Tar sands: the "baby seal" issue of the 21st century?

An iconic environmental issue of the 20th century for Canada was baby seals. Environmental activists gained international attention and created international revulsion about the clubbing of big-eyed seal pups. That effort continues, but another issue is now creeping into the international consciousness that could darken Canada's reputation even more than seal slaughter. That of course is the Alberta tar sands.

It's a dirty business. Producing a tar sands barrel of oil results in at least three times more greenhouse gases than producing a conventional barrel. Production requires huge volumes of water and results in veritable lakes of contaminated fluids. It also devours large quantities of natural gas, the cleanest hydrocarbon fuel -- some wit once likened it to transmuting gold into lead.

The international opposition to tar sands development is growing. Alberta deputy premier Ron Stevens, on a five-day mission to Washington to peddle the oil sands brand, is being met by protesters and a full-page ad in the congressional newspaper claiming oil sands production is a major contributor to global warming.

With $100-billion of projects in the pipeline so to speak, the Alberta government is desperate to convince Americans, the people who buy the stuff, that the province is committed to "environmentally sustainable development of the oil sands." It plans to spend 25 million taxpayer dollars on the effort. Even that may not be enough to give this dirty business a clean face.

From killing baby seals in the East to producing the world's dirtiest oil in the West, it seems that environmentally we are not winning hearts and minds.

Hillary goes nuclear

Not being an American I will be spared the responsibility of voting for the next president of the United States; however, if I was I would have been delighted earlier in the game to vote for Hillary Clinton. Not any more. Her pandering has become almost embarrassing. As John Doyle of the Globe observed, in the recent Pennsylvania primary he half expected her to be wearing a pinafore and going around saying "aw, shucks." All politicians pander of course. One of the rules of public speaking is to tailor your speech to your audience, and politicians excel at it. Clinton just seems to consistently overdo it.

Asked what she would do if the Iranians attacked Israel with nuclear weapons, she replied she would "obliterate them." For a politician who flaunts her experience, this is the reply of an amateur. An experienced politician would know the mature answer is that in the first place, Iran doesn't have nuclear weapons, and in the second place the best American intelligence says they aren't acquiring them, so the question is no more than hypothetical mischief.

Her Strangelovian response may be recognition of the need to pander to the powerful Israel lobby, but that doesn't justify proposing Armageddon.

Maybe she feels that as a woman she has to strut her credentials as a tough guy. Show she's got the cojones, so to speak. After all, she supported both the war in Iraq and George Bush's misinformed belligerence toward Iran. She has also advertised herself as "the only candidate who isn't just talking about cracking down on China ... I have a specific plan ...." One hopes she's only referring to trade; nonetheless, her swagger caused China expert Richard Baum, her adviser on east Asia, to resign over the "grossly misguided accusations."

All this may be election hype which she would quickly bury if she became president, yet one has to wonder. If she feels she has to prove how tough she is to the electorate, will she not feel the same need when she's dealing with foreign powers, to say nothing of her own military? Let's hope that after the November election the world doesn't end up with George W. Bush lite.

The real price of gas

Oil prices surge again -- a barrel fetching close to $120 this morning. Gas prices are following suit. A national survey last week found the average price for regular was $1.19 a litre, the second highest on record. Public concern rises with the price. A Gandalf Group survey showed that Canadians believe the price of gasoline is the country's greatest challenge second only to the state of the healthcare system.

Yet gas remains a great bargain at the pump. The pump price is the market price, and markets lie through their teeth. You may pay $1.19 a litre, but you are only paying a fraction of the real cost.

To begin with, the pump price excludes the costs of the pollution that burning gasoline creates, including its contribution to global warming. There's the cost of policing roads and health costs incurred from road accidents. There's the tax subsidies to the oil industry through items such as the depletion allowance. All these are magnified by urban sprawl -- an urban design imposed by cheap gas. The International Center for Technology Assessment calculates that when all costs are included, the real price of a litre of gas is five to 15 times the pump price.

Economists call these excluded items negative externalities. External they may be, but they are real costs that have to be paid by all of us, whether we drive a little, a lot, or not at all. If drivers had to pay the full cost of a litre of gas, the world would change. Cities would be designed much more efficiently, and the environment would be a great deal cleaner and less at risk. We might keep all this in mind when we complain about the price at the pump. It may seem high, but it is in fact a remarkable, if highly deceptive, bargain.

Jose Zapatero, Prime Minister and feminist

Kudos for Spanish Prime Minister Jose Zapatero. Following his success over his conservative opponents in the recent election, he has appointed a new cabinet and, for the first time in Spanish history, it has a majority of women. Zapataro's cabinet is consistent with his promise to make women's issues his priority in this term. The new spirit was illustrated in mass media around the world with a photograph of a magnificently pregnant Defence Minister Carme Chacon inspecting her troops.

Prime Minister Zapatero, who proudly refers to himself as a feminist, is following the precedent of gender reforms set in his first term when his government legalized same-sex marriage, brought in fast-track divorces and passed laws to tackle domestic violence and promote gender equality, including a bill that required some companies to employ 40 per cent women in top positions.

Who would have thought a very macho Mediterranean country would become a leader in bringing equality to women. With the Canadian federal cabinet including a measly 22 per cent women, Spain clearly has something to teach us.

U.S. Supreme Court opts for cruel and unusual punishment

About the only thing crueler than killing someone is torturing them when you do it. Despite the Eighth Amendment to the American Constitution which expressly forbids "cruel and unusual punishment," the United States Supreme Court has approved execution by lethal injection which may inflict exactly that.

Lethal injection typically involves three drugs: first sodium thiopental (an anesthetic), then pancuronium bromide (causes muscle paralysis) and finally potassium chloride (stops the heart). The dose of each drug is supposedly sufficient to cause death.

The pancuronium bromide is not administered to make death easier for the prisoner, but to make it easier for the spectators. When the heart-stopping drug potassium chloride hits, it tends to cause spasms which detract from the image of a painless death. Pancuronium bromide, by relaxing the muscles, precludes the spasms thus offering a calmer spectacle. It is entirely unnecessary for the killing.

Unfortunately, the regimen doesn't always go according to plan. Doctors and nurses are forbidden by their organizations from participating in executions, so they are often carried out by incompetent personnel. Dr. Mark Heath, a professor of clinical anesthesia at Columbia University, observes, "There are significant risks that the inmate in Texas' lethal injection procedure will not be rendered unconscious by the sodium thiopental and will therefore experience the psychologically horrific effects of pancuronium bromide." The drug has been condemned by the American Veterinary Medical Association for use in euthanizing animals.

Potassium chloride is reputed to cause excruciating pain. If the prisoner receives insufficient doses of the drugs, when the potassium chloride hits he may be in agony but unable to cry out because his muscles are paralyzed by the pancuronium bromide. He dies an exquisitely painful death.

This appears to be what happened in Florida in 2006 to convicted murderer Angel Diaz. He took over half an hour to die and only then after a second series of injections. After the first series, witnesses reported he seemed to squint and grimace, and attempted to mouth words. Remaining conscious, he would have felt he was being smothered as the pancuronium bromide collapsed his diaphragm and lungs, and then he would have felt the potassium chloride like fire in his veins.

All hope is not lost, however, with the Supreme Court decision. Justice John Paul Stevens, although agreeing that the evidence presented in this case failed to show unconstitutionality, he admitted that for the first time he believes the death penalty itself may be unconstitutional. So the United States may yet depart the company of countries such as China, Iran and Saudi Arabia and join the civilized world in its views on capital punishment.

Are we playing fair with China?

China-bashing is all the rage these days and, make no mistake about it, considering their behaviour in Tibet and Sudan, the Chinese deserve it. Nonetheless, I have this uneasy feeling the self-righteousness that accompanies the criticism is somehow excessive.

China is saturating Tibet with Han Chinese in order to inextricably link the two culturally and ethnically. They will brook no resistance from the Tibetans. This strategy is not unfamiliar to us. It is, after all, exactly what we did. We saturated North America with immigrants, overwhelming the native peoples as we stole their land. At least the Chinese have not, to my knowledge, bundled the Tibetans off to reserves or kidnapped their children for indoctrination. Of course we do better now, we respect the civil rights of the Natives, but this is from the vantage point of having secured our country. Once the Chinese have secured Tibet, they too may improve their behaviour.

As for China's cozy relationship with Sudan, despite the Darfur situation, our criticism is pure hypocrisy. Sudan has oil and oil absolves all sins. The United States and Great Britain are tight with Saudi Arabia, a notoriously repressive and misogynistic dictatorship, to an extent that makes a mockery of their claims to be champions of democracy and human rights, all because of the magic substance, oil. Only weeks ago, President George Bush was shamelessly peddling hi-tech weaponry to the Saudis, and one of Tony Blair's last acts as PM was to quash an investigation into bribery between British arms dealers and Saudi officials. Criticism of the Chinese for consorting with brutal dictators while we do it ourselves is cringe-inducing.

So should we lay off the Chinese? Of course not. China's repressive practices go well beyond Tibet and Sudan, and we are morally obliged to respond to violations of people's human rights anywhere. The world has become a small place. And we are after all a signatory of the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights. I am simply suggesting that when we criticize we do so with a little humility, keeping in mind our own behaviour both past and present.

Will the rule of law triumph in the UK?

Last year, before Tony Blair stepped down as British PM, one of his last acts was to terminate an investigation into allegations of corruption between BAE Systems, a British arms manufacturer, and the Saudi Arabian government. BAE was alleged to have had a huge slush fund for buying the support of Saudi officials. Blair insisted that allowing Britain's Serious Fraud Office (SFO) to pursue an investigation would threaten -- what else? -- national security.

Two private organizations, the Corner House Research Group and the Campaign Against Arms Trade, challenged the decision, claiming serious bribery of senior Saudi officials had occurred. British judges have now ruled in favour of the challenge, stating they were not convinced the SFO had done its utmost to uphold the rule of law and had, therefore, acted illegally in ending the investigation. Lord Justice Moses declared,"No one, whether within this country or outside, is entitled to interfere with the course of our justice."

Sadly, Gordon Brown is proving no better than his predecessor. Only weeks before the judges handed down their decision, his government introduced draft legislation that would allow the attorney general to halt prosecutions on the basis of national security. Such decisions would be strictly in the hands of cabinet with judicial reviews virtually impossible. The attorney general would not be obligated to provide information to parliament that affects national security or international relations. George W. Bush must be proud of his British colleague.

Nonetheless, the investigation into the grubby BAE/Saudi affair may have to be reopened. The rule of law in the UK may yet triumph over Tony Blair, commercial interests and Britain's collaboration with one of the world's more sordid dictatorships.

Carter to chat with Hamas

Jimmy Carter, once again manifesting a refreshing, if rather un-American, approach to Palestine, will meet with Hamas chief Khaled Meshal in Damascus next week. His government disapproves of the company he is keeping as it conflicts with their attempt to put Hamas beyond the pale. Carter's visit is, however, consistent with the views expressed in his book "Palestine: Peace, Not Apartheid."

He is not entirely alone among his countrymen in recognizing the common sense of at least talking to a major force in the region, particularly one that just happened to win the last Palestinian election. Increasingly, other Americans are beginning to see the wisdom in a dialogue with Hamas. Eminent persons such as former national security advisers Zbigniew Brzezinski and Brent Scowcroft have stated the obvious, that it's better to talk to them than isolate them. And even the Bush Administration may not be quite as opposed as it seems. Apparently Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has been in private discussions with Arab diplomats about the possibility of Egypt acting as an intermediary with Hamas.

Peace in Palestine depends heavily on Israel's protector, the United States, listening to all sides, not just Israel and tame Palestinians. And, given that Hamas is the elected representative of the Palestinian people, talking to them may even suggest the Americans take democracy seriously, not selectively.

Homeland Security uber alles

As if Michael Chertoff, the U.S. Homeland Security czar, didn't have enough power, Congress granted him even more. In 2005, they gave him the right to void any federal law that might interfere with construction of a fence his department is building between the United States and Mexico. Any law at all. And if that wasn't enough, they also forbade the courts from interfering. Mr. Chertoff's word is final. Long live the czar.

Mr. Chertoff hasn't been reluctant to exercise his powers. He has issued waivers suspending dozens of laws, including laws that protect the environment, endangered species, farmland, Native burial sites and religious freedom. He is doing all this in the name of -- what else? -- national security, but one wonders what the fence has to do with security. In truth, it's really about keeping Mexicans out of the country, and they aren't crossing the border to explode bombs; they're looking for work, for heaven's sake. This is an immigration matter, not a security matter.

It is more than a little sad to see Congress voluntarily giving up its powers to the Administration, particularly an administration that abuses such powers as eagerly as it seeks them, but unfortunately that is the United States today. Not all Americans are mutely accepting this state of affairs, however. Two environmental groups have launched a constitutional challenge of one of Mr. Chertoff's waivers before the Supreme Court, their last resort. A number of Democratic congressmen support the suit and have called on the Court to overturn the 2005 law. Good luck to them. Placing unelected civil servants above the law is a practice any democracy can well do without. Paranoia is not an excuse.

Bashing Beijing (and Olympic glory)

As the Olympics approach, and the torch relay wends its weary way toward Beijing for the Games opening August 8th, we will continue to hear about human rights protests over China's treatment of Tibet. For an institution that is supposed to bring the world together, the Olympics seems to serve as a lightning rod for division.

The Games put host countries front and centre on the world stage, and that of course is why they want them, for the prestige, to show their credentials as nations to be taken seriously. Olympic spokespeople insist it's all about sports, but of course it isn't. The athletes are merely the instruments. Host cities don't expound on the joys of fencing and shot-putting, they talk about putting themselves on the map. And surely no one believes the Chinese politburo is spending those billions of yuan because they are in love with sport. Dictatorships from Nazi Germany to Communist China have taken full advantage of Olympic glory to establish the legitimacy of their regimes.

So what are human rights advocates to do when an influential international organization assists a brutal tyranny in promoting itself? Sit idly by? Quite naturally, and quite rightly, they are going to take advantage of centre stage themselves. They will do what they can to shame the tyrant into behaving as a responsible member of the human community. Trouble-makers they may be, but the Olympics and their despotic friends richly deserve them.

Nonetheless, The athletes have been promised their day in the sun. The Games must go on. And so must the protests.

Our troops in Afghanistan: part of the solution, or part of the problem?

In view of Prime Minister Harper's statement to NATO re the Afghanistan mission that, "We all underestimated the task and we've been compensating ever since," one is inclined to ask why. Why the underestimation? One rather obvious answer is that Afghan resistance has been reinvigorated by the presence of foreign soldiers in the country. Our troops, in other words, may be the fuel that is feeding the insurgency.

The back of the Taliban was broken by the invasion following 9/11. Perhaps if the foreigners had packed their bags then, it would have remained broken, but there is nothing like a foreign occupation to kindle the passions of patriots. This is particularly true when the locals see the foreigners not only as alien but also as a threat to the One True Faith (to say nothing of a lucrative drug business). Now we may be trapped in a classic vicious circle. The occupation provokes resistance, more troops are required to fight the resistance, more locals are killed, the resistance intensifies, more troops are required, and so on, and on. Shades of Vietnam.

Harper shows a streak of realism at least by admitting NATO cannot hope to increase troop levels to the point where it can "snuff out the resistance." He insists Canada's goal is simply to train Afghanistan's army to the point where it can take over the job. If that means NATO then leaves, the departure of foreigners may do even more to deplete the resistance than training the Afghan army.

McCain's mad pastor

With all the noise the media has made about Barack Obama's pastor Jeremiah Wright and his anti-American sermons, they seem to have overlooked ranting Rod Parsley, bosom buddy of John McCain. Parsley is senior pastor of World Harvest Church, a not inconsiderable outfit that includes 12,000 members, 400 staff, a bible college and a television studio. He has recently endorsed John McCain for president, to which McCain gratefully responded by referring to Parsley as "one of the truly great leaders in America, a moral compass, a spiritual guide."

One of the hobbyhorses of this moral compass and spiritual guide is a war against Islam. In one of his books he declares, "I do not believe our country can truly fulfill its divine purpose until we understand our historical conflict with Islam. ... The fact is that America was founded, in part, with the intention of seeing this false religion destroyed." He claims that Islam is an "anti-Christ religion," predicated on "deception," and the Prophet Muhammad "received revelations from demons and not from the true God."

Whereas Obama took pains to publicly distance himself from Wright's radical comments, McCain makes no such effort in dealing with Parsley. Although McCain is only addressing extreme Islam, he nonetheless seems to take off on Parsley's militant musings when he claims, "We face the transcendent challenge of the 21st century. That is the threat of radical Islamic extremism. My friends, I know you know that this is an evil of transcendent and unbelievable magnitude. You can see other times when our nation and our way of life was threatened, but this ranks among the greatest."

Demagogues need, above all, an enemy. It seems that Islam is serving the purpose for both Parsley and McCain. Parsley we can pass off as just another flaky preacher, albeit an influential one, but McCain may become president of the United States. His war-mongering cannot so easily be dismissed.

When Pastor Wright raved against the United States, he was expressing black rage, an understandable emotion considering the centuries of persecution his people have suffered in their native land. And, in any case, all that is strictly an American issue. Parsley's cry for war against Islam, on the other hand, is not only religious hate-mongering but it has international implications. Why, therefore, is the American mass media not making an even bigger issue out of McCain and Parsley's friendship than they did out of Obama and Wright's? Have they become too inured to war? Or is Muslim-baiting not that big an issue?

bin Laden's puppets

Listening to U.S. presidential candidate John McCain reminds me once again how remarkably successful al-Qaeda was with their bombings of 9/11. Far be it from me to try to get into the heads of people who fly planes into tall buildings, but I suspect their first goal was to trigger a war between Islam and the West. And secondly, to undermine Western values. They succeeded at both, but only because the Bush administration played beautifully into their hands. They wanted a war, Bush gave them one, and now the U.S. is bogged down in it and has reinvigorated al-Qaeda in the bargain. As for undermining Western values, the Americans performed on cue here as well, with everything from torturing foreigners to massive spying on their own people.

Furthermore, the U.S. and its allies have created over four million refugees in Iraq. It takes little imagination to realize that included among those millions are tens of thousands of unemployed, uneducated and angry young men -- a host of potential recruits for the next generation of jihadists.

Now we have McCain, possibly the next president, insisting if elected he will carry on the war for 100 years if necessary. Bin Laden's eyes must light up like candles when he hears that. Who would have thought a guy hiding in a cave in Pakistan or wherever would have the leaders of the world's most powerful nation dancing at his fingertips?

Talking to the Taliban

The Globe and Mail deserves applause for its courage in publishing its new series "Talking to the Taliban." Rather than simply demonizing the enemy as is the custom when you are at war, as we seem to be, the Globe is talking to them and attempting to gain insight into what motivates them.

The Taliban have always struck me as a bunch of hillbillies: dirt-poor country boys, uneducated, illiterate, steeped in fundamentalist religion, gun-loving, ignorant of the outside world, living in a clan and tribal feud-riddled society. What must benighted souls like this think of a bunch of heavily-armed infidels marching through their country attempting to change their ways and impose a government on them run from a very distant Kabul? I frankly don't know, but I'm not surprised they reach for their guns. In any case, the better we understand them, the more we recognize our common humanity, the more likely we will set the right policies for our relationship with their country.

The Globe series should make a major contribution to that end. Heaven knows, after stumbling into war in this alien land, we need all the help we can get.

Welcome, the ethnic cleanser

Moshe Feiglin, notorious member of Israel's Likud party, favours us with a visit this week. Feiglin, who has supported expelling Israel's non-Jews from the country, was recently banned from Great Britain. Considering Britain's large Muslim population, that government's action is understandable considering that Feiglin is an ethnic cleanser and the ethnics he wants to cleanse are Muslims.

Feiglin hopes to establish a theocracy in Israel, governed by Jewish law. A settler who graduated from a religious school, he believes the Bible, interpreted literally, should form the basis of Israel’s legal system. And he isn't exactly a fringe politician, having garnered almost a quarter of the votes in last year's election for Likud's leadership.

Bringing the message of ethnic exclusion to our multicultural country will no doubt offend many Canadians. Some will complain we have let in a racist. But is Feiglin a racist? Well, in a New Yorker article, he was quoted as saying, “You can’t teach a monkey to speak and you can’t teach an Arab to be democratic. You’re dealing with a culture of thieves and robbers. Muhammad, their prophet, was a robber and a killer and a liar. The Arab destroys everything he touches.” He isn't a fan of Arabs, certainly. In any case, what do you call someone who believes only people of his race have a right to citizenship in his country?

Despite Feiglin's hateful philosophy, we shouldn't ban him from Canada. If we are to err, best we err on the side of freedom of speech. Even racists have a right to speak their fevered minds. Anyway, I understand he's only here for a short visit.

Is Kosovo a precedent or not?

Bob Rae says it's an "insult to the intelligence" to tout Canada's recognition of Kosovo's independence as a precedent-setting case. Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Bernier claims, "You cannot compare this with Quebec."

On the other hand, Serbian ambassador Dusan Batokovic insists it has set a "dangerous precedent," and Daniel Turp of the Parti Quebecois agrees, not with the dangerous part, but with the precedent part, because separation was achieved "despite the objections of the country which it left."

So is it a precedent or not? Ultimately a question for constitutional lawyers to fight over, I suppose, but to this layman it certainly seems to be. In any case, does it matter what Bernier, or Rae, or Canada thinks? I doubt those regions of the world contemplating separation - Quebec for example - will opt for their interpretation. They will agree there are historical differences, there are always differences, but they will focus on the similarities. And there would be similarities - powerful ones. For example, if a Quebec government were to unilaterally declare independence, it could claim, correctly, that Canada has already accepted a unilateral declaration of independence by a legislature as valid. No referendum, no clear question, no consideration for minorities, no negotiation with the other side. If Canada has accepted all this, how could it oppose the identical action by Quebec? And what if other countries agree that what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, and recognize a new nation of Quebec?

What would we have had to lose by waiting and insisting on the criteria we have established for legitimate separation? We quite reasonably insist on a referendum asking a clear question and receiving a clear answer followed by negotiation of the separation. For that matter, what would the Albanian Kosovars have had to lose by engaging in this process? Are these criteria not reasonable? And would the Kosovars have had any trouble meeting them? If Serbia refused to negotiate, it would be removing itself from consideration.

What we have done is weaken our position in defending against a separatist argument and we have done it needlessly. Now we must keep our fingers crossed that we won't rue this day.

Here's some good news

Lots of blood and violence in the news these days: Iraq, Afghanistan, Kosovo, Tibet, and so on ad nauseam. But it isn't all bad. On the bright side, a woman has been elected speaker of the new Pakistani parliament. Fehmida Mirza, the first woman to hold the job, was elected overwhelmingly. And a very impressive woman she is. A doctor and businesswoman, Ms. Mirza has been elected to parliament three times. A member of Benazir Bhutto's Pakistan Peoples Party, she ensures that a female face remains prominent in that party, the most popular in the country. This is of no small importance in the very macho nation of Pakistan.

The party has yet to choose a prime minister ... is it possible? No, that's too much to hope for.

There's drugs and then there's drugs

Reading my morning Globe recently, I encountered a prominent half-page ad (very pricey those), paid for by the Government of Canada, warning of the dangers of various recreational drugs parents should be talking to their kids about. The ad even offered a free booklet to give parents a helping hand. What immediately struck me about the ad was that it omitted two of the most pervasive, and dangerous, recreational drugs -- tobacco and alcohol. Alcohol abuse is by far the biggest drug problem facing teenagers (and adults).

So why, I asked myself, did the government omit them?

My first thought was because they are legal. But that doesn't make sense. If they are legal, they are even more dangerous simply because they are more accessible. Then I thought maybe it's because they are widely used by adults and the gov doesn't want to embarrass the voting public or perhaps admit that drugs are in fact an integral part of our culture. I mean, what would older guys do without that wonderful recreational drug Viagra?

And the thought of Viagra suggested a possible answer. Viagra, like cigarettes and alcohol, is manufactured by large, immensely profitable industries. Could it be that our government is only concerned with drugs that corporations can't make billions of dollars off? Sounds a bit conspiratorial, yet I would make a large bet that's a major reason why the U.S. government is so hostile toward marijuana. Marijuana is useful for treating a range of ailments, both mental and physical, yet the pharmaceutical companies can't make a nickel off it. That has to infuriate the drug barons, a fury the U.S. administration is highly sensitive to.

So when parents talk to their kids about drugs, is it OK to have a beer in their hand? I guess I'll have to read the free booklet to find out.

Free trade or slave trade?

In 2001, the World Trade Organization accepted China as a member. China made the usual promises: opening its markets to foreign investors and enterprises, treating national and foreign enterprises equally, reducing tariffs and subsidies, and so on. One massive subsidy however was not mentioned in the agreement -- coerced labour. Workers in China are bereft of rights we take for granted in this country, specifically freedom of speech and, of special interest for working people, freedom of association. They have no right to form independent labour unions and bargain for their pay and benefits. This coercion of labour offers goods made in China a huge advantage over goods made in free countries. It is a subsidy in all but name, yet is excluded from WTO agreements.

Chinese workers are subject to appalling exploitation, particularly migrant workers who come in from the countryside desperate for work. These workers see their pay delayed for months and sometimes they are not paid at all. They are routinely denied overtime pay, even when working as long as 18 hours a day. A government survey showed that migrant construction workers were forced to work, on average, 10 hours a day, 27 days a month. They commonly have no medical care or other benefits, and do not receive accident insurance. They often live in unheated dormitories and may even have to use the beds in shifts. An interesting note is that migrant labour is building most of the Olympic venues.

It isn't quite true to say that workers have no rights in China. For example, Chinese law restricts working hours and dictates that wages be paid monthly. The problem is that many workers are reluctant to complain because they don't have permits to work in the city and those who do complain can be beaten, even killed. In any case, public officials are commonly open to bribes from employers.

The question is why, under WTO rules, countries like China must treat foreign investors equally but are allowed to treat their own workers like slaves? The answer I suspect is that while coerced labour harms workers, both Chinese and those in other countries who have to compete against them, it is very good indeed for corporations. It has been argued that is exactly what the WTO is all about, aiding the corporate pursuit of cheap labour. Like NAFTA, it's more about serving corporate interest than serving free trade.

We cannot expect Chinese workers to receive the same benefits as workers in wealthier countries like ours, but we can expect them to enjoy the same basic human rights. And we can make it a condition for China to be accepted into international trade agreements. But first, of course, we have to design trade agreements for people rather than for corporations.

Afghanistan: the pig in the poke

Yesterday, the House of Commons voted to extend our mission in Afghanistan. One might think the first question to be asked would have been how much this is going to cost. If it had been, there wouldn't have been an answer. If anybody knows, they aren't saying. Hard to believe, but our legislators in their wisdom voted to sink us in deeper without any idea how many more billions of our dollars it will require.

We may be assured, however, it will be a lot. Since we first embarked on this adventure in 2001, we have spent at least $7.7-billion, double what we budgeted for. This fiscal year alone, it appears we will be $1-billion over budget. According to a spokesperson for Defence Minister Peter MacKay, "This is not a cost overrun - it is simply an adjustment to the estimated incremental cost of the mission." There will, no doubt, be many more "adjustments to the estimated incremental costs" in the future.

So the war is going great. We're extending it ad hoc. We're begging our friends for help. We're spending double what we expected. Do I hear echoes of Iraq out there?

Support our troops indeed.

Was Moses a doper?

Who or what inspired the ten commandments? God. you say. You may believe so, but Benny Shanon of Jerusalem's Hebrew University suggests it may have been ayahuasca.

According to Shanon, when Moses and his fellow travellers spent 40 years crossing the Sinai, a good part of the time they were stoned. Psychedelic drugs, Shanon claims, formed an integral part of the religious rites of Israelites in biblical times. Conveniently, plants in the Sinai peninsula contain the hallucinogenic drug from which the brew ayahuasca is made, a substance still used today by Amazonians in Brazil for religious rituals.

Thus is explained the voice of God emanating from Mount Sinai, the ten commandments, and the burning bush. According to Shanon, "As far as Moses on Mount Sinai is concerned, it was either a supernatural cosmic event, which I don't believe, or a legend, which I don't believe either. Or finally, and this is very probable, an event that joined Moses and the people of Israel under the effect of narcotics."

Needless to say, rabbis and other religious figures take issue with Shanon's theory. On the other hand, Karl Marx may have been more right than he realized when he said religion is the opiate of the people.

What a diabolical species we are

Here's a series of logic for you:

• Alberta Sustainable Resources Development is initiating a project to shoot adult and baby wolves.
  
• Why? To increase the elk population.
  
• And why increase the elk population? So that hunters have more to kill.
  
• Ergo, we are going to kill more wolves so that we can kill more elk.

In other words, the Alberta government would rather have hunters killing elk for fun than wolves killing elk to feed themselves and their families. Such is the arrogance of Homo sapiens.

A representative of the department, one Darcy Whiteside, justifies the killing with the comment, "No one has a problem swatting a mosquito." So here we have someone in charge of our wildlife that doesn't know the difference between a mosquito and a wolf, between an insect and a mammal. This is wildlife management in the environmentally benighted province of Alberta.

Another case of pots and kettles

The United States has taken umbrage at China's buildup in its defence forces. China revealed a 17.6 per cent increase in its military budget this year, continuing the trend of double-digit increases over the past two decades. This is discouraging indeed -- if there's one thing the world doesn't need more of it's weapons. But then the Americans are hardly the ones to lecture. They currently outspend the Chinese six to one, and in fact spend almost as much on defence as the rest of the world, including China, combined. Their military spending has doubled since George W. Bush was elected. This pot shouldn't be calling any kettle black.

Particularly ironic is the Americans' concern abut China's rapid development of hi-tech tactics and weaponry. These are the same people who are building a "star wars" anti-missile system that includes launching pads suspiciously close to Russia.

Rather than setting an example for peace the Americans are setting the pace for war. They have military bases around the world, whereas the Chinese military are confined to China. Furthermore, the U.S. demonstrates a willingness to use force to guarantee access to resources, its current establishment of massive military bases in Iraq -- at the center of the world's largest supply of conventional oil -- being a prime example. The Chinese, by contrast, seek to ensure secure oil access by the use of diplomacy and aid.

So far, at least. But if we don't curb our use of oil, a depleting resource in ever-greater demand, nations may be driven to fight over it. The United States is obviously preparing for that eventuality. We can't blame China for simply responding to the threat.

Alberta election: is the environment a lost cause?

Monday's election result in Alberta, a major victory for the incumbent Conservatives, wasn't exactly my first choice. Not simply because we elected a Conservative government, but much more importantly because we elected a government that has shown little serious interest in combating global warming. Considering Alberta is Canada's worst polluter, this is definitely not good.

Particularly discouraging is the obvious lack of interest Albertans showed in the issue. Everyone talks about climate change, and Alberta's irresponsible approach to it, yet not only did the electors return the same irresponsible government, almost 60 per cent of them didn't consider the environment or any other issue important enough to drag themselves out to the polls. On the contrary, they collectively decided to set a record for electoral apathy.

This prompts a disturbing question: do Albertans, and perhaps Canadians, take global warming seriously enough to let it affect their vote? Or is it just something to make small talk about? Stephane Dion has promised to make it a major issue in the next federal election. Is he making a big political mistake?

Running away from anti-Semitism

Israel has recently said nice things about Canada's misguided approach to a UN-sponsored anti-racism conference. The conference, entitled Durban II, will be held in South Africa next year.

At the 2001 World Conference Against Racism, a number of countries were offended by texts that referred to Israel as an apartheid state. Such language seems hardly out of place -- even such human rights crusaders as Jimmy Carter have applied the term "apartheid" to Israel's treatment of Palestinians. In any case, the references were removed from the final versions of the texts. Nonetheless, the Canadian government insists the upcoming conference will be a forum for anti-Semitism and is refusing to attend, a decision Israeli Foreign Affairs Minister Tzipi Livni has lavished praise upon.

So is this the way to deal with anti-Semitism? By running away from it? This is an international conference, sponsored by the United Nations, isn't it the perfect place to confront anti-Semitism? Before the world? Or can it be our government lacks the confidence it can defend Israel's treatment of the Palestinians? That, at least, is the appearance they are giving. Not much grist for the mill of anti-Semitism there.

You go, Hillary (and you, too, Barack)

If the two Democratic candidates for the U.S. presidency were both looking good before, they are looking even better today. Hillary Clinton stated if she's elected she will insist on renegotiating NAFTA under threat of the six-month opting-out clause. She will demand tougher labour and environmental standards and a new dispute-resolution mechanism. She will also eliminate the right of foreign firms to sue the United States over protection of American workers. Barack Obama supported her position.

What these two splendid candidates are advocating is nothing less than a NAFTA for workers and the environment rather than just for corporations. What an idea! And shielding governments from lawsuits by corporations restores a little of the democracy the current version took away. I'm starting to take a real interest in this election.

The Kosovo divorce: should we or shouldn't we?

Kosovo, it appears, is divorcing itself from Serbia. This has raised no little angst in Canada with its obvious analogy with Quebec. So the question leaps out at us: should we recognize a new, independent state of Kosovo as the United States, Great Britain and France are doing or should we not, thus aligning ourselves with Spain and Russia?

In this country, we accept as we should the democratic right of people to decide their own future, therefore we recognize the right of a people to secede. As we make the comparison to Quebec, logic would dictate we follow the rules we have laid down for secession in Canada. As upheld by the Supreme Court, there are three:

1. Withdrawal cannot be unilateral.
2. The people of the jurisdiction concerned must be asked a clear question in a referendum.
3. The people must clearly vote for secession.

Considering number one, we might make the apt analogy to a divorce. We recognize the right of a person to divorce their spouse but one cannot do it unilaterally You just don't announce to your partner one day that the marriage is over, this is the end. It isn't the end. It's only the beginning of the end and the end can be a very messy process. There are two sides involved, and they both have to be assured of a fair settlement. Let us hope the Albanian Kosovars realize this. We should make it a condition of our recognition.

Regarding the second and third conditions, a referendum has not been held in Kosovo, however with an Albanian population of over 90 per cent, the results are a foregone conclusion. Nonetheless, the people should make their voice clearly heard on a clear question, and we shouldn't recognize a new state until they have.

And then comes the really sticky part. Minorities in the region have the same right to determine their futures as the majority do. If the Serbian population wants to remain part of Serbia, that choice must be seriously considered. If Serbs are scattered throughout Kosovo, then of course separation is impractical, but if they are concentrated populations -- and they are in the north, conveniently abutting Serbia (see the attached map) -- then they have the right to remain part of Serbia. Ironically, but not surprisingly, the Albanian Kosovars reject this with the same argument about territorial inviolability that Serbia uses.

Recognizing the right of Serbian Kosovars to remain Serbian where practical is not only just, it is of fundamental importance to Canada. After all, we have Anglophone populations in Quebec to consider if separation should ever occur there. This right, too, we should insist on before we recognize Kosovo as an independent state.

Time to listen to the Arab street

Doesn't this shout out that something is fundamentally amiss? Iran, a dictatorship, supports two of the most democratically successful organizations in the Arab world. We in the democratic West refuse to have anything to do with them. When one wins a remarkably fair election, we reject the government it forms and do everything we can to undermine it. And for supporting these two organizations, Iran is labelled "a state sponsor of terrorism."

The two organizations I refer to are, of course, Hezbollah and Hamas. Hezbollah has done well electorally in Lebanon and Hamas did well enough in Palestine to win the last general electon.

We dismiss them both as terrorist organizations. This is rubbish. Do they use terrorism as a weapon? Yes. And who doesn't when it suits their purpose? The two major Western players in the Middle East, Israel and the United States, certainly do. The United States committed the two most horrific terrorist attacks in history.

Both Hamas and Hezbollah have a military arm and those arms have used terrorism. When you lack a conventional military and your enemy has a modern army, navy and air force, and the support of the most powerful nation in the world, you have little recourse but to to fall back on the weapon of choice for the poor. But both organizations are much more than their military arms. Their social arms provide better social services than most Arab governments, and, what should be of particular importance to us, their political arms accept the democratic process and are rather good at it.

And why shouldn't Iran support them? Essentially they are engaged in war against Israel. And is this war justified? If challenging Israel's ethnic cleansing, oppression, collective punishment, and theft of land from the Palestinians is justified, then the answer is yes.

And herein lies our hypocrisy. The West, the United States staunchly in the lead, claims to want democracy in the Middle East, yet when democratic forces emerge, as with Hezbollah and Hamas, we whack-a-mole them. Our justification is their hostility toward Israel. But that is exactly what we should expect. Democratic parties represent the people and, by and large, the Arab people don't approve of Israel. They empathize with their Arab brothers in Palestine and oppose their oppressors. If democracy means representing the people, in the Arab world it means being anti-Israel.

Out of guilt or whatever, we in the West will not accept this antipathy of the Arab street toward Israel. We cannot, therefore, accept democracy in the Arab world. We have got ourselves in a box. While we ignore the Arab people, we dote on their oppressors, the dictators -- thugs like Egypt's Mubarek and of course our favourites, the misogynistic Sauds of Arabia. We have created an unholy alliance of anti-democratic forces. The dictators, too, fear democracy so they are quite happy to collaborate in suppressing it.

This rejection of the sensibilities of the Arab street not only makes democracy difficult to achieve in the Middle East, it makes peace in Palestine difficult, perhaps impossible. As long as the Palestinians must submit to the West's preconditions before serious negotiation can even start, and Israel holds all the cards including the unequivocal support of the United States, chances for a peaceful solution are slim indeed.

If we would simply listen to the Arab people and take their views and feelings seriously, whether we agree with them or not, we would at least stand a chance of settling the Palestine conflict, and yes, even extending democracy in that benighted part of the world. We might, in the bargain, make peace with Iran.

Even the oil industry says slow down

Voices ranging from environmentalists to Alberta elder statesman Peter Lougheed have been warning that oil sands development is proceeding far too quickly, environmentally, economically and socially. But the Alberta government has refused to, in Premier Ed Stelmach's words, "touch the brake." Now even members of the Conservative government's nearest and dearest friend -- the oil industry -- are lobbying for a slow down. A letter presented to the departments of Energy, Environment and Sustainable Resources on behalf of the Cumulative Environmental Management Association (CEMA) expressed the opinion that further lease sales at this time might reduce the options for establishing conservation areas. The letter was signed by some industry heavyweights, including Petro-Canada, Suncor, Husky, Shell and even Imperial Oil, son of Exxon.

The letter concerns only lease sales and focuses on conservation areas; nonetheless, it's an impressively progressive step for the exploiters of the sands to take. The group did not expressly challenge the pace of development but, according to CEMA president Randall Barrett, the framework the organization is creating represents a "more reasonable and orderly approach toward development." Welcome words indeed.

So will common sense finally touch the premier? When even some of the government's closest friends and benefactors suggest caution, will the premier take heed? That may very well depend on who the premier is. We'll know that next Monday.

Kudos for Campbell

B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell is cutting quite the environmental figure these days. His government's new budget, delivered in the legislature yesterday by a green-bedecked Finance Minister Carole Taylor, set a new Canadian standard for what governments can do in the fight against global warming. Featured was a revenue-neutral carbon tax, surely a key instrument in the struggle. Where Campbell, Taylor, et al., have gone, will others now follow? Fingers are crossed.

Oil profits ignore Alberta's royalty increase

The whine from the oil industry was positively ear-splitting during the recent royalty debate in Alberta. When the Royalty Review Panel released its report last September stating that oil and gas royalties should rise significantly to ensure Albertans a "fair share" of their resource revenues, industry spokespeople trotted out the predictable doomsday projections.

EnCana warned it would slash spending in Alberta by $1 billion in 2008 if the full report was adopted. The president of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers called the report "unrealistic," claiming its recommendations would lead to a significant cooling off in the Canadian energy industry. Former oil industry CEOs Gywn Morgan (EnCana) and John Buckee (Talisman Energy) warned that capital would flee the oil patch. Increasing royalties like the report recommended would be a major blow to growth and investment in the energy sector, went the refrain.

Not everyone in the industry went into panic mode. Suncor CEO Rick George, for example, expressed confidence the Alberta government's approach wouldn't harm the industry. As it turned out, the sane voices were right.

When the government raised royalties along the lines of the report's recommendations, the sky did not fall. Neither did the stock market. And industry just kept on keeping on. BP PLC, which abandoned Canada a couple of decades ago, returned with a bang, announcing it would participate with Husky Energy in a $5.5 billion joint venture to develop Husky's huge Sunrise oil sands project and retrofit a BP refinery in Ohio to handle the bitumen.

The Conference Board of Canada now predicts oil industry profits will soar to new heights in 2008, hitting almost $23-billion, up 18 per cent from 2007. The Board also expects Alberta’s royalty increases to have little effect on investment in the industry.

All the critics of the recommended increases were not wrong, however. Some said they weren't enough. It now appears those critics were closest to the mark.

Why not an Afrocentric school?

As the Toronto District School Board prepares to set up an Afrocentric school, the question of the day becomes, Is it justified? Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty doesn't think so. Nor do the people of Ontario. According to an Angus Reid poll, 79 per cent of Ontarians oppose the school, 85 per cent in the Greater Toronto Area. And our liberal instincts are quick to support the naysayers. Certainly mine do.

I instinctively oppose the segregation of any ethnic or religious group on any basis. However, my instincts may be ignoring something of very great importance about black people in North America. Their experience is unique. Of course every ethnic group's experience is unique, but the black experience is unique on a level well beyond the rest of us. They are the only group that didn't come to this continent voluntarily. They alone were coerced -- and with almost unimaginable cruelty.

Furthermore, all other groups were allowed to retain critical elements of their culture to sustain them in their new life -- their religious beliefs, their family relationships, etc. Not so with the immigrants from Africa. Their culture was obliterated. About all they were able to retain was their music and even that was suppressed -- drumming, for example, integral to African music, was often forbidden to prevent slaves from communicating and thus initiating a rebellion. Not only were these people enslaved, they were subjected to a particularly vicious form of slavery.

We often hear about the absence of fathers in black communities, about the disproportionate number of women who are raising families alone. Where are the men, we ask? Well, the answer may lie in that unique experience. Under slavery, men were often considered less as fully sexual beings, i.e. as lovers, husbands and fathers, and more as studs. Like farm animals, their responsibility as males was to produce more slaves. They could at any time be sold away from their women and children.

And when slavery ended, segregation began. Under this system, men were subject to constant humiliation in front of their families. Grey-haired old grandfathers were called boys, and treated as boys, and didn't dare object on pain of serious retribution. Unlike other family men, blacks could not aspire to anything but the more menial roles in society. While men of other ethnic groups could expect to see family commitment rewarded by their children reaching higher levels of society than they did, black men could see nothing for their children but the same drudgery and humiliation they endured. After centuries of slavery followed by a century of segregation, it would be surprising indeed if black men had not had their connection to conventional family life thoroughly fractured.

History is long with us. It doesn't vanish at the stroke of a pen. Modern Canadian law and custom may now guarantee black people equality, but the unique inequalities they have suffered in the past will disadvantage them for a long time to come.

It may be the case then that blacks, like no other ethnic group except the Native peoples, require two educations, one conventional, the other to rebuild a shattered identity. Perhaps this can be done within the present school system, perhaps not. Justice demands we try. But if that fails, it doesn't seem unreasonable to set up just one special school to ensure we have an alternative available.

Anti-American? Do I have a choice?

Anti-American. The tedious old saw that conservatives, and even liberals from time to time, hurl at leftists when they challenge American foreign policy. It is a reliable fallback position when criticism of U.S. actions and policy is hard to rebut, yet there is some truth in it as well. The left often seems to simply dislike the United States.

But wherein lies the fault? With the anti-Americans or with the Americans? I suggest the latter. Since the end of the Second World War, at least, the United States has time and time again acted against those principles the left holds dear.

Consider, for example, democracy. The U.S. has collaborated in overthrowing democratically-elected governments around the world, including Iran, Guatemala, Chile and Palestine. At the same time, it has supported some of the world's most repugnant dictators, including Indonesia's Suharto, Zaire's Mobutu Sese Seko, Egypt's Mubarak, Argentina under the generals, Chile under Pinochet, and the misogynistic Sauds of Arabia.

The United States has denied its support to agreements progressives consider necessary to making a better world, including the Ottawa Treaty to ban land mines, the Kyoto Protocol and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (the only country, aside from Somalia, to refuse to sign). It unilaterally abandoned the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, violates both the Geneva Conventions and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and has attempted to undermine the International Criminal Court.

The American rejection of international agreements is aggravated by its dependence on brute force to impose its will. It has troops stationed around the globe and doesn't hesitate to use them, waging a war in some part of the world or the other at least once a generation, if not once a decade. This unilateralism, this mark of empire, is anathema to the left, which seeks co-operative solutions to world problems. And the militarism of the U.S. seems to increase along with its fundamentalism.

And it gets worse. At times, the U.S. has seemed to declare war on the left. Not just on Communism, for which progressives share American disdain, but on the democratic left as well. American proteges have murdered tens of thousands of leftists. Of the 3,000 victims of Pinochet in Chile, the up to 30,000 "disappeared" by the generals in Argentina, the 200,000 victims of the war of repression in Guatemala, we can reasonably assume the great majority were progressives of one stripe or another. Many of the military leaders responsible for these crimes, including Argentine dictators Roberto Viola and Leopoldo Galtieri, were trained in the United States' infamous School of the Americas. And then of course there was the CIA's collaboration with Operation Condor, a campaign involving assassination and intelligence operations implemented by South American right-wing dictatorships against the left.

In addition to the murder of leftists is the theft of legitimate power the left has earned through the democratic process or could have earned if they weren't repressed or murdered. And this explains in large part why conservatives are rarely anti-American. Their philosophical cohorts in other countries have not been subject to repression or murder by friends of the U.S. To the contrary, they benefit by the suppression of their natural opposition, so naturally they decry "anti-Americanism."

The left is not anti-American comprehensively, but it is selectively. Leftists enjoy and appreciate much of American culture -- its music, science, technology, writing, ideas, even its respect for human rights when it's on its best behaviour. Not so much appreciated is the excessive individualism of the U.S. economic system, but that's for Americans to struggle with. The left is not anti-American, it is anti-American foreign policy, but more important it is pro-welfare state, pro-democracy and pro-international co-operation, and that often puts it at odds philosophically and practically with American administrations.

The United States has often assaulted both the principles and the persons of the left, and naturally when it does we confront it. But they picked the fight, not us.

Freedom of the press ... nice, if you can afford it

An editorial in Monday's Globe and Mail took umbrage at human-rights commissions for agreeing to hear complaints from Muslim groups about the work of two journalists. The Globe accused the commissions of "policing ideas," chastising them for taking seriously, "the notion that privately owned publications do not have the right to offend or that they are required to give equal space to both sides of every issue."

The Globe's claim is fancifully over-stated; nonetheless, they do raise a good question. How far should human-rights commissions go in entertaining complaints about personal points of view publicly expressed? This prompts yet another, bigger question, about the media itself. The Globe, after all, and its fellow members of the daily press do a great deal more policing of ideas than human-rights commissions do. Why should a tiny special interest group, i.e. the corporate owners of the mass media, be the arbiter of whose views are broadly heard?

American journalist A.J. Liebling answered this question many years ago when he observed, "Freedom of the press is limited to those who own one." And owning a daily paper takes hundreds of billions of dollars. In other words, you get to be an arbiter if you are very rich or, in the case of the Globe editors, a servant of the very rich.

Having vented its spleen against human-rights commissions, perhaps the Globe will now deal with the much larger problem of the daily press -- the nation's public forums -- being owned and controlled by a handful of oligarchs. That is, of course, if the oligarchs will give them permission.

It's sprawl vs. the planet, and sprawl is winning

Recent surveys that show Canadians are becoming increasingly car-dependent are not good news for the environment. According to Statistics Canada, in 2005, 74 per cent of Canadians said they made all their trips by car. This compares to 70 per cent in 1998 and 68 per cent in 1992, a slow but disturbingly sure increase. Meanwhile, the percentage travelling by foot or bicycle decreased from 26 per cent in 1992 to 19 per cent in 2005.

I am not proud to say my fellow Albertans lead this particular pollution parade, as we do others. Edmonton and Calgary top the list of people making all their trips by car. (This news coincides nicely with our premier recently announcing a "plan" to cut greenhouse gas emissions in which they don't decrease until 2020.)

Albertans are leaders in part because we continue to allow our cities to sprawl, the major reason for people choosing cars over walking, bicycling or public transit. Calgary's addiction to sprawl arose from a variety of reasons: developer's insistence they can keep house prices down only if the city annexes more land; Calgary's historic fear of fringe towns; the belief that housing should be left entirely up to the private sector; the lending policies of CMHC; the growth of malls and big box centres -- a list of decentralizing factors, many of which we share with other cities.

Most of these factors continue to work their insidious influence. Thus sprawl persists, the car culture grows, and the globe warms.

If you frighten easily ...

If you frighten easily, you may not want to read the quotation below from Pulitzer-prize winning author Tim Weiner's thought-provoking (and disturbing) book Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA. Weiner describes a meeting after 9/11 between the assistant director of central intelligence, James Monnier Simon, Jr., and Attorney General John Ashcroft. They discussed national identity cards for Americans. Ashcroft asked Simon what they would contain and he replied:

Well, a thumbprint. Blood type would be useful, as would a retinal scan. We would want your picture taken a special way so that we could pick your face out of a crowd even if you were wearing a disguise. We would want your voice print, because the technology is coming up that will pick your voice out of every other voice in all the cell phones on earth, and your voice is unique. In fact, we would like to have a bit of your DNA in there, so if something ever happens to you we can identify the body. By the way, we would want the chip to tell us where this card is, so that if we needed to find you we could. Then it dawned on us that if we did that, you could set the card down. So we would put the chip in your bloodstream.

The card never appeared, but the CIA was compensated with a power they had never enjoyed before: the legal right to spy on Americans.

As the British plan implementation of their national ID card system, as the watcher state closes in upon us, can one imagine, I wonder, the day when we are all embedded with a microchip at birth, rather like the one described by Assistant Director Simon? Eat your heart out, George Orwell.

Blair and bin Laden: comrades in extremism?

Having recently posted on the mad antics of George W. Bush in the Middle East, I feel I must add a comment on the recent musings of former British prime minister Tony Blair. Despite Blair being famously known as Bush's poodle, I always believed he was an intellectual cut above his master. Now, judging by a recent speech he gave in Toronto, I'm having my doubts.

Incredibly, Blair claimed in his presentation that Muslims have no legitimate grievance against the West. Muslim rage against us is, according to Tony, due to their internal contradictions, nothing to do with anything we have done. He then went on to justify making war against the Islamists.

Nothing to do with what the West has done? Nothing to do with Britain and the United States destroying the first Islamic democracy in the Middle East in Iran in the 1950s? Nothing to do with destroying the latest Islamic democracy in the Middle East in Palestine? Nothing to do with wrecking their democracies on the one hand while on the other hand supporting dictators like the Sauds who oppress them? Nothing to do with imposing Israel on them and then standing idly by while the Palestinians are ethnically cleansed and robbed of their land? Nothing to do with reducing Iraq to a bloody chaos that is costing tens of thousands of Muslim lives, creating millions of refugees and breaking and scattering the heritage of the world's oldest civilization?

I could go on at length, but it's hardly necessary. Anyone even superficially aware of the long and sordid history of Islam and the West knows the Muslims have legitimate and profound grievances. Did Blair assume his audience of 2,000 Canadians was composed of unlettered rustics? Apparently. He showed the same contempt for them he shows for history.

While pondering the extreme nature of his views, another gentleman of similarly extreme views popped into my mind. Somewhere in the wilds of Pakistan, Osama bin Laden is insisting all the troubles of Islam are due to the West, and therefore Islam is justified in using violence against the West to defend its values. And in the wilds of Toronto, Tony Blair insists none of the problems of Islam are due to the West, so we are justified in using violence against Islam to defend our values. Two extreme views. One the mirror image of the other. Both immersed in self-righteousness.

The fact that Blair is the now a "peace" envoy to the Middle East makes one despair. Is this yet another act of arrogance by the West?

Has Bush gone completely freaking crazy?

What kind of a man saunters into a neighbourhood and tries to turn neighbour against neighbour? And then provides guns to one of the neighbours? And does all this in the most volatile neighbourhood in the world? A mad man? A psychopath? This is certainly more than simple trouble-making. This is evil. Yet this is exactly what U.S. President George W. Bush has been doing in the Middle East: Encouraging the Persian Gulf Arabs to "confront" Iran while peddling a multibillion-dollar arms deal to them, including advanced weaponry for the misogynists who rule Saudi Arabia.

While Bush makes his mischief, the Gulf states attempt to improve relationships. For example, Saudi Arabia recently invited Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to the annual hajj pilgrimage, an honour Ahmadinejad gracefully accepted. That old peace-maker trade continues to flourish in the area driven by merchant families with members in both Iran and Arab states, despite American efforts to discourage these age-old patterns. The United Arab Emirates are the repository of hundreds of millions of dollars of Iranian investment. Historical ethnic and economic ties between the Gulf Arabs and Iran cry out for peace in the region.

But it is not only in the interests of the residents that we have calm in the Gulf. It is in the interests of all of us.

And does the Bush administration believe that Saudi Arabia is a safe place to deposit billions of dollars worth of arms? The country is seething with extremists in government and without. Have they forgotten where most of the 9/11 bombers came from? Have they forgotten the result of arming the mujahideen in Afghanistan? Have they forgotten the result of arming America's former ally Saddam Hussein? Does the word "blowback" not resonate in their ears? Do the Americans ever learn?

They are engaged in folly. We can only hope the Arabs will show more sense and spare the world yet another blood bath in the region. We might also hope the next president of the United States will consider finally relieving his nation of the white man's burden.

Harper's Palestine policy: sucking up to the Aspers?

That the Conservatives should side strongly with the Jews over the Arabs in Palestine is to be expected. Conservatives, after all, are inclined to support the haves over the have-nots. I suspect in this case, however, there is a more immediate political reason. The most powerful media organization in this country is the Asper family's CanWest Global which owns five of the country's top ten newspapers, including one of the two national papers, as well as one of the two private TV networks. And the Aspers are aggressively pro-Israel.

It has been said that Rupert Murdoch is the world's most powerful man because of his vast global media holdings. He can make or break politicians with a flick of his rhetorical wrist. The Aspers might well be considered Canada's version of Rupert Murdoch. The prime minister may be the most powerful man in the country at any moment, but while prime ministers come and go, the Aspers' media empire goes on and on. Offending them is politically risky. Currying favour with them, particularly on an issue dear to their hearts, is politically astute. And Harper is nothing if not politically astute.

A carbon tax: responsible, moral and fair

When I was little, I was instructed at my mother's knee that if I made a mess I should clean it up. It was one of those rule of life things -- a moral imperative, if you like. I may even have been over-instructed because I confess to being somewhat anal about it. If, for example, I see someone toss candy wrappers on the street or leave their garbage in a public park, it annoys me. How dare someone show such disrespect for the property of others, for the public domain, a righteous little voice inside me complains. And yet I do the same thing myself all the time.

When I drive my car down the street, it emits a cloud of noxious vapours into the air, the very air everyone else has to breathe. My garbage may not be visible, but it is surely there and it makes a much fouler mess than candy wrappers or picnic trash. But how do I remain true to my mother's instructions and clean it up?

I could stop driving of course but seeing as I, an inveterate walker, do less than 3,000 kilometres a year in my little Honda civic, I feel that's asking rather a lot of me. And if I should rely on buses or planes ... well, they dump a similar garbage. And yet the little voice nags at me.

Fortunately there is a solution, and it doesn't involve attaching a balloon to my exhaust and dropping it in the trash bin when I get home. It is a carbon tax. If I am required to pay a tax on the gasoline I buy, and that tax is dedicated to reducing pollution, then I am, indirectly at least, cleaning up after myself.

So, I say to our governments, bring it on. Carbon tax us. Insist that I, and all the others out there littering public space with their foul gaseous messes, clean up after ourselves, or at least compensate for our behaviour. It is morally responsible and it is fair. The more you pollute, the more you pay. Mothers everywhere would approve.