The Canadian - American Pollution Fight

"It's really dumb to lecture them (the Americans) at a global forum on global warming, when Canada has been notoriously far more profligate in its greenhouse gas emissions than the United States. That's simple hypocrisy and the Americans are smart enough to know that." From an article in the BBC

Okay, the United States does have a better record than Canada on reducing greenhouse gases even though Canada has ratified the Kyoto agreement and the USA has not.

But let's look deeper at the US drop on emisssions. The last few years have seen rampant corporate corruption in the USA (Enron, etc) which wiped out the savings of a lot of regular people, at any given time 138 000 workers are out of the country to fight in Iraq, and we all witnessed the destruction of New Orleans. There have been announced layoffs at GM and Ford, none of these things bode well for the economy but may have a positive impact on pollution levels.

On the other Canada has large oil reserves and has seen growth in the oil and gas sector and helped to supply China's booming economy with raw materials. The Canadian dollar is higher and unemployment is lower than they have been in decades. Foriegn investors such as Toyota have off-set some of the lull in the North American auto sector in Canada. So yes, Canadian emissions have gone up. This is wrong but we have not many of the recent economic issues the Americans have, and I am not sure the American reduction has much to do with American priorities.

Racial Differences and Genetic Relations

More data on the myth of race

From the Article:

Because modern humans originated in Africa, genetic variation among people of African descent tend to be the greatest of all ethnic groups. That means that a person of African descent and a European can be more closely related genetically than two people of African descent, he said. For example, Ethiopians with dark skin are more closely related genetically to Europeans than to West Africans, he said.

Operation Valkyrie?: The Generals Against Bush

The Generals are now against the Bush War

From the Article

"Defense budgets are being cut. Personnel costs are skyrocketing, particularly in health care. Choices will have to be made. We cannot allow promises we have made to our military families in terms of service benefits, in terms of their health care to be negotiated away. Procurement programs that ensure our military dominance cannot be negotiated away. We must be prepared.

"The war in Iraq has caused huge shortfalls in our bases at home. I've been to three bases in the United States, and each one of them were short of things they need to train the people going to Iraq.

"Much of our ground equipment is worn out.

"Most importantly -- this is the most important point -- incidents have increased from 150 a week to over 700 in the last year. Instead of attacks going down over a time when we had additional more troops, attacks have grown dramatically. Since the revolution at Abu Ghraib, American casualties have doubled."

Sorry for the lame commentary, but this is an article worth reading