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The Canadian election is set to happen in less than 24 hours now and it is looking like the Conservative party is going to get another minority.

While in a perfect world I would be voting Green there is a very real possibility in this election that voting Green could give the Tories a majority by splitting the green vote between Green and Liberals. Therefore, I have decided to vote for the environment. By giving my vote to the Liberals I am supporting a great environmental policy in the Green Shift, which in terms of climate change is the same policy as the Greens.

In my riding of Vancouver Kingsway there is really no chance that the conservatives could get in given the whole Emerson episode, yet, there is quite a bit of support for the NDP and I really don’t like Jack Layton nor the NDP environmental policies.

If ou are interested in strategic voting then check out Vote for Environment and see what it looks like in your riding.

I haven’t blogged much as of late due to the unusually large (well maybe just normal) amount of work to be done around here. Grid 3.2 is getting dialed and we are really trying to make a big push to improve the stability and the our entire component platform.

Anyways, in a few spare moments this morning I was perusing Craigslist, as you do, in search of a few things ranging from a turntable to an old blender to a bike trailer … or anything in between. I haven’t been on for a while and generally ignore the links along the top of the posts trying to get people to download firefox or report bad posts etc. I looked at that today and noticed that one of the links there is to a Google search about Peak Oil. Of course for those that don’t know, peak oil is the idea that oil is a non-renewable resource and will therefore eventually be used up. This is destined to happen sooner than later and will really put a monkey wrench in the machinery of capitalism, which literally runs on oil.

It is nice to see that Craigslist is keeping it real! I sure hope that Craig either cycles to work at the very least uses a clean fuel car (and that does not include the ones that are charged with electricity generated by burning coal out in Nevada).

Climate talks in Montreal are starting today and Richard Black at the BBC seems to think that they will not get anywhere [1] …

Well of course they won’t get anywhere! When it comes down to weighing the livelihoods of some poor Bangladeshis against Americans who _need_ to heat their entire 3000 square foot homes to 23C in the dead of winter or wage wars in the name of oil I think we know who will come out on top. If George really cared about bringing “freedom” to oppressed people around the world then he could start by looking at how the merciless tyranny (blatantly unfair “globalisation” trade rules, climate change, war for oil, etc) of America keeps the world’s poor poor while the rich keep getting richer.

The whole idea of Kyoto is simply ridiculous. Yes, let’s make some outrageously low targets for greenhouse gas emissions that the largest emitters will not even sign up to and after which everyone will realize that the economics don’t work out and so we will all just emit even more to make up for the slow growth in GDP. When will the general public realize that the whole thing is a sham - oh that’s right they won’t.

Just like the “Make Poverty History” crap and Live8 which was deemed a great success by Geldof and made everyone feel warm and fuzzy so they don’t have to think about the poor little children who suffered making the next pair of shoes they buy. It is just like in the recent Dukes of Hazard movie - Hogg (aka George Bush, Tony Blair et al) is just using slight of hand damn it! In everything they do! “Yes we are abolishing $40 billion in debt to Africa” all the while they are just planning on making it actually benefit themselves and their own nations by not having to give that equivalent amount of money in aid and likely getting lucrative natural resource contracts etc. Boss Hogg was going to turn Hazard into a strip mine but the good people of Hazard were complacent and didn’t believe the armadillo helmet wearing crazy guy. Thanks to people like Luke and Bo, Hazard was not destroyed - the problem is that even though we have respectable scientists and campaigners telling everyone that the world is going to end up like a strip mine still no one is listening! Where is Daisy when you need her!

[1] Climate talks - hoops and hot air

I have been uber busy of late and neglecting the old blog.

But with all the activity over at the White House I can’t keep quiet.

For all the details check out this blog: Perturbed - Tuesday, November 15, 2005

First of all I have to say that American democracy _might_ be a complete sham. I am just thinking out loud here.

In the United States, one party gets elected to office based on promises made that their constituents believe in but when the chips are down (or even not) the elected people do whatever they want to and blatantly lie about it (or even not). Is this any better than some corrupt African puppet government? It is pretty much the same except that corporate America is in bed with the Government and just enough of the money trickles down to keep the masses who are working hard to get more money and not questioning why they have to work such long hours at Wal-Mart for their whopping $5 an hour which will give back to corporate America when they go buy their Whopper.

As an example of their blatant lies, they have recently lied about the secret meetings between the “Energy Task Force” and oil company executives, lied about using white phosphorus in the war in Iraq, and vehemently denied the use of torture while lobbying to have it legalized. It does of course go on and on. Not to mention the fact that they deceived the entire country just to spend billions on a war for oil by claiming that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction - and now they have the gaul to joke about there not being any! I am sure the families of all those who were killed (on both sides) for a war fought to make George, his dad, Dick etc more money are laughing really hard …

Way to spread freedom and democracy George and then tell people who question you that they are not patriotic - I thought in a free democracy those in power are supposed to listen to the people, not belittle them??? If only someone would come to the aid of the American people who are suffering at the mercy of a corrupt government and a society held in the stranglehold of rampant “everyone for themselves” capitalism.

Of course it’s not much better north of the border.

In other news, enlightened people are still trying to fight the power.

With the excitment of Live 8 slowly fading from our memories people are rapidly reverting to their same old selves - and rightly so, thinking about difficult problems like poverty between sets of very rich and famous people who pretend to give two shits can be tough. Everyone just wants to get back to the simple life of shopping at Wal-Mart, driving their cars and demanding such low prices that Northern countries have no choice but to impose unfair trade rules on the poor South. We must maintaing the global apartheid after all.

But there is still a glimmer of hope! The 8 richest nations on earth, the G8 (the United States, Canada, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Russia), have recently told the media that they are writing off $40bn in debt that 18 of the poorest countries in the world owe to the 8 richest. Everyone is talking about how great this is - won’t they just have a nice time now. Well maybe not.

Although they no longer owe some $40bn, they will also no longer be benefitting from a similar amount of aid. Of course this is good since it will cut down on paperwork, and therefore jobs. This means that those countries which received the debt relief are hardly better off. And let us not forget that the majority of the problems in these countries were caused by Northern countries who either:
a) colonised those countries to get at natural resources
b) uphold unfair trade rules such that it is cheaper for an African to buy wheat from the United States than it is to buy it from their own backyard
c) support corrupt leaders for various reasons (usually war or natural resources)
d) support them to use their aid or oil money to buy arms from Northern countries
e) spend 25 times more on defence than on aid
f) pave the way for multinationals to have access to those markets
g) etc etc etc

Now that the Live 8 hype is over and the super rich and famous like Chris Martin, Madonna et al have derided us cynics as being “stupid” while relentlessly jet setting all over the world, all the “smart” groupies who attended Live 8 can can get back to their lives forgetting that there is even a place called Africa and the G8 protestors can do the real work … well they are somewhat misguided too as Monbiot points out.

The Canadian government in 2003 decided to reduce the corporate tax rate for natural resource companies. This includes but is certainly not limited to oil and gas companies. The tax rate for these companies is going to be reduced from 28% in 2002 to 21% in 2007. Furthermore, they are going to introduce a 10% tax credit for exploration.

According to the Globe Investor, the top 10 oil and gas companies in Canada had revenue of over $86 billion while the top 300 companies on the Globe Investor’s list had revenue of over $115 billion - the industry wide numbers quoted by the Canadian Association of Pretroleum Producers of $77.5 billion. If we assume that these companies have profits of about 5% then profits are around 5 billion. So if the Canadian government is reducing the tax rate by 7%, that would be equivalent to a government subsidy of $300 million a year. Add on top of that the 10% tax credit for exploration costs and you are looking at nearly $1 billion government subsidy for the oil and gas industry.

Now if you look at the Canadian government climate change website website you see how this corporate climate criminals tax break pales in comparison to what they are committing to the Renewable Energy Deployment Initiative (REDI) - a mere $51 million - only 5% of the tax breaks given to big oil.

It seems quite ironic that the government climate change website says “Taking Action on Climate Change - Together, we can do it” when in fact while claiming that they are doing something to combat climate chaos the government is promoting the use of fossil fuels!