For decades now the right wing in Alberta, which has been in control of the province for that whole time, has made no bones about not giving a damn about the rest of the country. They've been very forthright about it--firewalls, letting the Eastern bastards (and incidentally any stray non-Albertan Western bastards) freeze in the dark, all that. So now we have Mulcair talking about Albertan oil causing Dutch disease for the rest of Canada, which it clearly does, and suggesting that we need to take measures to defend the country and its non-oil industries from this. And we have British …
[Read more...]

So the good people at Dammit Janet! are having an argument with certain other bloggers who apparently also belong to "Progressive Bloggers", and with the site administrators of "Progressive Bloggers", and have left "Progressive Bloggers" as a result. OK, I don't have anything to add to what has already been said about that. Just wanted to say that in my never-humble opinion, Dammit Janet are right, and those two guys (it would be guys) are wrong and so are the site admins at Progblogs. This would seem to be a post without much point, but I didn't feel I could fail to speak up in solidarity, …
[Read more...]

First, that figure the auditor general has been talking about, that $25 billion. While it's a useful number to know about as a demonstration the Cons were hiding things, we shouldn't take it as a serious guide to how much the damn things would cost. Sure, it's a figure for internal use, but it's still a happy happy figure produced by a defense establishment in groupthink mode trying hard to sell the particular plane they wanted. It was there to reassure the rubes in the upper echelons of the bureaucracy that they weren't rubes, only the public and the Mushrooms of Parliament were rubes. …
[Read more...]

So Mulcair has been elected leader of the NDP. His supporters are saying he is the greatest thing since sliced bread, that he is the only one who had a chance of rallying Quebec or of standing up to Harper, and that a centrist tilt such as they expect from him is the only way to win. None of these things are true. His detractors are mostly saying that he will be a disaster, that he is some sort of unholy combination of an Ignatieff parachuted into the party who will drag it down to irrelevance, and a Harper-clone who will ruthlessly take control of the party, crushing all vestiges of party …
[Read more...]

No, really. I support a negotiated settlement to the troubles in Syria, and a stop to the arming of rebels and mercenaries against the regime. It so happens that Al Quaeda, to the contrary, has publicly come out saying it wants the Syrian regime toppled violently. So at a simple factual level, if you support violent "regime change" in Syria, you happen to be on the side of the terrorists. Also the not-officially-admitted-to-be terrorists, i.e. the US--strange bedfellows and all that. Not often someone gets to be on both their sides at the same time. Just saying. I mean, it's such a …
[Read more...]

Centrist and leftist economists have been spending a lot of column inches wondering what has possessed the European central bank top brass lately. Even some mainstream to right-wing economists seem disturbed. The general consensus seems to be that the European crisis could have been avoided by the ECB acting as lender of last resort and stating its determination to continue doing so. This would guarantee low interest rates for European countries' debt, undercutting both fears of default and attempts to profit by running up those rates. The countries would be mostly solvent if interest …
[Read more...]

The rise of finance may be the death knell of the system as we know it. I'd like to sketch out a notion of the difference between what you might call normal or traditional capitalism and the kind of finance-oriented capitalism we're seeing right now. Traditionally, the idea was that you had production happening and it could be made, well, more productive. But, the story might go, ordinary joe shmoes, or feudal nobility, had little interest in making things more productive. That isn't really true, but letting it go for the moment. Enter the capitalist. By taking a chunk of the value of …
[Read more...]

The rise of finance may be the death knell of the system as we know it. I'd like to sketch out a notion of the difference between what you might call normal or traditional capitalism and the kind of finance-oriented capitalism we're seeing right now. Traditionally, the idea was that you had production happening and it could be made, well, more productive. But, the story might go, ordinary joe shmoes, or feudal nobility, had little interest in making things more productive. That isn't really true, but letting it go for the moment. Enter the capitalist. By taking a chunk of the value of …
[Read more...]

These "occupy Wall street" protestors and the various satellite venues have been letting the side down in no uncertain terms. The media have rightly been very severe on this issue, and the pictures also make it clear. It is glaringly evident that not just a few, but many of the people who show up to these events, much less the one who camp there day in and day out, have been just strikingly poorly dressed. I understand that many of them are young. After all, unemployment is far higher among the young, the massive student debts and unaffordability of housing strike them far harder, and if …
[Read more...]

I often complain, online and in person, about declining wages. Whether it's a more formal talk about how median wages have flatlined or worse by the numbers, or just an airing of the sense that key things are way more expensive than they used to be and it takes two full-time wage earners to get by where in the sixties or seventies it took only one, it's something a lot of people are worried or pissed off about. Sometimes an objection is raised: Our apparently lower standard of living is in part because we get things for our money that we never had to pay for before, extra add-ons that we …
[Read more...]

The story goes that after the Vietnam war a US officer, unable to understand or accept US defeat, pointed out to general Giap, "We won every battle", to which general Giap responded "That may well be true. It is also irrelevant." US foreign policy is over the medium term helping the US decline. While no individual occupation or war is the new Vietnam, the overall arc of their foreign policy is. Every new intervention is staged largely to benefit certain narrow US elites, while the cost comes from the country as a whole. The elites gain a net benefit, but the country generally loses more …
[Read more...]

On the question of the mooted Liberal-NDP merger, I don't have much interest in the question directly. The main thing it says to me is, you know the Liberals are in trouble when the only way they can get a headline is by talking about the NDP. Meanwhile, the media seem to be trying to rubbish the NDP through all this generation of controversy, talking about "will they merge", "will they fight over whether they will merge", "will the leadership race cause divisions in the party" yadda yadda. But I don't mind. All I hear is "The NDP leadership race is important", "The policies the NDP chooses …
[Read more...]

I've seen a lot of people talk about hope dying, Jack being irreplaceable and so on. Not everyone by any means, which is good, but too dashed many. To those people I want to say, read the man's letter. Jack is in a sense irreplaceable--there will never be an activist or leader quite like him again. But here's what he said about that: "There will be those who will try to persuade you to give up our cause. But that cause is much bigger than any one leader. Answer them by recommitting with energy and determination to our work." And that's what people will do. Jack Layton is like Obi Wan …
[Read more...]

So I was in Madrid a few days ago. I'd have posted quicker, but had trouble with internet access. But here I am at an internet cafe in Toledo and can report on events in Madrid. I don't know if anyone's heard, but there have been big time protests in Madrid, mainly at a central plaza called the Puerta del Sol. The biggest crowds and highest energy I saw were Saturday night, but my camera was on the fritz at the time. However, these folks have settled in rather. There's a tent city occupying most of the plaza, the walls are covered with text, everyone seems to be doing up posters, writing …
[Read more...]

So I was in Madrid a few days ago. I'd have posted quicker, but had trouble with internet access. But here I am at an internet cafe in Toledo and can report on events in Madrid. I don't know if anyone's heard, but there have been big time protests in Madrid, mainly at a central plaza called the Puerta del Sol. The biggest crowds and highest energy I saw were Saturday night, but my camera was on the fritz at the time. However, these folks have settled in rather. There's a tent city occupying most of the plaza, the walls are covered with text, everyone seems to be doing up posters, writing …
[Read more...]

So I was in Madrid a few days ago. I'd have posted quicker, but had trouble with internet access. But here I am at an internet cafe in Toledo and can report on events in Madrid. I don't know if anyone's heard, but there have been big time protests in Madrid, mainly at a central plaza called the Puerta del Sol. The biggest crowds and highest energy I saw were Saturday night, but my camera was on the fritz at the time. However, these folks have settled in rather. There's a tent city occupying most of the plaza, the walls are covered with text, everyone seems to be doing up posters, writing …
[Read more...]

So I was in Madrid a few days ago. I'd have posted quicker, but had trouble with internet access. But here I am at an internet cafe in Toledo and can report on events in Madrid. I don't know if anyone's heard, but there have been big time protests in Madrid, mainly at a central plaza called the Puerta del Sol. The biggest crowds and highest energy I saw were Saturday night, but my camera was on the fritz at the time. However, these folks have settled in rather. There's a tent city occupying most of the plaza, the walls are covered with text, everyone seems to be doing up posters, writing …
[Read more...]

So I was in Madrid a few days ago. I'd have posted quicker, but had trouble with internet access. But here I am at an internet cafe in Toledo and can report on events in Madrid. I don't know if anyone's heard, but there have been big time protests in Madrid, mainly at a central plaza called the Puerta del Sol. The biggest crowds and highest energy I saw were Saturday night, but my camera was on the fritz at the time. However, these folks have settled in rather. There's a tent city occupying most of the plaza, the walls are covered with text, everyone seems to be doing up posters, writing …
[Read more...]

So I was in Madrid a few days ago. I'd have posted quicker, but had trouble with internet access. But here I am at an internet cafe in Toledo and can report on events in Madrid. I don't know if anyone's heard, but there have been big time protests in Madrid, mainly at a central plaza called the Puerta del Sol. The biggest crowds and highest energy I saw were Saturday night, but my camera was on the fritz at the time. However, these folks have settled in rather. There's a tent city occupying most of the plaza, the walls are covered with text, everyone seems to be doing up posters, writing …
[Read more...]

So I was in Madrid a few days ago. I'd have posted quicker, but had trouble with internet access. But here I am at an internet cafe in Toledo and can report on events in Madrid. I don't know if anyone's heard, but there have been big time protests in Madrid, mainly at a central plaza called the Puerta del Sol. The biggest crowds and highest energy I saw were Saturday night, but my camera was on the fritz at the time. However, these folks have settled in rather. There's a tent city occupying most of the plaza, the walls are covered with text, everyone seems to be doing up posters, writing …
[Read more...]

So I was in Madrid a few days ago. I'd have posted quicker, but had trouble with internet access. But here I am at an internet cafe in Toledo and can report on events in Madrid. I don't know if anyone's heard, but there have been big time protests in Madrid, mainly at a central plaza called the Puerta del Sol. The biggest crowds and highest energy I saw were Saturday night, but my camera was on the fritz at the time. However, these folks have settled in rather. There's a tent city occupying most of the plaza, the walls are covered with text, everyone seems to be doing up posters, writing …
[Read more...]

So I was in Madrid a few days ago. I'd have posted quicker, but had trouble with internet access. But here I am at an internet cafe in Toledo and can report on events in Madrid. I don't know if anyone's heard, but there have been big time protests in Madrid, mainly at a central plaza called the Puerta del Sol. The biggest crowds and highest energy I saw were Saturday night, but my camera was on the fritz at the time. However, these folks have settled in rather. There's a tent city occupying most of the plaza, the walls are covered with text, everyone seems to be doing up posters, writing …
[Read more...]

So I was in Madrid a few days ago. I'd have posted quicker, but had trouble with internet access. But here I am at an internet cafe in Toledo and can report on events in Madrid. I don't know if anyone's heard, but there have been big time protests in Madrid, mainly at a central plaza called the Puerta del Sol. The biggest crowds and highest energy I saw were Saturday night, but my camera was on the fritz at the time. However, these folks have settled in rather. There's a tent city occupying most of the plaza, the walls are covered with text, everyone seems to be doing up posters, writing …
[Read more...]

So I was in Madrid a few days ago. I'd have posted quicker, but had trouble with internet access. But here I am at an internet cafe in Toledo and can report on events in Madrid. I don't know if anyone's heard, but there have been big time protests in Madrid, mainly at a central plaza called the Puerta del Sol. The biggest crowds and highest energy I saw were Saturday night, but my camera was on the fritz at the time. However, these folks have settled in rather. There's a tent city occupying most of the plaza, the walls are covered with text, everyone seems to be doing up posters, writing …
[Read more...]

So I was in Madrid a few days ago. I'd have posted quicker, but had trouble with internet access. But here I am at an internet cafe in Toledo and can report on events in Madrid. I don't know if anyone's heard, but there have been big time protests in Madrid, mainly at a central plaza called the Puerta del Sol. The biggest crowds and highest energy I saw were Saturday night, but my camera was on the fritz at the time. However, these folks have settled in rather. There's a tent city occupying most of the plaza, the walls are covered with text, everyone seems to be doing up posters, writing …
[Read more...]

So I was in Madrid a few days ago. I'd have posted quicker, but had trouble with internet access. But here I am at an internet cafe in Toledo and can report on events in Madrid. I don't know if anyone's heard, but there have been big time protests in Madrid, mainly at a central plaza called the Puerta del Sol. The biggest crowds and highest energy I saw were Saturday night, but my camera was on the fritz at the time. However, these folks have settled in rather. There's a tent city occupying most of the plaza, the walls are covered with text, everyone seems to be doing up posters, writing …
[Read more...]

So I was in Madrid a few days ago. I'd have posted quicker, but had trouble with internet access. But here I am at an internet cafe in Toledo and can report on events in Madrid. I don't know if anyone's heard, but there have been big time protests in Madrid, mainly at a central plaza called the Puerta del Sol. The biggest crowds and highest energy I saw were Saturday night, but my camera was on the fritz at the time. However, these folks have settled in rather. There's a tent city occupying most of the plaza, the walls are covered with text, everyone seems to be doing up posters, writing …
[Read more...]

So I was in Madrid a few days ago. I'd have posted quicker, but had trouble with internet access. But here I am at an internet cafe in Toledo and can report on events in Madrid. I don't know if anyone's heard, but there have been big time protests in Madrid, mainly at a central plaza called the Puerta del Sol. The biggest crowds and highest energy I saw were Saturday night, but my camera was on the fritz at the time. However, these folks have settled in rather. There's a tent city occupying most of the plaza, the walls are covered with text, everyone seems to be doing up posters, writing …
[Read more...]

So I was in Madrid a few days ago. I'd have posted quicker, but had trouble with internet access. But here I am at an internet cafe in Toledo and can report on events in Madrid. I don't know if anyone's heard, but there have been big time protests in Madrid, mainly at a central plaza called the Puerta del Sol. The biggest crowds and highest energy I saw were Saturday night, but my camera was on the fritz at the time. However, these folks have settled in rather. There's a tent city occupying most of the plaza, the walls are covered with text, everyone seems to be doing up posters, writing …
[Read more...]

So I was in Madrid a few days ago. I'd have posted quicker, but had trouble with internet access. But here I am at an internet cafe in Toledo and can report on events in Madrid. I don't know if anyone's heard, but there have been big time protests in Madrid, mainly at a central plaza called the Puerta del Sol. The biggest crowds and highest energy I saw were Saturday night, but my camera was on the fritz at the time. However, these folks have settled in rather. There's a tent city occupying most of the plaza, the walls are covered with text, everyone seems to be doing up posters, writing …
[Read more...]

So I was in Madrid a few days ago. I'd have posted quicker, but had trouble with internet access. But here I am at an internet cafe in Toledo and can report on events in Madrid. I don't know if anyone's heard, but there have been big time protests in Madrid, mainly at a central plaza called the Puerta del Sol. The biggest crowds and highest energy I saw were Saturday night, but my camera was on the fritz at the time. However, these folks have settled in rather. There's a tent city occupying most of the plaza, the walls are covered with text, everyone seems to be doing up posters, writing …
[Read more...]

So I was in Madrid a few days ago. I'd have posted quicker, but had trouble with internet access. But here I am at an internet cafe in Toledo and can report on events in Madrid. I don't know if anyone's heard, but there have been big time protests in Madrid, mainly at a central plaza called the Puerta del Sol. The biggest crowds and highest energy I saw were Saturday night, but my camera was on the fritz at the time. However, these folks have settled in rather. There's a tent city occupying most of the plaza, the walls are covered with text, everyone seems to be doing up posters, writing …
[Read more...]

So I was in Madrid a few days ago. I'd have posted quicker, but had trouble with internet access. But here I am at an internet cafe in Toledo and can report on events in Madrid. I don't know if anyone's heard, but there have been big time protests in Madrid, mainly at a central plaza called the Puerta del Sol. The biggest crowds and highest energy I saw were Saturday night, but my camera was on the fritz at the time. However, these folks have settled in rather. There's a tent city occupying most of the plaza, the walls are covered with text, everyone seems to be doing up posters, writing …
[Read more...]

So I was in Madrid a few days ago. I'd have posted quicker, but had trouble with internet access. But here I am at an internet cafe in Toledo and can report on events in Madrid. I don't know if anyone's heard, but there have been big time protests in Madrid, mainly at a central plaza called the Puerta del Sol. The biggest crowds and highest energy I saw were Saturday night, but my camera was on the fritz at the time. However, these folks have settled in rather. There's a tent city occupying most of the plaza, the walls are covered with text, everyone seems to be doing up posters, writing …
[Read more...]

So I was in Madrid a few days ago. I'd have posted quicker, but had trouble with internet access. But here I am at an internet cafe in Toledo and can report on events in Madrid. I don't know if anyone's heard, but there have been big time protests in Madrid, mainly at a central plaza called the Puerta del Sol. The biggest crowds and highest energy I saw were Saturday night, but my camera was on the fritz at the time. However, these folks have settled in rather. There's a tent city occupying most of the plaza, the walls are covered with text, everyone seems to be doing up posters, writing …
[Read more...]

So I was in Madrid a few days ago. I'd have posted quicker, but had trouble with internet access. But here I am at an internet cafe in Toledo and can report on events in Madrid. I don't know if anyone's heard, but there have been big time protests in Madrid, mainly at a central plaza called the Puerta del Sol. The biggest crowds and highest energy I saw were Saturday night, but my camera was on the fritz at the time. However, these folks have settled in rather. There's a tent city occupying most of the plaza, the walls are covered with text, everyone seems to be doing up posters, writing …
[Read more...]

So I was in Madrid a few days ago. I'd have posted quicker, but had trouble with internet access. But here I am at an internet cafe in Toledo and can report on events in Madrid. I don't know if anyone's heard, but there have been big time protests in Madrid, mainly at a central plaza called the Puerta del Sol. The biggest crowds and highest energy I saw were Saturday night, but my camera was on the fritz at the time. However, these folks have settled in rather. There's a tent city occupying most of the plaza, the walls are covered with text, everyone seems to be doing up posters, writing …
[Read more...]

So I was in Madrid a few days ago. I'd have posted quicker, but had trouble with internet access. But here I am at an internet cafe in Toledo and can report on events in Madrid. I don't know if anyone's heard, but there have been big time protests in Madrid, mainly at a central plaza called the Puerta del Sol. The biggest crowds and highest energy I saw were Saturday night, but my camera was on the fritz at the time. However, these folks have settled in rather. There's a tent city occupying most of the plaza, the walls are covered with text, everyone seems to be doing up posters, writing …
[Read more...]

So I was in Madrid a few days ago. I'd have posted quicker, but had trouble with internet access. But here I am at an internet cafe in Toledo and can report on events in Madrid. I don't know if anyone's heard, but there have been big time protests in Madrid, mainly at a central plaza called the Puerta del Sol. The biggest crowds and highest energy I saw were Saturday night, but my camera was on the fritz at the time. However, these folks have settled in rather. There's a tent city occupying most of the plaza, the walls are covered with text, everyone seems to be doing up posters, writing …
[Read more...]

So I was in Madrid a few days ago. I'd have posted quicker, but had trouble with internet access. But here I am at an internet cafe in Toledo and can report on events in Madrid. I don't know if anyone's heard, but there have been big time protests in Madrid, mainly at a central plaza called the Puerta del Sol. The biggest crowds and highest energy I saw were Saturday night, but my camera was on the fritz at the time. However, these folks have settled in rather. There's a tent city occupying most of the plaza, the walls are covered with text, everyone seems to be doing up posters, writing …
[Read more...]