"Man"
11 years ago
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Monday, September 28, 2009
the true story of pat tillman
A Soldier Martyr, Faked and True
Krakauer's latest lays bare the lies around NFL star Pat Tillman's death in Afghanistan.
By Sara Seltzer, Today, AlterNet.org
Tillman: Considered Bush a 'cowboy.'
Login/Register
Afghanistan Transforms Canada
To play junior partner to empire, we've militarized our identity.
The Real Costs of the War in Afghanistan
Fallen soldier thought Afghan mission 'useless': family
Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman
Jon Krakauer
Random House (2009)
Journalist Jon Krakauer is obsessed with people who make unfathomable choices, from a young man wandering in the wilderness in Into the Wild to climbers attempting Everest in Into Thin Air to polygamists hearing a call to violence in Under the Banner of Heaven. The subject of Krakauer's new book, Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman, is one of these. As we all know, Pat Tillman left the NFL in 2002 to enlist in the army, inspired to do his part in the service of a president he distrusted and later, a war he doubted. When Tillman was killed by friendly fire, the army and government engaged in a cover-up to turn him into a martyred hero. In this book, Krakauer exposes each step of the deception with persistent detail.
If Where Men Win Glory is less immediately gripping, less fluid and tense, than Krakauer's previous books, this is partly because the story he's telling is known, and painful. But the theme of our government's failure colliding with a young man's sense of duty has a relevance and moral immediacy that's hard to shake off.
Ultimately, Where Men Win Glory leaves you, as does Into the Wild, with a sense of futility and anger over the death of a young man that you knew was coming all along. While Krakauer levels his most scathing insults at the Bush administration and portrays the army chain of command as a bureaucratic, cover-your-ass nightmare, in this book the fog of war is the real culprit. As Krakauer told the Wall Street Journal, "There is nothing glamorous or romantic about war. It's mostly about random pointless death and misery. And that's what [Tillman's] death tells us. It reminds me that the good aren't rewarded, there's no such thing as karma."
Fatal decisions from behind desks
War, Krakauer writes, creates a climate that leads panicked men to gun down their brothers in cold blood at a staggeringly high rate in all recorded conflicts, and a climate that obscures mistakes and misdeeds (as is the case not just with friendly fire, but with crimes like sexual assault and the death of LaVena Johnson. It's a climate that leads commanders to make decisions from behind desks (as happened on the day Tillman died) that those on the ground deem unsafe but are powerless to disobey.
Krakauer begins with an account of that day. It begins with Tillman's lieutenant, David Uthlaut, begging his superiors not to split up his unit or have them travel in the daytime -- both huge risks -- but being denied both requests in order to conform to a pre-ordained timetable. Timetables, Krakauer notes disdainfully, were a particular obsession of Donald Rumsfields', enabling him to check off boxes on his war on terror.
After the first chapter, Where Men Win Glory backtracks, alternating the story of Tillman's early life and NFL career with the history of Afghanistan and the conflicts it has endured, creating a sense of dread as readers know what will happen when the two threads converge. Tillman's personality, enigmatic though it was, becomes clearer here: a young man who struggled to channel his existential angst and occasional aggression into constant self-improvement, who was never content being comfortable and continually pushed himself, running marathons and triathlons in the football off-season, taking death-defying cliff-dives, reading and discussing philosophy over drinks, and writing diary entries after bad football games exhorting himself to do better.
Tillman's diaries revealed doubts
Consumed with notions of honor, risk and service, this larger-than-life man was also a family rock and a devoted husband to his young wife, Marie, the bright-burning center of an extremely close-knit group of friends and relatives. Even the picture of Tillman on the book's back jacket -- long haired, intense with a slightly mischievous look in his eyes -- is worth a look, so different is it from the military portrait of Tillman used by the press.
At the same time as he illuminates this character, Krakauer sets the political stage for Tillman's death and its cover-up, describing the brutal Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, the role of the CIA and the mujahideen, the forming and re-forming alliances that led to the Taliban giving Osama Bin Laden safe haven. On our side, he mentions the disastrous Florida recount, getting in a jab at Scalia and Bush v. Gore, urgent memos about Bin Laden ignored by the Bush administration, and the "selling" and spinning of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Many readers will be aware of this history, but juxtaposing it with a life that will be ended by its trajectory creates a fresh sense of urgency and disbelief.
Perhaps the most incredible aspect of the book is its extensive excerpting from Tillman's diaries, granted to Krakauer by his widow Marie, and stories about his time deployed overseas, where he read The Odyssey and "Self-Reliance," and was shocked by the youth and immaturity of his co-enlistees. Tillman expresses his doubt about the Iraq War from its onset: "It may be very soon that Nub [his brother Kevin] & I will be called upon to take part in something I see no clear purpose for... I believe we have little or no justification other than our imperial whim," he wrote. On another occasion, he calls Bush a "cowboy." His other entries are eerily wise: Of Jessica Lynch, whose staged rescue he and his brother provided support for on their first tour of duty, he wrote, "As awful as I feel for the fear she must face, and admire the courage I'm sure she is showing, I do believe this to be a big Public Relations stunt..." He had faced an essential truth about the Lynch incident that it would take months for the American media to sort out. Of his brother Kevin in Iraq, he said "If anything happens to Kevin, and my fears of our intent in this country prove true, I will never forgive the world." Of course, the inverse ended up being true, with Kevin the surviving, disillusioned sibling. On his own account, Tillman confided in a friend his fear that if he were killed the army would parade him in the streets.
This ended up being the most prescient of all. After being sent to Afghanistan, Tillman was shot in the head by a machine-gunner from his own unit, which had been split up to make time. His shooter thought he was the enemy and his unit sprayed bullets wildly across the slope where Tillman was perched (one of his comrades recalls him yelling I'm "Pat fucking Tillman!" shortly before his death). His uniform and most tragically his notebook, where Krakauer tells us he'd scribbled thoughts on gender in Afghanistan, were put into a trash bag and burned, a blatant violation of protocol.
A cruel cover-up
And that was only the beginning of the secrecy. Even the book's less enthusiastic critics agree that with the evidence Krakauer's amassed and compiled, there's no way to deny the most horrible aspects of the cover-up, including orders to Tillman's comrades telling them to lie to his family at the funeral and another official cruelly explaining away the family's pursuit of the truth as a folly attributable to their atheism. Krakauer demonstrates that the willful deception went all the way up to the White House, when an e-mail from an army official exhorted President Bush not to mention the manner of Tillman's death, lest it prove "embarrassing" should the incident prove to be friendly fire (something the official already knew). This deceit, Krakauer notes, led one Tillman friend to leave the army and another to go AWOL, losing their faith in the institution they'd signed up for.
It may remain puzzling that someone with the streak of wisdom that Tillman clearly possessed chose to chance death anyway, even after a painful family intervention begging him not to enlist. But Krakauer gets it, as a kindred spirit who followed in Tillman's footsteps, like he has done for all his risk-taking subjects. (Tillman in turn was a fan of Krakauer's work, which is why Marie gave him access to the diaries). No win, either way Krakauer spent months embedded with the army in Afghanistan, resulting in an epilogue that paints a grim picture of our current situation there. Until Pakistan stops harboring insurgents, "it will be impossible for the United States and its allies to defeat al-Qaeda and the Taliban by military force," he writes. He adds that pulling out is an equally "no-win" prospect.
Krakauer is a good person to have on your side. He doggedly pursues the bigger picture, and weaves human stories and investigations together in such a way as to create the kind of gripping, stay-up all night narratives of which most novelists can only dream. Some critics in traditional print media miss Krakauer's straight adventure tales and find his political and skeptical muckraking less than convincing. But like Tillman, Krakauer's an iconoclast, distrustful of authorities or false ideals, and thus the perfect person to tell this story.
Krakauer's latest lays bare the lies around NFL star Pat Tillman's death in Afghanistan.
By Sara Seltzer, Today, AlterNet.org
Tillman: Considered Bush a 'cowboy.'
Login/Register
Afghanistan Transforms Canada
To play junior partner to empire, we've militarized our identity.
The Real Costs of the War in Afghanistan
Fallen soldier thought Afghan mission 'useless': family
Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman
Jon Krakauer
Random House (2009)
Journalist Jon Krakauer is obsessed with people who make unfathomable choices, from a young man wandering in the wilderness in Into the Wild to climbers attempting Everest in Into Thin Air to polygamists hearing a call to violence in Under the Banner of Heaven. The subject of Krakauer's new book, Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman, is one of these. As we all know, Pat Tillman left the NFL in 2002 to enlist in the army, inspired to do his part in the service of a president he distrusted and later, a war he doubted. When Tillman was killed by friendly fire, the army and government engaged in a cover-up to turn him into a martyred hero. In this book, Krakauer exposes each step of the deception with persistent detail.
If Where Men Win Glory is less immediately gripping, less fluid and tense, than Krakauer's previous books, this is partly because the story he's telling is known, and painful. But the theme of our government's failure colliding with a young man's sense of duty has a relevance and moral immediacy that's hard to shake off.
Ultimately, Where Men Win Glory leaves you, as does Into the Wild, with a sense of futility and anger over the death of a young man that you knew was coming all along. While Krakauer levels his most scathing insults at the Bush administration and portrays the army chain of command as a bureaucratic, cover-your-ass nightmare, in this book the fog of war is the real culprit. As Krakauer told the Wall Street Journal, "There is nothing glamorous or romantic about war. It's mostly about random pointless death and misery. And that's what [Tillman's] death tells us. It reminds me that the good aren't rewarded, there's no such thing as karma."
Fatal decisions from behind desks
War, Krakauer writes, creates a climate that leads panicked men to gun down their brothers in cold blood at a staggeringly high rate in all recorded conflicts, and a climate that obscures mistakes and misdeeds (as is the case not just with friendly fire, but with crimes like sexual assault and the death of LaVena Johnson. It's a climate that leads commanders to make decisions from behind desks (as happened on the day Tillman died) that those on the ground deem unsafe but are powerless to disobey.
Krakauer begins with an account of that day. It begins with Tillman's lieutenant, David Uthlaut, begging his superiors not to split up his unit or have them travel in the daytime -- both huge risks -- but being denied both requests in order to conform to a pre-ordained timetable. Timetables, Krakauer notes disdainfully, were a particular obsession of Donald Rumsfields', enabling him to check off boxes on his war on terror.
After the first chapter, Where Men Win Glory backtracks, alternating the story of Tillman's early life and NFL career with the history of Afghanistan and the conflicts it has endured, creating a sense of dread as readers know what will happen when the two threads converge. Tillman's personality, enigmatic though it was, becomes clearer here: a young man who struggled to channel his existential angst and occasional aggression into constant self-improvement, who was never content being comfortable and continually pushed himself, running marathons and triathlons in the football off-season, taking death-defying cliff-dives, reading and discussing philosophy over drinks, and writing diary entries after bad football games exhorting himself to do better.
Tillman's diaries revealed doubts
Consumed with notions of honor, risk and service, this larger-than-life man was also a family rock and a devoted husband to his young wife, Marie, the bright-burning center of an extremely close-knit group of friends and relatives. Even the picture of Tillman on the book's back jacket -- long haired, intense with a slightly mischievous look in his eyes -- is worth a look, so different is it from the military portrait of Tillman used by the press.
At the same time as he illuminates this character, Krakauer sets the political stage for Tillman's death and its cover-up, describing the brutal Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, the role of the CIA and the mujahideen, the forming and re-forming alliances that led to the Taliban giving Osama Bin Laden safe haven. On our side, he mentions the disastrous Florida recount, getting in a jab at Scalia and Bush v. Gore, urgent memos about Bin Laden ignored by the Bush administration, and the "selling" and spinning of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Many readers will be aware of this history, but juxtaposing it with a life that will be ended by its trajectory creates a fresh sense of urgency and disbelief.
Perhaps the most incredible aspect of the book is its extensive excerpting from Tillman's diaries, granted to Krakauer by his widow Marie, and stories about his time deployed overseas, where he read The Odyssey and "Self-Reliance," and was shocked by the youth and immaturity of his co-enlistees. Tillman expresses his doubt about the Iraq War from its onset: "It may be very soon that Nub [his brother Kevin] & I will be called upon to take part in something I see no clear purpose for... I believe we have little or no justification other than our imperial whim," he wrote. On another occasion, he calls Bush a "cowboy." His other entries are eerily wise: Of Jessica Lynch, whose staged rescue he and his brother provided support for on their first tour of duty, he wrote, "As awful as I feel for the fear she must face, and admire the courage I'm sure she is showing, I do believe this to be a big Public Relations stunt..." He had faced an essential truth about the Lynch incident that it would take months for the American media to sort out. Of his brother Kevin in Iraq, he said "If anything happens to Kevin, and my fears of our intent in this country prove true, I will never forgive the world." Of course, the inverse ended up being true, with Kevin the surviving, disillusioned sibling. On his own account, Tillman confided in a friend his fear that if he were killed the army would parade him in the streets.
This ended up being the most prescient of all. After being sent to Afghanistan, Tillman was shot in the head by a machine-gunner from his own unit, which had been split up to make time. His shooter thought he was the enemy and his unit sprayed bullets wildly across the slope where Tillman was perched (one of his comrades recalls him yelling I'm "Pat fucking Tillman!" shortly before his death). His uniform and most tragically his notebook, where Krakauer tells us he'd scribbled thoughts on gender in Afghanistan, were put into a trash bag and burned, a blatant violation of protocol.
A cruel cover-up
And that was only the beginning of the secrecy. Even the book's less enthusiastic critics agree that with the evidence Krakauer's amassed and compiled, there's no way to deny the most horrible aspects of the cover-up, including orders to Tillman's comrades telling them to lie to his family at the funeral and another official cruelly explaining away the family's pursuit of the truth as a folly attributable to their atheism. Krakauer demonstrates that the willful deception went all the way up to the White House, when an e-mail from an army official exhorted President Bush not to mention the manner of Tillman's death, lest it prove "embarrassing" should the incident prove to be friendly fire (something the official already knew). This deceit, Krakauer notes, led one Tillman friend to leave the army and another to go AWOL, losing their faith in the institution they'd signed up for.
It may remain puzzling that someone with the streak of wisdom that Tillman clearly possessed chose to chance death anyway, even after a painful family intervention begging him not to enlist. But Krakauer gets it, as a kindred spirit who followed in Tillman's footsteps, like he has done for all his risk-taking subjects. (Tillman in turn was a fan of Krakauer's work, which is why Marie gave him access to the diaries). No win, either way Krakauer spent months embedded with the army in Afghanistan, resulting in an epilogue that paints a grim picture of our current situation there. Until Pakistan stops harboring insurgents, "it will be impossible for the United States and its allies to defeat al-Qaeda and the Taliban by military force," he writes. He adds that pulling out is an equally "no-win" prospect.
Krakauer is a good person to have on your side. He doggedly pursues the bigger picture, and weaves human stories and investigations together in such a way as to create the kind of gripping, stay-up all night narratives of which most novelists can only dream. Some critics in traditional print media miss Krakauer's straight adventure tales and find his political and skeptical muckraking less than convincing. But like Tillman, Krakauer's an iconoclast, distrustful of authorities or false ideals, and thus the perfect person to tell this story.
Friday, September 25, 2009
The Capitalistic system will collapse Marc Faber
this guy seems like he knows what he talks about. all i hear from others are we can just keep going on forever living on borrowed money. that idea has always seemed pretty stupid to me!
concerned christians canada takes on ganesh at the zoo!!
Christian group condemns zoo's elephant sculpture
Last Updated: Thursday, September 24, 2009 | 7:03 PM MT Comments176Recommend69
CBC News
This three-metre tall statue of a dancing elephant was donated to the Calgary Zoo for the opening of its Elephant Crossing exhibit in 2006. (Courtesy Lotus Sculpture)
A Christian group is calling for the removal of an elephant statue, modeled after a Hindu god, from the Calgary Zoo calling it "selective religious partiality."
A three metre-tall tall statue of a dancing elephant was donated to the zoo for the opening of its Elephant Crossing exhibit in 2006.
It was commissioned to look like Ganesh, a Hindu god worshipped as a remover of obstacles. But Laurie Herron, a Calgary Zoo spokeswoman, said all religious symbolism on the statue was omitted before it was allowed to be displayed.
Jim Blake, national chairman of Concerned Christians Canada, sent a letter to the zoo on Thursday, calling for the sculpture to be removed.
"The zoo is not a place of religious indoctrination, it is supposed to be a safe family environment free of religious icons and selective religious partiality," Blake wrote.
"The displaying of different gods in a public place like this is an offence to our beliefs and does not represent the diversity of views that should be reflected."
If the zoo wants to keep the statue and "[embark] on teaching the public about world religions, Blake suggested that the facility also erect the cross of Jesus Christ, the Ten Commandments and Noah's Ark
"The display of foreign gods is offensive and does not reflect the views of the majority of Canadians," he continued.
Reached by CBC News late on Thursday, Herron told CBC News she and the zoo's board of directors had not yet seen Blake's letter.
But she said the statue, given to the zoo by a private donor, was intended to reflect the cultural symbol of elephants, and not any religious icon.
Last Updated: Thursday, September 24, 2009 | 7:03 PM MT Comments176Recommend69
CBC News
This three-metre tall statue of a dancing elephant was donated to the Calgary Zoo for the opening of its Elephant Crossing exhibit in 2006. (Courtesy Lotus Sculpture)
A Christian group is calling for the removal of an elephant statue, modeled after a Hindu god, from the Calgary Zoo calling it "selective religious partiality."
A three metre-tall tall statue of a dancing elephant was donated to the zoo for the opening of its Elephant Crossing exhibit in 2006.
It was commissioned to look like Ganesh, a Hindu god worshipped as a remover of obstacles. But Laurie Herron, a Calgary Zoo spokeswoman, said all religious symbolism on the statue was omitted before it was allowed to be displayed.
Jim Blake, national chairman of Concerned Christians Canada, sent a letter to the zoo on Thursday, calling for the sculpture to be removed.
"The zoo is not a place of religious indoctrination, it is supposed to be a safe family environment free of religious icons and selective religious partiality," Blake wrote.
"The displaying of different gods in a public place like this is an offence to our beliefs and does not represent the diversity of views that should be reflected."
If the zoo wants to keep the statue and "[embark] on teaching the public about world religions, Blake suggested that the facility also erect the cross of Jesus Christ, the Ten Commandments and Noah's Ark
"The display of foreign gods is offensive and does not reflect the views of the majority of Canadians," he continued.
Reached by CBC News late on Thursday, Herron told CBC News she and the zoo's board of directors had not yet seen Blake's letter.
But she said the statue, given to the zoo by a private donor, was intended to reflect the cultural symbol of elephants, and not any religious icon.
Thursday, September 24, 2009
harper tries to sneak through american style prisons
Tory plans for U.S.-style prisons slammed in report
Last Updated: Thursday, September 24, 2009 | 7:58 AM ET Comments2Recommend13
CBC News
The Conservative government plans to bring in an American-style prison system that will cost billions of taxpayer dollars and do little to improve public safety, according to a report to be released Thursday in Ottawa.
The 235-page report, A Flawed Compass, is a scathing review of the government's plan, which it calls "immoral, unethical and illegal."
University of British Columbia law professor Michael Jackson and Graham Stewart, who recently retired after decades as head of the John Howard Society of Canada, prepared the report.
A panel led by Rob Sampson, a former corrections minister in Ontario's Mike Harris government, drafted the government plan, which is being implemented by the Correctional Service.
In addition to constructing super prisons and implementing work programs, the program will eliminate gradual release and deny inmates rights that are now entrenched in the constitution.
By stressing punishment rather than rehabilitation, the plan ignores lessons of the past, which led to the prison riots and killings that dominated Canadian news in the early 1970s, said Jackson.
"My greatest fear is with this road map's agenda and its underlying philosophy, we will enter a new period of turmoil and violence in Canadian prisons," he said.
"I do fear that prisons will become more abusive, prisoners will become more frustrated and that we could go back to a time not only when the rule of law was absent but a culture of violence is the dominant way in which prisoners express their frustrations."
The plan attempts to emulate the American "get tough" system, which incarcerated hundreds of thousands of people and has left some states on the verge of bankruptcy, said Stewart.
He called the plan "an ideological rant. All their recommendations are just that they believe in something.… There's no evidence for anything they recommend, there's no research, no background."
The federal road map flies in the face of the Correctional Service's own research of what works to rehabilitate prisoners and ensure community safety, said Stewart.
"The fact is that you cannot hurt a person and make them into a good citizen at the same time."
The government has already allocated hundreds of millions to the plan, even though it has had no input from either Parliament or the public, according to the report.
Last Updated: Thursday, September 24, 2009 | 7:58 AM ET Comments2Recommend13
CBC News
The Conservative government plans to bring in an American-style prison system that will cost billions of taxpayer dollars and do little to improve public safety, according to a report to be released Thursday in Ottawa.
The 235-page report, A Flawed Compass, is a scathing review of the government's plan, which it calls "immoral, unethical and illegal."
University of British Columbia law professor Michael Jackson and Graham Stewart, who recently retired after decades as head of the John Howard Society of Canada, prepared the report.
A panel led by Rob Sampson, a former corrections minister in Ontario's Mike Harris government, drafted the government plan, which is being implemented by the Correctional Service.
In addition to constructing super prisons and implementing work programs, the program will eliminate gradual release and deny inmates rights that are now entrenched in the constitution.
By stressing punishment rather than rehabilitation, the plan ignores lessons of the past, which led to the prison riots and killings that dominated Canadian news in the early 1970s, said Jackson.
"My greatest fear is with this road map's agenda and its underlying philosophy, we will enter a new period of turmoil and violence in Canadian prisons," he said.
"I do fear that prisons will become more abusive, prisoners will become more frustrated and that we could go back to a time not only when the rule of law was absent but a culture of violence is the dominant way in which prisoners express their frustrations."
The plan attempts to emulate the American "get tough" system, which incarcerated hundreds of thousands of people and has left some states on the verge of bankruptcy, said Stewart.
He called the plan "an ideological rant. All their recommendations are just that they believe in something.… There's no evidence for anything they recommend, there's no research, no background."
The federal road map flies in the face of the Correctional Service's own research of what works to rehabilitate prisoners and ensure community safety, said Stewart.
"The fact is that you cannot hurt a person and make them into a good citizen at the same time."
The government has already allocated hundreds of millions to the plan, even though it has had no input from either Parliament or the public, according to the report.
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Girl Talk- Feed The Animals "Play Your Part (Pt. 1)"
i LOVE this!!!!!!!!!! the best new thing ever!!!! well since mos def...
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Monday, September 21, 2009
Sunday, September 20, 2009
conservative government priorities....and it isn't you and me!
Government spends more promoting stimulus plan than flu awareness
Last Updated: Sunday, September 20, 2009 | 10:33 PM ET Comments0Recommend28
The Canadian Press
The Conservative government is spending more than five times as many taxpayer dollars on promoting its economic plan than it is on raising public awareness about the swine flu pandemic.
That is again raising a long-standing question: when does government advertising cross the line into partisan boosterism?
Television viewers may have noticed the latest feel-good government ads about stimulus spending, including the Conservative-friendly, anti-election pitch: "We can't stop now," and "We have to stay on track."
All the ads direct viewers to a Tory-blue government website that includes more than 40 different photos of Prime Minister Stephen Harper and refers repeatedly to "the Harper government" — apparently in direct contravention of Treasury Board communications policy.
The TV spots are just the latest $5-million salvo in a $34-million media blitz trumpeting the Conservatives' recession-fighting budget.
Meanwhile, public health officials are fretting over an onrushing fall flu season, the spread of the H1N1 virus and widespread public apathy about the need for vaccination.
Government officials didn't respond to a specific query from The Canadian Press last week on whether television ads were in the works to combat swine flu.
But a government spokesman said Sunday evening that television ads are to be launched Monday across the country to raise public awareness about H1N1.
The official said the government had planned for some time to launch the ad campaign.
The Public Health Agency of Canada said it has a total marketing budget of $6.5 million to inform Canadians about the H1N1 virus and how to avoid infection.
Some $4.5 million of that was spent on ads in newspapers, public transit, and on the web that ran from April to August.
The health agency has committed another $2 million to radio spots that began airing last week, just as new swine flu outbreaks were being reported.
Opposition MPs said the spending disparity in the two ad campaigns simply highlights the obvious: The government is using public funds to toot its own horn.
"Guys, you're spending all this money to promote yourselves. Maybe some work on the prevention of H1N1 would be helpful," Liberal critic Martha Hall-Findlay said in an interview.
The Liberals first objected to government ads earlier this summer that claimed the federal stimulus funding was "80 per cent already implemented." That glossy campaign is also highlighted on the government's action plan website.
Marketing experts say partisanship in government advertising is highly situational, ever-present and may or may not cross ethical lines.
Unenforceable guidelines
Federal advertising guidelines speak vaguely of not promoting any political party or entity, but Hall-Findlay concedes the rules are so loose as to be unenforceable.
Ontario, by contrast, began screening provincial government ads in 2004 under a strict law that attempts to stop partisan messaging.
Jonathan Rose, a political communications expert at Queen's University in Kingston, Ont., advises the ad clearance group for the auditor general of Ontario.
Rose said the Ontario law requires examination of not just what the ads say, "but also the relationship between the ad buy and the campaign imperatives."
That means ads that fall close to a scheduled election — or, say, when a minority government's defeat appears imminent — will be given particular scrutiny.
"One might expect ads that require citizens to do something — such as things to prevent swine flu — have a stronger reason than those ads that have no information related to changing behaviour or attitudes in the public interest," Rose said in an email.
A case can be made for current government ads that promote the popular home renovation tax credit, which requires Canadians to keep receipts and actively apply for tax reimbursement.
But it's harder to understand the public service utility spending millions of tax dollars to advise Canadians that their money is being spent on infrastructure projects.
Tim Dewhirst, an associate professor at Guelph University's marketing and consumer studies department, said government ads may be informational, persuasive, or serve as reminders — with ads that focus on providing specific information to the public the least problematic.
Dewhirst said many of the Tory economic action ads appear to be aimed at persuading rather than informing.
"There's probably a lot of other issues that people would say is money better spent than trying to be persuasive about an action plan that's supposedly already 80 per cent implemented," he said in an interview.
"If it's 80 per cent done, is there much of an informing purpose still necessary?"
The $34-million economic ad budget is spread among four federal departments — Canada Revenue Agency, Finance, Human Resources and Skills Development, and Infrastructure Canada. But all inquiries were directed to the Privy Council Office, the bureaucratic arm of the Prime Minister's Office.
Late Sunday evening, five days after receiving a written list of questions from The Canadian Press, the Privy Council Office responded by email.
"The Actionplan.gc.ca website was developed to help the Government of Canada meet its commitment to providing timely, transparent and accountable information to Canadians on EAP projects and initiatives happening in their communities," said the email from spokeswoman Myriam Massabki.
As for all those photos of Harper, "The Prime Minister is the chief spokesperson in the Government of Canada for the [action plan]," Massabki wrote.
Last Updated: Sunday, September 20, 2009 | 10:33 PM ET Comments0Recommend28
The Canadian Press
The Conservative government is spending more than five times as many taxpayer dollars on promoting its economic plan than it is on raising public awareness about the swine flu pandemic.
That is again raising a long-standing question: when does government advertising cross the line into partisan boosterism?
Television viewers may have noticed the latest feel-good government ads about stimulus spending, including the Conservative-friendly, anti-election pitch: "We can't stop now," and "We have to stay on track."
All the ads direct viewers to a Tory-blue government website that includes more than 40 different photos of Prime Minister Stephen Harper and refers repeatedly to "the Harper government" — apparently in direct contravention of Treasury Board communications policy.
The TV spots are just the latest $5-million salvo in a $34-million media blitz trumpeting the Conservatives' recession-fighting budget.
Meanwhile, public health officials are fretting over an onrushing fall flu season, the spread of the H1N1 virus and widespread public apathy about the need for vaccination.
Government officials didn't respond to a specific query from The Canadian Press last week on whether television ads were in the works to combat swine flu.
But a government spokesman said Sunday evening that television ads are to be launched Monday across the country to raise public awareness about H1N1.
The official said the government had planned for some time to launch the ad campaign.
The Public Health Agency of Canada said it has a total marketing budget of $6.5 million to inform Canadians about the H1N1 virus and how to avoid infection.
Some $4.5 million of that was spent on ads in newspapers, public transit, and on the web that ran from April to August.
The health agency has committed another $2 million to radio spots that began airing last week, just as new swine flu outbreaks were being reported.
Opposition MPs said the spending disparity in the two ad campaigns simply highlights the obvious: The government is using public funds to toot its own horn.
"Guys, you're spending all this money to promote yourselves. Maybe some work on the prevention of H1N1 would be helpful," Liberal critic Martha Hall-Findlay said in an interview.
The Liberals first objected to government ads earlier this summer that claimed the federal stimulus funding was "80 per cent already implemented." That glossy campaign is also highlighted on the government's action plan website.
Marketing experts say partisanship in government advertising is highly situational, ever-present and may or may not cross ethical lines.
Unenforceable guidelines
Federal advertising guidelines speak vaguely of not promoting any political party or entity, but Hall-Findlay concedes the rules are so loose as to be unenforceable.
Ontario, by contrast, began screening provincial government ads in 2004 under a strict law that attempts to stop partisan messaging.
Jonathan Rose, a political communications expert at Queen's University in Kingston, Ont., advises the ad clearance group for the auditor general of Ontario.
Rose said the Ontario law requires examination of not just what the ads say, "but also the relationship between the ad buy and the campaign imperatives."
That means ads that fall close to a scheduled election — or, say, when a minority government's defeat appears imminent — will be given particular scrutiny.
"One might expect ads that require citizens to do something — such as things to prevent swine flu — have a stronger reason than those ads that have no information related to changing behaviour or attitudes in the public interest," Rose said in an email.
A case can be made for current government ads that promote the popular home renovation tax credit, which requires Canadians to keep receipts and actively apply for tax reimbursement.
But it's harder to understand the public service utility spending millions of tax dollars to advise Canadians that their money is being spent on infrastructure projects.
Tim Dewhirst, an associate professor at Guelph University's marketing and consumer studies department, said government ads may be informational, persuasive, or serve as reminders — with ads that focus on providing specific information to the public the least problematic.
Dewhirst said many of the Tory economic action ads appear to be aimed at persuading rather than informing.
"There's probably a lot of other issues that people would say is money better spent than trying to be persuasive about an action plan that's supposedly already 80 per cent implemented," he said in an interview.
"If it's 80 per cent done, is there much of an informing purpose still necessary?"
The $34-million economic ad budget is spread among four federal departments — Canada Revenue Agency, Finance, Human Resources and Skills Development, and Infrastructure Canada. But all inquiries were directed to the Privy Council Office, the bureaucratic arm of the Prime Minister's Office.
Late Sunday evening, five days after receiving a written list of questions from The Canadian Press, the Privy Council Office responded by email.
"The Actionplan.gc.ca website was developed to help the Government of Canada meet its commitment to providing timely, transparent and accountable information to Canadians on EAP projects and initiatives happening in their communities," said the email from spokeswoman Myriam Massabki.
As for all those photos of Harper, "The Prime Minister is the chief spokesperson in the Government of Canada for the [action plan]," Massabki wrote.
Friday, September 18, 2009
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
OFFICIAL F**K You! Manchester Pride does Lily Allen
muahhhhaaaaahahahahahaha!!! lovely song that really fits the manchester pride! well done!
tamiflu for everyone....body bags for the res!!!!!!
Expecting flu assistance, native reserves get body bags from Ottawa
Manitoba chiefs furious after shipment from Health Canada
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Swine flu: Public Health Agency determines first in line for flu shot
Expert says swine flu ‘hid' for decade
H1N1 shows more resistance to Tamiflu
Article Comments (99)
Caroline Alphonso and Tu Thanh Ha
Toronto — From Thursday's Globe and Mail
Last updated on Wednesday, Sep. 16, 2009 09:57PM EDT
They asked for help and got body bags.
Aboriginal leaders said they were outraged and confused when dozens of body bags were delivered to remote Manitoba reserves after native communities demanded federal resources to fight a second wave of the H1N1 flu outbreak.
Chiefs interpreted the grim shipments as a dire prediction of what Ottawa expects will happen during this flu season to natives, who were hardest hit by swine flu in the spring.
Some communities didn't hold on to them for long. In a symbolic protest Wednesday evening, northern First Nations leaders returned a box of the bags to a Health Canada office in Winnipeg. Tossing more than a dozen of the polyethylene bags on the floor outside the building's lobby, Garden Hill First Nation chief David Harper called the deliveries “an insult.”
The federal government was left scrambling late Wednesday to explain the shipments, which also included hand sanitizer, masks and gloves.
Each bag contained full post-mortem kits that included a chin strap, five tie-straps and three identification tags.
The news of the unexpected supplies rippled through remote communities of less than 1,000 people, shocking residents and adding to native leaders' distrust of the federal government's efforts to help them prepare for a resurgence of the virus.
About 30 body bags were delivered in recent days to the nursing station at Wasagamack First Nation, 20 to God's Lake First Nation, and Red Sucker Lake First Nation was expecting a shipment. The communities are in the lake-studded Island Lake region near the Ontario border, about midway between Winnipeg and the Hudson Bay.
Mr. Harper was joined at the Winnipeg protest last night by Wasagamack Chief Jerry Knott.
“Is Canada giving up on the first nations?” Mr. Harper asked in an interview. “We're very offended. It looks like Canada is giving up on us. Or is this the flu preparedness that Canada talks about?”
In many First Nations cultures, to prepare for death is to invite death, he said.
“We have been waiting for medical supplies and here all we receive is body bags,” he said. “The government has to do better.”
Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq said she was “disturbed” when she learned about the shipments Wednesday morning.
“I have ordered my deputy minister to conduct a thorough and immediate inquiry into the situation and I will continue to work with first nations, provinces and territories to ensure all Canadians are informed and protected against H1N1,” she said at a news briefing.
She declined to comment on who sent the body bags or who may have requested them.
The shipment is another blow to native leaders, who fear they are among the least prepared for another wave of the flu and that the federal government isn't properly responding to their needs.
The mild flu outbreak in the spring erupted into a full-blown crisis on several of Manitoba's remote reserves. At one point, aboriginals comprised two-thirds of Manitoba flu patients on respirators. Health Canada came under fire for hesitating to send hand sanitizer to native towns because of concerns that people would ingest the alcohol-based gel.
The Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs took it upon itself recently to solicit donations for 15,000 flu kits for northern communities. And even though aboriginal affairs is a federal responsibility, the Manitoba government stepped up to cover the rest of the cost.
Ms. Aglukkaq said nursing stations on reserves are being stocked with medical supplies, and the kits are likely not necessary.
Rod Harper, a spokesman for the band council of the Wasagamack First Nation, 600 kilometres north of Winnipeg, said body bags are not the supplies needed at nursing stations.
“It's not the proper thing to do to all our communities. It's very shocking,” he said.
He said he had seen a box of 10 bags that had been brought to the band council office and was explicitly labelled.
“What we had asked for stockpiling were Advil, Tylenol, vaccine, not body bags. It's the easy way out for the government… It's not right to do that.”
Further north, at the Red Sucker Lake First Nation, the band council heard at a meeting with the staff of the nursing station that body bags would be sent to their community. The council questioned the head nurse after it heard that other native communities had received the bags.
“We asked her about the body bags and she said: ‘They're coming,'” said council member Clifford Harper. “I feel kind of angry. They should send more medications, they should send more personnel … rather than body bags. Why are they doing this?”
By the end of the day, the outrage had rippled to Winnipeg. “First Nations and all Canadians need to know the whole story behind this bizarre shipment and they deserve a full accounting,” Grand Chief Ron Evans of the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs said in a statement. “The First Nations of northern Manitoba have already been traumatized in the first wave of the H1N1 outbreak; they do not need to be panicked.”
The parliamentary health committee has requested the minister share details of the inquiry at or around its next meeting later this month.
Manitoba chiefs furious after shipment from Health Canada
Share with friends
Print or License
Recommend | 16 Times
See also:
Swine flu: Public Health Agency determines first in line for flu shot
Expert says swine flu ‘hid' for decade
H1N1 shows more resistance to Tamiflu
Article Comments (99)
Caroline Alphonso and Tu Thanh Ha
Toronto — From Thursday's Globe and Mail
Last updated on Wednesday, Sep. 16, 2009 09:57PM EDT
They asked for help and got body bags.
Aboriginal leaders said they were outraged and confused when dozens of body bags were delivered to remote Manitoba reserves after native communities demanded federal resources to fight a second wave of the H1N1 flu outbreak.
Chiefs interpreted the grim shipments as a dire prediction of what Ottawa expects will happen during this flu season to natives, who were hardest hit by swine flu in the spring.
Some communities didn't hold on to them for long. In a symbolic protest Wednesday evening, northern First Nations leaders returned a box of the bags to a Health Canada office in Winnipeg. Tossing more than a dozen of the polyethylene bags on the floor outside the building's lobby, Garden Hill First Nation chief David Harper called the deliveries “an insult.”
The federal government was left scrambling late Wednesday to explain the shipments, which also included hand sanitizer, masks and gloves.
Each bag contained full post-mortem kits that included a chin strap, five tie-straps and three identification tags.
The news of the unexpected supplies rippled through remote communities of less than 1,000 people, shocking residents and adding to native leaders' distrust of the federal government's efforts to help them prepare for a resurgence of the virus.
About 30 body bags were delivered in recent days to the nursing station at Wasagamack First Nation, 20 to God's Lake First Nation, and Red Sucker Lake First Nation was expecting a shipment. The communities are in the lake-studded Island Lake region near the Ontario border, about midway between Winnipeg and the Hudson Bay.
Mr. Harper was joined at the Winnipeg protest last night by Wasagamack Chief Jerry Knott.
“Is Canada giving up on the first nations?” Mr. Harper asked in an interview. “We're very offended. It looks like Canada is giving up on us. Or is this the flu preparedness that Canada talks about?”
In many First Nations cultures, to prepare for death is to invite death, he said.
“We have been waiting for medical supplies and here all we receive is body bags,” he said. “The government has to do better.”
Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq said she was “disturbed” when she learned about the shipments Wednesday morning.
“I have ordered my deputy minister to conduct a thorough and immediate inquiry into the situation and I will continue to work with first nations, provinces and territories to ensure all Canadians are informed and protected against H1N1,” she said at a news briefing.
She declined to comment on who sent the body bags or who may have requested them.
The shipment is another blow to native leaders, who fear they are among the least prepared for another wave of the flu and that the federal government isn't properly responding to their needs.
The mild flu outbreak in the spring erupted into a full-blown crisis on several of Manitoba's remote reserves. At one point, aboriginals comprised two-thirds of Manitoba flu patients on respirators. Health Canada came under fire for hesitating to send hand sanitizer to native towns because of concerns that people would ingest the alcohol-based gel.
The Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs took it upon itself recently to solicit donations for 15,000 flu kits for northern communities. And even though aboriginal affairs is a federal responsibility, the Manitoba government stepped up to cover the rest of the cost.
Ms. Aglukkaq said nursing stations on reserves are being stocked with medical supplies, and the kits are likely not necessary.
Rod Harper, a spokesman for the band council of the Wasagamack First Nation, 600 kilometres north of Winnipeg, said body bags are not the supplies needed at nursing stations.
“It's not the proper thing to do to all our communities. It's very shocking,” he said.
He said he had seen a box of 10 bags that had been brought to the band council office and was explicitly labelled.
“What we had asked for stockpiling were Advil, Tylenol, vaccine, not body bags. It's the easy way out for the government… It's not right to do that.”
Further north, at the Red Sucker Lake First Nation, the band council heard at a meeting with the staff of the nursing station that body bags would be sent to their community. The council questioned the head nurse after it heard that other native communities had received the bags.
“We asked her about the body bags and she said: ‘They're coming,'” said council member Clifford Harper. “I feel kind of angry. They should send more medications, they should send more personnel … rather than body bags. Why are they doing this?”
By the end of the day, the outrage had rippled to Winnipeg. “First Nations and all Canadians need to know the whole story behind this bizarre shipment and they deserve a full accounting,” Grand Chief Ron Evans of the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs said in a statement. “The First Nations of northern Manitoba have already been traumatized in the first wave of the H1N1 outbreak; they do not need to be panicked.”
The parliamentary health committee has requested the minister share details of the inquiry at or around its next meeting later this month.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
wonderful 100 mile diet store....check it out!
Home About Products & Services Location Contact
Welcome to The Home Grow-In Grocer!
Thank you for taking the time to visit our site. We have opened a small store in the heart of Vancouver that we hope will be known as "the only little country store in the middle of the City".
We are the only store in Vancouver specializing in only carrying LOCAL/NATURAL/ORGANIC products of BC.
We are a small neighbourhood community store located on the westside of Vancouver at the corner of W18 and Columbia (2 blks E of Cambie and 3 blks W of Main). The return of the neighbourhood corner store is what The Home Grow-in Grocer is. We differ in that we only carry BC products.
We at the Home Grow-in Grocer want to support our local farmers in ensuring they have a market next year for their crops, so we are establishing The Home Grow-in Buyers Co-op. Head over to our About page for more information.
Welcome to The Home Grow-In Grocer!
Thank you for taking the time to visit our site. We have opened a small store in the heart of Vancouver that we hope will be known as "the only little country store in the middle of the City".
We are the only store in Vancouver specializing in only carrying LOCAL/NATURAL/ORGANIC products of BC.
We are a small neighbourhood community store located on the westside of Vancouver at the corner of W18 and Columbia (2 blks E of Cambie and 3 blks W of Main). The return of the neighbourhood corner store is what The Home Grow-in Grocer is. We differ in that we only carry BC products.
We at the Home Grow-in Grocer want to support our local farmers in ensuring they have a market next year for their crops, so we are establishing The Home Grow-in Buyers Co-op. Head over to our About page for more information.
maybe greenpeace can get back in the game?
Shell Halts Mining as Activists Protest Oil Sands
CALGARY, Alberta - Royal Dutch Shell Plc has suspended production at its Canadian oil sands mine after environmental activists blockaded a massive dump truck and mining shovel to protest the impact of oil sands development, the company said on Tuesday.
Greenpeace activists place a banner and block a tar sands mining operation at the Shell Albian Sands outside of Fort McMurray, Alberta September 15, 2009. (REUTERS/Colin O'Connor/Greenpeace/Handout)Greenpeace said 25 of its activists locked down the oil sands mining equipment at the Albian Sands Muskeg River mine in northern Alberta on Tuesday morning, a day before Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper meets U.S. President Barack Obama in Washington.
Shell, which owns 60 percent of the 155,000 barrel a day operation, said it temporarily shut down mining to ensure that the activists and its staff do not get hurt.
"Shell's No. 1 concern is their safety and our preference is for a negotiated end to this demonstration," the company said in a statement. "We have invited the group into our administrative building to sit down with management to discuss their concerns."
It said Greenpeace has not tried to contact Shell to discuss the environmental initiatives it is employing in the operation.
Greenpeace said it staged the protest to highlight what it said were "the climate crimes of tar sands development -- rising energy intensity, greenhouse gas emissions, and boreal forest destruction".
The mine's other owners are Chevron Corp and Marathon Oil Corp, with 20 percent each.
Elsewhere, activists hung a 70-foot (21-meter) banner above Niagara Falls on the Canada-United States border showing arrows that point forward to a "clean energy future" and backward to "tar sands oil".
CALGARY, Alberta - Royal Dutch Shell Plc has suspended production at its Canadian oil sands mine after environmental activists blockaded a massive dump truck and mining shovel to protest the impact of oil sands development, the company said on Tuesday.
Greenpeace activists place a banner and block a tar sands mining operation at the Shell Albian Sands outside of Fort McMurray, Alberta September 15, 2009. (REUTERS/Colin O'Connor/Greenpeace/Handout)Greenpeace said 25 of its activists locked down the oil sands mining equipment at the Albian Sands Muskeg River mine in northern Alberta on Tuesday morning, a day before Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper meets U.S. President Barack Obama in Washington.
Shell, which owns 60 percent of the 155,000 barrel a day operation, said it temporarily shut down mining to ensure that the activists and its staff do not get hurt.
"Shell's No. 1 concern is their safety and our preference is for a negotiated end to this demonstration," the company said in a statement. "We have invited the group into our administrative building to sit down with management to discuss their concerns."
It said Greenpeace has not tried to contact Shell to discuss the environmental initiatives it is employing in the operation.
Greenpeace said it staged the protest to highlight what it said were "the climate crimes of tar sands development -- rising energy intensity, greenhouse gas emissions, and boreal forest destruction".
The mine's other owners are Chevron Corp and Marathon Oil Corp, with 20 percent each.
Elsewhere, activists hung a 70-foot (21-meter) banner above Niagara Falls on the Canada-United States border showing arrows that point forward to a "clean energy future" and backward to "tar sands oil".
canada and the tar sands.....sad
Canada's Becoming a 'Global Carbon Bully': Greenpeace
Canada's greenhouse-gas emissions are up 26 per cent since 1990
by Monique Beaudin
MONTREAL - A new report from Greenpeace says oil production in Alberta's tar sands has made Canada into a "global carbon bully."
Sludge spews into a tailings pond at the Syncrude plant site in Fort McMurray, Alta.
(Photograph by: Chris Schwarz, CanWest News Service)Little has been done to tackle climate change in Canada, and the federal government has actively tried to block international agreements and laws targeting climate change, says the report, called Dirty Oil: How The Tar Sands Are Fuelling the Global Climate Crisis.
Meanwhile, oilsands projects in northern Alberta are creating more greenhouse-gas emissions (GHGs) per year than several small European countries, and by 2020, will be more than what's produced by Austria or Ireland, the report says.
Continued growth in the oilsands will mean that by 2020, more carbon dioxide will be produced there than by all the volcanoes in the world put together, the report says.
"Canada is now one of the world's leading emitters of GHGs, and a global defender of dirty fuels," writes author Andrew Nikiforuk, an award-winning Calgary-based science writer who last year published Tar Sands: Dirty Oil and the Future of the Continent.
Canada's emissions from greenhouse gases, which are linked to climate change, have increased by more than 26 per cent since 1990. Canada's goal is to reduce emissions by 20 per cent from 2006 levels by 2020, a target that environmental groups say falls far short of what Canada must do to combat climate change.
"This report shows how Canada is not doing its part in the fight against climate change - in fact, it is allowing foreign oil companies to massively invest in the tar sands," said Virginie Lambert-Ferry of Greenpeace Québec.
Canadian environmental groups are trying to garner attention about the environmental impact of the oilsands ahead of a meeting in Washington Wednesday between between US. President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
Among the topics up for discussion are climate change, and upcoming international climate talks in Copenhagen in December, where countries are going to try to come up with post-Kyoto Protocol targets for greenhouse-gas reductions.
Prentice will also be taking part in Wednesday's talks. On Tuesday, his office said in a statement that reaching Canada's greenhouse-gas emission targets by 2020 will require "major efforts."
"Our actions will involve participation by all the key sectors and sources of emissions, including the oilsands," the statement said.
Extracting oil from the tar sands requires "extreme" amounts of hydrogen, electricity, steam, hot water, diesel fuel and natural gas, Nikiforuk writes.
To meet future energy needs in the tar sands, several companies have already said they are interested in building nuclear reactors in northern Alberta to provide the energy needed to extract oil.
Canada's greenhouse-gas emissions are up 26 per cent since 1990
by Monique Beaudin
MONTREAL - A new report from Greenpeace says oil production in Alberta's tar sands has made Canada into a "global carbon bully."
Sludge spews into a tailings pond at the Syncrude plant site in Fort McMurray, Alta.
(Photograph by: Chris Schwarz, CanWest News Service)Little has been done to tackle climate change in Canada, and the federal government has actively tried to block international agreements and laws targeting climate change, says the report, called Dirty Oil: How The Tar Sands Are Fuelling the Global Climate Crisis.
Meanwhile, oilsands projects in northern Alberta are creating more greenhouse-gas emissions (GHGs) per year than several small European countries, and by 2020, will be more than what's produced by Austria or Ireland, the report says.
Continued growth in the oilsands will mean that by 2020, more carbon dioxide will be produced there than by all the volcanoes in the world put together, the report says.
"Canada is now one of the world's leading emitters of GHGs, and a global defender of dirty fuels," writes author Andrew Nikiforuk, an award-winning Calgary-based science writer who last year published Tar Sands: Dirty Oil and the Future of the Continent.
Canada's emissions from greenhouse gases, which are linked to climate change, have increased by more than 26 per cent since 1990. Canada's goal is to reduce emissions by 20 per cent from 2006 levels by 2020, a target that environmental groups say falls far short of what Canada must do to combat climate change.
"This report shows how Canada is not doing its part in the fight against climate change - in fact, it is allowing foreign oil companies to massively invest in the tar sands," said Virginie Lambert-Ferry of Greenpeace Québec.
Canadian environmental groups are trying to garner attention about the environmental impact of the oilsands ahead of a meeting in Washington Wednesday between between US. President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
Among the topics up for discussion are climate change, and upcoming international climate talks in Copenhagen in December, where countries are going to try to come up with post-Kyoto Protocol targets for greenhouse-gas reductions.
Prentice will also be taking part in Wednesday's talks. On Tuesday, his office said in a statement that reaching Canada's greenhouse-gas emission targets by 2020 will require "major efforts."
"Our actions will involve participation by all the key sectors and sources of emissions, including the oilsands," the statement said.
Extracting oil from the tar sands requires "extreme" amounts of hydrogen, electricity, steam, hot water, diesel fuel and natural gas, Nikiforuk writes.
To meet future energy needs in the tar sands, several companies have already said they are interested in building nuclear reactors in northern Alberta to provide the energy needed to extract oil.
Thursday, September 10, 2009
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