronto and Montreal falalfel shops??

As for the recent arrests of 17 young men in the Toronto area, so-called "homegrown terrorists", it is a real test to discern the truth from the lies in all the inflammatory reports. I don't buy the official version of events for 911 or the London bombings last summer. It all seems so staged, so surreal, this in itself is disturbing. I can't just accept the news reports about these young men because the news is full of lies and omissions all the time.

Even the language mainstream journalists use is inflammatory and misleading. The media keep going on about Muslim extremists and what they want to do to us, including beheading the prime minister. How dramatic can you get? It used to be the communists we were to fear. Now it's the "Toronto terrorists".

Media fail to mention all the atrocities and bullyism done by us in other lands that just might fuel real and justified anger against us. Canada's global role in bringing defense, development and diplomacy to all the ignorant people of the world is growing. We know what is best for everyone else and if they don't cooperate, we'll make them do so. Canada wants to increase its number of military personnel by 5,000, now soliciting recruits with TV ads and campaigns in schools. Sigh!

And speaking of media, they gave themselves a big pat on the back the other day, reporting how the media helped to expose the European renditions. Oh, I just bet all the editors at the Office of Broadcasting Services were in full support of the revelations. The Council of Europe has made a statement implicating the intelligence of Britain, Germany, Spain and Turkey as staging posts for CIA kidnappings of over 100 people in Europe.

Sam Adams was in Congo, by the way, and he clearly and blandly states the role of the CIA in the kidnapping and assassination of Patrice Lumumba. Congo has been in turmoil ever since with over 3 million dead in the latest ongoing war since 1998 when Mobutu was outed, euphemistically called a civil war, really a resource war directed by outsiders.

I see that Tenke shares have increased in value since I researched for an article on Congo in 2001. Tenke is a Canadian mining company based in Vancouver and specializing in copper mining. Global copper prices are still not high but investors have been reassured that their money is safe in Congo even though the place is not safe for people. And then there's Nigeria and Somalia, just to mention two places where resistance is on the rise against foreign occupation, pillage and plunder. You can get caught up on some of Canada's propaganda at Foreign Affairs.

It's pretty much the same story all around the planet but here, people live in safe bubbles, deploring the chaos and violence but seldom understanding their own part in the bigger picture.

June 9, 2006
I always get a good read at Marc Parent's Crimes And Corruptions Of The New World Order News.

June 10, 2006
It's funny how a quote from yesteryear is more prescient than the commentators of today. In regards to US sabre rattling toward Iran, General Butler says it well, "Yes, they are getting ready for another war. Why shouldn't they? It pays high dividends." You can read the entire booklet, "War is a Racket" online.

According to Butler, WW1 cost the US, over $53 billion. Today, the US war on Iraq is costing far more than that, to date approaching $300 billion. The total cost is now predicted to be over $1 trillion. And this is just one war! War will bleed America dry and then what of the patriots? Multinationals and international bankers are not patriots, they'll be laughing, already inside the bank.

In Canada, Foreign Affairs Minister Peter Mackay has announced that Canada will likely spend $3.5 billion by 2009 for its efforts in Afghanistan. To date, the bill has been $2.3 billion Cdn. I read that in an online Pakistani newspaper that seems to have quite a few articles mentioning Canada. We really should look to our changing global image...

For so-called terrorists and extremists and insurgents, their passion is not so much fueled by religion but by a whole raft of wrongs and atrocities being done to them and their families in places like Afghanistan by foreigners. Here in Ontario, I think people drive way too fast, dangerously and aggressively. Imagine US military vehicles roaring around the towns and roads of Afghanistan, threatening other drivers with weapons, often crashing into civilian vehicles, one more way to terrorize the people. It resulted in riots in Kabul last week with near 20 dead. Do you really think the Canadians are not doing it too?

Canadian soldiers, now numbering over 2,300 in Afghanistan which is 10 times what they started out with, are right there with the Americans, about 23,000 of them as well as various other nationals. Since 2002, 17 Canadians have been killed in Afghanistan while Spain has lost an equal number, Germany, 18 and the USA, 299. Nato has just asked Italy to increase its commitment. Seems they want more planes to bomb the shit out of the Taleban who are gaining strength every day. I have no idea the numbers of Afghanis dead but I'd bet well into the hundreds, maybe thousands.

June 11, 2006
I've been reading some articles at the Pakistan Tribune just to get another point of view and more detailed information about what is going on in Afghanistan.

Since the middle of May, over 400 people have died in battle, some of them civilians. In fact, with increased US bombing, over 750 strikes in May alone, anger is rising among Afghans against the invaders. Wouldn't this include against Canadians? Even PM Karzai has spoken out against the deaths of civilians more than once. The Taleban is gaining support from people who are sick to death of the occupation.

In the parallel war/occupation of Iraq, US military wrong doing is being exposed all over the place. Here's an article, Propaganda and Haditha, the title being self explanatory.

June 12, 2006
It's all very well to click on links to important and interesting articles. It is also quite refreshing to read something original, something written with a bit of thought and the insight that comes from each individual's point of view. I'm busy with physical labour today.

June 13, 2006
Go here for a disturbing and graphic read about US Air Force pervasive power. MParent is going all out now with photos, really upsetting photo of dead Iraqi baby. The war on Iraq, on Afghanistan and on Palestine is escalating at a phenomenal rate. How long can so much destruction and death go on until it explodes all over the world. The media talks about religious extremists. Everyday, I see glaring reasons why people will want to resist the occupation, the plunder and pillage, fire will fight fire. And if it's been brought home to them, why wouldn't they think of bringing it home to us. This us and them shit, we'll ALL pay in the end.

Now, I just got a big whiff of toxic chemical off one of my neighbours' young lads who was just here dropping off a TV. The fumes from him made me want to puke and I am left with a stinging sensation on my lips and feeling foggy headed and having to fight that so I can write. Why is it, I ask, that manufacturers must put toxic chemicals into colognes, deodorants, etc. Is this some kind of conspiracy to kill people too? Or just an experiment on an unsuspecting "public" to see how much poison the average person can breathe and still function apparently.

Oh, yeah, and now they have a vaccine for breast cancer. Come on now, do you really believe such a thing in the overall context of ubiquitous pollution. Another blowback from the wars is literally the toxic air wafting around this little globe from all the conflagrations of bombs and burning oil fields. But we got a vaccine, (God only knows what's in IT), just for women, see, so they don't get breast cancer which is the BIG SCARE, the well publisized threat to our health and well being.

This week the Supreme Court of Canada or is it the Senate, discusses the anti terrorism bill. How convenient,the timing of last week's arrest of the 17 alleged terrorists. Their treatment - not allowed to talk to lawyers, for one - is appalling. Instead of worrying about terror attacks, Canadians should be worried about how our justice system is being totally smashed.

Isn't it this weekend that the Air Show goes on in Carp again, making entertainment for children out of war? Get the kids used to living in a militarized society. You can find out lots more about Canada's role in the Empire at COAT.

June 19, 2006
Global Research.ca, Research on Globalization is an Ottawa based web site with lots of relevant and thought provoking articles. Here's a link to one well articulated piece, Canada: A Galloping Police State? written by a woman in Saskatoon.

How would you like to be part of a North American Union, sharing with the US and Mexico such things as military and courts? It's in the works, supposed to be a reality by 2010. Hmm.

June 23, 2006
All things are connected.
Yesterday I was driving through a village, doing the posted speed limit of 50 km per hour which is 30 mph for those of you living in the rogue state where they use that standard. A woman driver was following me very closely, I usually say you are too close if I can read your plate. In this case, she was so close I could not even see her license plate. She had caught up to me a mile or two the other side of the village and was impatiently following me, gesticulating now and then, her mouth going too.

The posted speed limit here for highways is 80 kph. I seldom drive that fast because I believe it is unsafe to do so, including for the various animals always running in and across the road. A few animals, such as a moose or bear can total your car and a good sized deer can do a lot of damage. Most smaller animals get horribly mangled most of the time.

To me this form of violence is intimately tied in with all the wars going on in the world because they all relate to the violent and relentless pursuit of oil and our car culture.

Cars are very violent and alienating devices. When you are driving in your car, it is your own little world, your bubble that keeps you separate from the world around you. This is totally contradictory to peace loving concepts about our being connected to all life forms. Even when you drive great distances and you are passing the homes and schools of people you do not know, you are not likely thinking of them. Your mind is probably hurtling ahead to your destination or going over business, you are not in the here and now so splat, you don't see that animal in the road. There are of course, some people who don't mind killing animals in the road, they probably wish they could get away with killing people too, they are that ruthless.

In eastern Ontario in one county alone, the OPP report at least 3 incidents per day involving vehicles and deer. Sometimes you hear of single car accidents during broad daylight and good road conditions. I know of one case where the driver, sole occupant of the car, was killed. Did he have a heart attack at the wheel or did he swerve to avoid hitting a deer, losing control of the car?

Anyhow, the woman following me through the village suddenly swerved out into the road, gunning it to pass me shaking her fist as she did so. I myself got very upset and started waving my hand and yelling too. Road rage had us both and if she had stopped, I think I might have hit her, certainly it would've been a screaming and yelling match which is something I really don't like and haven't done for a long time. But she just roared off out of sight.

Speaking of roads and cars, here's a jolly quote about the 141,204-kilometer Asian Highway being built right now:
 
"Over 100,000 people die of road accidents in India [annually]," Veeraragavan said, adding that more than 3,000 "die daily in road accidents worldwide". He dismisses ecological concerns over developing highways, saying trees can be planted in other places than by roadsides, "which only cause more accidents.

June 24, 2006
UPDATE: Some time ago, I wrote that I was editing a manuscript for a Death Row prisoner in the US. That project was never completed. Shortly after I received the manuscript, I had serious computer troubles and my system was down for awhile because I lacked the funds to fix it. The DR writer was not very understanding and we agreed to not work together anymore. I am no longer corresponding with him.

However, I am still in contact with one Death Row prisoner in Texas, Anthony Nealy whose case is showing some promise of being turned around. He is one I feel very strongly is wrongfully convicted and probably innocent as charged.

June 26, 2006
Here's a quote from the latest issue of Press for Conversion, "Canada's Role in the Militarisation of Space". The full text is available at the COAT web site.
Canada-US Treaty on RADARSAT-2 has secret annex
Secrecy also shrouds an annex to a Canada-U.S. treaty that was signed in 2000 by then-Foreign Affairs Minister Lloyd Axworthy and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. Michael Byers, a UBC Professor who teaches Global Politics and International Law testified to Parliament's Foreign Affairs and International Trade Committee that this secret annex "could enable the U.S. to demand RADARSAT-2 be used to take images in preparation for a military intervention to which Canada was opposed....[and] in preparation for a war that was illegal under international law" ( February 22, 2005).

I have always thought Lloyd Axworthy was a great big phoney and a real slick liberal. His stance in the Canadian-led Anti Landmines effort is pathetic yet so many people fall for it!

July 17, 2006
I've been reading Matthew Josephson's "The Robber Barons" which is a fundamental work if you are studying capitalism, especially when critiquing capitalism and US foreign policy. I got it out on InterLibrary Loan so I only have it for a few weeks. I like reading up on the capitalists including their biographies which are often cosmetic but still revealing.

Probably the single most interesting thing about the robber barons of yesteryear and the capitalist globalist multinational corporate kings and lords of today is that they are generally portrayed as rather unhappy people, driven by their singular lust for money, often predatory loners who don't care about other people. From JP Morgan to John D.Rockefeller and our very own Sam Bronfman, they are men of few words and few interests though later in life they seek to impress other people with their displays of wealth and culture. Even then they are not happy, always driven by some grand schemes but always lost souls.

"The Robber Barons", published in 1934, deals with the captains of industry who profited greatly from the American Civil War, quickly becoming the railroad barons and leaders in every important industry of the rapidly industrializing USA. Josephson reveals with painstaking detail just how these aggressive and self serving individuals manipulated their colleagues, their agents, their competitors, the media and every public official who came into their sights.

The really amazing thing is how similar the situation is today in America, the corruption, the wanton consumerism, the wasteful destruction of the environment. (This includes Canada.) So many people want to comfort themselves by saying things just got nasty the other day when it has been vicious all along. The type of economic system that evolved with the coming of the European hordes has been one of pillage and plunder from the beginning.

Josephson covers a lot in a very articulate and easy to read style but in my view, he doesn't dwell enough on the destruction of Native people and culture (genocide covers it succinctly) and the environmental damage. In a way, this is good because it is sometimes harder to read an author who is in a rage. Josephson is more restrained. And the book is long enough at 400+ pages.

A quick search on google reveals that Matthew Josephson himself is an intriguing person and wrote a number of other books.

August 4, 2006
Another lapse of time and my excuse is a stinker. There was a dead mouse or something in the wall right beside my computer. The stench drove me out of the room and there was little I could do about it short of breaking the plaster. I think the creature must have been up in the attic and fallen down inside the wall and couldn't get out. For such a small animal, it sure made a big stink.

Having also viewed some photos of slain Lebanese children on the internet, these images stuck in my mind, I had to wonder about the smell which doesn't come across over the internet. The smell of burned flesh, of bodies rotting in the heat, of many dead under debris who cannot be reached, it is all horrific.

Besides grief and anger, it frightens me to think of the hatred that is being cultivated by the US-Israeli bombing and killing in Lebanon and Gaza and Iraq and the US-Canadian attacks in Afghanistan ad nauseum around the world. This hatred will blossom and produce results. The present status quo cannot continue, change must come but that doesn't mean things will be better for us here. And why should they be better for us when we reap the benefits of all the plunder and pillage our government commits in our name. If we in the West want Peace, then we must be prepared to make sacrifices ourselves.

I wrote to Stephen Harper, the Prime Minister of Canada and to Peter MacKay, the Minister of Foreign Affairs. I pointed out facts to them and refrained from name-calling which wasn't easy. I doubt they will listen to me but I feel compelled to make the effort. To remain silent is to be complicit. Two letters is hardly enough and yet it seems to be more than what some heads of state are doing including Arab heads of state who stand out for their silence.

I also sent off a letter to our local media which is more likely to publish my views than the bigger rags like the Ottawa Citizen. Here's one called "CPP contributions support war" that I had published last winter.

I did read an article today that says more than half of Canadians do not approve of what the Government is doing. Somehow, our disapproval is not enough. We must stop all our silent ways of supporting the machinery of war including paying taxes.

Most of all it is our silence. My fellow Canadians in rural eastern Ontario do not want to discuss the wars and destruction going on except for the vocal but ignorant few who have family in the military. Their shrill patriotism is unnerving in itself.

So for now, back to The Robber Barons...

Josephson quotes many earlier works and biographies, giving us a sprinkling of choice comments. Here are just a few quotable quotes from or about the new nobility:

...America, through blood and iron [Civil war], consecrated its own industrial revolution ...other young men...slunk away quickly, bent upon business...they were the strange, new mercenary soldiers of economic life...The plunder...to these...massive interests moving obscurely in the background of wars... - p4

According to Judge Thomas Mellon, (father of Andrew) who found his inspiration in Benjamin Franklin, "only greenhorns enlist...nothing to learn in the army...plenty of other lives less valuable..."

Wealthy families like the Rockefellers, Goulds, Vanderbilts, Mellons, Carnegie and others, paid for and sent substitutes for their drafted sons who never saw battle. They were busy at the "industrial activities evoked by the immense destroying and consuming of modern war."

In a March, 1863 report from the Committee on Government Contracts on the activities of Morgan et al, it is written, "Worse than traitors in arms are the men who pretending loyalty to the flag, feast and fatten on the misfortunes of the nation while patriot blood flows..." [on the battlefield].

The report was written when Morgan and his buddy, Ed Ketchum, son of banker, Morris Ketchum bought up $1 1/2 million worth of gold and shipped it to London, thus driving up the price of gold. Some people called for the "gold speculators" to be hanged.

Cornelius Vanderbilt is frequently quoted for this brilliant remark, "What do I care about the Law? Haint I got the power?"

President Andrew Johnson warned in 1866, "an aristocracy based on nearly $2 1/2 billion in national securities has arisen in the Northern States to assume that political control which consolidation of great financial and political interests formerly gave to SLAVE OLIGARCHY."

The president was loudly hushed while the gullible General Grant spoke for the capitalist plan.

In a rare reference to the Native people of the land, Josephson writes, "...the red-skinned natives watched the march of the invaders...the heavy iron rails...cut through their prairies like bands of pain to grip them forever."

The much romanticized trains were the same tool used to quell the Metis uprising in Manitoba by being able to quickly transport British troops from Kingston. Louis Riel the Metis leader was hanged as a traitor but has recently been made a Canadian hero whose statue stands in Ottawa today.

After the American Civil War, with the development of the West "...The reward of the bankers in fees, sections of land and townsites was estimated in sums...had never been known to be gathered in so few hands". That is up until that time. Now the wealth of the world is concentrated into even fewer hands.

Imagine how paranoid the really rich must be. They cannot possibly consume or use all they own, they must hire people to protect their property and they must always be suspicious of someone trying to take from them what isn't rightfully theirs anyhow but they think it is. Twisted!

Oil had been discovered in western Pennsylvania in 1859 which led to an oil rush. JD Rockefeller became involved, soon dominating all aspects of the industry where "unprincipled competition...brutal free-for-all...producers contended...in lawless fashion...refiners...engaged in...trade conflicts...all measures fair."

The situation was so out of hand on all fronts, including legislation and the press. "...Continual hearings and investigations by representatives of the people were the great public comedies of the time."

Today, we call it moral bankruptcy as if this ailment suddenly struck yesterday.

"Rockefeller and Morgan met force with force, bribe with bribe and duplicity with duplicity." - p139. [I wanted to quote the whole page but had to take the book back. I see now a recent paperback edition is available.]

Josephson quotes Lewis Corey, "Morgan moved...with the irrestistability of economic compulsion, to the 'Morganization' of industry by means of new financial procedure and institution, imposing control of the financier over industry and merging industry and finance."

J.P. Morgan was a large and intimidating man with a loud voice. He said, "I don't know as I want a lawyer to tell me what I cannot do. I hire him to tell me how to do what I want to do."

Josephson writes, "Morgan was spreading his own direct, secret authority by tactics, destined to become famous, of interlocking directorates."

Rockefeller was religious, of the evangelical bent becoming popular in his day. He even taught Sunday school classes. He said, "God gave me my money."

In Chapter 14 which is called 'The Robber Barons' Josephson describes the new nobility who became "models and guides for all institutions and social conventions - literature and art, church and state, science and education, law and morals...to advance their policies and principles, sometimes directly, more often with skillful indirection."

Rockefeller defended himself, "I believe it is my duty to make more and more money and to use the money for the good of my fellow man according to...my conscience."

The robber barons were "nature's noblemen" who "simulated feudal grandeur". They ransacked Europe's art treasures, paintings, tapestries, even whole staircases, bringing these things to fill their houses in America.

Andrew Mellon claimed, "It is always a mistake for a good businessman to take public office."

If you are wondering when the workers are going to organize and rebel, here is what Josephson has to say: ...in decisive defeat...the moment of class struggle passed by.
[While] Labor steadily organized itself...against [their]growing might, the barons exerted themselves with promptitude, trememdous energy and unflinching ruthlessness...In the US the encroachments of organized labour were halted or neutralized or completely nullified."

August 5, 2006
Today MParent has photos of dead Lebanese people. This awful thing going on cannot be hid this time around.

August 8, 2006
I just received a letter from Anthony Nealy, an inmate on Texas Death Row. He writes that a death warrant has been signed for him and the execution date set for November 16, 2006. This is just horrible yet should not be surprising. US domestic policy is murderous too, the state kills people all the time. Bad enough if the people are guilty but really bad considering the numbers later found innocent, often after being executed. I have been corresponding with Ant for six years now and have come to believe he is innocent. He certainly did not get a fair trial with his defence attorney sleeping through the very short trial of three days. Ant is one hell of a guy, considerate and possessing an amazing sense of humour.

I feel very helpless, what can I do? I certainly cannot rescue him or make his murderers stop. What use are my feelings of hurt and anguish to Anthony? I suppose I could write a letter to the Governor, begging him for mercy and pointing out that an appeal with new evidence is forthcoming.

Here's a new article on the US-Israeli war on Lebanon at the world socialist web site quoting Bush who as governor of Texas signed over 150 execution warrants before he went on to become president. WSWS analyses are usually bang on though I cannot support their political party for personal reasons.

Another article at wsws tells us that casualties are on some days worse in Afghanistan where Canadian soldiers continue to die, the 24th in a head-on collision on Saturday:
"Despite the news media's attempts to either ignore or bury reports from Afghanistan, on two days in mid-July the country suffered higher casualties than even Iraq and Lebanon. All indications from the first few days of this month are that the cycle of violence and destruction across Afghanistan is escalating."

As the article explains, the death toll of Afghani civilians is not known. It also says
"On July 31, NATO assumed security responsibility from US troops for the volatile south, (the six provinces of Day Kundi, Helmand, Kandahar, Nimroz, Uruzgan and Zabul), commencing the first major land offensive outside of Europe in the organisation's 57-year history. The NATO takeover allows the US military to pull around 3,000 troops out of the country.

The US-based Human Rights Watch has just released a report entitled "Fatal Strikes: Israel's indiscriminate attacks against civilians in Lebanon" which exposes the actions of Israel in Lebanon. The report ends by appealing to the Israelis to behave and urging the US not to send any more munitions to Israel. What a joke!

August 10, 2006
I picked up a bag of potatoes at the store today, same variety of potatoes that I usually buy and the same-looking bag that I go for. As I went to pick it up, I noticed something new on the label: 7 lbs instead of the usual 10 in the same bag. Oh, these little capitalist marketing tricks, they never stop, do they?

I also bought a new can opener. Seems I have to buy one just about every year as they always get so rusty they won't work anymore. What I don't get is why they can't make a can opener that doesn't rust. Seems obvious that you would want to wash it, doesn't it or am I just that weird? Used to be you could buy a can opener and it would last until someone accidentally threw it out with the garbage. These modern ones start off as garbage.

Another thing about this new can opener is the amount of packaging. There's even a little flag with the words "Made in America" under it. Now this bugs me cause there is North America, Central America and South America as far as I know geography. But to some egocentric individuals there is only one America and that is the rogue state, USA. Nowadays their self centredness is downright dangerous as they stomp around the world on all the heads of all the people who they figure aren't just like them.

There are some who try pretty hard to be just like them and do a good job of it. Canada lost another soldier in Afghanistan yesterday, making 6 dead for the week and several wounded. As Canadians continue the job the US started in that country, it'll be hard to tell the difference between Canadians and Americans (see I'm doing it too, we all do it cause they are the ones who get to be called Americans while everyone else is a Mexican, a Canadian or a Chilean, etc.).

Yes, Canada, that little whore north of the 49th, this country knows how to say no and mean yes and fool most of its own citizens at the same time. Canadians are getting pretty perplexed about the situation in Afghanistan even though many are still beaming with pride about how Canada didn't send troops to Iraq. So they think and will argue til the cows come home. Fact is, Canada sent highly skilled military personnel to the Middle East, a few dozen techno wizards who are helping to run things over there as well as Canadian Navy in the Gulf. The USA has plenty of expendable citizens, 10 times as many people as in Canada, to send off to war. These wars seem endless now but will the supply of willing sheep be limitless? Hardly. Nations that go crazy with war tend to utterly exhaust and destroy themselves. But they never seem to learn.

Britain just stopped another terrorist attack, they say, but a discerning person can't help but wonder, is this one for real or is it another staged event to terrify the citizenry into giving up more personal freedom in exchange for better security. Now all day today you hear in the news that if you take a plane between the US and the UK, they're gonna make you take off your shoes before you board the plane. One things for sure, they're tightening up the borders even more to prevent the ordinary masses from moving about. Pretty soon the borders will slam shut just like they did in Germany, 1942 when Hitler et al passed new laws for the Final Solution. People will find themselves trapped and then the roundups will begin. Hey, if you really care about your family, now's a good time to gather them all together...

Family. Now there's another sore subject. Families are torn apart and scattered all over the globe, often because of economic necessity. I suppose we could put a more spiritual spin on the situation and say, we are moved by higher forces to wander the planet...

August 12, 2006
Here's a very informative article from the ArabAmericanNews which tells about a recent demonstration against the war on Lebanon in Montreal and about a group of Canadian MP's going to the Middle East next week. It also talks about a group called Zatoun based in Richmond Hill, outside of Toronto. A woman here just sold over $800 worth of their excellent product, Palestinian olive oil and is taking orders again.

Another really well written piece at ArabAmericanNews points out the serious bias in the media where Israelis are given a human face and much more air time than either the Lebanese or the Palestinians. This bias exists in the Canadian media including the so called public radio, CBC which presents carefully woven reports that are really insidious. That Adrienne Arsenault is such a whore, flitting about from Iraq to Afghanistan to Lebanon, embedding with the military. Hmm...

Following links from some articles at ArabAmerican News, I found some huge blogs and then an amazing article from which this quote:
If only Israelis could see the damage that's been done by all these years of unilateral thinking. But we cannot, because the army – which has always been the core of the state – determines the shape of our lives and the nature of our memories, and wars like this one erase everything we thought we knew, creating a new version of history with which we can only concur. If the army wins, its success becomes part of 'our heritage'. Israelis have assimilated the logic and the language of the IDF – and in the process, they have lost their memories.

In another article at kabobfest, we are informed about some 130,000 landmines that Israel left in southern Lebanon in 2000. Hassan Nasrallah wants to know where they are. This is a job for Lloyd Axworthy, to walk around southern Lebanon to find the landmines unless he can convince the Israelis to tell. As if.

August 19, 2006
While Israel has been bombing Lebanon for the past month, killing over 1,000 people and laying waste to the land, they have still had time to bomb Gaza, killing 200 Palestinians there. This has not been newsworthy though as the world was mesmerized by the war on Lebanon.

August 20, 2006
According to Robert Fisk, well known reporter for the Independent in an August 17 report,
"... across Lebanon, they are systematically lifting the tons of rubble of old roofs and apartment blocks and finding families below, their arms wrapped around each other in the moment of death as their homes were beaten down upon them by the Israeli air force. By last night, they had found 61 more bodies, taking the Lebanese dead of the 33-day war to almost 1,300."

Fisk goes on to say something almost more horrifying, " southern suburbs of Beirut - where local people claimed they could still hear the screams of neighbours trapped far below the bomb-smashed apartment blocks. The Lebanese civil defence organisation - almost as brave as the Lebanese Red Cross in trying to save lives under fire - believe at least three families may be trapped in basements deep below the wreckage."

You can read his reports from Beirut by linking on his name above.

Elsewhere, a Chicago Tribune article reveals that an ex-cop CIA employee in Afghanistan has been convicted for his fatal abuse of an Afghani man. The sentence is ludicrous and he is not the only one accused of such abuses.

As the possibility of the military draft inches along, the Pentagon has now used the tactic of "backdoor draft" to recall reserves to active duty in Iraq. That should tell you something about the prospect of the US military withdrawing.

Not only that but there is the other factor of what the military life is doing to all these people who are sent to Iraq. What kind of people will they be when they come home? If they come home.

August 21, 2006
Canada's International Policy Statement can be read by clicking the link. Then read what Gordon OConnor, Minister of Defence has to say about Canadian Soldiers in Afghanistan, "As a country we honour their daily sacrifices in the name of Canada's national interests and we wish for the safety of all Canadian Forces members serving around the world."

Serious people must ask, "What exactly are 'Canada's national interests'? If you read the international policy statement you will get a clue. And just because Paul Martin signed it doesn't mean things have changed on that one.

In Britain now, a group of people has started a new political party to oppose the government support of the war on Iraq. Most members have lost a son in Iraq, in what they call an illegal war. One candidate claims, "The majority of people in this country now believe that the war in Iraq was wrong, and I do believe we will get support."

I can't help but wonder how long it will take for something like this to start in Canada where Canadian soldiers are heading out full of idealistic notions about saving Afghani women. Wait til they get there and find out what is really going on.

Personally, though, I am aghast at the concept of war being legal or illegal. It appears that the nature of modern warfare is always misleading in its reasons and dead wrong. Always a scam for somebody and a blind sacrifice for somebody else.

Imagine that, Israel has broken the ceasefire by sending commandos into Lebanon to kidnap a Hezbollah leader. Read on about the debacle.

August 23, 2006
I like to say to people about the Bush cartel heroin drug trade being a big part of the reason for the invasion of Afghanistan. Many people brush me off as an old kook but I am firm in my contentions and I do my research. Here's an excerpt from a recent UN report:
"Illegal opium cultivation and production dominates present-day Afghanistan's agricultural sector [which employs 80% of the population]. It provides a direct livelihood to more than 350,000 rural households, representing a total of 3 million people engaged in its cultivation and production. Although opium poppy cultivation represents only 7% of total irrigated land; for the first time in Afghanistan's history, cultivation now takes place in all 34 provinces. Yet, the true scale of the impact of opium poppy cultivation is even more important than these figures imply. Opium poppy cultivation feeds a diverse and extensive supply chain involving farmers, wage labourers, shopkeepers, wholesalers and local power-brokers. For example, opium cultivation provides farmers and wage labourers with a source of credit, savings and investment. Opium is also used as a form of "currency" and its role as "credit" adds further value to its already relatively-high price, compared with legal alternatives. Cash generated by opium also feeds the growth of local services and goods in rural Afghanistan. For example, even the building sector and other business activities (such as imports) in large cities are partly financed by the opium boom."

To sum it up, the opium trade in Afghanistan involves people from all levels of society as this article in Christian Science Monitor describes, ""We are already a narco-state," says Mohammad Nader Nadery at the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission, which has studied the growing impunity of former military commanders and drug dealers who now work within the Afghan government: "If the governors in many parts of the country are involved in the drug trade, if a minister is directly or indirectly getting benefits from drug trade, and if a chief of police gets money from drug traffickers, then how else do you define a narco-state?""

Why, then, wouldn't occupation soldiers become involved in the trade too? They have/are protection and transportation. War and drugs go together like soup and sandwich. Picture it: all those unhappy people needing a fix and all those miserable depraved souls profiteering in the heroin/opium trade.

We know now how US soldiers got involved in the heroin trade when they were in Vietnam and the sorry state many came home in. At the time, it was all denied. You had to know someone personally to get the facts and then the word gradually got out. It is no different now. You may think I am cynical for saying this but it is the cynicism of US soldiers et al when they get over there that is the problem. And I can't say all this without mentioning Canadian soldiers who have taken over the front lines in the conflict in Afghanistan. How many of them are profiteering in the heroin trade?

It was just today that a Canadian soldier shot and killed a 10-year-old boy in Afghanistan. If he doesn't go for a shot of whiskey tonite, then he might be reaching for a shot of heroin instead. Or maybe he already was on heroin and that is why he made the dumb decision to shoot the people on the motorcycle in the first place.

For an outsider, even if you simply track the areas of greatest opium cultivation, you will see how these areas coincide with the areas where foreign troops are based. As for the Afghanis growing opium, what else do you expect them to do based on the above linked UN report? Goodly numbers of them are also users, addicts being people living with despair.

August 24, 2006
There was a great big praying mantid (mantis religiosa) on my arm today when I came in from the garden where I was picking hot peppers. I brushed it off and when it landed on the floor, it turned and looked at me over its shoulder. Here's what the book, "Insects of North America" says about mantids: ...Many species are cannibalistic, and mating, for the usually smaller male, can be a dangerous business. Many species have evolved behavioural mechanisms that reduce the chance of males being eaten. Males are very cautious to keep out the way of the female's front legs, normally approaching and jumping on their prospecive mate from behind. Despite being careful, males do get eaten, even while copulating. It is interesting to note that, due to reflexes in the nervous system, the half-devoured male will continue to mate for some time.

More on that question of what Canada's national interests are in Afghanistan, there may be a clue in this article about the Trans-Afghan Pipeline. There are more links at Global Research on Chretien, Canadian Corporations, and the Caspian. Chretien is another very busy former Canadian Prime Minister.

August 25, 2006
As a lot of posturing goes on, the UN prepares to send troops into Lebanon to maintain the uneasy so-called ceasefire. Canadians who doubt that this country has a role in the violence and destruction wrought on Lebanon had better read the report, "Canadian Military Components used in Israel's War Against Lebanon" at the Coalition to Oppose the Arms Trade.

For those Canadians who still think there is any difference between the Liberal and Conservative Parties, a few history lessons are in order. John Diefenbaker, former Conservative Prime Minister was anti nuclear. His successor, Lester Pearson became Liberal Prime Minister. The new External Affairs Minister, Paul Martin Sr., made sure that nuclear warheads were soon deployed in Canada. You can read the whole scoop about how Diefenbaker was forced out of office at Coat Issue #43. (Scroll down the menu for the article.)

Meanwhile, keep in mind that Paul Martin Jr., recent Liberal Prime Minister, is the son of said Paul Martin Sr. The activities of the present Conservative Prime Minister, Stephen Harper et al is a continuation of the same militaristic program. If you think Conservatives are more for war than Liberals, consider that the Liberals have always been in office when Canada is involved in war overseas. Stephen Harper, by the way, is a founding member of the Reform Party (does anyone remember them?)and not much of a conservative in the small c sense.

This brings to mind a surreal moment in television history when David Suzuki interviewed Preston Manning in the last (Thank the Higher Consciousness) episode of "The Nature of Things" on CBC TV. Suzuki, with eyes squinted nearly shut in his profound wisdom, asserts that he is a conservative as in conservationist and that radicals are generally destructive. Preston Manning, founding member and figurehead of the racist and fundamentalist Reform Party smiles and agrees as he promotes his new company, Green Conservatism or some such. Funny thing, I found Manning a little more intellectual in this interview though I have usually thought of him as a complete geek and Suzuki appeared the fool though I have never admired him quite as much as many environmentalists do.

One country that never gets into the spotlight is the Democratic Republic of Congo. That central African nation has been ravaged by war since 1998 but who knows about it? Some research I did in 2001, revealed a figure of 2500 dead every day with a total at that point of 3 million dead. Another million have died since then. When the World Trade Center went down on 911 with close to 3,000 dead, I had to pause and compare how much attention and mourning those dead received compared to the Congolese who die so often. Not that media coverage helps the dead but at least, it can show some respect.

There have been a few blips on the radar about Congo lately with their having elections and the resultant mess which is just the same as what is going on in Afghanistan but without the media coverage. A UN report indicates the daily death toll is still very high with thousands dying every week. More money was spent on the sham election than on any kind of aid to the ravaged country, which is the richest in resources yet the poorest of people in the world. And, of course, Canada plays its role there too in the form of venture capitalists in the mining industry. Please stay tuned for upload of my "Congo files".

August 28, 2006
For some time now, I have wanted to make mention here of the fact of my illness. I suffer from environmental illness (EI) as well as Multiple Chemical Sensitivities (MCS) and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFIDS). Environmental Illness is also known as Gulf War Syndrome in veterans.

The biggest problem I find with this illness is the attitude of other people which is mostly denial, not to mention lack of compassion or caring. Yet growing numbers of people are afflicted every day. The government says they don't know the cause of it though it is pretty simple to me that it is pollution, massive and ubiquitous pollution, in the air we breathe, in the water we drink and bathe in, in the food we eat and in nearly every product we use in the modern world. It is also obvious to me that the official position, though acknowledging the illness, fails to connect the dots to the causes because the finger must point at big industry which is taboo. You can read two of my letters on Environmental illness, published in our local media.

Another problem I find is that many people who call themselves environmentalists claim that the threat to the environment is more important than the various wars going on in the world. Perhaps this is an oversimplification of their views but when you consider that many environmentalists think overpopulation to be a big problem, then you can see why war might not be such a bother to them since they often believe that the numbers of humans on this planet must be reduced if we are to survive. What better way to reduce the human population than to wage war on groups of people who also may be in the way of the resource extraction needed to maintain the North American way of life?

Here's a quote from an article, Weapons Used, Targets Hit, Bombing Intensity in Lebanon by the Israeli Military by Leuren Moret, a geoscientist and international radiation specialist:
This planet is enveloped in depleted uranium radioactive poison dust, and with all the other problems, it is causing the greatest mass extinction in 65 million years since the dinosaurs went extinct. Scientists predict that 50% of the worlds species will be extinct within 100 years. Infertility in humans is an increasing problem now, with only 15% of sperm in men globally which is normal. It used to be 80% was normal.
 
Britain and the US... and now Israel... have turned this planet into the Auschwitz radioactive poison gas chamber and we are all sitting in it increasing our body burden of radiation with every breath we take. There is no escape...

The author is tracking global health problems in conjunction with nuclear presence. Uranium levels are being monitored in Britain where coinciding increases have occurred along with the advent of the 2nd war on Iraq when massive amounts of depleted uranium were used. The tendency of the uranium aerosol to travel after impact has been minimized or denied by authorities yet the quoted studies indicate, that "particles traveled in 7-9 days from Iraqi battlefields as far as 2400 miles away" [to Britain].

Here's another article, Depleted Uranium is WMD by Leuren Moret. In it, she says things like "Since 1991, the U.S. has released the radioactive atomicity equivalent of at least 400,000 Nagasaki bombs into the global atmosphere." and "The U.S. has illegally conducted four nuclear wars in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and twice in Iraq since 1991, calling DU "conventional" weapons when in fact they are nuclear weapons." The article ends with this sentence: "After Vietnam, Henry Kissinger said, "Military men are just dumb, stupid animals to be used as pawns in foreign policy. . ." (from Chapter 5 in the "Final Days" by Woodward and Bernstein). [Actually, it's in Chapter 14]

In an article called This War Is Going Nowhere, a soldier writes asking for our help. On the same page are more articles and a link to Iraq Veterans against the War. Last week, a CNN poll indicated that over 60% of Americans are against the war in Iraq.

August 29, 2006
Canada's Minister of Defence, Gordon O'Connor was previously employed as a lobbyist at Hill and Knowlton, many of his clients being in the military industry.

This quote from a book in an article "Behind the Plan to Bomb Iran" by Ismael Hossein-zadeh makes me think of OConnor: "Today the armaments lobby "is exerting more influence over policymaking than at any time since President Dwight D. Eisenhower first warned of the dangers of the military-industrial complex over 40 years ago." [9. William Hartung and Michelle Ciarrocca, "The Military-Industrial-Think Tank Complex." ]

Earlier in Hossein-zadeh's article, he writes, "The driving force behind the neoconservatives' war juggernaut must be sought not in the alleged defense of democracy or of national interests but in the nefarious special interests that are carefully camouflaged behind the front of national interests. These special interests derive lucrative business gains and high dividends from war and militarism. They include both economic interests (famously known as the military-industrial complex) and geopolitical interests (associated largely with Zionist proponents of "greater Israel" in the Middle East, or the Israeli lobby).

This again, reminds me of OConnor and his constant reference to Canada's "national interests" every time he officiates at the memorial service of a Canadian soldier slain in Afghanistan. If the shoe fits, wear it must surely apply to Gordie. Link here for Hossein-zadeh's web site.

August 30, 2006
While I was contemplating the mentality of our Defence/War Minister yesterday, he was off in Afghanistan on another photo op. Eight Canadian soldiers have died in Afghanistan this month alone. Canadian soldiers have also shot Afghani civilians including a ten-year-old boy who died.

There was Gord hulking around amongst the soldiers in his fatigues, a well respected leader cause he is a military man himself. He completed armoured training 44 years ago at Canadian Forces Base Borden and was a member of the Royal Canadian Dragoons. He rose to brigadier general whatever that means as far as Canadian military rank goes. That's ok for a War Minister to be a former soldier.

The part that is worrisome is his former role at Hill and Knowlton as lobbyist for not less than 15 military industry outfits including Airbus Military, Brown and Root, Galaxy Aerospace, General Dynamics and Raytheon Canada. He must have all kinds of buddies in the business who are now nudging him for favours.

Gordon OConnor is the elected Member of Parliament for Carleton-Mississippi Mills which includes the town of Almonte. Earlier this year, I had occasion to attend a funeral at a church in Almonte.

For me with chemical sensitivities, this was a strenuous outing, in fact, one of the worst I have experienced in a long time. The level of toxic chemical fragrance in that church that day was deadly, all those people who no doubt voted for Gord sitting there trying to mask their stench. Perhaps these people are so drugged by their copious use of toxic chemical fragrances that they have no idea what they are voting for much less who. They are the fundamentalist type of Christians, adhering to a literal translation of the Bible, especially the concept that leaders are appointed by God and one must not question authority.

I guess I got it all wrong. I thought we are supposed to critique our leaders in order to keep them on the straight and narrow. I thought we should know about the people we vote for before we vote for them. You wouldn't believe how many of these church-goers think/believe that Harper et al are honest men. When they tell you this, they point out all the lies and thievery of Martin and Chretien. Try as I might to explain this doesn't mean that OConnor, Day or Harper are honest, they're not listening to me. Maybe these politicians are more honest than their predecessors because they don't know when to shut up.

Take for example, Gord himself, when questioned about how he will avoid conflicts of interest, he replied simply, "Just watch me!"

When he was Defence Critic he said of then Prime Minister Martin, "Regardless of what the Prime minister now claims, we are irrevocably part of missile defence." Now that is honesty.

A recent report by Human Rights Watch states, "U.S. and coalition forces active in Afghanistan under Operation Enduring Freedom since November 2001, continue to arbitrarily detain civilians and use excessive force during arrests of non-combatants. Ordinary civilians arrested in military operations are unable to challenge the legal basis for their detention or obtain hearings before an adjudicative body. They have no access to legal counsel."

That means Canadian soldiers too are involved in these abuses. How long will it be til a real big scandal of this sort hits our maple leaf? Mark my words...Then we'll find out about honest men and liars.

September 1, 2006
A search at google reveals literally thousands of articles quoting Canada's Minister of Defence Gordon O'Connor talking about Canada's national interests. Link here to a small sampling of such quotes.

September 2, 2006
Now don't that make you feel proud to be a Canadian, knowing that Canada voted against a UN Human Rights Council probe to investigate Israel for targeting and killing civilians in Lebanon, including using cluster bombs. Germany and the U.K. also voted against the move which passed anyway.

September 5, 2006
With over twice the number of soldiers in Afghanistan, UK has about the same number of casualties as Canada does with 36 and 32 to date. This is nothing compared to what will happen when the Anglo-American forces attempt to invade Iran. If they can't get control of little old Afghanistan in five long years and if they can't get control of middle sized Iraq after bombing the shit out of that nation, subjecting it to a decade of sanctions and then bombing again, then what do they figure will happen when they go after Iran, a much larger and better armed nation? Even Israel has been embarrassed by Hezbollah, a resistance group in Lebanon which isn't even the official Lebanese military itself but a grassroots organization. The blood will flow by the gallon when they go at Iran which some still want to say "if" but that is doubtful and has been for some time. All the "If" talk is a distraction while the mobilization gathers momentum. And the madness escalates in pace.

This article "British Troops Mobilizing on the Iranian Border provides compelling arguments that an attack on Iran is imminent.

If you check out a web site like DefenseIndustryDaily, you can read hundreds of articles about huge sales of powerful weaponry all written in a style and tone that is excited and giddy but never once pauses to consider the toll in death and destruction of real live people, never once stops to ask where it will all lead. This kind of madness is truly terrifying. Most of the pacifists and anti war demonstrators are silent these days, standing in fearful awe of how things are progressing. Many people have given up completely and now await their fate, their fatality. Eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die, all of us, the whole stinking planet. You can see it in the way that people drive their cars, everyone seems on a suicide mission.

Major Ralph Peters sums it up most vividly, "There will be no peace. At any given moment for the rest of our lifetimes, there will be multiple conflicts in mutating forms around the globe. Violent conflict will dominate the headlines, but cultural and economic struggles will be steadier and ultimately more decisive. The de facto role of the US armed forces will be to keep the world safe for our economy and open to our cultural assault. To those ends, we will do a fair amount of killing." He is quoted in an article By Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed at information clearing house. His original article "Blood Borders" is published at Armed Forces Journal.

September 20, 2006
Have you been wondering if a US-led war on Iran is actually possible? Is it imminent? Here is a quote from an article at information clearing house that asks, "What Would War Look Like?":
    Next, there is oil. The Persian Gulf, a traffic jam on good days, would become a parking lot. Iran could plant mines and launch dozens of armed boats into the bottleneck, choking off the shipping lanes in the Strait of Hormuz and causing a massive disruption of oil-tanker traffic. A low-key Iranian mining operation in 1987 forced the U.S. to reflag Kuwaiti oil tankers and escort them, in slow-moving files of one and two, up and down the Persian Gulf. A more intense operation would probably send oil prices soaring above $100 per bbl.--which may explain why the Navy wants to be sure its small fleet of minesweepers is ready to go into action at a moment's notice. It is unlikely that Iran would turn off its own oil spigot or halt its exports through pipelines overland, but it could direct its proxies in Iraq and Saudi Arabia to attack pipelines, wells and shipment points inside those countries, further choking supply and driving up prices.

October 2, 2006
Though I don't hear anything about it on our local media, once I hit cyberspace the first thing I go for and find aplenty, are articles on the impending war on Iran. As mad as it sounds to many people, the experts, pundits and armchair philosophers are avidly discussing whether or not it will happen. Meanwhile, the US et al military are deploying to the Persian Gulf. You can be sure Canada is involved and will be there in the form of HMCS Ottawa. Plans have undoubtedly been in the works for quite some time as is necessary for such a large scale military operation. Iran is also preparing for a US invasion on an equally large scale. The outcome of such a conflict will certainly be awful though the "winner" is impossible to pick. Everyone will lose.

Folks at globalresearch.ca are busy writing and uploading many significant articles. Here's a major quote from an article, The March to War: Naval build-up in the Persian Gulf and the Eastern Mediterranean by an Ottawa-based writer, Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya:
The bombing of Lebanon is part of a carefully planned and coordinated military road map. The extension of the war into Syria and Iran has already been contemplated by U.S. and Israeli military planners. This broader military agenda is intimately related to strategic oil and oil pipelines. It is supported by the Western oil giants, which control the pipeline corridors. In the context of the war on Lebanon, it seeks Israeli territorial control over the East Mediterranean coastline.

October 4, 2006
Western society is one where the unfathomable can and does happen. Today, in Barrie Ontario, north of Toronto, a 31-year-old mother of two young children was arrested for the murder of those two children. As yet the motive or method are not known. It is extremely shocking, not just because this is a quiet small city but because of the relationship between the victims and the perpetrator. How can a mother kill her own children? It is impossible for me to fathom the despair she must have felt, to imagine the feelings that would drive someone to commit such an act. Yet we do live in a world where there is unfathomable violence and destruction, we do live in a world where people feel extremely isolated even when living in a high rise apartment and we do live in a world where people feel a lot of despair and with good reason. The utter senseless violence and inhumanity of mankind toward all other life forms including our own causes great despair for many people. People see no solution, no help for our increasingly catastrophic existence. Oh, some find it in religion and distraction of all manner but none of this changes the present trend of humanity bent on self destruction by one means or another. Hope is like a flickering flame, how much more wind can it take before it is extinguished?

Another two Canadian soldiers died in Afghanistan yesterday and several more were injured. Without looking beyond the evening newscast, I don't know the fate of the bomber, most likely suicide and any civilian Afghanis who may have been present. In any case, Canada is unloading new equipment in Afghanistan even as I type these few lines, bigger "better" equipment for bigger battles, no doubt, as Canada's more aggressive role becomes more apparent with each passing day.

Last week, Friday, there was a rally on Parliament Hill to show Canadians' support for our troops in Afghanistan. Everyone was asked to wear red jackets, it was quite a spectacle for the international media. Observers of the newscast should be aware that the crowd was relatively small and represents a very small part of the Canadian population, most of whom seem pretty oblivious to what is going on as long as it does not affect them personally. Anti war protesters have virtually disappeared, many too fearful to come out after recent years of police violence. Another reason may well be widespread hopelessness and despair of idealistic people who thought things could be easily turned around. Just get 100,000 people out on the streets and you've got social change! Hardly.

October 6, 2006
In Venezuela, the bold and sensational, leftist government of Hugo Chavez has signed joint venture agreements with a number of big oil companies including Shell, Chevron and BP. This seems to be a contradiction yet the Chavez officials defend their choice, claiming it is about sovereignty. You can read an article about it at venezuelanalysis.com.

October 12, 2006
Since I had such good luck growing hot peppers this year, I was scrambling for things to do with the fruits of this very basic medicine plant from ancient times. According to Jethro Kloss who devotes a good 10 pages in "Back to Eden", cayenne has a multitude of health uses.

Cayenne or capsicum and other hot peppers are members of the much maligned Solanaceae or Nightshade family. There is considerable modern evidence to support the claims of people like Kloss about the wonderful hot pepper plant's healing properties. I have two varieties, the humble chili pepper and the formidable scotch bonnet now often called "hot Jamaican" pepper since that is whence most people know it.

Here are the basic ingredients for a hot pepper sauce that I got from a Jamaican woman: hot scotch bonnet peppers (remove seeds), vinegar, other vegetable such as onion, garlic, carrot, celery, small amount of sugar and salt, seasonings such as allspice, rosemary, thyme. Try different combinations and blend it all up in the blender and put in sterile jars. This raw concoction will keep in the fridge for about 3 months, that is if it lasts that long. Use a clean spoon to take individual amounts cause putting hot pepper in the pot will spoil it for some people who don't want it so hot. Cayenne peppers have a bad reputation, not justified, though they are hot, they do not burn or cause harm, au contraire, they are healing to all mucus membrane.

Kloss provides a recipe for an effective liniment which I have made and used before. Add chopped or blended peppers to cider vinegar and let stand in a cool dark place for 7 - 10 days. Then strain off the particles and store the clear liquid in a clean jar. It will not burn your skin but you won't want to get it in your eyes. If you do, it hurts but is NOT harmful.

In that same place Jamaica, I have been told, people use hot peppers for disciplinary purposes. A liar gets his/her mouth scrubbed with hot peppers and a peeping tom gets his eyes done. Hmmm...

October 13, 2006 (Friday, that is)
Today's defenseindustrydaily includes a short article about the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and "data content management". A $2.8 million contract has been awarded to McDonald Bradley "to create this ambitious enterprise-wide model for data management". "The goal of the project is to improve intelligence data sharing and management across the intelligence community." Sounds like Big Brother to me.

To be sure, any such "data management" by intelligence agencies in the USA will include Canadian data. We already have Lougheed Martin's software designs being used for Canadian census records 2006. The invasion of privacy for reasons of so-called "national security" is a hot debate in the USA but here in Canada, hardly anyone seems to be concerned about it. One man quite directly expressed it the other day at the General Store when he said, "I don't care about the world, I only care about my own world, that's enough for me."

Even with Canadian casualties mounting in Afghanistan, you won't hear much discussion among Canadians. I thought this was something terrible, even unusual until I spoke with my daughter who is currently reading Tolstoy's "War and Peace". She said Tolstoy depicts just this situation when Napoleon invades Russia and even though Russian lads have been dying by the hundreds, people don't react until the enemy forces are within miles of them. Otherwise, war is something people must ignore. Society must do its thing, only skipping a beat when war ravages its cities and farmlands and then continuing along with all the daily mundanities that sustain us, brilliant and foolish alike.

October 15, 2006
It is just ludicrous how the media are going on about Ignatieff's remark about Israeli war crime when the comment originates with an Israeli group, B'Tselem, which issued a report in September criticizing the Israeli bombing of the Gaza power plant as a war crime because it targeted civilians, the power plant being the only one in Gaza.

This incident only draws more attention to Ignatieff who I felt would be the new Liberal leader from the beginning and I still do. He is a skilled sophist whose speaking skills bedazzle many people.

The minority Conservative government is not stable though that doesn't matter too much as long as they are so well in step with the Bush regime. Their backers in Washington will prop them up. And then the Liberals will have another turn at it cause in the long run they are the same just as the Republicans and Democrats are the same. They take turns running things to give the appearance of "democracy" but they are both puppets of the same forces.

Much talk about civil war in Iraq and the breakup of that nation. How about a civil war in the great USA and the breakup of that unstable nation??

And as Canadian casualties mount in Afghanistan, much attention is paid to those who have died, big ceremonies and such but little is said about those who are seriously wounded. What are their numbers and their conditions? Yes, some experience minor injuries and are back at work in a few days but what about those who have experienced more serious injuries such as loss of an eye or a leg? What will their future be? And what about the lingering traumas that many will experience? How will that affect their future lives when they come home?

Here's a link to some photos of American soldiers injured in Iraq and Afghanistan. It should give you an idea of what some of our Canadian lads are dealing with. And here's an article at the National Post, Painful odyssey for war wounded which answers some of my questions. Canada doesn't have any military hospitals so the wounded soldiers are placed in civilian hospitals all over the country.

I have just come across an amazing article about Pfizer, the drug company, a report from 1964 which discusses their research on chemical and biological warfare that they did for the military. Some of the symptoms they evoked are listed. Many of them are quite familiar to people suffering today from ei. This article confirms my suspicions, especially in light of something I have been noticing lately. Check this out: As a sensitive suffering from multiple chemical sensitivities, I can stand in a mechanic's garage for 10 minutes without serious effects yet I cannot stand 10 minutes beside the cosmetic section in our local drugstore.

October 16, 2006
In case you haven't noticed, it's not just renegades like myself who think the official story about 911 is a farce but many respected society people including military people think that it is a lie. You can read about a few individuals below or get the full list here. You may be surprised at their remarks if you have avoided thinking about this topic.

Capt. Gregory M. Zeigler, PhD, U.S. Army – Former U.S. Army Intelligence Officer says, "I knew from September 18, 2001, that the official story about 9/11 was false."

William Christison, – Former National Intelligence Officer and Director of the CIA's Office of Regional and Political Analysis. 29-year CIA veteran says, "The North and South Towers of the World Trade Center almost certainly did not collapse and fall to earth because hijacked aircraft hit them."

Capt. Russ Wittenberg, U.S. Air Force and commercial pilot has this to say in an audio interview: "There was no wreckage from a 757 at the Pentagon. … The vehicle that hit the Pentagon was not Flight 77. We think, as you may have heard before, it was a cruise missile." You can get part of the transcript of the interview here.

October 20, 2006
This quotation is taken from the official Canadian Forces web site:
"Since October 2001, Canada has deployed 22 warships and more than 18,000 sailors, soldiers and air force personnel in the international campaign against terrorism... "After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 in New York and Washington, Canada made a significant military commitment to the campaign against terrorism to demonstrate solidarity with our allies and our resolve to improve international security. On October 8, 2001, the then Minister of National Defence Art Eggleton announced the departure of the first CF units to join the international campaign against terrorism. A Naval Task Group of four ships deployed to the Persian (Arabian) Gulf under Operation APOLLO was deployed."

Yes, the OFFICIAL web site. I have to stress this source of the information because too many Canadians want to argue that this is not true. They insist Canada is not involved in the war on Iraq. Can these people explain why Canadian navy ships have been in the Gulf since 2001 and more on the way right now?

Canadian military and civilian personnel are involved in the Strategic Advisory Team in Afghanistan. This group of about 15 people evidently advises the Afghan government on important matters. How would you like it if foreign military personnel were advisors to the Canadian government in keeping with this statement from the Canadian Forces webs site?
"The basic method of operation is that the team assists working level officials integrate the substantive ideas of the Afghan [or other occupied nation] leadership and international experts into cohesive strategic frameworks.

Now, I don't know about you but I translate that statement thusly: These sleazy Canadian characters persuade the Afghan government to do what outsiders think is best.

October 23, 2006
The death toll from the war in Iraq continues to be much higher than reported, even by the Iraq Body Count web site which takes its statistics from news articles (see link at bottom of page). The British medical journal, the Lancet has released a report this month indicating over 650,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed since March 2003, an average of 500 per day. The death toll of Americans in Iraq, about 70 per month, is also climbing with no end in sight to the violence. In fact, it looks to escalate any time now.

In an interview with USA Today, Prime Minister al-Maliki is quoted as saying, "We have told the Americans that we don't mind targeting a Mahdi Army cell inside Sadr City," Maliki said. "But the way the multinational forces are thinking of confronting this issue will destroy an entire neighborhood."

Here's a list of Canadian search engines, not all of which are equally good.

October 26, 2006
There are 10 suicides every day in Canada, according to a recent tv news report. The rate is 6 times higher for Native people. No statistics exist for failed suicide attempts, many of which go unreported.

The question arises as to what exactly is a "failed suicide attempt". Not taking enough pills to do the job would be an obvious example. My contention here is something not quite so obvious and which I know most people will rebel against.

I refer to the mad pace at which people drive on the roads everywhere. There is a thing called maximum speed which most people treat as the minimum speed. Most drivers appear to be compelled to drive at least at the speed limit in a hurried, often frenzied manner. The demographic of these drivers is general as the stereotype of speeding young male drivers is just that, a stereotype. Many women take out their frustrations on the road, driving at hair-raising speeds. Perhaps it makes them feel more alive in their mundane existence.

Many drivers also take a lot of risks, especially when it comes to passing or overtaking other vehicles. It's as if the car in front of us just cannot go fast enough. We must get past them, no matter what. On Highway 7 in eastern Ontario, there are many accidents due to reckless drivers who feel they must get ahead. This is where my theory of people having a death wish comes in. The compulsion is so great in drivers that it has to have more to do with than just getting to our destination. The habitual dangerous driving that goes on is the suicide attempt of a coward, one who is unhappy but won't admit it. It is a part of the western mindset, part of the car culture that so alienates us from each other and from ourselves.

Many of the trips that we commonly drive are 20 minute drives. We tear along at breakneck speed, possibly gaining 3 minutes on such a drive, if that. How many times in my life have I pulled up to an intersection beside someone who had raced past me a few minutes back down the road? I couldn't answer that question.

So we drive like fools for no good reason and then climb to the moral high ground every time we hear about a suicide bomber in Afghanistan or Iraq. Little do we understand that these people have reasons for their desperate behaviour and they call it what it is. Here we judge everyone else in the world, failing to examine ourselves.

October 27, 2006
Here's a dandy quote for the day:
War: first, one hopes to win; then one expects the enemy to lose; then, one is satisfied that he too is suffering; in the end, one is surprised that everyone has lost. – Karl Kraus (1874-1936)

October 28, 2006
This may be old news and rather dry at that but then I never said I was right on top of it all on a daily basis, just wanting to point out a few things that go under the radar of daily living, things that add up to a pretty horrific picture. Harper speaking at the Economic Club of New York back in September had a lot of things to say about Canada's relationship with the US and her changing role in the world. In essence, Canada has hopes of becoming a bigger global leader in the future, her military role being an essential part of this leadership role. An article at World Socialist WebSite analyzes parts of his speech.

November 1, 2006
If the condition of the world doesn't depress you enough, consider the global danger of depleted uranium that has been used in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Canadians now in Afghanistan are being subjected to this deadly poison right now. US vets from the 1991 attacks on Iraq are on DU death row: In his damning blog entry at http://blogs.salon.com/0002255/2006/10/31.html, Allen Roland writes, "Whatever other factors there may be, some of their illnesses are strikingly similar to those of Iraqis exposed to DU dust. For example, soldiers have also fathered children without eyes. And, in a group of eight servicemen whose babies lack eyes seven are known to have been directly exposed to DU dust.

They too have fathered children with stunted arms, and rare abnormalities classically associated with radiation damage. They too seem prone to cancer and leukemia. Tellingly, so are EU soldiers who served as peacekeepers in the Balkans, where DU was also used. Indeed their leukemia rate has been so high that several EU governments have protested at the use of DU.

Roland is not the only person crying out about the dangers of depleted uranium. Leuren Moret sent me a whole set of links about this disturbing subject awhile back. I linked to her articles on August 28.

November 3, 2006
It's time long overdue for inspections of US weapons of mass destruction!! Everybody's talking about global warming these days but when you talk about deliberate efforts to influence the weather, they all look at you as if you're crazy. The fact of the matter, though, is that the US is working hard to control the weather along with all its other global ambitions. The EU took this matter seriously when its Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defense Policy, yes, another committee, held public hearings in 1998.

The Committee's "Motion for Resolution" submitted to the European Parliament: "Considers HAARP... by virtue of its far-reaching impact on the environment to be a global concern and calls for its legal, ecological and ethical implications to be examined by an international independent body...; [the Committee] regrets the repeated refusal of the United States Administration... to give evidence to the public hearing ...into the environmental and public risks [of] the HAARP program." (European Parliament, Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defense Policy, Brussels, doc. no. A4-0005/99, 14 January 1999).

The Pentagon quietly and casually published on its web site the following:
 
Weather modification will become a part of domestic and international security and could be done unilaterally... It could have offensive and defensive applications and even be used for deterrence purposes. The ability to generate precipitation, fog, and storms on earth or to modify space weather, ... and the production of artificial weather all are a part of an integrated set of technologies which can provide substantial increase in US, or degraded capability in an adversary, to achieve global awareness, reach, and power. (US Air Force, Air University of the US Air Force, AF 2025 Final Report, http://www.au.af.mil/au/2025/)

Another Pentagon document on global warming "constitutes a convenient cover-up. Not a word is mentioned about its main weather warfare program: The High-Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) based in Gokona, Alaska --jointly managed by the US Air Force and the US Navy." (Quote from The Ultimate Weapon of Mass Destruction: Owning the Weather for Military by Michel Chossudovsky, 27 September 2004.

Chossudovsky goes on to say, "An analysis of statements emanating from the US Air Force points to the unthinkable: the covert manipulation of weather patterns, communications systems and electric power as a weapon of global warfare, enabling the US to disrupt and dominate entire regions of the World."

There are tons of links in the article for more detailed reading on the subject of weather warfare. HAARP testing should be in full swing by now. It makes you reconsider about the causes of global warming, especially the drastic melting of the North Pole now in advanced stages.

This internet thing is pretty amazing sometimes when you want to find something or someone. I have this little booklet here, 26 pages, a social history called Hogtown: "Working Class Toronto at the Turn of the Century" by Gregory S. Kealey. It is quite interesting,even has pictures of shantytown T.O. c.1900. I always wanted to read more on the topic so when I was cleaning my bookshelf the other day and came across the book, I did a google search on the author. He's still writing Canadian social history and can be reached by email! I'll let you know what he says.

Meanwhile, here's a tidbit from the booklet, "Sanitation was another serious problem connected with working class housing. The Royal Commission of 1889 noted: ...The letting of a house in bad sanitary condition should be forbidden by law...municipal laws...are to a great measure inoperative...many landlords refused to make sanitation adjustments to their property."

Of course, today, Toronto has thousands of homeless people who have no place at all to take a shit or a shower or a shave, sanitary or otherwise, in spite of enforced laws regarding housing standards. The problem has been solved by getting rid of unsafe housing and leaving many people homeless who cannot afford the good housing. These people are ignored, swept under the carpet, villified by media and police. This is a festering wound in the city of my childhood and the real consequences are yet to play out.

And the days continue to count down rapidly to the day of the execution of Anthony Nealy, a prisoner on Texas Death Row. It's haunting me, though, because, you see, I have been corresponding with Ant for 6 years now and kind of got to know him. He's a person to me now and so it's really chilling to think about his being killed by the state of Texas and there doesn't seem to be anything I can do to stop it. I try to put it into context and the only thing I can come up with is to say, well, yeah, look at this in the context of US foreign policy vs US domestic policy. It's a total fit and I just happen to be acquainted with one of its millions of victims at this time. Silly how I never really thought this day would come when I started to correspond with death row prisoners. I kept putting it out of my mind, time has passed, most of the people I first wrote to don't even write anymore except for this one, just one. I have become convinced that he is innocent and certainly did not receive a fair trial not to mention the insanity and brutality of the practise of capital punishment. You can see the web site some of his supporters put up at Anthony Nealy

November 5, 2006
Canada's involvement in the US led military industry goes way back and includes the atomic bombs dropped on Japan during WWII. As the US remains the only nation to use nuclear weapons of mass destruction to date, Canada continues to be an accomplice. You can read up on Canada's then secret supply and refinement of uranium for the US Department of War, ie the Manhattan Project when it made the atom bombs subsequently dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, at the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility.

As history contains many oft repeated lies, it is important to point out that it was a lie to say that this was necessary to end the war. At the time, Japan was already pleading for peace. The Americans just wanted to have their fun.

Uranium ore was mined at Great Bear Lake, NWT and refined at Port Hope, ON. Uranium was a leading Canadian export throughout the 1950's, all of it going for military use. Canada was also involved in nuclear research in Montreal where reactors were developed for the production of plutonium at Chalk River, ON, an essential ingredient in atomic bomb making. Canada shared the research with the French and British and subsequently sold or gave reactors to India, South Korea, Argentina, Romania, Pakistan and Taiwan.

Recent concerns about global petroleum reserves have lead to a redevelopment of nuclear energy use now into advanced stages. It is as if we had no say about it and now it's a done deal. New reactors will be built all over the world including right here in Canada. As people clamour for the closure of coal burning facilities at Sarnia, etc., others are busy vamping up the nuclear power industry. Maybe we don't have to worry about power outages due to lack of supply but our worst nightmares are nothing in comparison to the results of a possible nuclear disaster. Look how China with its lax building and labour codes, is constructing dozens of nuclear reactors. They are already losing dozens of workers every day due to unsafe mining and manufacturing conditions. What makes anyone think they will be any more careful with atomic energy. Horrible deadly accidents can happen anywhere that nuclear power is being used or developed, accidents whose consequences will be widespread in area and longterm beyond our imagination.

Oh, and what was that about Iran and North Korea?

It all comes right back around to that other nasty stuff, the "depleted uranium", 6/7 of the processed uranium. Most of the DU being used in ordnance by the US et al in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere is coming from Canadian uranium. Canada is complicit! And Canada has a lot of radioactive mess to clean up right here!

November 6, 2006
Before I get back into Canada's role in the production of nuclear weapons, let's crunch a few numbers.

Canada has approximately 2200 soldiers in Afghanistan while the USA has about 120,000 soldiers in Iraq. Canada's casualties for October in Afghanistan are 5, actually down from September which saw the highest monthly loss of 10 Canadians killed. In Iraq, the deaths of 70 soldiers for the month is relatively high but we know that the violence in Iraq is escalating........

Canada's current advertising campaign to recruit new soldiers is unprecedented in my lifetime. Claiming to have received over 25,000 applications, the campaign can be considered successful. The newsrelease at forces.gc.ca asserts, "The Canadian Forces are also speeding up the processing and training of new recruits."

The question must be asked, "Why?" Why is Canada in such a hurry to recruit more soldiers. One thing seems evident, Canada has a lot to protect - water, oil and gas, uranium - much of it in the northern parts of the country where most people do not live or see what is going on.

With the North Pole icecap melting, either by accident or design, the seaways of the north are opening up. Canada's claim to the northern waters is smaller than Russia's but still quite large, a big job to protect if you feel threatened.

Another question we might ask is why did O'Connor say, "Croatia is an important ally in stabilizing and rebuilding Afghanistan"? Croatia wants into NATO and already has dozens of soldiers in Afghanistan.

So many questions, so many lies for answers...

November 7, 2006
My cyber stroll yesterday led me to the cameco website where I learned about the recent flooding which has caused the Cigar Lake uranium mine construction to be stopped indefinitely. The mine was expected to be in production by end of 2007.

I didn't quite get the seriousness of the incident except for wondering about the immediate possible radiation in the water, until I did a further search today. Seems it is really rocking the US energy market too as the price of uranium has doubled overnight.

A Regina Leader Post article of October 23 states, "The mine's output is considered critical to world uranium supply, where primary sources from mines are not expected to match the requirement of the increasing number of new nuclear reactors in the world."

That's pretty severe and further emphasizes the absurdity of using nuclear power, aggressive tv ads extolling its virtues notwithstanding.

And then there are those tedious business investor articles to wade through, they often contain the details you are looking for. Here's what Toronto-based Sprott Asset Management Market Strategist Kevin Bambrough has to say at stockinterview.com,
""Right now, they're only permitted to process about 500 cubic meters of water an hour," he pointed out. Cameco Chief Executive Jerry Grandey told analysts on Monday the water was flowing at 1500 cubic meters an hour. "Basically, they've got to go and apply for permitting to get processing in place to handle that extra water flow," Bambrough said. "We don't know what the flow rate is ultimately going to be. They don't even know how contaminated the water is going to be and what processing needs to be done. They've got a big water problem to deal with."

He also indicates the processing of processing permits will be speeded up, increasing the likelihood of runaway contamination at the site.

"Located in northern Saskatchewan (Canada), Cigar Lake is the world's largest undeveloped uranium deposit. The uranium mining project is now submerged in flood waters."

Meanwhile, Kevin Newman, globaltv news anchor, hosts a new program called "Currrents", most recently about uranium at Great Bear lake used in atom bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It aired on November 4 on global tv. This is great but Kevin never mentioned all this going on right now in Saskatchewan. Not a whisper. I have a lot to say too about the slant of his program, any program you see on tv is always somewhat slanted even when providing important information. Why didn't he make the tie in to all the current uranium news?

Bambrough goes on to say, "Russia locked up Kazakhstan's big orebody a couple of weeks ago on the agreement to build processing facilities and nuclear plants." He was being asked about other possible suppliers of uranium to US nuclear reactors that generate electric power for industry and consumers.

"It's almost the equivalent of the oil industry losing Saudi Arabia. The utilities lost what amounts to 10 percent of consumption."

Chapter Two in Wollaston: People Resisting Genocide by Miles Goldstick is entitled "Saskatchewan: the 'Saudi Arabia' of the Uranium Industry". This book about the period of time, July 84 to August 85 when the La Hache Indian people and anti mining activists blockaded the road to the uranium mines at Rabbit Lake and Collins Bay was published in 1987. Maybe Bambrough read it.

The Chipeweyan Indian people, always on the frontlines, were protesting the effects the mine in northern Saskatchewan was having on them, their community and their food sources. People in the south mostly didn't know anything about it as is the case still today while the mining of the fragile ecosystems of the north goes on at an incredible pace. The book is full of prophetic quotes from Chipeweyan and Cree people and others including Rosalie Bertell who wrote the Forward. Some quotes from this important work are in order here. It is published by Black Rose Books.

"Before we can talk about the bomb we have to talk about where the bomb comes from. It came from the land, from the people. Before they build a bomb they've already destroyed the Indian people. They've destroyed their water and their fishing before they've destroyed people with the bomb. That's the thing we have to look at. - Brian Ratt, Ile a la Crosse, August 5, 1985.

"Throughout the 1970's the government of Saskatchewan diligently built the roadways and other infrastructure necessary to accommodate the boom in uranium exploration and mining. Resistance to "progress" was discouraged by co-opted native leadership, who emphasized economic benefits to impoverished constituencies. The government sponsored Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations proceeded to set up, with corporate/government funding, the Saskatchewan Indian Nations Corporation (SINCO). One of the corporations' main functions through SINCO Trucking, is to truck uranium from the mines to the distribution hub of Saskatoon. Another special arm of the enterprise, SINCO Security, is responsible for guarding the Cluff Lake and Key lake uranium mine sites." - p.77

I'll bet a little research on some key words in the above paragraph will unearth some pretty interesting stuff out in cyberspace.

Meanwhile, one more quote from Wollaston:
Since the Cigar Lake deposit is 410 to 440 metres below the surface an underground mine is being considered. However, no method presently exists to overcome the radiation problem presented by underground mining of such high grade ore. According to KLMC, robots may be needed to remove the ore because radiation levels will be so high in the underground mine shafts...The deposit has been estimated to extend for 1,850 metres with a maximum width of 100 metres.

Despite the technical and political controversy of the Cigar Lake Mine the government has given the green light to the project and production is expected to begin in the early 1990's...There has been no public involvement in the decision to mine the Cigar Lake deposit." (end of quotation)

Here we are in 2006, the mine hasn't started production yet and nobody knows when it will or if it will. They've already had two floods at Cigar Lake alone but we can be sure they'll press on no matter the cost, which by the way, money-wise will now double while the environmental costs will likely be infinite.

November 8, 2006
It is astounding to look at an event like the Cigar Lake mine flood from the diverse viewpoints to be found on the internet. You can go from the alarmist view of the environmentalist about the effects of radiation in the escaped flood water all the way over to the greedy delight of the uranium market speculator who just doubled his money when the price of uranium doubled overnight. Consider also the view of the filmmaker looking for new storylines.

How about "The Cigar Lake Monster" set in the year 2036? The Cigar Lake mine never did open and now the lake is being developed for cottagers now that the north is so warm from global warming. When the mine flooded, it was said there were no casualties but one mine employee did disappear at the time. He experienced massive radiation and became mutated but survived as a blind and sterile hungry monster preying on people who ventured near the mine, teenagers and Chipeweyan hunters...

Anyhow, back to "reality"....

Nowadays the handling of uranium ore is done very carefully, it appears. A 1998 document from the Uranium Institute describes the procedure at the McArthur River mine in some detail. McArthur River is not far from Cigar Lake. Of course, uranium is usually found at the bottom of a lake so must be mined there. It also takes HUGE quantities of water to process the ore for milling so this is done near water as well.

The following statement is troubling as it raises some questions. Since radon gas is one of the most dangerous components of this entire process, where is it being vented to? Yeah, certainly keep it away from the workers but then where is it going?

"Radon emission is controlled using a combination of primary area ventilation with single pass air and secondary fume exhaust extraction from all vessels, sumps and equipment. The overall strategy has been to contain and isolate the ore from the workers using multiple barriers."

So again, where does the radon gas go??

In "Wollaston", Goldstick describes a few things about radon gas...and the weather...
"Unnaturally large amounts of radon gas are continually coming out of the ground at uranium mine and mill waste areas. A research team at Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, University of California, studied this problem...The mouths of cave systems all over the planet are wired to sniff radon and warn of earthquake activity. An unexpected discovery during this research was that natural radon emissions occur all the time and play a role in the ionization of gas and water molecules in the air, creating lightning and affecting weather. The huge quantity of radon coming from uranium mine and mill wastes may have an effect on weather patterns."

A little more googling on this topic will be interesting, I'm sure...Try HAARP and radon gas...

Sticking to our present topic,
"Overriding criteria used to select the most appropriate mining methods are the wide range of ground conditions, including groundwater flow, and the high grade of the ore, exceeding 40% U3O8 in places. Therefore, non-entry mining methods were required..."

Doesn't this tell you something about how dangerous the stuff is? And just think, when Native miners were handling the ore for the A bomb, they carried it in sacks. The government of Canada had already warned about the dangers of radioactive material in 1932 but the message didn't reach the Dene people at Great Bear Lake, NWT.

"... A perimeter collection duct with several pick ups on strategically located points between the upper and lower section of the skid exhausts any dust, air or mist created during the spraying operation to a wet scrubber. The overall strategy of the operation is to contain and isolate the ore from the operators. The transportable skid is therefore designed for automatic operation with minimum operator attendance."

They mention water treatment plant. I wonder just how they get radiation out of contaminated water, lots of it...

This next particular section is included in its entirety. It is a classic of absurd theatre but wait a minute, they're serious, this isn't part of the script for the Cigar Lake Monster. Especially touching is the part about protecting fish habitat. I'm still wondering about that water treatment plant...

"The Road
As seen in Figure 11, the road between McArthur River and Key Lake is approximately 80 km long. It is designed to handle large trucks as well as general traffic. The road is connected to the southern part of the province via the Key Lake road. Road construction was completed by the end of July 1998 and the road is now used to transport equipment, material and other supplies to the McArthur River site. It is an all-weather dirt road with an 8.5 m top, 8 m clearing of ditches and a 4:1 slope on the ditches. A design speed of 100 km/hour was chosen to provide a margin of safety over the posted maximum speed of 80 km/hour. Significant features of the road are two bridges over a creek and a river. Each bridge is approximately 40 m long. Most of the road parallels a high voltage power line which was built in 1989 to supply the northern mines with electrical power. As part of the design the bridges and numerous culverts were sized to comply with the current federal/provincial guidelines for fish habitat protection."

So, these trucks roar up and down a road traveled by the general public much like the OMYA trucks traveling from the quarry at Tatlock thru Lanark village to the processing mill near Perth, ON. Only they are carrying calcium slurry, not so toxic but also requiring lots of water which has been an issue to community environmentalists for some time. Protests and legal action have been to no avail. How much more so a huge and powerful industry like uranium way up in the north of Saskatchewan.

Further on, when the ore slurry gets to Key Lake and is stored, "Off gas from the ore storage pachucas is power vented through an exhaust fan, via a header, to the atmosphere." Am I missing something here? Isn't this off gas radioactive?

Miles Goldstick is still very active in raising awareness about uranium mining. A google search on his name plus uranium resulted in 194 hits.

November 13, 2006
In case you're wondering when the war in Afghanistan will be over, read what Combined Forces Command Afghanistan says about its mission:
"Combined Forces Command Afghanistan conducts full spectrum operations throughout the combined joint operations area to defeat Al Qaeda and associated movements, establish an enduring Afghan security structure and reshape its posture for the Long War in order to set the conditions for long-term stability in Afghanistan."

Just what do they mean about the "Long War"? How often do we hear this phrase in the mainstream media?

More on the "Dead Rock" - The only wise uranium would be to leave it in the ground but now we have tons and tons on earth to deal with for the next millenia and some. Wise uranium has tons of data and has obviously been following the topic when I was daydreaming about something else.

There are links to articles about all issues related to uranium, from mining and milling to tailings management with maps and charts - CANADA #1 BY FAR and Cigar Lake on a "high interest" list.

Here's an excerpt from a chart:
2005 Annual Uranium Production for the top 10 producers
[t U] (WNA 2006)
 
1. Canada 11628 2. Australia 9519 3. Kazakhstan 4357 4. Russia 3431 (18) 5. Namibia 3147 6. Niger 3093 7. Uzbekistan 2300 8. USA 1039 9. Ukraine 800 (18) 10. China,cont'l 750

There's a huge page entitled New Uranium Mining Projects - Canada with links and links to maps and reports, including names to companies mining and exploring in all the provinces, dozens for each. Here's a quick rundown of the page.

Alberta Star issued a press release on November 6, 2006, two days following Kevin Newman's program "Currents" aired on global tv. Kevin is very slick in the "balanced way" he presents a topic, making the concerns of the Dene seem questionable and being a real promo for investors. Since the Cigar Lake mine flood October 22, the price of uranium has doubled yet Kevin never mentions it.

This quote from the press release gives you an idea of the magnitude of the schemes of Alberta Star:
The Eldorado & Contact Lake Permit Areas are located on the east side of Great Bear Lake in Canada's Northwest Territories. [the area has been called Nunavut for years now but no matter] The permit areas are situated 670 kilometers north of the city of Yellowknife. [note how far from populated areas] The total size of the Eldorado & Contact Lake Permit area covers over 51,000 acres in size. The Company's Eldorado & Contact Lake Permit areas are located in the Eldorado Mining District which covers dozens of known or recorded silver, copper, gold, bismuth, molybdenum, tungsten and uranium occurrences in the Proterozoic andesitic stratovolcano complex of the Echo Bay district.

The press release is vivid, "The Eldorado uranium mine formerly mined and produced 15 million pounds of uranium at a head grade of 0.75% U308 and 8 million ounces of silver plus, copper, nickel, radium, and lead at Eldorado - Port Radium area commencing in 1933. The Eldorado mine has about 25 miles of existing underground workings developed on fourteen levels.

Disturbing news about Nunavut reversing ban on uranium mining in May, 2006. Nunavut Tunngavik Inc., the organization that represents Inuit people in the Land claims process issued a press release to Nunatsiaq News in May.

Not-news that native people are pressured by native organizations not to object to mining. This is clear in various announcements in the media regarding development going ahead in the north with full support from Band leaders. The resistance there seems dead as it is in the south.

Some of the articles are from cbc but were likely only broadcast locally in Saskatchewan as I have never heard anything on national news. I don't listen to cbc that much but I think these stories need to have more prominence in the news. This business about the cigar lake mine flood could have grabbing headlines like "Nuclear Disaster now unfolding in northern Saskatchewan".

The same day that the cigar lake mine flooded (Oct.22), Areva Resources Canada (a French company and part owner of the mine), announced its opening of offices in Nunavut to promote their new mine at Baker Lake.

In Clearwater, BC, in July 2006 there was a protest (nonNative?) gathering at an info event hosted by International Ranger Corp. about a proposed mine.

In Saskatchewan and this is outrageous, and nearly 10 years ago too:
"Cogema fined for McClean Lake spill
On April 15, 1998, Cogema pleaded guilty in court at Wollaston Lake to two charges under the Saskatchewan Environmental Management and Protection Act, netting them a $6,000 dollar fine on each count, or a total of $12,000 for (1) allowing a contaminant into the environment, and (2) failure to report a spill.

The accident ocurred on August 26, 1997 at the McClean Lake uranium mine in northern Saskatchewan, when Cogema was using a chemical to kill off the fish in Sink Lake, a small lake, to use it as an effluent treatment pond, as approved by an environmental review in 1993. However, the valve in the dam leading to Vulture Lake was not shut off, and several pike and a whole lot of minnows were killed downstream. Cogema pretended for five days that nothing had happened, thus the second count of failing to report a spill."

Remember also that Cogema is a French company, now called Areva.

Production started at the McArthur mine (sk) in 2000. Here's a thoughtful quote from 1997 about the tailings slurry, the waste left over after the ore is removed,
"The tailings slurry resulting from the chemical extraction of the uranium from the ore is to be pumped over a distance of 4 km to the open pit of the former Deilmann uranium mine, where it is dumped under a water cover.

The Deilmann pit is already receiving tailings from the Key Lake operations. They are placed on a permeable layer of crushed rock and sand installed on the bottom and at the sides of the pit, according to the so-called `pervious surround disposal' scheme. This scheme is designed to offer high permeability flowpaths around the deposit, to avoid groundwater flow (inducing contaminant mobilization) through the deposit. For the McArthur River tailings to be dumped in the same pit, the application of the pervious surround disposal scheme is no longer considered necessary, for "natural and different geological conditions eliminate the need for the pervious envelope".

The early plans for the Cigar Lake mine also took into consideration disposal of the tailings. In this quote from a joint fed/prov panel, they are even thinking of the next ice age! And that is scary...
"The proposed JEB TMF, (tailings management facility) to be constructed using natural surround technology, is an attractive option for tailings disposal because it provides an opportunity to realize several environmental benefits relative to other methods for tailings disposal. Among these benefits are an increase in worker protection through the use of subaqueous deposition; reduction of environmental disruption at several locations, as a result of combining deposition of tailings from many ore bodies at one site; the avoidance of engineered barriers which may fail in the long term; the minimization of weathering problems; and the protection of the contents of the pit from scarification by glaciers during the next ice age."

The report goes on to say,
" Chief among the technical concerns is the need for convincing evidence that operation of the TMF would not result in the contamination of Fox Lake in the long term. This concern is exacerbated by a lack of confidence in the managerial and scientific competence of the operator, Cogema. In addition, the obvious dismissive attitude of this company for the regulators and their concerns suggests that it would not be appropriate for Cogema, as currently managed, to be given responsibility for constructing and managing this very dangerous radioactive waste disposal facility."

Here's an optimistic bit about how they get the tailings slurry ready for disposal,
"the slurries will be neutralized with lime and dehydrated to a paste with a comparatively high solids contents of 50%. The surrounding rock then has a higher permeability than the paste, leading to minimized contaminant migration to the surrounding groundwater, according to the proponents."

Can someone please tell me how in the name of God does lime neutralize radioactivity?!

For Ontario, only links to companies are included. We know there is a lot of STORAGE of nuclear stuff in this province as well as the traditional refining at Port Hope. Local readers may be interested to know of various facilities, storage at Bancroft and Elliot Lake and refining at Port Hope and Blind River not to mention reactors at Darlington, Pickering and Bruce with much more planned.

The resistance also continues to this day though the picture looks bleak and overwhelming. God bless those who continue in the face of all discouragement and disdain.

Here's one with an uplifting name too, The 7th generation fund. They just had a conference in September in Window Rock, AZ, USA

The Indigenous Anti-Nuclear Summit Declaration of 1996 states plainly as it denounces ALL nuclear development,
"The nuclear industry which has waged an undeclared war has poisoned our communities worldwide. For more that 50-years, the legacy of the nuclear chain, from exploration to waste has been proven, through documentation, to be genocidal and ethnocidal and a most deadly enemy of Indigenous Peoples."

De Beers has a Canadian subsidiary. We'll get back to it soon when we look into their new diamond mine in northern Ontario. Yes, right here in our backyard!

November 16, 2006
Today is the day, about 12 hours from now, 6pm local time, when Anthony Charles Nealy will be led into a room and killed by lethal injection. It will all be perfectly legal in the state of Texas where his execution will take place. It will be the last for the year but many more are planned with 390 people now sitting on Texas death row.

What is it like for the person awaiting this fate, sitting confined in a cell, their last moments ticking away, their last breaths countable? How different is it for the guilty one and the wrongfully convicted? What moments of panic, regret and anger do they feel? How many are able to achieve serenity before they die? These are the questions one would ask if taking the time to think about it.

Further, consider the states of mind of those around Anthony today, his fellow prisoners and the prison staff, the guards who watch over the prisoners, getting to know them on a daily basis, on some level. As in the movie, GreenMile, do the guards have doubts about the guilt of an individual, about the rightness of capital punishment? Surely, some of them must. Yet they carry on, 'just doing our job' as many people say. Even Nazi and SS henchmen said during the Nuremberg trials, "We were just doing our job". The only thing is after you've done your job, you may not feel so good about it. Franz Fanon teaches us that the perpetrator is often as traumatized as the victim. But that doesn't help Anthony today.

Several years ago, Gary Graham, another Texas death row prisoner, was led to the slaughter, not as a lamb but kicking and screaming to the last. Anthony has fought relently for justice and most recently for a retrial after the main prosecutor's witness recanted his testimony.

US domestic policy is no different than US foreign policy, both are merciless. Texas is the state where the current president of the US was governor, signing 152 death warrants, sometimes quite gleefully according to tv images.

The families of the victim may feel that their time for closure has come but as many testify later, witnessing the death of the perpetrator does not bring peace.

Another moral issue arises when one considers that the person administering the lethal drug is a doctor. How does this action fit in to the basic Hippocratic oath to do no harm? There is absolutely no doubt in this writer's mind that the practise of capital punishment is dead wrong. It helps no one when the state commits murder. It actually desensitises people toward killing.

We are all understandably revolted at some of the horrible crimes we hear about and our first feeling naturally is vindictive. That is a natural feeling but it is not a good guideline for society which must be run by reasonable principles. In the long run the death penalty is not a remedy. Just because it is legal doesn't make it right. A horrible festering wound infects the psyche of the USA. Chickens do come home to roost.

By some miracle, Anthony has been given a last minute reprieve! There's an update at his website (operated by supporters - inmates are NOT allowed access to the internet) and articles in the Houston Chronicle, here and here. The UK guardian has an article under "Breaking International news".

November 18, 2006 - a "perpetual environmental hazard"
I always have an interest in sayings. Here's one mentioned just the other day that really fits with my most recent entries on nuclear energy: "Chickens always come home to roost".

Here I've been looking at the uranium industry in Saskatchewan when so much of it is right here in my own backyard. I was aware of this but still not focusing on it as evidently I should be doing. But the Wollaston research still led me home to Ontario, an Ojibwe community, Serpent Lake up on the transCanada Hwy 17, near Elliot Lake. I was there for a pow wow in August, 1993 and was in Elliot Lake. At that time, the government was trying to lure seniors to Elliot Lake to buy cheap houses, abandoned by workers when many of the mines closed. The place was near empty of people.

Check out this quote from an article, "Elliot Lake Uranium Mines" at MiningWatch.
"Spill Charge Against Rio Algom
In August 1993, two million litres of contaminated water spilled from a tailings site at Rio Algom's Stanleigh mine in Elliot Lake. The spill took place as a result of a power failure. Rio Algom has been charged by the Atomic Energy Control Board with one count of failure to provide appropriate training for its employees, and one count of failure to prevent the spill under "reasonably foreseeable circumstances". The radiologically and chemically contaminated water spilled into McCabe Lake."

Then where does McCabe Lake water go to...???

Further in the same article,
"By 1976 all 55 miles of the Serpent River system were badly contaminated with acid generating, highly radioactive wastes. An official Ontario report noted that there were no living fish in the entire river located downstream from the mining wastes."

"The uranium ore of Elliot Lake contains the sulphide mineral pyrite, which can oxidize into sulphuric acid. Acidic drainage is a major environmental problem with uranium tailings in Elliot Lake."

How far does this acid go? We've been taught to blame Ohio industry for our acid rain. Why not look closer to home? In any case, it is the radioactivity which is of greatest concern.

"Although there are gates on some roads to tailings sites in Elliot Lake, sites are readily accessible, being neither fenced nor guarded."

We wandered around some of these forgotten places with our host whom we trusted and followed...an Ojibwe elder...

"In the current environmental assessment, both Denison and Rio Algom want to cover most of their tailings with a few feet of water, as a means of preventing acid formation and reducing radiological emissions. The water cover option also happens to be the cheapest option. However, in the long run, the method is dependent on engineered structures such as dams to maintain water levels. It is highly unlikely that these structures will be able to survive for the thousands of years during which the tailings will remain dangerous."

A February 2006 article requesting urgent action at MiningWatch, clearly states, "The tailings of the Elliot Lake uranium mines present a perpetual environmental hazard…community involvement is a fundamental part of the perpetual care system."

Another shocking article at mining watch, describes how the InterChurch Uranium Committee took the AECB to court. If you think we have justice in this country, think again:
"ICUCEC originally took Atomic Energy Control Board (AECB), now known as Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC), to court for its failure to follow proper procedures in the granting of licenses with respect to the McClean Lake JEB Uranium Tailings Pit. [in northern Saskatchewan] Cogema, now known as Areva, was sufficiently concerned that they sought intervernor and party status in the court case. After meticulous scrutiny by the Federal Court Trial Division ICUCEC won its case. AECB and Cogema responded by seeking a stay on the decision pending an appeal to the Federal Court of Appeal. Cogema also endeavored to secure its operation by applying for a new license in the event the original license was illegal. The Appeal Court hearing was held in Calgary. The environmental and health issues were obfuscated by economic issues resulting in overturning the original lower court decision. Hence, ICUCEC applied for leave to take the issue to the Supreme Court of Canada. The Supreme Court without written reasons denied leave to ICUCEC."

Read the rest at Canadian Laws Inadequate.

The rate of suicides in this country is much higher than you might imagine. So much despair and isolation leads many people to consider this option. Web sites and chat rooms are dedicated to the topic yet the news media has a policy not to report on suicides except when occasionally giving statistics on Native suicide. This hides the real extent of this practise in western society.

Another article, Mining Companies Try to Duck Liabilities at old Uranium Mines paints a very disturbing picture:
"There are about 170 million tons of radioactive, acid-generating tailings in the Elliot Lake area that will have to be monitored (and in some cases, treated) for several millennia."

In the same article, Denison CEO and president, Pete Farmer is described as arrogant, dismissive and contemptuous. We know the type well. And over at the Denison website, a picture of Pete reveals a most unhappy looking man. In spite of his inhumane treatment of others, he is still a human being, isn't he?

November 24, 2006
Getting back to this business of de Beers opening a diamond mine in Ontario, there was this picture on the news of McGuinty smiling and saying how good this is for the economy. There was another apparently unrelated item in the news around the same time about the Kashechewan Cree people being permanently moved to a place near Timmins.

These events are not unrelated at all. It will take some sleuthing to unravel the connecting threads. To learn more, let's jump into a hardhitting article by Kahentinetha Horn in which she writes,
"Remember that DeBeers supplies the U.S. military through their South African mines 60% of the diamonds for their lethal armaments such as bunker buster bombs and diamond dust in the metal to make the tanks shatter proof. Diamond mining contaminates the water table because they water blast the soil to erode it. The water contains chemicals, salts and other environmental hazards. The mine goes down thousands of feet. One in Africa goes 4 miles deep. (Kahentinetha Horn, MNN Mohawk Nation News Email.) I gave the contact number, Kashechewan 705-275-1043."

Meeting with the Governor General of Canada - Then something else happened, that bewildered Rebecca [Cree woman from Kashechewan]. Ellis took her along to meet with the new Governor General of Canada, Michaëlle Jean. Ellis told the Governor General that she wants to make Kashechewan community redevelopment model for the rest of James Bay. The Governor General said she would help Ellis to do this. It would cost a lot which would come from Indian money. They talked about making a model for Haiti at the same time. That's where the Governor General comes from. Rebecca said, "Ellis and the Governor General discussed plans to develop the model for James Bay and sell it to Haiti". Ellis told Rebecca, "This is a secret meeting and nobody is supposed to know about it". Ellis also told Rebecca that she was going to take her on a trip to China! This wouldn't have something to do with Indian reserves, and Haiti development as tax free havens, would it? 27. In conclusion In the end Rebecca said, "People are so desperate. They notice things. For the military to be involved this must be a big project. The Dart Team brought water up there".—Why the Dart Team? This must be through Ellis' connection with RCMI", we suddenly realized.

Read the full article at Kashechewan or get the html version here.

What people in the south may not realize is that this mining development in the north is huge right now. Canada's global role is changing rapidly and a strong military presence takes capital. (Didn't you see Stephen Harper and Peter MacKay at the NATO meeting appealing for more troops to Afghanistan from other countries?) Not only are the Native communities selling out but the government is totally selling out the wealth of the north to the multinationals and their venture partners who take the risks with investor capital while the big guys still reap all the profits.

There'll be more on this topic in the coming days. It is interesting to note here that the next issue of Press for Conversion #60 will deal with the situation in Haiti.

November 30, 2006
The uranium nightmare has come even closer to home with the news about possible uranium mining in the Outaouais. Here's a letter recently sent to the Ottawa Citizen in response. (Don't know if it was published or not.)
 
"Dear Editor:
Well informed area residents will be concerned about the potential effects if Aldershot Resources open an uranium mine in west Quebec. Many alarming precedents already exist in Canada, the largest global producer of uranium where environmental and property laws favour the mining companies. From frequent toxic and radioactive spills at mines in northern Saskatchewan to the ongoing issues of containment of nuclear waste in Ontario, there are many reasons to say NO to uranium mining.

"The rates of cancer in workers and those living near mines and processing facilities such as at Port Hope, ON, are not being truthfully connected to the long term effects of radiation by people who should know better.

"Companies like Denison at Elliott Lake now avoid taking responsibility for the 170,000 tons of nuclear waste left there that will be toxic for millenia to come. French outfits like Areva which represents the French nuclear industry own mines in Saskatchewan where Native people get little or no benefit from the mines. Slick expensive advertising campaigns tell huge lies about jobs and minimize the effects on the environment. There actually is a Wollaston Lake Lodge where tourists fish not far from the effluent of uranium mine wastes. People are told they can eat as much of the fish as they want every day if they want to.

"Native communities are now selling out all over the North, despairing of keeping their way of life anymore in the face of giant multinationals digging up the northland for all its wealth. Unlike the affluent and well informed folks in the south, northern Native communities have few resources to really know the truth (until it's too late) about the awful effects of mining which is always destructive and never sustainable.

"With people now just beginning to accept the idea of peak oil, we are already hearing about peak uranium which is another good reason not to mine uranium. We should not become more dependent on nuclear energy for our electricity.

"The awful fact of the matter is the huge amount of nuclear waste, some 6/7 of the ore slurry which will be radioactive for thousands of years. Who will take care of it? Where to put it?

"The US et al are using huge amounts of depleted uranium (DU) in munitions in the wars in Iraq, Balkans and Afghanistan where the dust affects people and all life forms immediately, including the invading ground troops, Canadians in Afghanistan. Then the dust blows all over the globe (which is being tracked though not well publicized) eventually affecting all of us. There is no doubt that uranium mining is totally and forever tied to the military industrial complex, war and suffering.

"Everything written herein can be verified if you take the time to do the research. And keep on talking to your family and friends about it cause this is one of the most important issues we will ever face."

Meanwhile, investors are eagerly investing in uranium and other minerals, hoping to get rich or to nicely pad their retirement pensions. De Beers, the biggest global diamond mining outfit is busy here in Ontario where Timmins expects a big boom. Numerous articles at NorthernOntarioBusiness depict the busy-ness of the region including this one from June 2006:

"Presently, De Beers has a project office in Oakville, where an engineering company is designing the mine works. Its Timmins office oversees administrative services, human resources and procurement of the project. Teevan says it will become the muster point for all staff to go up to the mine when the construction phase is complete."

"As part of the Benefit Impact Agreement signed between First Nations and De Beers, a board called the James Bay Employment Training Committee (JBET) was developed [at Northern College in Timmins]. Five James Bay area First Nation representatives sit on the board, representing Moose Cree, Attawapiskat, Fort Albany, Kashechewan and Peawanuk First Nations."

Now read this part carefully and then tell me what is wrong with this statement.

"However, Northern College also has facilities in Moosonee and Moose Factory, and will use the schools in Fort Albany and Kashechewan."

Yes, they'll use the school in Kashechewan where nobody lives anymore cause there's no potable water and the place gets heavily flooded every year. Not to mention somebody has big plans for the area...

For a look at a 21st century infantryman go here. He's a formidable-looking character. Some soldiers say, "if you load a soldier down with enough high-tech stuff, a primitive fighter will sneak up on him and club him to death."

Oh, my, the ironies of life are such that I could scream sometimes. Why some people choose complete silence is beyond me...

December 2, 2006
If you follow up on little news clips, you can often learn some shocking things, big things, maybe you didn't want to know.

My ears perked up to a short newsclip last week mentioning about the release of radioactive tritium in the water at Pembroke, ON, (population 70,000, including environs,) which is to say, into the Ottawa River upriver from the city, Ottawa where over 1/2 million people live. A google search for the offending outfit, SRB Technologies led to Ottawa Riverkeeper and Nuclear Safety, which conveniently provided two opposing viewpoints.

In a recent hearing held by the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC), one intervenor, finally permitted to speak, said succinctly, "Canada's 7,000 Bq/l guideline for tritium in drinking water is in urgent need of revision, given that other jurisdictions such as the European Union use 100 Bq/l and the scientific advisory committee that reviewed the evidence in Ontario in 1994 recommended 20 Bq/l."

This situation at Pembroke, so glibly passed over by news media, is considered so serious that Rosalie Bertell was also an intervenor, one of 93. She stated (in a written submission), "CNSC's models for calculating "DOSE" are not health based and underestimate the harm caused by tritium to human health by 20 times."

To put it bluntly, the Safety Commission is not about safety of people. It is about protecting the financial interests of the ruling elite. What else is new? Nothing, except the magnitude of the situation is overwhelming when you take the time to look at it. No wonder increasing numbers of people suffer from "environmental illness" or "multiple chemical sensitivities" and cancer. The whole pollution picture is complicated and exacerbated by the nuclear/radioactive factor in all its unholy manifestations.

"Wollaston: People Resisting Genocide" has some interesting information:
"Uranium is constantly changing into other radioactive materials...Uranium-238 changes 14 times before it becomes non-radioactive lead....there are 22 other naturally occurring radioactive materials from separate decay series...Most of them are ignored by the uranium industry. However, from a health perspective they are all important.

Unnaturally large amounts of radon gas are continually coming out of the ground at uranium mine and mill waste areas. A research team at Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, University of California, studied this problem and came to the following conclusion:
Our research indicates that 4 metres of clay are required to reduce radon exhalation by 99% and the remaining 1% is still about four times the typical soil radon exhalation rate. Perhaps the solution to the radon problem is to zone the land in uranium mining and milling districts so as to forbid human habitation."

Whoever hears about such studies in the news? Or from the government? We are pacified and distracted with nonsense on all sides. Take for example Stephen Harper's present revival of the same sex marriage issue, a sideshow and distraction from the more serious things he is doing. You don't see him asking for our opinion on the war/occupation in Afghanistan. No, he made it quite clear he doesn't want our opinion on that one but we can go on and on about same sex marriage and then dredge up abortion laws or even have another financial scandal to get people in an uproar. Topics hardly worth mentioning in the face of Canada's unfolding nuclear disaster.

About tritium:
"Tritium is a radioactive form of hydrogen that readily combines with oxygen to make a radioactive form of water; tritiated water goes everywhere that water goes in the environment and in the human body; tritium has a particular affinity for genetic material and, once incorporated into biological molecules such as DNA, can cause birth defects, genetic mutations, cancer and many other health problems; there should be no routine emissions of this persistent radioactive toxin in populated areas."

SRB Tech officials claim that the tritium will be diluted in the Ottawa River and thus cause no harm. The solution to pollution is dilution.

Someone asked why this was being permitted. This someone must have forgotten the essentials of uranium studies, that is to emphatically state that uranium industry is always and forever tied to the military industrial complex from which it derives its flagrant dismissive arrogance. SRB Tech's handling of tritium in Pembroke is just fine. After all, the Petawawa Army Base is close by in case military help is needed. Can you imagine a bunch of "environmental activists" protesting at SRB. The boys in fatigue would be there in an instant protecting Canada's interests.

Here's some more about tritium from The Federation of American Scientists where they discuss wmd in a special weapons primer. WHO HAS WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION?? WE DO!!!

Tritium ( 3 H) is essential to the construction of boosted-fission nuclear weapons.....tritium can pose an internal radiation hazard if tritiated water vapor is inhaled or absorbed through the skin...

All five declared nuclear weapon states must have the underlying capability to manufacture and handle tritium, although the United States has shut down its production reactors due to safety considerations. Canada manufactures tritium as a byproduct of the operation of CANDU reactors."

Oh, those crazy Canadians, those Canucks, they'll do anything for a buck. They want to be the world's next only superpower. Just give us a few years and we'll be on top of the world in more ways than one.

And back on Earth, the War on Mother Earth continues at an accelerating pace.

The mining activity around Timmins, Ontario alone is phenomenal:
diamonds   nickel   gold   copper   platinum group metals (PGMs) and more

Here are some bits from NOB to boggle your brain:
"Located 70 kilometres northwest of Timmins, Montcalm is a five-million-tonne nickel deposit Falconbridge has been working on to develop into a mine... capital expenditures by Falconbridge toward the project will be approximately $100 million."

"The Porcupine Joint Venture (PJV)[consists of] Pamour open pit gold project... east of the city of Timmins, and the Hoyle Pond underground gold mine, mill facilities and a large amount of land in the Timmins area held for exploration. Also included are a number of historic mine sites."

These busy ants are always digging and hauling and rearranging the landscape in a big way:
"Also in the works is a six-kilometre rerouting of Highway 101 east of Timmins around Three Nations Lake and the replacement of about 25 per cent of the lake that encroaches on the proposed pit."

The many companies involved are not all Canadian owned. Consider Xstrata which recently took over Falconbridge, what they have to say about themselves:
"Xstrata is headquartered in Zug, Switzerland and maintains a meaningful position in seven major international commodity markets: copper, coking coal, thermal coal, ferrochrome, nickel, vanadium and zinc, with a smaller but profitable aluminium business, recycling facilities, additional exposures to gold, lead and silver and a suite of global technologies, many of which are industry leaders. The Group's operations and projects span 18 countries: Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Germany, Jamaica, New Caledonia, Norway, Papua New Guinea, Peru, South Africa, Spain, Tanzania, the USA and the UK."

Those NOB articles are so vivid:
"For ... mine developers J.S. Redpath, finding skilled miners has been a chore, forcing them to import labour 'from Vancouver to Newfoundland'...The company has three jobs on the go with Falconbridge's Montcalm project, the Kidd Creek Mine D expansion and Apollo Gold's Black Fox project near Matheson, [east of Timmins] where Redpath is doing the excavation on the underground exploration work.

With the Hemlo gold camp identifying future gold resources and juniors uncovering new platinum group metals (PGMs), Marathon is continuing to be a community ripe with mining exploration development and production."

Marathon, on Lake Superior, is about 250 miles west of Timmins while Moosonee is about the same distance north of Timmins. Timmins is about 150 miles north of Sudbury. Hearst is about halfway between Marathon and Moosonee. Timmins is over 400 miles from Ottawa or Toronto.

And on and on it goes. Where it stops nobody knows.

December 11, 2006
To put it quite plainly and simply, I cannot possibly make daily entries because the emr of the computer is bad for my health and yours too. so take a break and go get some fresh air...

Send me an email.