NBC News is reporting this morning that Ecuador has seized the assets of Occidental, a U.S. oil company, ostensibly over the sale of part of one of its fields to a Canadian company (EnCana). Recently, Ecuador passed a law requiring foreign oil companies to share at least 50% of the profits they make above the agree benchmark crude price set in their contracts. Exactly what this has to do with Occidental's sale I don't know, but it continues a trend we've been seeing lately in South America.
The other half of our hemisphere seems lately to have awakened to its strengths. It's beginning to look like the days of Latin America rolling over like a two-dollar whore are ending. Good for them! Why should Latin Americans toil in poverty, often under regimes propped up on the rifles of U.S. Marines, just so a handful of people in the U.S. can get rich? And yet the screeching is always the same... these countries are outlaws, they don't respect the rule of law, they don't respect freedom, they don't believe in democracy, on and on and bloody on. When "freedom" and "democracy" and "the rule of law" are nothing more than euphemisms for a stacked deck that produces a winning hand only for Americans no matter how you shuffle it, then perhaps they're right when they screech this... but why should anyone respect "rules" and institutions established to turn the wealth of a nation over to another, and leave the people who really own it in grinding poverty and squalor? For those who will sneer that the money will only wind up in some dictator's Swiss bank account, well... at least it'll be some domestic dictator, rather than some guy in Houston, and that's at least one step in the right direction!
But even then, the facts don't bear it out. Hugo Chavez, for instance, has won several elections and even a recall vote. He survived a CIA-inspired coup attempt because millions of Venezuelans hit the streets when he was deposed and demanded him back. You think the people of the United States would do that for George Bush? Jesus... you want democracy; what more proof of it could you possibly want? And meanwhile, Chavez has been pouring oil money into rebuilding Venezuela, expanding literacy, importing doctors, making oil deals with other impoverished nations in the region (undercutting the US dollar by bartering around it), and even helping out the people of New England last winter. All the while, he's been urging the rest of Latin America to follow his lead, work together to realize the goals of Simon Bolivar so long ago. Here's too South America. I hope they make it work, and they get up off their knees at last and look us in the eye.
Tuesday, May 16, 2006
Monday, May 15, 2006
A little photography on the weekend
On Friday, I bought a Canon Powershot S80... several reasons... it's nearly the P&S equivalent of my Rebel XT (except it literally fits in my pocket), it does AEB spreads, it's 8-megapixal with good macro and unusually wide angle facilities, and I was told it's being discontinued. It's hard to find in Toronto; seems to sell out the minute it hits a store. All good indicators.
And I think it is a heck of a good camera. I've had a lot of fun with it already.
This past weekend the Don Valley Parkway was closed for maintenance. I suggested to P-Doug this was a once-in-dog's-age opportunity to shoot the empty highway, so down we went.
High dynamic range image (created from a three-photo auto-exposure bracketing spread) of the DVP, looking southward in the southbound lanes south of Lawrence Avenue. This was taken using the S80.
High dynamic range, infrared image taken from Lawrence Avenue, looking south (somewhere in this shot is the spot I was standing in the one above). This was taken using my infrared-converted Canon G1.
Climbing up to the onramp/offramp at Lawrence (this shot was taken just before the one above). Again, this is an HDR IR shot taken with my Canon G1.
A crop of a macro shot of a tiny wasp, taken with the S80. The little white dots are salt crystals. This wasp was perhaps 1/16" long, and the lens was about an inch from it when I took the shot.
Another macro shot with the S80.
On Saturday, P-Doug and I took in an art gallery down on King Street. This piece is called "Puppy", and it's by Jeff Koons.
And I think it is a heck of a good camera. I've had a lot of fun with it already.
This past weekend the Don Valley Parkway was closed for maintenance. I suggested to P-Doug this was a once-in-dog's-age opportunity to shoot the empty highway, so down we went.
High dynamic range image (created from a three-photo auto-exposure bracketing spread) of the DVP, looking southward in the southbound lanes south of Lawrence Avenue. This was taken using the S80.
High dynamic range, infrared image taken from Lawrence Avenue, looking south (somewhere in this shot is the spot I was standing in the one above). This was taken using my infrared-converted Canon G1.
Climbing up to the onramp/offramp at Lawrence (this shot was taken just before the one above). Again, this is an HDR IR shot taken with my Canon G1.
A crop of a macro shot of a tiny wasp, taken with the S80. The little white dots are salt crystals. This wasp was perhaps 1/16" long, and the lens was about an inch from it when I took the shot.
Another macro shot with the S80.
On Saturday, P-Doug and I took in an art gallery down on King Street. This piece is called "Puppy", and it's by Jeff Koons.
Friday, May 12, 2006
Gender in language: assumptions
Something I've noticed... and actually, I think it first came to my attention thanks to an episode of The Simpson (the one where Bart works for an elderly woman doing odious chores for her)... English-speaking women, at least in a North American context, can and do speak of their "girlfriends" without there being any sexual implication whatsoever. However, no man can speak of his "boyfriends" and expect the listener to grant the same assumption of a platonic relationship (nor can a woman, for that matter). The terms "boyfriend" and "girlfriend" are charged with either an implication of sexual intimacy or at least pending or potential intimacy when spoken by a man.
Why this strange disparity of language?
Why this strange disparity of language?
Friday, May 05, 2006
United 93
In a theatre virtually empty, I saw the film United 93 last night. I don't really know what I was expecting. But I can tell you I have never in my life before seen anything quite like it.
On the off chance you haven't heard of the film yet, it's a fact-based portrayal of the events leading up to and during the hijacking of United Airlines Flight 93 from Newark to San Francisco on September 11, 2001. This was the "fourth" flight, the one that did not reach its intended target, but crashed in Pennsylvania.
Since what occurred is essentially a matter of historical record, I feel I can discuss the movie without fear of "spoilers". It opens with the four hijackers making their preparations. They are frightened, uncertain, hesitant, but in the end, resolved to their mission. None of this is surprising, but if you go into the movie expecting steely-eyed, cold-blooded cardboard villains, you're going to be surprised. These are men shown overcoming their natural inhibitions to sacrifice everything to make their point. Exactly what that point was, what they were hoping to achieve, demonstrate, protest, or illustrate by their actions is not something addressed by the film. Only their actions (or likely actions) are.
This is a hard movie to watch; you sit in your seat like Casandra, knowing what's going to happen, but powerless to intervene and prevent or change events. You see the pre-boarding passengers in the airport lounge, just as the hijackers do, knowing they are doomed. These are their last casual moments, their final hours, the last sweet instances of normality.
Remarkable, too, is the depiction of what was going on in air traffic control centres up and down the eastern seaboard that day. The initial disbelief, to the point of mirth, with which the first suggestions of hijacking are greeted when sister flight American Airlines 77 goes quiet and deviates from course. From there it builds, with the morning getting stranger and more alarming, with no end in sight. It's hard to remember now just how open-ended and uncertain we were that morning, but this movie brilliantly returns us to those moments, that terrifying sense of what's next, how big is this, what is going on? Nobody knew. Stories were wild. And that's captured exactly in this film.
The tension in the movie builds in an ironic inverse proportion to what the the people of the day felt. Knowing all, I found myself, like the hijackers, more and more tense as the first half of the movie progressed. Waiting for what I knew would happen, to happen. The tension breaks when the hijackers on United 93, led by a hesitant man whose hand must be forced by his cohorts, finally make their move. This is where the terror begins for the passengers... but oddly, it's where I felt a moment of relief. Okay, it's happened. I knew it would happen. Here it is. The passengers, the hijackers, the ground controllers, the NORAD crews... even if none of them has the whole picture, they're at least now all on the same page. United in crisis. From there, the tension begins to build again, slowly, as the passengers come to grips with the situation, only to erupt fully in the last moments of the film. Through the modern miracle of cellular communications, the passengers become aware of the World Trade Center and then the Pentagon strikes, and realize they will not be landing, they will not be ransomed, they will not be set free or come out alive if events continue to their conclusion. Good-byes to families are spoken from the sky, as though they were already in Heaven. And then the passengers act. I guess we'll never know for sure, since everything in based on cockpit noise and the erratic motions of the plane itself, but in the movie, they come close, so heart-wrenchingly close, to salvation. If only.
The movie never gets into the wider political and social aspects of what went on that day. To do so, really, would be to inject a partisan aspect to the film that would not really serve its intentions, which I believe are simply to portray, as accurately as possible under the circumstances, what we know or believe to have occurred that day, lift it from the merely dry and academic rote of historical chronological events, and set it into a human context. I found myself strangely empty of passions at the end. I drew no conclusions. I simply felt sorrow. Regret. Frustration.
Largely acted by (and I hope the actors will forgive me) unknowns, and in some cases by the actual people on the ground, with no big names and familiar faces to intrude and rob the movie of the anonymity from which it derives its authenticity and power, this movie deserves the Oscar, if any movie I've ever seen does. It feels more real than real. There are no big heroes, no ridiculous antics, no one-in-a-million chance saving moves. All you know is, these were ordinary people. Any one of us could have been there. And we would have been just as scared, just as powerless, and in the end, just as gone.
Now, if only Hollywood finds the guts to make a similar movie about civilians Iraqis huddled in their defenseless homes on the night of March 20, 2003. But I don't imagine that's in the cards.
On the off chance you haven't heard of the film yet, it's a fact-based portrayal of the events leading up to and during the hijacking of United Airlines Flight 93 from Newark to San Francisco on September 11, 2001. This was the "fourth" flight, the one that did not reach its intended target, but crashed in Pennsylvania.
Since what occurred is essentially a matter of historical record, I feel I can discuss the movie without fear of "spoilers". It opens with the four hijackers making their preparations. They are frightened, uncertain, hesitant, but in the end, resolved to their mission. None of this is surprising, but if you go into the movie expecting steely-eyed, cold-blooded cardboard villains, you're going to be surprised. These are men shown overcoming their natural inhibitions to sacrifice everything to make their point. Exactly what that point was, what they were hoping to achieve, demonstrate, protest, or illustrate by their actions is not something addressed by the film. Only their actions (or likely actions) are.
This is a hard movie to watch; you sit in your seat like Casandra, knowing what's going to happen, but powerless to intervene and prevent or change events. You see the pre-boarding passengers in the airport lounge, just as the hijackers do, knowing they are doomed. These are their last casual moments, their final hours, the last sweet instances of normality.
Remarkable, too, is the depiction of what was going on in air traffic control centres up and down the eastern seaboard that day. The initial disbelief, to the point of mirth, with which the first suggestions of hijacking are greeted when sister flight American Airlines 77 goes quiet and deviates from course. From there it builds, with the morning getting stranger and more alarming, with no end in sight. It's hard to remember now just how open-ended and uncertain we were that morning, but this movie brilliantly returns us to those moments, that terrifying sense of what's next, how big is this, what is going on? Nobody knew. Stories were wild. And that's captured exactly in this film.
The tension in the movie builds in an ironic inverse proportion to what the the people of the day felt. Knowing all, I found myself, like the hijackers, more and more tense as the first half of the movie progressed. Waiting for what I knew would happen, to happen. The tension breaks when the hijackers on United 93, led by a hesitant man whose hand must be forced by his cohorts, finally make their move. This is where the terror begins for the passengers... but oddly, it's where I felt a moment of relief. Okay, it's happened. I knew it would happen. Here it is. The passengers, the hijackers, the ground controllers, the NORAD crews... even if none of them has the whole picture, they're at least now all on the same page. United in crisis. From there, the tension begins to build again, slowly, as the passengers come to grips with the situation, only to erupt fully in the last moments of the film. Through the modern miracle of cellular communications, the passengers become aware of the World Trade Center and then the Pentagon strikes, and realize they will not be landing, they will not be ransomed, they will not be set free or come out alive if events continue to their conclusion. Good-byes to families are spoken from the sky, as though they were already in Heaven. And then the passengers act. I guess we'll never know for sure, since everything in based on cockpit noise and the erratic motions of the plane itself, but in the movie, they come close, so heart-wrenchingly close, to salvation. If only.
The movie never gets into the wider political and social aspects of what went on that day. To do so, really, would be to inject a partisan aspect to the film that would not really serve its intentions, which I believe are simply to portray, as accurately as possible under the circumstances, what we know or believe to have occurred that day, lift it from the merely dry and academic rote of historical chronological events, and set it into a human context. I found myself strangely empty of passions at the end. I drew no conclusions. I simply felt sorrow. Regret. Frustration.
Largely acted by (and I hope the actors will forgive me) unknowns, and in some cases by the actual people on the ground, with no big names and familiar faces to intrude and rob the movie of the anonymity from which it derives its authenticity and power, this movie deserves the Oscar, if any movie I've ever seen does. It feels more real than real. There are no big heroes, no ridiculous antics, no one-in-a-million chance saving moves. All you know is, these were ordinary people. Any one of us could have been there. And we would have been just as scared, just as powerless, and in the end, just as gone.
Now, if only Hollywood finds the guts to make a similar movie about civilians Iraqis huddled in their defenseless homes on the night of March 20, 2003. But I don't imagine that's in the cards.
Wednesday, May 03, 2006
Mulroney deux
So there it is... as predicted by yours truly (among others) last fall, a Tory government supported by Quebec separatists. Just imagine the cheque Canada's ass now has to cash. Anybody else here old enough to remember the last time? Mulroney's Quebec base was "soft" nationalists, too... and when he promised them the fillings out of the country's collective teeth and we refused to sit still in the chair, they screamed "humiliation!" and plunged us (and our dollar) into years of uncertainty and referendum. Relatedly, I'm also hearing Harper wants to open that same old Pandora's Box of constitutional reform. Pardon my French here, but... are Conservatives all fucked in the head? What, are they slightly lobotomized at birth or something? They seem utterly incapable of projecting the likely, or even plausible, outcomes of their actions (beyond the expectation of applause and copious ass-kissing), even in the light of recent — very recent — history! This country labours under a strange curse... intractable narcissistic xenophobia perennially catered to by stupidity born of an addiction to the fleeting orgasms of power.
Tuesday, May 02, 2006
My two cents, your 477 bucks (or something)
You know, there's something astronomically selfish about people who show up at ATMs at lunch time to... pay their fucking bills. One after another after another after another... while 62 people line up — 63 — behind them, forced to — whoops, 64 — wait and wait when all they want to do is take twenty bucks out for lunch, or possibly deposit their paycheques so they can eventually take twenty bucks out for lunch. Folks, here's a bulletin... odds are, your bank went to considerable trouble and expense to set up a web-based system to allow you to sit at home in your shorts and pay your cable bill, your phone bill, your power bill, your subscription to "I'm a Self-Important Asshole Monthy"... Do us all a favour and look into it. I'm not even asking you to join the 21st century here, just the late 20th, for Christ's sake. Signing your cheques in advance is not doing us a favour (well, not much of one, anyway). Not making us stand around for eight minutes while you get intimate with bank envelopes... that's doing us a favour.
Merci beaucoup.
Merci beaucoup.
Monday, April 24, 2006
Home again home again, jiggity jig
I don't post here nearly as much as I used to. I feel badly about that. Most of my free time these days is spent working on my Flickr account, posting my photos. I just don't seem to find the time or maybe the will to come on here and spout my opinions, deeds, and musings. I wish I did; it's kind of like a diary. So much in your life just gets lost if you don't take the time to simply record it.
Some of you folks have been kind enough to drop by and wish me well, after my last, somewhat alarming posting. :) Thanks to all of you. My eyes were more or less back to normal within four or five days of that previous shot. If I never have snot coming out of my eyes again, I'll count it as a blessing... as should we all.
Social life's been pretty subdued lately. The usual suspects are either away, or were (like me), rather sick. A little over a week ago I was in Hamilton, visiting my parents for a belated birthday party for yours truly. I'm thirty-eight now. Ugh. While I was there, I took a few photos of the city, including some panoramas from the Mountain overlooking the downtown...
Photos of Hamilton's downtown taken from the park above the Jolley Cut — full colour with the Canon Rebel XT and infrared with the Canon G1
...as well as some shots of the Red Hill Valley Parkway, which is finally under construction. This ought to make life a lot easier for people on the Mountain, as well as bringing commercial traffic to and from the US with regard to the airport. My prediction is that a lot of light industry jobs and the attendant homes will spring up over the next ten years or so as a result...
The course of the Red Hill Valley Parkway as it comes down along Mud Street
Thursday the weather was warm enough at last for me to get out to the wilds again and enjoy a little hiking the way I like it. :)
And Friday morning showed some amazing skies, that I was quick to take advantage of...
High dynamic range infrared image of the skies over the Don Valley
This past weekend, I got together with P-Doug on Thursday night to go to a pub down on Eglinton, and then we went to see Joyeux Noel at Canada Square. It's one story of the unofficial Christmas truce of 1914, how it came about, the sorts of things that happened, and the aftermath. It's a phenomenal story, and it deserves a wide audience. Especially these days.
Sunday I went out with P-Doug and G to the hinterland west of Toronto. For once, I didn't buy anything or eat too much (I did eat a few things I shouldn't, but I managed to be moderate, so I don't feel too bad). I had the infrared G1 with me. All the shots I took were from the car, and since it was overcast, they were low light and relatively long exposures, so for most part, they're blurry. I got a handful of images I consider worthwhile, including this one of a crumbling farmhouse on Hwy 8...
The other shots I took that I liked were taken with the Nikon Coolpix 4300 I carry around in my fannypack now...
Click on the image to read the comments... some are a hoot
High dynamic range image of flowers outside the Crossroads Restaurant
...including this one from this morning...
HDR image of a fire engine at Finch and the 404; dramatic skies...
The reason I got the 4300, used, on eBay was because it takes auto-bracketed exposures (when it's behaving properly...), which aid greatly in the creation of high dynamic range images, which I've grown quite big on. The last two shots are HDR images, each composed of three shots with an EV range of -1 to +1. Several of the above shots are HDR shots, as a matter of fact; even the infrared one of the clouds is actually composed of a three-shot -2 to +2 spread.
That's the general stuff. I'll try to get into something a little more specific later on. :)
Some of you folks have been kind enough to drop by and wish me well, after my last, somewhat alarming posting. :) Thanks to all of you. My eyes were more or less back to normal within four or five days of that previous shot. If I never have snot coming out of my eyes again, I'll count it as a blessing... as should we all.
Social life's been pretty subdued lately. The usual suspects are either away, or were (like me), rather sick. A little over a week ago I was in Hamilton, visiting my parents for a belated birthday party for yours truly. I'm thirty-eight now. Ugh. While I was there, I took a few photos of the city, including some panoramas from the Mountain overlooking the downtown...
Photos of Hamilton's downtown taken from the park above the Jolley Cut — full colour with the Canon Rebel XT and infrared with the Canon G1
...as well as some shots of the Red Hill Valley Parkway, which is finally under construction. This ought to make life a lot easier for people on the Mountain, as well as bringing commercial traffic to and from the US with regard to the airport. My prediction is that a lot of light industry jobs and the attendant homes will spring up over the next ten years or so as a result...
The course of the Red Hill Valley Parkway as it comes down along Mud Street
Thursday the weather was warm enough at last for me to get out to the wilds again and enjoy a little hiking the way I like it. :)
And Friday morning showed some amazing skies, that I was quick to take advantage of...
High dynamic range infrared image of the skies over the Don Valley
This past weekend, I got together with P-Doug on Thursday night to go to a pub down on Eglinton, and then we went to see Joyeux Noel at Canada Square. It's one story of the unofficial Christmas truce of 1914, how it came about, the sorts of things that happened, and the aftermath. It's a phenomenal story, and it deserves a wide audience. Especially these days.
Sunday I went out with P-Doug and G to the hinterland west of Toronto. For once, I didn't buy anything or eat too much (I did eat a few things I shouldn't, but I managed to be moderate, so I don't feel too bad). I had the infrared G1 with me. All the shots I took were from the car, and since it was overcast, they were low light and relatively long exposures, so for most part, they're blurry. I got a handful of images I consider worthwhile, including this one of a crumbling farmhouse on Hwy 8...
The other shots I took that I liked were taken with the Nikon Coolpix 4300 I carry around in my fannypack now...
Click on the image to read the comments... some are a hoot
High dynamic range image of flowers outside the Crossroads Restaurant
...including this one from this morning...
HDR image of a fire engine at Finch and the 404; dramatic skies...
The reason I got the 4300, used, on eBay was because it takes auto-bracketed exposures (when it's behaving properly...), which aid greatly in the creation of high dynamic range images, which I've grown quite big on. The last two shots are HDR images, each composed of three shots with an EV range of -1 to +1. Several of the above shots are HDR shots, as a matter of fact; even the infrared one of the clouds is actually composed of a three-shot -2 to +2 spread.
That's the general stuff. I'll try to get into something a little more specific later on. :)
Monday, April 10, 2006
Conjunctivitis
Conjunctivitis
Originally uploaded by Lone Primate.
Red, white, and blue. Too bad I'm Canadian. :)
I was diagnosed with strep throat on Thursday and I've been on penicillin ever since. Bloodshot eyes all week, but it really kicked in last night. I don't know if this is a reaction to the drug or another aspect of the infection. I just hope it goes away.
Friday, March 31, 2006
Quintessentially Canadian
This has to be the all-time quirkiest, 'Canadianest' sentence I've read in a long time... comes from a Google search I was running on "mosque" "Toronto" "beautiful", credited to a magazine called The Atlantic Monthly, in an article called "The Toronto Circle"...
"Rushing to mosque after work in your Chevy, through ice and slush.."
Thursday, March 30, 2006
$9.4 million to destroy a nation
The Globe and Mail has a front-page story today concerning "a textbook entitled Let's Talk About Sovereignty at School, put together by a pro-sovereignty group".
The book contains 40 exercises tailored to everyone from preschoolers to university grads.
The exercises, however, might raise eyebrows in academic circles.
For example, Activity No. 1 is aimed at kindergarteners.
They are asked to make decorations for Quebec's national holiday on June 24, and the book's illustration is a child's drawing of a Quebec flag on a pole with the Canadian flag beneath it, ripped in half.
Grade-school pupils are asked: How many youth novels at $15 apiece could they buy if they abolished the position of the governor-general, which costs Quebeckers $9.4-million a year?
For high-school students, there's a proposed music class on Quebec sovereignty classics, including Canada is not my country by singer Mononc' Serge and Quebec, mon pays by legendary poet Raymond Lévesque.
College-level students are asked to trace the history of the federal sponsorship scandal, while university students are given the task of calculating how much money is wasted by federal "intrusions" into Quebec jurisdictions.
For fine-arts students, there are activities such as designing a Quebec stamp..."
So this is what it comes down to. Quebec sovereignty isn't about saving a generation from being used as cannon-fodder in some foreign war of imperialism, or about breaking free of laws that ban the French language or the practice of the Catholic religion, or about acquiring the right to vote and elect one's own governors, or any of the big issues one might expect of a movement predicated on destroying a nation hundreds of years and millions of lives in the making, with the promise of a decent life for millions yet to come, no. No, it's about figuring out how many books you could buy draining off the lifeblood of that nation. What pretty pictures you can think up to celebrate cutting it down. What symbols of mutual love, respect, and generations of toil and ideals you can teach your children to gratuitously urinate upon without a single thought to the feelings of others and all hard work that went before to give them what they have make them who they are in the world.
The people who wrote this book have the souls of salamanders, the hearts of crocodiles, and every driven urge of termites.
The book contains 40 exercises tailored to everyone from preschoolers to university grads.
The exercises, however, might raise eyebrows in academic circles.
For example, Activity No. 1 is aimed at kindergarteners.
They are asked to make decorations for Quebec's national holiday on June 24, and the book's illustration is a child's drawing of a Quebec flag on a pole with the Canadian flag beneath it, ripped in half.
Grade-school pupils are asked: How many youth novels at $15 apiece could they buy if they abolished the position of the governor-general, which costs Quebeckers $9.4-million a year?
For high-school students, there's a proposed music class on Quebec sovereignty classics, including Canada is not my country by singer Mononc' Serge and Quebec, mon pays by legendary poet Raymond Lévesque.
College-level students are asked to trace the history of the federal sponsorship scandal, while university students are given the task of calculating how much money is wasted by federal "intrusions" into Quebec jurisdictions.
For fine-arts students, there are activities such as designing a Quebec stamp..."
So this is what it comes down to. Quebec sovereignty isn't about saving a generation from being used as cannon-fodder in some foreign war of imperialism, or about breaking free of laws that ban the French language or the practice of the Catholic religion, or about acquiring the right to vote and elect one's own governors, or any of the big issues one might expect of a movement predicated on destroying a nation hundreds of years and millions of lives in the making, with the promise of a decent life for millions yet to come, no. No, it's about figuring out how many books you could buy draining off the lifeblood of that nation. What pretty pictures you can think up to celebrate cutting it down. What symbols of mutual love, respect, and generations of toil and ideals you can teach your children to gratuitously urinate upon without a single thought to the feelings of others and all hard work that went before to give them what they have make them who they are in the world.
The people who wrote this book have the souls of salamanders, the hearts of crocodiles, and every driven urge of termites.
Sunday, March 26, 2006
Keeping the Rock in your heart (and head)
"Republic of Newfoundland".Uh huh.
Saw this in a bar this evening. Gosh, why is it you always see stuff like this in, ohhh, Toronto? Calgary? Toronto? Vancouver? And, ohhhh... Toronto? Why is it all the Newfie flag plates I see on $40,000 Ford F-250s are always screwed onto plates that say ONTARIO? Makes you wanna go up to these guys and say, "Gee, when are you going home to the big job in the Great State of St. John's, b'y?" Republic of Newfoundland, yeah. Love us colonies, though.
C'mon, folks. Regional pride's great and all, but for Christ's sake, give the rest of us just a small break already.
Thursday, March 16, 2006
"We love Canada"
To all those who said we should have joined the war against Iraq, who argued that Arabs are animals who want to take over and destroy the world, that they have no discernment and that any Westerner was equally their target and that Canadians were living in a fool's paradise if we really believed we were safe...
Passport saved Canadian hostage
Held hostage at gunpoint by Palestinian extremists in the Gaza Strip, Mark Budzanowski feared for his life – until his captors discovered his passport and declared 'We love Canada'
MARK MACKINNON
From Thursday's Globe and Mail
JERUSALEM — Mark Budzanowski could almost feel his captors' mood sag when they rifled through his pockets and found his passport. The word Canada on the cover was a blow to the dozens of masked men who surrounded him in the nondescript basement somewhere in the Gaza Strip. They thought they had kidnapped an American.
At first, the men in the masks didn't believe their eyes, and questioned the 57-year-old aid worker about Canada and about specific shops near Mr. Budzanowski's residence on Carlton Street in Toronto.
When they were finally convinced that Mr. Budzanowski was not an American in disguise, he said, they started treating him more politely, and handling him less roughly.
"When they were certain I was Canadian, they were very disappointed. Then, they told me, 'We love Canada.' That's wonderful to hear when you have guns pointed at you," an exhausted Mr. Budzanowski said yesterday in a telephone interview shortly after he was released after almost 30 hours as a hostage.
"It's wonderful to have a Canadian passport because it changes people's minds. One of the guards kept asking me to say hello to Canada, so it does stand for something."
His former captors had taken a liking to him toward the end of the hostage-taking and one — the one who kept asking him to say hello to Canada — even gave him a phone number to call if he ever needed the help of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
"I don't intend to use it, but I believe he meant it," Mr. Budzanowski said with a chuckle...
...Mr. Budzanowski's captors, members of the leftist PFLP, which Mr. Saadat leads, had been looking for an American or British hostage, someone they could potentially use as barter to get Israel to stop its attack on the jail...
...After a sleepless night, during which his captors kept flicking on the light to make sure he wasn't trying to escape, Mr. Budzanowski said, he was forced to record another video, then put back into a car and driven to what he assumed would be another hideout. Only when he saw a crowd of camera-wielding journalists, and then was greeted by French diplomats acting on behalf of the Canadian embassy in Tel Aviv, did Mr. Budzanowski realize that he was being freed.
But while the Canadian embassy had arranged safe passage for him to Tel Aviv, and then home to Canada if he wanted, Mr. Budzanowski decided to stay in Gaza City. After what he hoped would be a long sleep and a warm shower, the aid worker planned to be back at his desk at Jumpstart this morning.
Despite his lack of sleep, Mr. Budzanowski spoke passionately about the need to help Palestinians rebuild their economy and society. He said Jumpstart's projects — including the building of a polytechnic school on the ruins of a deserted Israeli settlement in Gaza and a "peace park" near the Rafah border crossing with Egypt — are too important for him to go home now.
Palestinian police were less sure he should stay, and posted guards outside his room in Gaza City last night. Mr. Budzanowski, however, wasn't worried.
"I find this work very exciting, this is tangible help we're giving, and there's no reason for me to go home because of an incident like this, no matter how unpleasant."
Passport saved Canadian hostage
Held hostage at gunpoint by Palestinian extremists in the Gaza Strip, Mark Budzanowski feared for his life – until his captors discovered his passport and declared 'We love Canada'
MARK MACKINNON
From Thursday's Globe and Mail
JERUSALEM — Mark Budzanowski could almost feel his captors' mood sag when they rifled through his pockets and found his passport. The word Canada on the cover was a blow to the dozens of masked men who surrounded him in the nondescript basement somewhere in the Gaza Strip. They thought they had kidnapped an American.
At first, the men in the masks didn't believe their eyes, and questioned the 57-year-old aid worker about Canada and about specific shops near Mr. Budzanowski's residence on Carlton Street in Toronto.
When they were finally convinced that Mr. Budzanowski was not an American in disguise, he said, they started treating him more politely, and handling him less roughly.
"When they were certain I was Canadian, they were very disappointed. Then, they told me, 'We love Canada.' That's wonderful to hear when you have guns pointed at you," an exhausted Mr. Budzanowski said yesterday in a telephone interview shortly after he was released after almost 30 hours as a hostage.
"It's wonderful to have a Canadian passport because it changes people's minds. One of the guards kept asking me to say hello to Canada, so it does stand for something."
His former captors had taken a liking to him toward the end of the hostage-taking and one — the one who kept asking him to say hello to Canada — even gave him a phone number to call if he ever needed the help of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
"I don't intend to use it, but I believe he meant it," Mr. Budzanowski said with a chuckle...
...Mr. Budzanowski's captors, members of the leftist PFLP, which Mr. Saadat leads, had been looking for an American or British hostage, someone they could potentially use as barter to get Israel to stop its attack on the jail...
...After a sleepless night, during which his captors kept flicking on the light to make sure he wasn't trying to escape, Mr. Budzanowski said, he was forced to record another video, then put back into a car and driven to what he assumed would be another hideout. Only when he saw a crowd of camera-wielding journalists, and then was greeted by French diplomats acting on behalf of the Canadian embassy in Tel Aviv, did Mr. Budzanowski realize that he was being freed.
But while the Canadian embassy had arranged safe passage for him to Tel Aviv, and then home to Canada if he wanted, Mr. Budzanowski decided to stay in Gaza City. After what he hoped would be a long sleep and a warm shower, the aid worker planned to be back at his desk at Jumpstart this morning.
Despite his lack of sleep, Mr. Budzanowski spoke passionately about the need to help Palestinians rebuild their economy and society. He said Jumpstart's projects — including the building of a polytechnic school on the ruins of a deserted Israeli settlement in Gaza and a "peace park" near the Rafah border crossing with Egypt — are too important for him to go home now.
Palestinian police were less sure he should stay, and posted guards outside his room in Gaza City last night. Mr. Budzanowski, however, wasn't worried.
"I find this work very exciting, this is tangible help we're giving, and there's no reason for me to go home because of an incident like this, no matter how unpleasant."
Monday, March 13, 2006
Opinions In the Trees
I received this in email recently and considered it an interesting impression. I decided to get in touch with the original writer and ask permission to quote the opinion. It was granted, and so here it is...
My Sunday mornings are usually spent in intellectual, rather than religious, pursuits. This involves reading the Toronto Sunday Star and the Saturday Globe-and-Mail editorial, insight, and commentary sections from front to back. Except when I'm sitting on the porch, I intersperse this marathon with flips around the dial to see what is on the "Sunday report" programs of the various networks. For the American channels, these discussions of the week's political and economic events have grown wearingly (and frighteningly) similar. Most consist of a panel composed of 1/3rd liberal (or right-of-centre anywhere else in the First World) and 2/3rd conservative (fascism with a bible) politicos and reporters who treat every subject as a shouting match where they beat up their opponents using jargon, trite statements, and emotional threats. Truth stands for little. Sober, intelligent reflection -- much less, cogent speech -- is completely unknown. It is depressing to see "intelligent" thought in the world's most militaristic nation having no more depth or lasting effect than a elementary school shouting match.
By luck, between diatribes on over the president's popularity or which political party covered itself with more merde in during the previous week, there was a passing discussion yesterday on the political snub to the United Arab Emirates concerning the port management contract and the its effect on America's oil-backed dollar. What was said was almost as fascinating as what wasn't. Would the Arab world ever stop buying American treasury bills? Of course not because, otherwise, "where would they get their fighter aircraft from?" The BBC speaker who suggested from European manufacturers was shouted down or ignored. The question why the Arab world would even need to kiss America's ass to get a 15% discount on a dozen jet fighters every 5 years went unanswered. Even more pointed was the fact that several speakers brought up the scenario of China, Europe, and most of East Asia dumping their American reserves. This was repeatedly dismissed by the glib comment that they wouldn't do that because "they need to buy from us". Buy what, I asked? Everything in view on the TV set, from the clothes everybody was wearing to the furniture they were sitting on, had either been manufactured or assembled outside of the USA. It was as if everyone was so isolated, they were still believed that it was the 1950's. The unspoken gaps in their worldview and on how economics and realpolitiks work was on a par with 1970's Albania. These people were so blinkered that you are forced to pity them.
You'd think that the end of the 3M reports would have been a cause for national concern amongst the intelligentsia. Apparently, nothing less subtle than outright ridicule can impinge on America's short-term attention span.
My Sunday mornings are usually spent in intellectual, rather than religious, pursuits. This involves reading the Toronto Sunday Star and the Saturday Globe-and-Mail editorial, insight, and commentary sections from front to back. Except when I'm sitting on the porch, I intersperse this marathon with flips around the dial to see what is on the "Sunday report" programs of the various networks. For the American channels, these discussions of the week's political and economic events have grown wearingly (and frighteningly) similar. Most consist of a panel composed of 1/3rd liberal (or right-of-centre anywhere else in the First World) and 2/3rd conservative (fascism with a bible) politicos and reporters who treat every subject as a shouting match where they beat up their opponents using jargon, trite statements, and emotional threats. Truth stands for little. Sober, intelligent reflection -- much less, cogent speech -- is completely unknown. It is depressing to see "intelligent" thought in the world's most militaristic nation having no more depth or lasting effect than a elementary school shouting match.
By luck, between diatribes on over the president's popularity or which political party covered itself with more merde in during the previous week, there was a passing discussion yesterday on the political snub to the United Arab Emirates concerning the port management contract and the its effect on America's oil-backed dollar. What was said was almost as fascinating as what wasn't. Would the Arab world ever stop buying American treasury bills? Of course not because, otherwise, "where would they get their fighter aircraft from?" The BBC speaker who suggested from European manufacturers was shouted down or ignored. The question why the Arab world would even need to kiss America's ass to get a 15% discount on a dozen jet fighters every 5 years went unanswered. Even more pointed was the fact that several speakers brought up the scenario of China, Europe, and most of East Asia dumping their American reserves. This was repeatedly dismissed by the glib comment that they wouldn't do that because "they need to buy from us". Buy what, I asked? Everything in view on the TV set, from the clothes everybody was wearing to the furniture they were sitting on, had either been manufactured or assembled outside of the USA. It was as if everyone was so isolated, they were still believed that it was the 1950's. The unspoken gaps in their worldview and on how economics and realpolitiks work was on a par with 1970's Albania. These people were so blinkered that you are forced to pity them.
You'd think that the end of the 3M reports would have been a cause for national concern amongst the intelligentsia. Apparently, nothing less subtle than outright ridicule can impinge on America's short-term attention span.
Uncle Sam better practice saying "gracias"
My, how times have changed...
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Connecticut Latest State to Accept Venezuelan Oil
Friday, Mar 03, 2006
Caracas, Venezuela, March 2, 2006—Residents of Connecticut become the latest northeasterners to receive discounted heating oil from the Venezuelan owned oil company Citgo, after the state’s attorney general dismissed questions by the state governor that the program might be illegal.
Record crude oil prices in the wake of hurricanes Katrina and Rita contributed to the increase in heating oil prices. According to the US Department of Energy, 8.1 million of the country’s 103 million households use heating oil as their main heating fuel. Of these, 82 percent are in New England and the Central Atlantic States.
But the deals brokered, which in most cases give eligible low-income houses a 40 percent break on their heating bills, have not come without controversy. Critics of the program say that Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, an outspoken critic of the Bush administration, is merely trying to gain political capital within the US or interfere in energy policy, a complaint which program proponents chalk up to sour grapes, since, as a major supplier of oil to the US, Venezuela is already a force in energy policy.
Others have gone so far as to question the legality of the program.
Republican Connecticut Governor M. Jodi Rell, for instance, raised questions to her state’s Attorney General, asking him to address the “legality of the state of Connecticut sanctioning participation in [the] program.”
Richard Blumenthal, Connecticut’s Attorney General, responded that the program was “consistent with [Connecticut’s] laws.”
Though Rell’s request appears to have been resolved, it echoes that of an ongoing inquiry into Citgo initiated by Rep. Joe Barton, R-TX, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and Ed Whitfield, R-KY, chairman of the Subcommittee for Oversight and Investigations. Last month, the sent a letter to Citgo saying, “We want to understand whether the beneficiaries are being selected in an objective, equitable fashion, or whether this is merely part of a larger political agenda.”
In 2004, Barton received $224,398 in campaign contributions from oil and gas interests, the second highest of any candidate running for House of Representatives, and Whitfield received $15,500, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
Larry Neal, deputy staff director for Barton's committee commented on the inquiry, saying, "The bellicose Venezuelan decided to meddle in American energy policy, and we think it might prove instructive to know how."
Felix Rodriguez, CEO of Citgo, had offered an explanation for the policy in January, at the opening of the Pennsylvania program. "After Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, oil companies were asked to help Americans in need. We are happy to respond, by offering people here in Philadelphia help this winter, and we hope that no one has to make sacrifices to stay warm," said Rodriguez.
Citgo’s offer came as Congressional attempts to elicit funds for discounted heating oil out of petroleum companies failed.
In response to one such request, Jim Mulva, the CEO of Conoco responded, "We feel it's not a good precedent for one industry to fund a program as such. We think that's a responsibility of the government."
However, the initial idea for selling discounted heating oil to the United States came from Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, and pre-dated the hurricanes. In late August, Chávez first mentioned his intention to supply discounted oil to low-income US communities on a trip to Cuba. The next week, on his Sunday TV show Aló Presidente he reiterated his plan, saying, “There is a lot of poverty in the US…Many people die of cold in the winter…We could have an impact on seven to eight million persons.”
Originally, much of the negotiation between Citgo and those trying to broker the deal in the US was to ensure that all benefits of the program would go to intended recipients, rather than middlemen. Cities and states have worked this deal out in different ways. Connecticut’s Attorney General laid out the program was intended to work within his state, “Citgo has offered to sell—over a period of weeks—about 4.8 million gallons of heating oil to Citizens Energy, a Boston-based non-profit energy company, at a 40% discount from the wholesale price to Global Oil, a large heating oil wholesaler. Pursuant to its agreement with Citgo, Citizens Energy will use the profits from the sale of this oil to provide financial assistance to heating oil customers in Connecticut.”
According to New York Daily News, the average Massachusetts resident would save about $180 every three weeks. So, despite the political upheaval surrounding the program, recipients of discounted oil across the Northeast have been pleased.
“[Chávez’s] biggest crime is he's a socialist, but he's not a fascist” Elaine DeRosa, manager of a low-income child-care center in Massachusetts told the AP. "It's going to help a lot of low-income people who the U.S. government isn't talking about.”
Alan Francis, an ironworker, echoed her comments. “It felt like Christmas,” he told the AP. “This extra 53 gallons was awesome.”
----------
Connecticut Latest State to Accept Venezuelan Oil
Friday, Mar 03, 2006
Caracas, Venezuela, March 2, 2006—Residents of Connecticut become the latest northeasterners to receive discounted heating oil from the Venezuelan owned oil company Citgo, after the state’s attorney general dismissed questions by the state governor that the program might be illegal.
Record crude oil prices in the wake of hurricanes Katrina and Rita contributed to the increase in heating oil prices. According to the US Department of Energy, 8.1 million of the country’s 103 million households use heating oil as their main heating fuel. Of these, 82 percent are in New England and the Central Atlantic States.
But the deals brokered, which in most cases give eligible low-income houses a 40 percent break on their heating bills, have not come without controversy. Critics of the program say that Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, an outspoken critic of the Bush administration, is merely trying to gain political capital within the US or interfere in energy policy, a complaint which program proponents chalk up to sour grapes, since, as a major supplier of oil to the US, Venezuela is already a force in energy policy.
Others have gone so far as to question the legality of the program.
Republican Connecticut Governor M. Jodi Rell, for instance, raised questions to her state’s Attorney General, asking him to address the “legality of the state of Connecticut sanctioning participation in [the] program.”
Richard Blumenthal, Connecticut’s Attorney General, responded that the program was “consistent with [Connecticut’s] laws.”
Though Rell’s request appears to have been resolved, it echoes that of an ongoing inquiry into Citgo initiated by Rep. Joe Barton, R-TX, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and Ed Whitfield, R-KY, chairman of the Subcommittee for Oversight and Investigations. Last month, the sent a letter to Citgo saying, “We want to understand whether the beneficiaries are being selected in an objective, equitable fashion, or whether this is merely part of a larger political agenda.”
In 2004, Barton received $224,398 in campaign contributions from oil and gas interests, the second highest of any candidate running for House of Representatives, and Whitfield received $15,500, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
Larry Neal, deputy staff director for Barton's committee commented on the inquiry, saying, "The bellicose Venezuelan decided to meddle in American energy policy, and we think it might prove instructive to know how."
Felix Rodriguez, CEO of Citgo, had offered an explanation for the policy in January, at the opening of the Pennsylvania program. "After Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, oil companies were asked to help Americans in need. We are happy to respond, by offering people here in Philadelphia help this winter, and we hope that no one has to make sacrifices to stay warm," said Rodriguez.
Citgo’s offer came as Congressional attempts to elicit funds for discounted heating oil out of petroleum companies failed.
In response to one such request, Jim Mulva, the CEO of Conoco responded, "We feel it's not a good precedent for one industry to fund a program as such. We think that's a responsibility of the government."
However, the initial idea for selling discounted heating oil to the United States came from Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, and pre-dated the hurricanes. In late August, Chávez first mentioned his intention to supply discounted oil to low-income US communities on a trip to Cuba. The next week, on his Sunday TV show Aló Presidente he reiterated his plan, saying, “There is a lot of poverty in the US…Many people die of cold in the winter…We could have an impact on seven to eight million persons.”
Originally, much of the negotiation between Citgo and those trying to broker the deal in the US was to ensure that all benefits of the program would go to intended recipients, rather than middlemen. Cities and states have worked this deal out in different ways. Connecticut’s Attorney General laid out the program was intended to work within his state, “Citgo has offered to sell—over a period of weeks—about 4.8 million gallons of heating oil to Citizens Energy, a Boston-based non-profit energy company, at a 40% discount from the wholesale price to Global Oil, a large heating oil wholesaler. Pursuant to its agreement with Citgo, Citizens Energy will use the profits from the sale of this oil to provide financial assistance to heating oil customers in Connecticut.”
According to New York Daily News, the average Massachusetts resident would save about $180 every three weeks. So, despite the political upheaval surrounding the program, recipients of discounted oil across the Northeast have been pleased.
“[Chávez’s] biggest crime is he's a socialist, but he's not a fascist” Elaine DeRosa, manager of a low-income child-care center in Massachusetts told the AP. "It's going to help a lot of low-income people who the U.S. government isn't talking about.”
Alan Francis, an ironworker, echoed her comments. “It felt like Christmas,” he told the AP. “This extra 53 gallons was awesome.”
Friday, March 10, 2006
The Blitz calling the kettle Krieg
There's a new documentary making the rounds right now called Why We Fight, a take-off on the WWII movie of the same name by Frank Capra. I haven't seen it yet, but it purports to be about the events that have seen the fulfillment of Dwight Eisenhower's prophetic speech on the rise of the military-industrial complex. In the course of reading reviews for the picture, I came across this eyebrow-raising comment by Steve Rhodes of Internet Reviews:
I think the most poignant thing about this comment is that clearly, Steve Rhodes and people like him are so blinded by red, white, and blue, that they're incapable of stepping outside of their own circumstances long enough to glimpse the reality that their own country has, in fact, become the madman who now must be appeased. The Sudetenland, Poland, Paris, Stalingrad... Kabul, Baghdad, ...Tehran? Maybe it's time we all stood up to this year's madman. I think that's what the movie's about. Maybe Steve should watch the movie again without his hands over his eyes, singing as loud as he can, and, in his own words, come to grips with his own conclusions.
In a post-9/11 world in which the next terrorist attack on our homeland could well be a nuclear bomb, WHY WE FIGHT is a dangerously naive propaganda piece whose logical arguments are quite dated. Neville Chamberlain's England learned the real price of appeasing mad men, but this movie never comes to grips with its own conclusions.
I think the most poignant thing about this comment is that clearly, Steve Rhodes and people like him are so blinded by red, white, and blue, that they're incapable of stepping outside of their own circumstances long enough to glimpse the reality that their own country has, in fact, become the madman who now must be appeased. The Sudetenland, Poland, Paris, Stalingrad... Kabul, Baghdad, ...Tehran? Maybe it's time we all stood up to this year's madman. I think that's what the movie's about. Maybe Steve should watch the movie again without his hands over his eyes, singing as loud as he can, and, in his own words, come to grips with his own conclusions.
Wednesday, March 08, 2006
What the hell is going on down there? :(
State bill proposes Christianity be Missouri’s official religion
09:24 PM CST on Saturday, March 4, 2006
By John Mills, News 4
Missouri legislators in Jefferson City considered a bill that would name Christianity the state's official "majority" religion.
House Concurrent Resolution 13 has is pending in the state legislature.
Many Missouri residents had not heard about the bill until Thursday.
Karen Aroesty of the Anti-defamation league, along with other watch-groups, began a letter writing and email campaign to stop the resolution.
The resolution would recognize "a Christian god," and it would not protect minority religions, but "protect the majority's right to express their religious beliefs.
The resolution also recognizes that, "a greater power exists," and only Christianity receives what the resolution calls, "justified recognition."
State representative David Sater of Cassville in southwestern Missouri, sponsored the resolution, but he has refused to talk about it on camera or over the phone.
KMOV also contacted Gov. Matt Blunt's office to see where he stands on the resolution, but he has yet to respond.
09:24 PM CST on Saturday, March 4, 2006
By John Mills, News 4
Missouri legislators in Jefferson City considered a bill that would name Christianity the state's official "majority" religion.
House Concurrent Resolution 13 has is pending in the state legislature.
Many Missouri residents had not heard about the bill until Thursday.
Karen Aroesty of the Anti-defamation league, along with other watch-groups, began a letter writing and email campaign to stop the resolution.
The resolution would recognize "a Christian god," and it would not protect minority religions, but "protect the majority's right to express their religious beliefs.
The resolution also recognizes that, "a greater power exists," and only Christianity receives what the resolution calls, "justified recognition."
State representative David Sater of Cassville in southwestern Missouri, sponsored the resolution, but he has refused to talk about it on camera or over the phone.
KMOV also contacted Gov. Matt Blunt's office to see where he stands on the resolution, but he has yet to respond.
Monday, March 06, 2006
The closing days of dollar hegemony: ?
This is one of the most eye-opening pieces I've ever seen on the nature of US dollar hegemony. The most jaw-dropping thing about it is that it wasn't written by some crank in a bunker somewhere, but was presented in the US House of Representatives in mid-February by a Congressman from Texas...
-----------------------------------------
Published on 15 Feb 2006 before the U.S. House of Representatives.
The End of Dollar Hegemony
by Hon. Ron Paul of Texas
A hundred years ago it was called “dollar diplomacy.” After World War II, and especially after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1989, that policy evolved into “dollar hegemony.” But after all these many years of great success, our dollar dominance is coming to an end.
It has been said, rightly, that he who holds the gold makes the rules. In earlier times it was readily accepted that fair and honest trade required an exchange for something of real value.
First it was simply barter of goods. Then it was discovered that gold held a universal attraction, and was a convenient substitute for more cumbersome barter transactions. Not only did gold facilitate exchange of goods and services, it served as a store of value for those who wanted to save for a rainy day.
Though money developed naturally in the marketplace, as governments grew in power they assumed monopoly control over money. Sometimes governments succeeded in guaranteeing the quality and purity of gold, but in time governments learned to outspend their revenues. New or higher taxes always incurred the disapproval of the people, so it wasn’t long before Kings and Caesars learned how to inflate their currencies by reducing the amount of gold in each coin-- always hoping their subjects wouldn’t discover the fraud. But the people always did, and they strenuously objected.
This helped pressure leaders to seek more gold by conquering other nations. The people became accustomed to living beyond their means, and enjoyed the circuses and bread. Financing extravagances by conquering foreign lands seemed a logical alternative to working harder and producing more. Besides, conquering nations not only brought home gold, they brought home slaves as well. Taxing the people in conquered territories also provided an incentive to build empires. This system of government worked well for a while, but the moral decline of the people led to an unwillingness to produce for themselves. There was a limit to the number of countries that could be sacked for their wealth, and this always brought empires to an end. When gold no longer could be obtained, their military might crumbled. In those days those who held the gold truly wrote the rules and lived well.
That general rule has held fast throughout the ages. When gold was used, and the rules protected honest commerce, productive nations thrived. Whenever wealthy nations-- those with powerful armies and gold-- strived only for empire and easy fortunes to support welfare at home, those nations failed.
Today the principles are the same, but the process is quite different. Gold no longer is the currency of the realm; paper is. The truth now is: “He who prints the money makes the rules”-- at least for the time being. Although gold is not used, the goals are the same: compel foreign countries to produce and subsidize the country with military superiority and control over the monetary printing presses.
Since printing paper money is nothing short of counterfeiting, the issuer of the international currency must always be the country with the military might to guarantee control over the system. This magnificent scheme seems the perfect system for obtaining perpetual wealth for the country that issues the de facto world currency. The one problem, however, is that such a system destroys the character of the counterfeiting nation’s people-- just as was the case when gold was the currency and it was obtained by conquering other nations. And this destroys the incentive to save and produce, while encouraging debt and runaway welfare.
The pressure at home to inflate the currency comes from the corporate welfare recipients, as well as those who demand handouts as compensation for their needs and perceived injuries by others. In both cases personal responsibility for one’s actions is rejected.
When paper money is rejected, or when gold runs out, wealth and political stability are lost. The country then must go from living beyond its means to living beneath its means, until the economic and political systems adjust to the new rules-- rules no longer written by those who ran the now defunct printing press.
“Dollar Diplomacy,” a policy instituted by William Howard Taft and his Secretary of State Philander C. Knox, was designed to enhance U.S. commercial investments in Latin America and the Far East. McKinley concocted a war against Spain in 1898, and (Teddy) Roosevelt’s corollary to the Monroe Doctrine preceded Taft’s aggressive approach to using the U.S. dollar and diplomatic influence to secure U.S. investments abroad. This earned the popular title of “Dollar Diplomacy.” The significance of Roosevelt’s change was that our intervention now could be justified by the mere “appearance” that a country of interest to us was politically or fiscally vulnerable to European control. Not only did we claim a right, but even an official U.S. government “obligation” to protect our commercial interests from Europeans.
This new policy came on the heels of the “gunboat” diplomacy of the late 19th century, and it meant we could buy influence before resorting to the threat of force. By the time the “dollar diplomacy” of William Howard Taft was clearly articulated, the seeds of American empire were planted. And they were destined to grow in the fertile political soil of a country that lost its love and respect for the republic bequeathed to us by the authors of the Constitution. And indeed they did. It wasn’t too long before dollar “diplomacy” became dollar “hegemony” in the second half of the 20th century.
This transition only could have occurred with a dramatic change in monetary policy and the nature of the dollar itself.
Congress created the Federal Reserve System in 1913. Between then and 1971 the principle of sound money was systematically undermined. Between 1913 and 1971, the Federal Reserve found it much easier to expand the money supply at will for financing war or manipulating the economy with little resistance from Congress-- while benefiting the special interests that influence government.
Dollar dominance got a huge boost after World War II. We were spared the destruction that so many other nations suffered, and our coffers were filled with the world’s gold. But the world chose not to return to the discipline of the gold standard, and the politicians applauded. Printing money to pay the bills was a lot more popular than taxing or restraining unnecessary spending. In spite of the short-term benefits, imbalances were institutionalized for decades to come.
The 1944 Bretton Woods agreement solidified the dollar as the preeminent world reserve currency, replacing the British pound. Due to our political and military muscle, and because we had a huge amount of physical gold, the world readily accepted our dollar (defined as 1/35th of an ounce of gold) as the world’s reserve currency. The dollar was said to be “as good as gold,” and convertible to all foreign central banks at that rate. For American citizens, however, it remained illegal to own. This was a gold-exchange standard that from inception was doomed to fail.
The U.S. did exactly what many predicted she would do. She printed more dollars for which there was no gold backing. But the world was content to accept those dollars for more than 25 years with little question-- until the French and others in the late 1960s demanded we fulfill our promise to pay one ounce of gold for each $35 they delivered to the U.S. Treasury. This resulted in a huge gold drain that brought an end to a very poorly devised pseudo-gold standard.
It all ended on August 15, 1971, when Nixon closed the gold window and refused to pay out any of our remaining 280 million ounces of gold. In essence, we declared our insolvency and everyone recognized some other monetary system had to be devised in order to bring stability to the markets.
Amazingly, a new system was devised which allowed the U.S. to operate the printing presses for the world reserve currency with no restraints placed on it-- not even a pretense of gold convertibility, none whatsoever! Though the new policy was even more deeply flawed, it nevertheless opened the door for dollar hegemony to spread.
Realizing the world was embarking on something new and mind boggling, elite money managers, with especially strong support from U.S. authorities, struck an agreement with OPEC to price oil in U.S. dollars exclusively for all worldwide transactions. This gave the dollar a special place among world currencies and in essence “backed” the dollar with oil. In return, the U.S. promised to protect the various oil-rich kingdoms in the Persian Gulf against threat of invasion or domestic coup. This arrangement helped ignite the radical Islamic movement among those who resented our influence in the region. The arrangement gave the dollar artificial strength, with tremendous financial benefits for the United States. It allowed us to export our monetary inflation by buying oil and other goods at a great discount as dollar influence flourished.
This post-Bretton Woods system was much more fragile than the system that existed between 1945 and 1971. Though the dollar/oil arrangement was helpful, it was not nearly as stable as the pseudo gold standard under Bretton Woods. It certainly was less stable than the gold standard of the late 19th century.
During the 1970s the dollar nearly collapsed, as oil prices surged and gold skyrocketed to $800 an ounce. By 1979 interest rates of 21% were required to rescue the system. The pressure on the dollar in the 1970s, in spite of the benefits accrued to it, reflected reckless budget deficits and monetary inflation during the 1960s. The markets were not fooled by LBJ’s claim that we could afford both “guns and butter.”
Once again the dollar was rescued, and this ushered in the age of true dollar hegemony lasting from the early 1980s to the present. With tremendous cooperation coming from the central banks and international commercial banks, the dollar was accepted as if it were gold.
Fed Chair Alan Greenspan, on several occasions before the House Banking Committee, answered my challenges to him about his previously held favorable views on gold by claiming that he and other central bankers had gotten paper money-- i.e. the dollar system-- to respond as if it were gold. Each time I strongly disagreed, and pointed out that if they had achieved such a feat they would have defied centuries of economic history regarding the need for money to be something of real value. He smugly and confidently concurred with this.
In recent years central banks and various financial institutions, all with vested interests in maintaining a workable fiat dollar standard, were not secretive about selling and loaning large amounts of gold to the market even while decreasing gold prices raised serious questions about the wisdom of such a policy. They never admitted to gold price fixing, but the evidence is abundant that they believed if the gold price fell it would convey a sense of confidence to the market, confidence that they indeed had achieved amazing success in turning paper into gold.
Increasing gold prices historically are viewed as an indicator of distrust in paper currency. This recent effort was not a whole lot different than the U.S. Treasury selling gold at $35 an ounce in the 1960s, in an attempt to convince the world the dollar was sound and as good as gold. Even during the Depression, one of Roosevelt’s first acts was to remove free market gold pricing as an indication of a flawed monetary system by making it illegal for American citizens to own gold. Economic law eventually limited that effort, as it did in the early 1970s when our Treasury and the IMF tried to fix the price of gold by dumping tons into the market to dampen the enthusiasm of those seeking a safe haven for a falling dollar after gold ownership was re-legalized.
Once again the effort between 1980 and 2000 to fool the market as to the true value of the dollar proved unsuccessful. In the past 5 years the dollar has been devalued in terms of gold by more than 50%. You just can’t fool all the people all the time, even with the power of the mighty printing press and money creating system of the Federal Reserve.
Even with all the shortcomings of the fiat monetary system, dollar influence thrived. The results seemed beneficial, but gross distortions built into the system remained. And true to form, Washington politicians are only too anxious to solve the problems cropping up with window dressing, while failing to understand and deal with the underlying flawed policy. Protectionism, fixing exchange rates, punitive tariffs, politically motivated sanctions, corporate subsidies, international trade management, price controls, interest rate and wage controls, super-nationalist sentiments, threats of force, and even war are resorted to—all to solve the problems artificially created by deeply flawed monetary and economic systems.
In the short run, the issuer of a fiat reserve currency can accrue great economic benefits. In the long run, it poses a threat to the country issuing the world currency. In this case that’s the United States. As long as foreign countries take our dollars in return for real goods, we come out ahead. This is a benefit many in Congress fail to recognize, as they bash China for maintaining a positive trade balance with us. But this leads to a loss of manufacturing jobs to overseas markets, as we become more dependent on others and less self-sufficient. Foreign countries accumulate our dollars due to their high savings rates, and graciously loan them back to us at low interest rates to finance our excessive consumption.
It sounds like a great deal for everyone, except the time will come when our dollars-- due to their depreciation-- will be received less enthusiastically or even be rejected by foreign countries. That could create a whole new ballgame and force us to pay a price for living beyond our means and our production. The shift in sentiment regarding the dollar has already started, but the worst is yet to come.
The agreement with OPEC in the 1970s to price oil in dollars has provided tremendous artificial strength to the dollar as the preeminent reserve currency. This has created a universal demand for the dollar, and soaks up the huge number of new dollars generated each year. Last year alone M3 increased over $700 billion.
The artificial demand for our dollar, along with our military might, places us in the unique position to “rule” the world without productive work or savings, and without limits on consumer spending or deficits. The problem is, it can’t last.
Price inflation is raising its ugly head, and the NASDAQ bubble-- generated by easy money-- has burst. The housing bubble likewise created is deflating. Gold prices have doubled, and federal spending is out of sight with zero political will to rein it in. The trade deficit last year was over $728 billion. A $2 trillion war is raging, and plans are being laid to expand the war into Iran and possibly Syria. The only restraining force will be the world’s rejection of the dollar. It’s bound to come and create conditions worse than 1979-1980, which required 21% interest rates to correct. But everything possible will be done to protect the dollar in the meantime. We have a shared interest with those who hold our dollars to keep the whole charade going.
Greenspan, in his first speech after leaving the Fed, said that gold prices were up because of concern about terrorism, and not because of monetary concerns or because he created too many dollars during his tenure. Gold has to be discredited and the dollar propped up. Even when the dollar comes under serious attack by market forces, the central banks and the IMF surely will do everything conceivable to soak up the dollars in hope of restoring stability. Eventually they will fail.
Most importantly, the dollar/oil relationship has to be maintained to keep the dollar as a preeminent currency. Any attack on this relationship will be forcefully challenged—as it already has been.
In November 2000 Saddam Hussein demanded Euros for his oil. His arrogance was a threat to the dollar; his lack of any military might was never a threat. At the first cabinet meeting with the new administration in 2001, as reported by Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill, the major topic was how we would get rid of Saddam Hussein-- though there was no evidence whatsoever he posed a threat to us. This deep concern for Saddam Hussein surprised and shocked O’Neill.
It now is common knowledge that the immediate reaction of the administration after 9/11 revolved around how they could connect Saddam Hussein to the attacks, to justify an invasion and overthrow of his government. Even with no evidence of any connection to 9/11, or evidence of weapons of mass destruction, public and congressional support was generated through distortions and flat out misrepresentation of the facts to justify overthrowing Saddam Hussein.
There was no public talk of removing Saddam Hussein because of his attack on the integrity of the dollar as a reserve currency by selling oil in Euros. Many believe this was the real reason for our obsession with Iraq. I doubt it was the only reason, but it may well have played a significant role in our motivation to wage war. Within a very short period after the military victory, all Iraqi oil sales were carried out in dollars. The Euro was abandoned.
In 2001, Venezuela’s ambassador to Russia spoke of Venezuela switching to the Euro for all their oil sales. Within a year there was a coup attempt against Chavez, reportedly with assistance from our CIA.
After these attempts to nudge the Euro toward replacing the dollar as the world’s reserve currency were met with resistance, the sharp fall of the dollar against the Euro was reversed. These events may well have played a significant role in maintaining dollar dominance.
It’s become clear the U.S. administration was sympathetic to those who plotted the overthrow of Chavez, and was embarrassed by its failure. The fact that Chavez was democratically elected had little influence on which side we supported.
Now, a new attempt is being made against the petrodollar system. Iran, another member of the “axis of evil,” has announced her plans to initiate an oil bourse in March of this year. Guess what, the oil sales will be priced Euros, not dollars.
Most Americans forget how our policies have systematically and needlessly antagonized the Iranians over the years. In 1953 the CIA helped overthrow a democratically elected president, Mohammed Mossadeqh, and install the authoritarian Shah, who was friendly to the U.S. The Iranians were still fuming over this when the hostages were seized in 1979. Our alliance with Saddam Hussein in his invasion of Iran in the early 1980s did not help matters, and obviously did not do much for our relationship with Saddam Hussein. The administration announcement in 2001 that Iran was part of the axis of evil didn’t do much to improve the diplomatic relationship between our two countries. Recent threats over nuclear power, while ignoring the fact that they are surrounded by countries with nuclear weapons, doesn’t seem to register with those who continue to provoke Iran. With what most Muslims perceive as our war against Islam, and this recent history, there’s little wonder why Iran might choose to harm America by undermining the dollar. Iran, like Iraq, has zero capability to attack us. But that didn’t stop us from turning Saddam Hussein into a modern day Hitler ready to take over the world. Now Iran, especially since she’s made plans for pricing oil in Euros, has been on the receiving end of a propaganda war not unlike that waged against Iraq before our invasion.
It’s not likely that maintaining dollar supremacy was the only motivating factor for the war against Iraq, nor for agitating against Iran. Though the real reasons for going to war are complex, we now know the reasons given before the war started, like the presence of weapons of mass destruction and Saddam Hussein’s connection to 9/11, were false. The dollar’s importance is obvious, but this does not diminish the influence of the distinct plans laid out years ago by the neo-conservatives to remake the Middle East. Israel’s influence, as well as that of the Christian Zionists, likewise played a role in prosecuting this war. Protecting “our” oil supplies has influenced our Middle East policy for decades.
But the truth is that paying the bills for this aggressive intervention is impossible the old fashioned way, with more taxes, more savings, and more production by the American people. Much of the expense of the Persian Gulf War in 1991 was shouldered by many of our willing allies. That’s not so today. Now, more than ever, the dollar hegemony-- it’s dominance as the world reserve currency-- is required to finance our huge war expenditures. This $2 trillion never-ending war must be paid for, one way or another. Dollar hegemony provides the vehicle to do just that.
For the most part the true victims aren’t aware of how they pay the bills. The license to create money out of thin air allows the bills to be paid through price inflation. American citizens, as well as average citizens of Japan, China, and other countries suffer from price inflation, which represents the “tax” that pays the bills for our military adventures. That is until the fraud is discovered, and the foreign producers decide not to take dollars nor hold them very long in payment for their goods. Everything possible is done to prevent the fraud of the monetary system from being exposed to the masses who suffer from it. If oil markets replace dollars with Euros, it would in time curtail our ability to continue to print, without restraint, the world’s reserve currency.
It is an unbelievable benefit to us to import valuable goods and export depreciating dollars. The exporting countries have become addicted to our purchases for their economic growth. This dependency makes them allies in continuing the fraud, and their participation keeps the dollar’s value artificially high. If this system were workable long term, American citizens would never have to work again. We too could enjoy “bread and circuses” just as the Romans did, but their gold finally ran out and the inability of Rome to continue to plunder conquered nations brought an end to her empire.
The same thing will happen to us if we don’t change our ways. Though we don’t occupy foreign countries to directly plunder, we nevertheless have spread our troops across 130 nations of the world. Our intense effort to spread our power in the oil-rich Middle East is not a coincidence. But unlike the old days, we don’t declare direct ownership of the natural resources-- we just insist that we can buy what we want and pay for it with our paper money. Any country that challenges our authority does so at great risk.
Once again Congress has bought into the war propaganda against Iran, just as it did against Iraq. Arguments are now made for attacking Iran economically, and militarily if necessary. These arguments are all based on the same false reasons given for the ill-fated and costly occupation of Iraq.
Our whole economic system depends on continuing the current monetary arrangement, which means recycling the dollar is crucial. Currently, we borrow over $700 billion every year from our gracious benefactors, who work hard and take our paper for their goods. Then we borrow all the money we need to secure the empire (DOD budget $450 billion) plus more. The military might we enjoy becomes the “backing” of our currency. There are no other countries that can challenge our military superiority, and therefore they have little choice but to accept the dollars we declare are today’s “gold.” This is why countries that challenge the system-- like Iraq, Iran and Venezuela-- become targets of our plans for regime change.
Ironically, dollar superiority depends on our strong military, and our strong military depends on the dollar. As long as foreign recipients take our dollars for real goods and are willing to finance our extravagant consumption and militarism, the status quo will continue regardless of how huge our foreign debt and current account deficit become.
But real threats come from our political adversaries who are incapable of confronting us militarily, yet are not bashful about confronting us economically. That’s why we see the new challenge from Iran being taken so seriously. The urgent arguments about Iran posing a military threat to the security of the United States are no more plausible than the false charges levied against Iraq. Yet there is no effort to resist this march to confrontation by those who grandstand for political reasons against the Iraq war.
It seems that the people and Congress are easily persuaded by the jingoism of the preemptive war promoters. It’s only after the cost in human life and dollars are tallied up that the people object to unwise militarism.
The strange thing is that the failure in Iraq is now apparent to a large majority of American people, yet they and Congress are acquiescing to the call for a needless and dangerous confrontation with Iran.
But then again, our failure to find Osama bin Laden and destroy his network did not dissuade us from taking on the Iraqis in a war totally unrelated to 9/11.
Concern for pricing oil only in dollars helps explain our willingness to drop everything and teach Saddam Hussein a lesson for his defiance in demanding Euros for oil.
And once again there’s this urgent call for sanctions and threats of force against Iran at the precise time Iran is opening a new oil exchange with all transactions in Euros.
Using force to compel people to accept money without real value can only work in the short run. It ultimately leads to economic dislocation, both domestic and international, and always ends with a price to be paid.
The economic law that honest exchange demands only things of real value as currency cannot be repealed. The chaos that one day will ensue from our 35-year experiment with worldwide fiat money will require a return to money of real value. We will know that day is approaching when oil-producing countries demand gold, or its equivalent, for their oil rather than dollars or Euros. The sooner the better.
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Published on 15 Feb 2006 before the U.S. House of Representatives.
The End of Dollar Hegemony
by Hon. Ron Paul of Texas
A hundred years ago it was called “dollar diplomacy.” After World War II, and especially after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1989, that policy evolved into “dollar hegemony.” But after all these many years of great success, our dollar dominance is coming to an end.
It has been said, rightly, that he who holds the gold makes the rules. In earlier times it was readily accepted that fair and honest trade required an exchange for something of real value.
First it was simply barter of goods. Then it was discovered that gold held a universal attraction, and was a convenient substitute for more cumbersome barter transactions. Not only did gold facilitate exchange of goods and services, it served as a store of value for those who wanted to save for a rainy day.
Though money developed naturally in the marketplace, as governments grew in power they assumed monopoly control over money. Sometimes governments succeeded in guaranteeing the quality and purity of gold, but in time governments learned to outspend their revenues. New or higher taxes always incurred the disapproval of the people, so it wasn’t long before Kings and Caesars learned how to inflate their currencies by reducing the amount of gold in each coin-- always hoping their subjects wouldn’t discover the fraud. But the people always did, and they strenuously objected.
This helped pressure leaders to seek more gold by conquering other nations. The people became accustomed to living beyond their means, and enjoyed the circuses and bread. Financing extravagances by conquering foreign lands seemed a logical alternative to working harder and producing more. Besides, conquering nations not only brought home gold, they brought home slaves as well. Taxing the people in conquered territories also provided an incentive to build empires. This system of government worked well for a while, but the moral decline of the people led to an unwillingness to produce for themselves. There was a limit to the number of countries that could be sacked for their wealth, and this always brought empires to an end. When gold no longer could be obtained, their military might crumbled. In those days those who held the gold truly wrote the rules and lived well.
That general rule has held fast throughout the ages. When gold was used, and the rules protected honest commerce, productive nations thrived. Whenever wealthy nations-- those with powerful armies and gold-- strived only for empire and easy fortunes to support welfare at home, those nations failed.
Today the principles are the same, but the process is quite different. Gold no longer is the currency of the realm; paper is. The truth now is: “He who prints the money makes the rules”-- at least for the time being. Although gold is not used, the goals are the same: compel foreign countries to produce and subsidize the country with military superiority and control over the monetary printing presses.
Since printing paper money is nothing short of counterfeiting, the issuer of the international currency must always be the country with the military might to guarantee control over the system. This magnificent scheme seems the perfect system for obtaining perpetual wealth for the country that issues the de facto world currency. The one problem, however, is that such a system destroys the character of the counterfeiting nation’s people-- just as was the case when gold was the currency and it was obtained by conquering other nations. And this destroys the incentive to save and produce, while encouraging debt and runaway welfare.
The pressure at home to inflate the currency comes from the corporate welfare recipients, as well as those who demand handouts as compensation for their needs and perceived injuries by others. In both cases personal responsibility for one’s actions is rejected.
When paper money is rejected, or when gold runs out, wealth and political stability are lost. The country then must go from living beyond its means to living beneath its means, until the economic and political systems adjust to the new rules-- rules no longer written by those who ran the now defunct printing press.
“Dollar Diplomacy,” a policy instituted by William Howard Taft and his Secretary of State Philander C. Knox, was designed to enhance U.S. commercial investments in Latin America and the Far East. McKinley concocted a war against Spain in 1898, and (Teddy) Roosevelt’s corollary to the Monroe Doctrine preceded Taft’s aggressive approach to using the U.S. dollar and diplomatic influence to secure U.S. investments abroad. This earned the popular title of “Dollar Diplomacy.” The significance of Roosevelt’s change was that our intervention now could be justified by the mere “appearance” that a country of interest to us was politically or fiscally vulnerable to European control. Not only did we claim a right, but even an official U.S. government “obligation” to protect our commercial interests from Europeans.
This new policy came on the heels of the “gunboat” diplomacy of the late 19th century, and it meant we could buy influence before resorting to the threat of force. By the time the “dollar diplomacy” of William Howard Taft was clearly articulated, the seeds of American empire were planted. And they were destined to grow in the fertile political soil of a country that lost its love and respect for the republic bequeathed to us by the authors of the Constitution. And indeed they did. It wasn’t too long before dollar “diplomacy” became dollar “hegemony” in the second half of the 20th century.
This transition only could have occurred with a dramatic change in monetary policy and the nature of the dollar itself.
Congress created the Federal Reserve System in 1913. Between then and 1971 the principle of sound money was systematically undermined. Between 1913 and 1971, the Federal Reserve found it much easier to expand the money supply at will for financing war or manipulating the economy with little resistance from Congress-- while benefiting the special interests that influence government.
Dollar dominance got a huge boost after World War II. We were spared the destruction that so many other nations suffered, and our coffers were filled with the world’s gold. But the world chose not to return to the discipline of the gold standard, and the politicians applauded. Printing money to pay the bills was a lot more popular than taxing or restraining unnecessary spending. In spite of the short-term benefits, imbalances were institutionalized for decades to come.
The 1944 Bretton Woods agreement solidified the dollar as the preeminent world reserve currency, replacing the British pound. Due to our political and military muscle, and because we had a huge amount of physical gold, the world readily accepted our dollar (defined as 1/35th of an ounce of gold) as the world’s reserve currency. The dollar was said to be “as good as gold,” and convertible to all foreign central banks at that rate. For American citizens, however, it remained illegal to own. This was a gold-exchange standard that from inception was doomed to fail.
The U.S. did exactly what many predicted she would do. She printed more dollars for which there was no gold backing. But the world was content to accept those dollars for more than 25 years with little question-- until the French and others in the late 1960s demanded we fulfill our promise to pay one ounce of gold for each $35 they delivered to the U.S. Treasury. This resulted in a huge gold drain that brought an end to a very poorly devised pseudo-gold standard.
It all ended on August 15, 1971, when Nixon closed the gold window and refused to pay out any of our remaining 280 million ounces of gold. In essence, we declared our insolvency and everyone recognized some other monetary system had to be devised in order to bring stability to the markets.
Amazingly, a new system was devised which allowed the U.S. to operate the printing presses for the world reserve currency with no restraints placed on it-- not even a pretense of gold convertibility, none whatsoever! Though the new policy was even more deeply flawed, it nevertheless opened the door for dollar hegemony to spread.
Realizing the world was embarking on something new and mind boggling, elite money managers, with especially strong support from U.S. authorities, struck an agreement with OPEC to price oil in U.S. dollars exclusively for all worldwide transactions. This gave the dollar a special place among world currencies and in essence “backed” the dollar with oil. In return, the U.S. promised to protect the various oil-rich kingdoms in the Persian Gulf against threat of invasion or domestic coup. This arrangement helped ignite the radical Islamic movement among those who resented our influence in the region. The arrangement gave the dollar artificial strength, with tremendous financial benefits for the United States. It allowed us to export our monetary inflation by buying oil and other goods at a great discount as dollar influence flourished.
This post-Bretton Woods system was much more fragile than the system that existed between 1945 and 1971. Though the dollar/oil arrangement was helpful, it was not nearly as stable as the pseudo gold standard under Bretton Woods. It certainly was less stable than the gold standard of the late 19th century.
During the 1970s the dollar nearly collapsed, as oil prices surged and gold skyrocketed to $800 an ounce. By 1979 interest rates of 21% were required to rescue the system. The pressure on the dollar in the 1970s, in spite of the benefits accrued to it, reflected reckless budget deficits and monetary inflation during the 1960s. The markets were not fooled by LBJ’s claim that we could afford both “guns and butter.”
Once again the dollar was rescued, and this ushered in the age of true dollar hegemony lasting from the early 1980s to the present. With tremendous cooperation coming from the central banks and international commercial banks, the dollar was accepted as if it were gold.
Fed Chair Alan Greenspan, on several occasions before the House Banking Committee, answered my challenges to him about his previously held favorable views on gold by claiming that he and other central bankers had gotten paper money-- i.e. the dollar system-- to respond as if it were gold. Each time I strongly disagreed, and pointed out that if they had achieved such a feat they would have defied centuries of economic history regarding the need for money to be something of real value. He smugly and confidently concurred with this.
In recent years central banks and various financial institutions, all with vested interests in maintaining a workable fiat dollar standard, were not secretive about selling and loaning large amounts of gold to the market even while decreasing gold prices raised serious questions about the wisdom of such a policy. They never admitted to gold price fixing, but the evidence is abundant that they believed if the gold price fell it would convey a sense of confidence to the market, confidence that they indeed had achieved amazing success in turning paper into gold.
Increasing gold prices historically are viewed as an indicator of distrust in paper currency. This recent effort was not a whole lot different than the U.S. Treasury selling gold at $35 an ounce in the 1960s, in an attempt to convince the world the dollar was sound and as good as gold. Even during the Depression, one of Roosevelt’s first acts was to remove free market gold pricing as an indication of a flawed monetary system by making it illegal for American citizens to own gold. Economic law eventually limited that effort, as it did in the early 1970s when our Treasury and the IMF tried to fix the price of gold by dumping tons into the market to dampen the enthusiasm of those seeking a safe haven for a falling dollar after gold ownership was re-legalized.
Once again the effort between 1980 and 2000 to fool the market as to the true value of the dollar proved unsuccessful. In the past 5 years the dollar has been devalued in terms of gold by more than 50%. You just can’t fool all the people all the time, even with the power of the mighty printing press and money creating system of the Federal Reserve.
Even with all the shortcomings of the fiat monetary system, dollar influence thrived. The results seemed beneficial, but gross distortions built into the system remained. And true to form, Washington politicians are only too anxious to solve the problems cropping up with window dressing, while failing to understand and deal with the underlying flawed policy. Protectionism, fixing exchange rates, punitive tariffs, politically motivated sanctions, corporate subsidies, international trade management, price controls, interest rate and wage controls, super-nationalist sentiments, threats of force, and even war are resorted to—all to solve the problems artificially created by deeply flawed monetary and economic systems.
In the short run, the issuer of a fiat reserve currency can accrue great economic benefits. In the long run, it poses a threat to the country issuing the world currency. In this case that’s the United States. As long as foreign countries take our dollars in return for real goods, we come out ahead. This is a benefit many in Congress fail to recognize, as they bash China for maintaining a positive trade balance with us. But this leads to a loss of manufacturing jobs to overseas markets, as we become more dependent on others and less self-sufficient. Foreign countries accumulate our dollars due to their high savings rates, and graciously loan them back to us at low interest rates to finance our excessive consumption.
It sounds like a great deal for everyone, except the time will come when our dollars-- due to their depreciation-- will be received less enthusiastically or even be rejected by foreign countries. That could create a whole new ballgame and force us to pay a price for living beyond our means and our production. The shift in sentiment regarding the dollar has already started, but the worst is yet to come.
The agreement with OPEC in the 1970s to price oil in dollars has provided tremendous artificial strength to the dollar as the preeminent reserve currency. This has created a universal demand for the dollar, and soaks up the huge number of new dollars generated each year. Last year alone M3 increased over $700 billion.
The artificial demand for our dollar, along with our military might, places us in the unique position to “rule” the world without productive work or savings, and without limits on consumer spending or deficits. The problem is, it can’t last.
Price inflation is raising its ugly head, and the NASDAQ bubble-- generated by easy money-- has burst. The housing bubble likewise created is deflating. Gold prices have doubled, and federal spending is out of sight with zero political will to rein it in. The trade deficit last year was over $728 billion. A $2 trillion war is raging, and plans are being laid to expand the war into Iran and possibly Syria. The only restraining force will be the world’s rejection of the dollar. It’s bound to come and create conditions worse than 1979-1980, which required 21% interest rates to correct. But everything possible will be done to protect the dollar in the meantime. We have a shared interest with those who hold our dollars to keep the whole charade going.
Greenspan, in his first speech after leaving the Fed, said that gold prices were up because of concern about terrorism, and not because of monetary concerns or because he created too many dollars during his tenure. Gold has to be discredited and the dollar propped up. Even when the dollar comes under serious attack by market forces, the central banks and the IMF surely will do everything conceivable to soak up the dollars in hope of restoring stability. Eventually they will fail.
Most importantly, the dollar/oil relationship has to be maintained to keep the dollar as a preeminent currency. Any attack on this relationship will be forcefully challenged—as it already has been.
In November 2000 Saddam Hussein demanded Euros for his oil. His arrogance was a threat to the dollar; his lack of any military might was never a threat. At the first cabinet meeting with the new administration in 2001, as reported by Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill, the major topic was how we would get rid of Saddam Hussein-- though there was no evidence whatsoever he posed a threat to us. This deep concern for Saddam Hussein surprised and shocked O’Neill.
It now is common knowledge that the immediate reaction of the administration after 9/11 revolved around how they could connect Saddam Hussein to the attacks, to justify an invasion and overthrow of his government. Even with no evidence of any connection to 9/11, or evidence of weapons of mass destruction, public and congressional support was generated through distortions and flat out misrepresentation of the facts to justify overthrowing Saddam Hussein.
There was no public talk of removing Saddam Hussein because of his attack on the integrity of the dollar as a reserve currency by selling oil in Euros. Many believe this was the real reason for our obsession with Iraq. I doubt it was the only reason, but it may well have played a significant role in our motivation to wage war. Within a very short period after the military victory, all Iraqi oil sales were carried out in dollars. The Euro was abandoned.
In 2001, Venezuela’s ambassador to Russia spoke of Venezuela switching to the Euro for all their oil sales. Within a year there was a coup attempt against Chavez, reportedly with assistance from our CIA.
After these attempts to nudge the Euro toward replacing the dollar as the world’s reserve currency were met with resistance, the sharp fall of the dollar against the Euro was reversed. These events may well have played a significant role in maintaining dollar dominance.
It’s become clear the U.S. administration was sympathetic to those who plotted the overthrow of Chavez, and was embarrassed by its failure. The fact that Chavez was democratically elected had little influence on which side we supported.
Now, a new attempt is being made against the petrodollar system. Iran, another member of the “axis of evil,” has announced her plans to initiate an oil bourse in March of this year. Guess what, the oil sales will be priced Euros, not dollars.
Most Americans forget how our policies have systematically and needlessly antagonized the Iranians over the years. In 1953 the CIA helped overthrow a democratically elected president, Mohammed Mossadeqh, and install the authoritarian Shah, who was friendly to the U.S. The Iranians were still fuming over this when the hostages were seized in 1979. Our alliance with Saddam Hussein in his invasion of Iran in the early 1980s did not help matters, and obviously did not do much for our relationship with Saddam Hussein. The administration announcement in 2001 that Iran was part of the axis of evil didn’t do much to improve the diplomatic relationship between our two countries. Recent threats over nuclear power, while ignoring the fact that they are surrounded by countries with nuclear weapons, doesn’t seem to register with those who continue to provoke Iran. With what most Muslims perceive as our war against Islam, and this recent history, there’s little wonder why Iran might choose to harm America by undermining the dollar. Iran, like Iraq, has zero capability to attack us. But that didn’t stop us from turning Saddam Hussein into a modern day Hitler ready to take over the world. Now Iran, especially since she’s made plans for pricing oil in Euros, has been on the receiving end of a propaganda war not unlike that waged against Iraq before our invasion.
It’s not likely that maintaining dollar supremacy was the only motivating factor for the war against Iraq, nor for agitating against Iran. Though the real reasons for going to war are complex, we now know the reasons given before the war started, like the presence of weapons of mass destruction and Saddam Hussein’s connection to 9/11, were false. The dollar’s importance is obvious, but this does not diminish the influence of the distinct plans laid out years ago by the neo-conservatives to remake the Middle East. Israel’s influence, as well as that of the Christian Zionists, likewise played a role in prosecuting this war. Protecting “our” oil supplies has influenced our Middle East policy for decades.
But the truth is that paying the bills for this aggressive intervention is impossible the old fashioned way, with more taxes, more savings, and more production by the American people. Much of the expense of the Persian Gulf War in 1991 was shouldered by many of our willing allies. That’s not so today. Now, more than ever, the dollar hegemony-- it’s dominance as the world reserve currency-- is required to finance our huge war expenditures. This $2 trillion never-ending war must be paid for, one way or another. Dollar hegemony provides the vehicle to do just that.
For the most part the true victims aren’t aware of how they pay the bills. The license to create money out of thin air allows the bills to be paid through price inflation. American citizens, as well as average citizens of Japan, China, and other countries suffer from price inflation, which represents the “tax” that pays the bills for our military adventures. That is until the fraud is discovered, and the foreign producers decide not to take dollars nor hold them very long in payment for their goods. Everything possible is done to prevent the fraud of the monetary system from being exposed to the masses who suffer from it. If oil markets replace dollars with Euros, it would in time curtail our ability to continue to print, without restraint, the world’s reserve currency.
It is an unbelievable benefit to us to import valuable goods and export depreciating dollars. The exporting countries have become addicted to our purchases for their economic growth. This dependency makes them allies in continuing the fraud, and their participation keeps the dollar’s value artificially high. If this system were workable long term, American citizens would never have to work again. We too could enjoy “bread and circuses” just as the Romans did, but their gold finally ran out and the inability of Rome to continue to plunder conquered nations brought an end to her empire.
The same thing will happen to us if we don’t change our ways. Though we don’t occupy foreign countries to directly plunder, we nevertheless have spread our troops across 130 nations of the world. Our intense effort to spread our power in the oil-rich Middle East is not a coincidence. But unlike the old days, we don’t declare direct ownership of the natural resources-- we just insist that we can buy what we want and pay for it with our paper money. Any country that challenges our authority does so at great risk.
Once again Congress has bought into the war propaganda against Iran, just as it did against Iraq. Arguments are now made for attacking Iran economically, and militarily if necessary. These arguments are all based on the same false reasons given for the ill-fated and costly occupation of Iraq.
Our whole economic system depends on continuing the current monetary arrangement, which means recycling the dollar is crucial. Currently, we borrow over $700 billion every year from our gracious benefactors, who work hard and take our paper for their goods. Then we borrow all the money we need to secure the empire (DOD budget $450 billion) plus more. The military might we enjoy becomes the “backing” of our currency. There are no other countries that can challenge our military superiority, and therefore they have little choice but to accept the dollars we declare are today’s “gold.” This is why countries that challenge the system-- like Iraq, Iran and Venezuela-- become targets of our plans for regime change.
Ironically, dollar superiority depends on our strong military, and our strong military depends on the dollar. As long as foreign recipients take our dollars for real goods and are willing to finance our extravagant consumption and militarism, the status quo will continue regardless of how huge our foreign debt and current account deficit become.
But real threats come from our political adversaries who are incapable of confronting us militarily, yet are not bashful about confronting us economically. That’s why we see the new challenge from Iran being taken so seriously. The urgent arguments about Iran posing a military threat to the security of the United States are no more plausible than the false charges levied against Iraq. Yet there is no effort to resist this march to confrontation by those who grandstand for political reasons against the Iraq war.
It seems that the people and Congress are easily persuaded by the jingoism of the preemptive war promoters. It’s only after the cost in human life and dollars are tallied up that the people object to unwise militarism.
The strange thing is that the failure in Iraq is now apparent to a large majority of American people, yet they and Congress are acquiescing to the call for a needless and dangerous confrontation with Iran.
But then again, our failure to find Osama bin Laden and destroy his network did not dissuade us from taking on the Iraqis in a war totally unrelated to 9/11.
Concern for pricing oil only in dollars helps explain our willingness to drop everything and teach Saddam Hussein a lesson for his defiance in demanding Euros for oil.
And once again there’s this urgent call for sanctions and threats of force against Iran at the precise time Iran is opening a new oil exchange with all transactions in Euros.
Using force to compel people to accept money without real value can only work in the short run. It ultimately leads to economic dislocation, both domestic and international, and always ends with a price to be paid.
The economic law that honest exchange demands only things of real value as currency cannot be repealed. The chaos that one day will ensue from our 35-year experiment with worldwide fiat money will require a return to money of real value. We will know that day is approaching when oil-producing countries demand gold, or its equivalent, for their oil rather than dollars or Euros. The sooner the better.
Friday, March 03, 2006
Accommodation
The Supreme Court has just ruled that the Sikh religious symbol, the kirpan, a ceremonial dagger, cannot be banned from the nation's schools. Basic religious freedoms trump security concerns.
I'm surprised, pleasantly, on a couple of scores here.
First of all, that at this point in post-9/11 time, the Court can make such a ruling. I think it speaks well of our confidence as a nation. We're not going to be cowed into putting paranoia over civility. We're not going to overreact. We're going to keep our perspective, remember who we are to one another, and focus on real threats -- not hermetically seal our culture off from any conceivable threat, smothering it to death in the attempt. I think this was the right decision.
...Which is the other thing that surprises me: that I think this is the right decision. When I was in my teens and early 20s, I would have been dead set against this decision. I would have seen it strictly as "I can't do that, why should he be able to?" But as I get older, I don't know... I'm less worried about absolute equality as practical equality. Now I can see the difference. This is something central to someone else's religious identity, not mine. For them, it's crucial. For me, it isn't. For them to carry a kirpan is a matter of who they are. For me, it would be nothing but a concealed weapon; there's no other reason for me to carry it. And now I can admit that those are not the same thing, not at all. I don't know when or how my attitude changed, but I do remember disagreeing with the ruling that let Sikhs wear turbans instead of hats in the RCMP. Now that seems small and petty to me.
I think Canada is a better place for this ruling. This was the right call.
I'm surprised, pleasantly, on a couple of scores here.
First of all, that at this point in post-9/11 time, the Court can make such a ruling. I think it speaks well of our confidence as a nation. We're not going to be cowed into putting paranoia over civility. We're not going to overreact. We're going to keep our perspective, remember who we are to one another, and focus on real threats -- not hermetically seal our culture off from any conceivable threat, smothering it to death in the attempt. I think this was the right decision.
...Which is the other thing that surprises me: that I think this is the right decision. When I was in my teens and early 20s, I would have been dead set against this decision. I would have seen it strictly as "I can't do that, why should he be able to?" But as I get older, I don't know... I'm less worried about absolute equality as practical equality. Now I can see the difference. This is something central to someone else's religious identity, not mine. For them, it's crucial. For me, it isn't. For them to carry a kirpan is a matter of who they are. For me, it would be nothing but a concealed weapon; there's no other reason for me to carry it. And now I can admit that those are not the same thing, not at all. I don't know when or how my attitude changed, but I do remember disagreeing with the ruling that let Sikhs wear turbans instead of hats in the RCMP. Now that seems small and petty to me.
I think Canada is a better place for this ruling. This was the right call.
Sunday, February 26, 2006
Summer On Four Paws
Summer On Four Paws
Originally uploaded by Lone Primate.
Awake, asleep, alike
Morning light squeezes through the blinds, spread fine across the ceiling
Her purring is the sunlight on my neck;
The brushing of her tail over my arm,
the aimless spring breeze
At my arm, the whispered promise
of warmth and life reborn
to a land where water's sharp as glass:
She is summer,
sleeping close by.
Saturday, February 25, 2006
Je t'aime moi non plus
Je t'aime moi non plus
Originally uploaded by Lone Primate.
This is an HDR (high dynamic range) image generated by Photomatix, but not in the usual way. I didn't generate it by combining several images, but the red, green, and blue channels from this (originally colour) photo of merging onto the 401 taken last summer. I exported each channel to a separate JPG, and when prompted by Photomatix, I told it the EV spread was 2.5. I dropped the luminosity to -10, boosted the white cutoff and especially the black cutoff, and set smoothing and microcontrast to high. I like how it seems like something rather bright and exciting is going on just behind the trees at left... there's not much in the original image that would suggest this result. An interesting outcome.
Winter finds a bend in the Don
Winter finds a bend in the Don
Originally uploaded by Lone Primate.
This is one of those "deliberately bad" Kodak DC50 shots I've been promising. At its lowest quality setting, this eight-year-old early model digital produces images that look just a little like watercolour paintings. This particular shot is of a bend in the Don River just a little south of the big bridge that carries the Don Valley Parkway over it, in Ernest Thompson Seton Park, and was assembled from four images by AutoStitch.
Emancipation Day...?
Yesterday night when I was out, waiting for the arrival of a friend, I was reading a free paper distributed in Toronto area pubs. In it, I read about Emancipation Day, which is celebrated in Windsor every August 1st (Windsor is the city in Ontario directly south of Detroit across the Detroit River -- yes, south of Detroit).
What's Emancipation Day? Well, in 1833, the British Parliament passed an act banning slavery. It took full effect at midnight of July 31, 1834. On August 1, 1834, slavery was banned throughout the British Empire, including British North America. At the same time, the legislature of Upper Canada (today the province of Ontario) passed a law making it illegal to return escaped slaves to the United States. For nearly two generations, until the US Civil War was sorted out, Canada became a haven for escaped slaves from the United States. Windsor, as the first Canadian place many of the slaves arrived at, has a special place in this history.
Ontario has a proud history in this respect... proud in the relative sense the word can be used where slavery is concerned, at any rate. Created in 1791 as a home for Loyalists (many of the black) fleeing the US after the Revolution, Upper Canada had for its first leader Lord Simcoe, who was an avowed abolishionist. While he could not ban slavery outright, he did persuade the new legistlature to undertake, as only the province's second act of legislation, to ban the importation of slaves into Upper Canada, and to legislate that any slave living in Upper Canada must be freed upon reaching age 25. While it didn't end slavery outright, it was effectively the death knell of the institution here, and it gave Ontario the distinction of being the first jurisdiction in the entire British Empire to officially move against slavery.
Certainly the course of African-Canadian history has not been entirely a smooth one. But I think it's important to remind the public of where we've come from, how far we've come and how proud we can be of living in a place that was so bold and important in the struggle to end slavery. Why should Emancipation Day be only recognized in Windsor? Shouldn't all of Ontario, maybe all of Canada, mark this day officially? What a wonderful thing to celebrate! The birth of freedom, the realization that human beings are human beings and due rights without regard to where they come from or what they look like... these are important things that should not be forgotten, but should be brought to mind every year. I think we as a people would be all the better for it. In Toronto, we celebrate Simcoe Day every August. Why not combine the two? A celebration of the end of slavery, and one of the first people in the Empire to move against it. Simcoe and emancipation! Something we can really be proud of.
What's Emancipation Day? Well, in 1833, the British Parliament passed an act banning slavery. It took full effect at midnight of July 31, 1834. On August 1, 1834, slavery was banned throughout the British Empire, including British North America. At the same time, the legislature of Upper Canada (today the province of Ontario) passed a law making it illegal to return escaped slaves to the United States. For nearly two generations, until the US Civil War was sorted out, Canada became a haven for escaped slaves from the United States. Windsor, as the first Canadian place many of the slaves arrived at, has a special place in this history.
Ontario has a proud history in this respect... proud in the relative sense the word can be used where slavery is concerned, at any rate. Created in 1791 as a home for Loyalists (many of the black) fleeing the US after the Revolution, Upper Canada had for its first leader Lord Simcoe, who was an avowed abolishionist. While he could not ban slavery outright, he did persuade the new legistlature to undertake, as only the province's second act of legislation, to ban the importation of slaves into Upper Canada, and to legislate that any slave living in Upper Canada must be freed upon reaching age 25. While it didn't end slavery outright, it was effectively the death knell of the institution here, and it gave Ontario the distinction of being the first jurisdiction in the entire British Empire to officially move against slavery.
Certainly the course of African-Canadian history has not been entirely a smooth one. But I think it's important to remind the public of where we've come from, how far we've come and how proud we can be of living in a place that was so bold and important in the struggle to end slavery. Why should Emancipation Day be only recognized in Windsor? Shouldn't all of Ontario, maybe all of Canada, mark this day officially? What a wonderful thing to celebrate! The birth of freedom, the realization that human beings are human beings and due rights without regard to where they come from or what they look like... these are important things that should not be forgotten, but should be brought to mind every year. I think we as a people would be all the better for it. In Toronto, we celebrate Simcoe Day every August. Why not combine the two? A celebration of the end of slavery, and one of the first people in the Empire to move against it. Simcoe and emancipation! Something we can really be proud of.
Thursday, February 23, 2006
New hearing for Steven Truscott
I just heard this morning that the Ontario Court of Appeals is going to begin hearings June 19th into the 1959 murder conviction of Steven Truscott. Truscott has been a cause celebre in Canada for generations. You'd be hard-pressed today to find people who believe him guilty of the rape and murder of Lynn Harper, for which he remains convicted. Despite the fact that he was paroled in 1969, he has maintained his innocence, and it looks like there's a chance the courts may finally overturn his conviction.
Steven Truscott was 14 when he was tried and convicted, and he was sentenced to hang. The public, without regard to his guilt or innocence at the time, revolted at the idea of a 14-year-old boying being hanged, and his death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment. An ideal prisoner, Truscott was paroled in 1969. Under an assumed name, he married and raised three children in Guelph, Ontario, where he worked as a millwright for decades, his real identity a widely-known "secret" among the people around him. In 2000, after discussions with his family, he came out of anonymity. CBC's the fifth estate documented his case that year, and brought forward substantial (albeit circumstantial) evidence hinting strongly that the real culprit was an RCAF supply technician named Alexander Kalichuk, who died in the 1970s.
In 2004, retired Justice Frank Kaufman produced a report concluding there had been a miscarriage of justice in the Truscott case, prompting Ontario Justice Minister Irwin Cotler to ask the appeals court to reopen the matter. This hearing will be unusual for an appeals case in that new evidence is due to be admitted; in this case, from defence witnesses who were ignored during the trial in 1959, when they were children.
Here's hoping the justice system will finally make official the verdict Canadians have held in their hearts for two generations, by clearing the name of Steven Truscott.
Steven Truscott was 14 when he was tried and convicted, and he was sentenced to hang. The public, without regard to his guilt or innocence at the time, revolted at the idea of a 14-year-old boying being hanged, and his death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment. An ideal prisoner, Truscott was paroled in 1969. Under an assumed name, he married and raised three children in Guelph, Ontario, where he worked as a millwright for decades, his real identity a widely-known "secret" among the people around him. In 2000, after discussions with his family, he came out of anonymity. CBC's the fifth estate documented his case that year, and brought forward substantial (albeit circumstantial) evidence hinting strongly that the real culprit was an RCAF supply technician named Alexander Kalichuk, who died in the 1970s.
In 2004, retired Justice Frank Kaufman produced a report concluding there had been a miscarriage of justice in the Truscott case, prompting Ontario Justice Minister Irwin Cotler to ask the appeals court to reopen the matter. This hearing will be unusual for an appeals case in that new evidence is due to be admitted; in this case, from defence witnesses who were ignored during the trial in 1959, when they were children.
Here's hoping the justice system will finally make official the verdict Canadians have held in their hearts for two generations, by clearing the name of Steven Truscott.
Wednesday, February 22, 2006
A little anachronism
A little anachronism
Originally uploaded by Lone Primate.
Today at lunch time I took off to a nearby park to shoot a bunch of photos at varying exposure levels, because I want to try out Photoshop's new HDR capacity. On my way back to the car, I spotted this little caterpillar, crawling with painful slowness over the snow. I just couldn't leave it there, and it seemed cruel to kill it when there were other options. So, I put it in my cap and brought it back to the office and dropped it off in the terrarium at work.
I suppose it was hopeless anthropomorphization on my part. The caterpillar probably doesn't have feelings, wasn't afraid, didn't feel relief in the warm car and couldn't possibly have been grateful; but who knows? And I have no idea what species it is; if it will find palatable food in the terrarium, if it will be a moth or a butterfly if it lives that long. But at least it has a chance now. I don't know if it makes any difference in the scheme of things. Probably not. Maybe it was really only an act of kindness with any real value to myself. It made me feel more human; empowered to do something merciful because I could, and chose to. I feel like a better person for having done this one small thing. Maybe that's all there really is.
Sunday, February 19, 2006
Just beecuz
Just beecuz
Originally uploaded by Lone Primate.
This shot's in the blog previously... it's in the posting about wandering down Westgate Blvd. But I reworked it this afternoon to crop it, desaturate the background, and round the edges of the frame. I think it's kind of neat. So here it is. :)
Saturday, February 18, 2006
Sour Grapes?
Sour Grapes?
Originally uploaded by Lone Primate.
I think this is a hoot. :) I was out having a beer with P-Doug and G Thursday night and I saw this poster, complete with the editing, in the washroom. These days I usually have my CX7330 with me for just such opportunities, so I snapped the picture.
Frankly, I think Don Cherry looked a lot better without the whispy Colonel Sanders beard... I've never liked it on him. He looks like a retired French general. But if he's gotta wear a goatee, well... this one makes him look younger... though rather more like a WWI-era Wehrmacht field marshall in full rant. :)
New Mongolian restaurant in Don Mills
I meant to blog about this place, but I just haven't had my blogging cap on lately. :)
I've been going to a Mongolian place called "The Great Khan" at the Pacific Mall (northeast corner of Kennedy and Steeles) for several years now, but this is the only other Mongolian grill place I've seen open in the GTA (that I know of, anyway). It's fantastic! I think it's a joint venture with the other place, because I recognized one of the staff, and he recognized me. :)
The staff could not have been more attentive and helpful. One of them noticed me trying to be demure about getting a shot and invited me up to photograph the place. The food was excellent; an even wider variety than the other Mongolian BBQ place. Dinner was $18.99, but it's all you can eat, and it includes the buffet. But the star of the show is the grill. If you've never done Mongolian: you fill a bowl with the meat, vegetables, tofu, noodles, spices, sauces, and oils you want. You then pass it to one of the grill chefs who skillfully flash-fries it while you watch, then artfully skates you meal into a clean bowl. It's a great treat just to prepare a bowl and watch it grilled. But eating it is wonderful. If you're in Toronto, and anywhere near Don Mills, seek out the Genghis Khan Mongolian Grill, on the west side of Don Mills Road just a little north of Eglinton Avenue.
I've been going to a Mongolian place called "The Great Khan" at the Pacific Mall (northeast corner of Kennedy and Steeles) for several years now, but this is the only other Mongolian grill place I've seen open in the GTA (that I know of, anyway). It's fantastic! I think it's a joint venture with the other place, because I recognized one of the staff, and he recognized me. :)
The staff could not have been more attentive and helpful. One of them noticed me trying to be demure about getting a shot and invited me up to photograph the place. The food was excellent; an even wider variety than the other Mongolian BBQ place. Dinner was $18.99, but it's all you can eat, and it includes the buffet. But the star of the show is the grill. If you've never done Mongolian: you fill a bowl with the meat, vegetables, tofu, noodles, spices, sauces, and oils you want. You then pass it to one of the grill chefs who skillfully flash-fries it while you watch, then artfully skates you meal into a clean bowl. It's a great treat just to prepare a bowl and watch it grilled. But eating it is wonderful. If you're in Toronto, and anywhere near Don Mills, seek out the Genghis Khan Mongolian Grill, on the west side of Don Mills Road just a little north of Eglinton Avenue.
Casa Loma forecourt
Casa Loma forecourt
Originally uploaded by Lone Primate.
Here's irony for you. I took this shot today with a digital camera I've had for nearly eight years, and essentially retired five years ago. I don't think it's been on since 2001 or maybe even 2000. But I noticed some of its shots were poor, but kind of painterly. They've been getting praise for that -- formerly a deficiency -- on Flickr. So, I decided to resurrect it and see what I could do. I took this shot at Casa Loma, obviously. It's not as abstract as I'd hoped (turns out I need to use the lowest quality setting to get that effect), but strangely enough, it seems to have come out as a nice, compelling shot... from a digicam predating the megapixel age. Who would have imagined it. :)
Jetty at Pigeon Lake
Jetty at Pigeon Lake
Originally uploaded by Lone Primate.
The more I look at it, the more I like this picture. It's actually a parorama assembled from three others, taken in late September, 1999, on Pigeon Lake in the Kwarthas. I was on houseboat trip with my buddy P-Doug and his wife G. On the first night, she was struck with appendicitis... quite an evening... so P-Doug and I were left on a pretty short leash in the Trent-Severin Waterway, not being able to stray too far from the hospital. Still, we had a good time slowing wandering around, going to Bobcaygeon, freezing because the furnace wouldn't work... :) I took this shot on the last morning, when we were docked and preparing to leave.
Thursday, February 09, 2006
Being Liberal means never having to say you're Tory
...Unless, of course, you're David Emerson. :)
I can't really find it in myself to get upset about Emerson crossing the floor per se. It happens, and Belinda Stronach did not quite a year ago. But I think the people of his riding are entirely justified in being mad as hell and crying for his blood. The election wasn't even a month ago, and he's crossed the floor. Those people just went out and elected a Liberal in a pretty closely fought election. No policies have been implimented yet, not a single budget has been tabled. The guy has no legitimate excuse at this point for what he did. It's not like he can stand before his constituents and say "I've looked at the record of the Harper government and I feel, as your MP, that I would serve you and Canada better supporting it." He's got no basis for doing that; at least Stronach had that much going for her. They're right to be upset.
Relatedly, I have to say... if I were one of these high-horse Western Conservatives who was peddling the idea that they were offering Canada fresh fish that didn't stink, I'd have to be a little embarrassed and angry today at Harper picking an unelected person for Cabinet and then cynically looking to slot him into the Senate -- as if even that were acceptable in this day and age. If the guy couldn't be bothered to run for a seat and be accountable to the public, then what the hell business has he in Cabinet? So all these folks who've been ballyhooing about a Triple-E Senate have just had the concept thrown back in their faces with a huge bellylaugh by one of their own in the most egregious of ways. Now imagine how Quebeckers feel, having given the Tories ten seats from which to choose cabinet members.
All I can say is, Harper must be a closet Liberal. Either that, or he only wants to be able to sit as Leader of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition in future with "the Right Honourable" in front of his name.
I can't really find it in myself to get upset about Emerson crossing the floor per se. It happens, and Belinda Stronach did not quite a year ago. But I think the people of his riding are entirely justified in being mad as hell and crying for his blood. The election wasn't even a month ago, and he's crossed the floor. Those people just went out and elected a Liberal in a pretty closely fought election. No policies have been implimented yet, not a single budget has been tabled. The guy has no legitimate excuse at this point for what he did. It's not like he can stand before his constituents and say "I've looked at the record of the Harper government and I feel, as your MP, that I would serve you and Canada better supporting it." He's got no basis for doing that; at least Stronach had that much going for her. They're right to be upset.
Relatedly, I have to say... if I were one of these high-horse Western Conservatives who was peddling the idea that they were offering Canada fresh fish that didn't stink, I'd have to be a little embarrassed and angry today at Harper picking an unelected person for Cabinet and then cynically looking to slot him into the Senate -- as if even that were acceptable in this day and age. If the guy couldn't be bothered to run for a seat and be accountable to the public, then what the hell business has he in Cabinet? So all these folks who've been ballyhooing about a Triple-E Senate have just had the concept thrown back in their faces with a huge bellylaugh by one of their own in the most egregious of ways. Now imagine how Quebeckers feel, having given the Tories ten seats from which to choose cabinet members.
All I can say is, Harper must be a closet Liberal. Either that, or he only wants to be able to sit as Leader of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition in future with "the Right Honourable" in front of his name.
Tuesday, February 07, 2006
Ahead to the Past
What was he thinking? Stephen Harper's cabinet includes a non-elected member, due to be parachuted into the Senate. Wait a sec... what was all that about Liberal arrogance, a culture of entitlement? Overlooked, somehow, was the fact that the Quebec, the province the non-elected Minister of Public Works Michael Fortier, gave Harper ten elected MPs from which to choose a minister. No, Harper has seen fit to pull a stunt that while strictly constitutional, would have made people in 19th century Canada squirm, nevermind 21st century Canadians. I can't imagine how he thought this would be a good idea or escape notice. He has a minority government unlikely to last two years -- does he really imagine the country will have forgotten this gross hypocritical appointment by then?
Sunday, January 29, 2006
Would you like a little umbrella in that?
Yesterday afternoon I was standing in line at the LCBO to buy a bottle of Black Seal rum (my fave). I was behind some guy who, from the looks of him, probably turned booze-legal sometime that morning — happy birthday. He was in the process of buying two four-packs of something self-described as "strawberry pineapple hard lemonade". And I find myself thinking, "Jesus, buddy, why don't you wait half an hour and I'll piss in some Kool-ade for you?" And suddenly I had all I could do to keep from laughing out loud. I dunno; maybe you had to be there. :) Anyway, this stuff didn't even come up to that Kids In the Hall "Girl-Drink Drunk" skit. Cut the price in half, sell it in a drugstore with instructions to spit it out, and it would be mouthwash. If you have to disguise booze as Hawaiian Punch just to get it down, maybe you should just stick to Hawaiian Punch.
Tuesday, January 24, 2006
The Six Million Vote Man
Steve Harper. Neocon. A career barely alive.
Gentlemen, we can rebrand him. We have the philosophy. We have the capability to spin the world's first Liberal Conservative.
Steve Harper will be that man.
Nicer than he was before.
Nicer... gentler... kinder.
THE SIX MILLION VOTE MAN
(give or take)
Gentlemen, we can rebrand him. We have the philosophy. We have the capability to spin the world's first Liberal Conservative.
Steve Harper will be that man.
Nicer than he was before.
Nicer... gentler... kinder.
THE SIX MILLION VOTE MAN
(give or take)
Monday, January 23, 2006
Interesting result...
The CBC just announced the results for Canada's three largest urban centres. In all cases, Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver, most of the ridings voted Liberal; the balance voted NDP. It looks as though there will be no representation in the federal caucus or cabinet from Canada's three largest cities.
I know that, Stateside, CBS canned its rural comedy suite over thirty years ago. But under the circumstances, maybe they should reconsider. Perhaps The Beverley Hillbillies, Green Acres, and Pettycoat Junction could be joined by a new entry called... oh, how about Harper Valley, GTA? Oughta be a hoot...erville. ;)
I know that, Stateside, CBS canned its rural comedy suite over thirty years ago. But under the circumstances, maybe they should reconsider. Perhaps The Beverley Hillbillies, Green Acres, and Pettycoat Junction could be joined by a new entry called... oh, how about Harper Valley, GTA? Oughta be a hoot...erville. ;)
Onnnne... twoooo... uhhhh... onnnnne...
It's 11:15; the polls have been closed in British Columbia for well over an hour... and for half an hour now, we've been sitting here with one riding left to report: Vancouver Centre, I believe. Who the hell do they have counting ballots there, Clever Hans? Clop once for Liberal, twice for Conservative; nod your head for NDP... Either that or they're counting the vote in a hot box. "One... two... three... uhhh... uhhmmm... pass the M&Ms, man? ...What was I—? Oh, yeah. Ten... elv— no, wait..."
UPDATE: 11:25. Apparently, there were "long line-ups" at some of the polling stations in Vancouver Centre, so they "extended the voting hours". Uh huh. Man... the good stuff reeeeeally does make time seem to stretch on forever, doesn't it...? :)
UPDATE: 11:25. Apparently, there were "long line-ups" at some of the polling stations in Vancouver Centre, so they "extended the voting hours". Uh huh. Man... the good stuff reeeeeally does make time seem to stretch on forever, doesn't it...? :)
Sunday, January 22, 2006
How it went...
I've got some well-wishes in reply to my post of the 13th about the new job, and telonjedi very kindly inquired as to how it went. Given the opportunity to gab about myself, hey... what man could resist. :)
First of all, there are two reasons I haven't been around much in the blogosphere lately... mine or anyone else's. The first is my Flickr account. I've been spending a lot of time combing through nine years of up-until-now pointless digital photos I've taken, trying to find ones worth putting up, writing about, and putting into sets. It's been such work, if I were getting paid for it, it would be moonlighting!
Which brings me to my other reason, of course: the new job. A lot of the posting I've done till now was done at my old job, during downtime when I was bored. So far, there hasn't been much of that in the new job. It looks like it's going to be busier, but that's a good thing... except it means I won't be quite as effusive as I was.
It was a good first week. I'm working with peers again, which is something I haven't had for about five years. They seem like a good bunch, and the company atmosphere is less formal and uptight than what I'm coming from. My boss wears jeans, for instance. There's a lot of work there, the possibility of promotion over time, and best of all, it's exactly the same ride to work. I even had some of the old posse meet the new posse at a restaurant on Friday — that went really well. There was even talk of an all-building soccer team, though I don't know if that'll go anywhere. But it would be neat if it did.
Anyway, I'll sign off now with a few gratitous photos from my Flickr account. Y'all come back now, y'hear? :)
First of all, there are two reasons I haven't been around much in the blogosphere lately... mine or anyone else's. The first is my Flickr account. I've been spending a lot of time combing through nine years of up-until-now pointless digital photos I've taken, trying to find ones worth putting up, writing about, and putting into sets. It's been such work, if I were getting paid for it, it would be moonlighting!
Which brings me to my other reason, of course: the new job. A lot of the posting I've done till now was done at my old job, during downtime when I was bored. So far, there hasn't been much of that in the new job. It looks like it's going to be busier, but that's a good thing... except it means I won't be quite as effusive as I was.
It was a good first week. I'm working with peers again, which is something I haven't had for about five years. They seem like a good bunch, and the company atmosphere is less formal and uptight than what I'm coming from. My boss wears jeans, for instance. There's a lot of work there, the possibility of promotion over time, and best of all, it's exactly the same ride to work. I even had some of the old posse meet the new posse at a restaurant on Friday — that went really well. There was even talk of an all-building soccer team, though I don't know if that'll go anywhere. But it would be neat if it did.
Anyway, I'll sign off now with a few gratitous photos from my Flickr account. Y'all come back now, y'hear? :)
Big election
It's funny... tomorrow's election day and I can't seem to make it sink in. I'm more caught up in the new job than the likely change in government. I have to make an effort to remember to vote!
Speaking of which, I know a lot's up for grabs, because it's the first time in my life I can remember getting election collateral from four federal parties... in this case, the Liberals (incumbent in my riding; what a surprise), the Tories, the NDP, and — in a first for me — the Green Party. I always feel sorry for people in parties like that because you just know they're putting themselves through hell for little more than the gesture... the beauty of democracy. But they don't get much to show for it. I don't know; I guess it's an argument for proportional representation. But then there's the counter argument: all those religious right finge parties who want to basically legislate everyone's dick into a jar you'll need official permission to take it out of once a year on your birthday; subject to government supervision to ensure you're not using it in manners offensive to God. Of course, the very same people don't want the government telling them how to educate their kids; oh, no... that's a personal matter.
Oh, am I back ranting again on my blog? Yes, it seems I am. :)
Don't forget to vote. Or, if you're not a citizen yet, scream real loud the name of the candidate of your choice instead. :)
Speaking of which, I know a lot's up for grabs, because it's the first time in my life I can remember getting election collateral from four federal parties... in this case, the Liberals (incumbent in my riding; what a surprise), the Tories, the NDP, and — in a first for me — the Green Party. I always feel sorry for people in parties like that because you just know they're putting themselves through hell for little more than the gesture... the beauty of democracy. But they don't get much to show for it. I don't know; I guess it's an argument for proportional representation. But then there's the counter argument: all those religious right finge parties who want to basically legislate everyone's dick into a jar you'll need official permission to take it out of once a year on your birthday; subject to government supervision to ensure you're not using it in manners offensive to God. Of course, the very same people don't want the government telling them how to educate their kids; oh, no... that's a personal matter.
Oh, am I back ranting again on my blog? Yes, it seems I am. :)
Don't forget to vote. Or, if you're not a citizen yet, scream real loud the name of the candidate of your choice instead. :)
Friday, January 13, 2006
Reflections in transition
What do you say on walking out the door for the last time after having worked at a place for nearly six years?
When I started at the place I worked this morning, I was still sort of "young". Well, now I'm cusp-middle-aged. I took a picture of my work station today and I can't believe, even now, that I've seen it for the last time. I sat in that swivel chair for nearly six years. Or at least five; it might have been my boss's chair and I inherited it from him when he quit in December, 2000.
The guys I worked with were great; I really only knew them about a year, and even then, only fairly closely for about the last six months or so. But I was surprised when I woke up this morning to realize they wouldn't be a daily part of my life anymore. Perhaps a periodic one; I'm literally going to be working right upstairs (yeah, same street, same building, same parking lot... different company! Given there are only two in the building, what are the odds?). But those common elements of the job that our relationship was founded on are now essentially gone. Is there enough to keep going?
I hardly said good-bye to anyone. It's not my style. I'm kind of shy; I never made friends easily and I'm awful with names. I couldn't see the point in subjecting myself to the awkwardness of wandering around, shaking hands with folks I really hadn't said two words to all month in most cases, or people I once worked with but hadn't spoken to in ages. Maybe that seems cold, but it isn't. It's just cowardly. Not the same. I'm really rather maudlin and sentimental. But I just hate being put on the spot. I hope they'll understand. Let's face it, most of them won't give a damn. I don't mean they're inhuman either; that's just how it is.
Monday I start my new job. I'll probably park in the same spot. I think, I hope, I'll be glad. But tonight I'm kind of sad. Mourning, almost, it feels like. Not so much for my friends there -- I'll have ample opportunities to see them again. But my comfy, familiar workstation and my role, my lot there. The simple things I took for granted all these years that are no longer mine. I'm divorced.
I have to confess that my last few months in the job weren't really happy ones. For a lot of reasons; my boss is (I mean, was) the micromanaging type, and that came to mean that my large, one-time achievements were forgotten and overshadowed by small, nit-picking issues (one involving the use of the preposition "in" as opposed to "by" in a sentence where there was no semantic difference between them). So I was looking around. And I did find something. I suppose I ought to be happy I'm leaving on my own terms under my own steam, but the process of landing the other job and then segueing out of this one has been so long that there's no "bang" to it. Landing the new job was a job in itself; it has none of the flavour of a treat or a surprise. I wish it did.
Anyway, I haven't been blogging much, partly because of the logistics of transition — passing on my knowledge to the poor guys stuck doing my job in addition to their own till they hire a real replacement — and partly because I've been spending so much time on my Flickr account, posting my photos there and writing about them. I need to find more time for this. I'll do my best... for those to whom it matters. ...Hello? <:)
When I started at the place I worked this morning, I was still sort of "young". Well, now I'm cusp-middle-aged. I took a picture of my work station today and I can't believe, even now, that I've seen it for the last time. I sat in that swivel chair for nearly six years. Or at least five; it might have been my boss's chair and I inherited it from him when he quit in December, 2000.
The guys I worked with were great; I really only knew them about a year, and even then, only fairly closely for about the last six months or so. But I was surprised when I woke up this morning to realize they wouldn't be a daily part of my life anymore. Perhaps a periodic one; I'm literally going to be working right upstairs (yeah, same street, same building, same parking lot... different company! Given there are only two in the building, what are the odds?). But those common elements of the job that our relationship was founded on are now essentially gone. Is there enough to keep going?
I hardly said good-bye to anyone. It's not my style. I'm kind of shy; I never made friends easily and I'm awful with names. I couldn't see the point in subjecting myself to the awkwardness of wandering around, shaking hands with folks I really hadn't said two words to all month in most cases, or people I once worked with but hadn't spoken to in ages. Maybe that seems cold, but it isn't. It's just cowardly. Not the same. I'm really rather maudlin and sentimental. But I just hate being put on the spot. I hope they'll understand. Let's face it, most of them won't give a damn. I don't mean they're inhuman either; that's just how it is.
Monday I start my new job. I'll probably park in the same spot. I think, I hope, I'll be glad. But tonight I'm kind of sad. Mourning, almost, it feels like. Not so much for my friends there -- I'll have ample opportunities to see them again. But my comfy, familiar workstation and my role, my lot there. The simple things I took for granted all these years that are no longer mine. I'm divorced.
I have to confess that my last few months in the job weren't really happy ones. For a lot of reasons; my boss is (I mean, was) the micromanaging type, and that came to mean that my large, one-time achievements were forgotten and overshadowed by small, nit-picking issues (one involving the use of the preposition "in" as opposed to "by" in a sentence where there was no semantic difference between them). So I was looking around. And I did find something. I suppose I ought to be happy I'm leaving on my own terms under my own steam, but the process of landing the other job and then segueing out of this one has been so long that there's no "bang" to it. Landing the new job was a job in itself; it has none of the flavour of a treat or a surprise. I wish it did.
Anyway, I haven't been blogging much, partly because of the logistics of transition — passing on my knowledge to the poor guys stuck doing my job in addition to their own till they hire a real replacement — and partly because I've been spending so much time on my Flickr account, posting my photos there and writing about them. I need to find more time for this. I'll do my best... for those to whom it matters. ...Hello? <:)
Thursday, January 05, 2006
Elway Court, two
Elway Court, two
Originally uploaded by Lone Primate.
I'm just testing my blog-posting abilities out of my Flickr account, folks. But you're welcome to swing by and have a look. This particular photo is one I took about four years ago on a street where half the buildings were torn down in the construction of the Spadina Expressway, known today as "the Allen". The photo's in a set about the expressway.
Tuesday, January 03, 2006
Was this what Osama really had in mind?
If you don't go and read this post on In Other News (formerly In Cold Blog), the terrorists will win. Actually, the point is, they sort of did, and we missed it...
Sunday, January 01, 2006
Picture this
Happy New Year to all you primates (et al.?) out there. :)
I finally got serious about my Flickr account last night, with just hours to go in the month and the year (I wanted to take advantage of my 20MB monthly upload limit so as not to handicap efforts in January). I have a few sets up so far, but I see I'm limited to three... so I guess to make of it what I'd like, I'll have to pony up. Well, it's only $24.95 US a year. Nickels and dimes.
But, the point is, now I have a place to share my photos with you! Not just a few here and there, but whole sets. I don't know if any of you will avail yourselves, but I hope you will. I love amateur photography, and feel deeply fortunate to live in such an age... even ten years ago, this was essentially impossible. Now it's just a lark for Saturday afternoons, both shooting and posting.
Hope you'll have a look. The link is here, and you will also find it permanently in my links list on the left side of this page. Or try this link to see a really neat slideshow of recently-posted images.
I finally got serious about my Flickr account last night, with just hours to go in the month and the year (I wanted to take advantage of my 20MB monthly upload limit so as not to handicap efforts in January). I have a few sets up so far, but I see I'm limited to three... so I guess to make of it what I'd like, I'll have to pony up. Well, it's only $24.95 US a year. Nickels and dimes.
But, the point is, now I have a place to share my photos with you! Not just a few here and there, but whole sets. I don't know if any of you will avail yourselves, but I hope you will. I love amateur photography, and feel deeply fortunate to live in such an age... even ten years ago, this was essentially impossible. Now it's just a lark for Saturday afternoons, both shooting and posting.
Hope you'll have a look. The link is here, and you will also find it permanently in my links list on the left side of this page. Or try this link to see a really neat slideshow of recently-posted images.
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