Double Standards

Paypal: "We cannot in good conscience support the whistleblower site Wikileaks. But the KKK is fine in our books."
Visa, Mastercard: "We concur. The poor governments of the world need protecting, but what's a few lynchings between friends?"

I know satire's been dead for a while now, but damn.

Cookies > Media

Here's Steve Duckett ducking questions by reporters by eating a cookie.


"I'm Eating My Cookie!" - Watch more Funny Videos


For context, this is the conservative hatchet-man who was responsible for bringing in private health care during his time in Australia.  Now he's President and CEO of Alberta Health Services, and is no doubt planning to drown that province's health care system in the tub in the name of profit.

His contempt for the public really couldn't be any more palpable, could it?

Another Nation May Back Out of the ACTA

This time it's Mexico.

The ACTA stands for the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, basically a bunch of international standards on intellectual property and copyright that's being hammered out by a bunch of different countries - including Canada.  (This is why the Tories want to pass bill C-32, to get us up to snuff with the ACTA should it pass.  This is a topic on which blogger Michael Geist has written at length, and he's far more informed and up-to-date on this issue than I am.  Head over to his blog if you want to educate yourself.)

Thing is, a lot of the nations involved in the negotiations have become less and less keen as time has gone on.  The EU parliament, for example, is making noises that they may ultimately reject the agreement due to a lack of transparency throughout the process, combined with worry about "giving governments a blank cheque to write draconian anti-counterfeiting laws that endanger citizens' fundamental freedoms."  Many have also suggested that some parts of the ACTA have proven to be overly preferential to corporate interests.

And Mexico's now unofficially rejected the ACTA in a non-binding agreement.  Which may amount to nothing, but is more likely an indicator that Mexico's going to make its withdrawal official pretty soon.

Canada's still all up ons, though.  So, congratulations, Canadians!  Our government is now officially more secretive and beholden to corporate interests than Mexico's government.

The Take

In 2004, the National Film Board of Canada released a 90-minute documentary about workers reclaiming factories in Argentina. It's a very uplifting film that shows a socialist movement at its purest, and it's available in its entirety on Google Video. Worth a watch, not the least of which is for its cautionary aspects; it's not such a stretch of the imagination that the West - or at least the bulk of the non-rich population of the West - could find itself in a similar situation as Argentinians found themselves in, if we continue to let corporate interests rule in the public sphere.

Remote Switches "Too Expensive"

Over at TNR, William Galston asks some rather pertinent questions regarding the loosening of deep-sea oil drilling safety measures around 2003.

Second, the oil well now spewing large quantities of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico lacked a remote-control acoustic shutoff switch used by rigs in Norway and Brazil as the last line of defense against underwater spills. There’s a story behind that. As the Journal reports, after a spill in 2000, the MMS issued a safety notice saying that such a back-up device is “an essential component of a deepwater drilling system.” The industry pushed back in 2001, citing alleged doubts about the capacity of this type of system to provide a reliable emergency backup. By 2003, government regulators decided that the matter needed more study after commissioning a report that offered another, more honest reason: “acoustic systems are not recommended because they tend to be very costly.” I guess that depends on what they’re compared to. The system costs about $500,000 per rig. BP is spending at least $5 million per day battling the spill, the well destroyed by the explosion is valued at $560 million, and estimated damages to fishing, tourism, and the environment already run into the billions.

Ah, the power of hindsight.

Definitely worth reading the full article, though.

Louisiana Coast Oil Spill

By now, anyone who reads this has, I'm certain, heard about the sinking of the BP oil rig off the coast of Louisiana. Well, the Boston Globe has just published a series of photos on the disaster, and it's truly apocalyptic.

Some suggest that the disaster may already be at Exxon Valdez levels, in terms of oil spilt. Of course, the Exxon Valdez spill took place is an enclosed bay where the oil couldn't spread too far... Here, the damage can spread over a much wider area, with devastating results for a number of industries. This presents a pretty clear danger to the Louisiana swamplands, which are of great ecological importance as well (swamplands are precious for a number of reasons, including the number of species that depend on them and their value as carbon sinks.)

Obviously, this bad situation is getting worse. And you know what? If a hurricane hits before this is under control, the entire region could be screwed.

I've read speculation BP Plc might have the ability to stop the leak quite quickly, but it would mean giving up on the well (they'd have to basically collapse the pipeline) and they're still working to save the rig. In order words, if this is true, all this devastation is deemed worth it in order to ensure the well is up and working again in three months. I pray I'm wrong about that, that this speculation is wrong... Because those photos are depressing enough as it is.

UPDATE: Markk II Studios lays out the likely scenarios resulting from the spill. I can't find any obvious flaws in his analysis, sadly.

Also, BP has kinda-sorta admitted their... well, responsibility, if not culpability. Over at HuffPo.