Is Big Brother Still Coming to Animal Farm?
by Steve Rossignol, 13 April 2010
In February of this year, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced that the Agriculture Department would no longer try to implement the National Animal Identification System (NAIS). The announcement immediately set the meat industry up in arms.
   If you have never heard of the NAIS, don't feel alone. While the meat industry has for years clamored for some sort of nationwide tagging and tracking system to ostensibly monitor livestock from farm to feedlot to food store, it wasn't until the tragedy of September 11, 2001 that the industry saw its opening, using as its rationale the perceived threat of terrorists striking American agriculture. The effort for a national tagging system was in place right after September 11 under the auspices of the National Institute for Animal Agriculture, composed of agricultural industry giants and manufacturers of identification technology systems, which immediately began lobbying for the implementation of the Animal Health Protection Act. In the climate of anti-terrorist hysteria, the AHPA was very quietly passed by Congress in the middle part of 2002, and it instructed the Agriculture Department to implement the act. In May of 2005 the AHPA was further strengthened by Congress to specifically mandate electronic tagging and certain exemptions from the Freedom of Information Act.

Carnations for the Portuguese Empire
by Cornet Joyce, 24 April 2009
Early in Portugal’s trailblazing career as a seaborne empire, she sent a fleet and land forces to the East with the intent of controlling the spice trade. Over the first decade or so, the returns to the treasury exceeded the naval and military cost. For the next four and a half centuries, the ambitious enterprise drained the country’s resources with little success at protecting her colonial possessions from the British or even from the Arabs, the Persians and the Indians. From a place of prominence among nations she sank to a position of insolvency and backwardness derided by her own former Brazilian colonists. The navy and army moved decisively to topple the monarchy and the power of the Church in 1910 but years of turmoil ensued, and in 1925 a Portuguese general imitated the Fascist March on Rome with a March on Lisbon and the Portuguese New State was born, its recurring theme: Cross and Sword.

Bye, Bye, Tejas… Governor Hair Hath Spoken
by Amy Dalzell, 23 April 2009
Okay, so I started out to write a completely different column. I was walking to my office one recent morning on the NMSU campus when I noticed a bumper sticker that gave me hope. It read (what was initially going to be the title of this column): “Don’t take freedom for granted.” This was not the part that cheered me up; it’s much too akin to other popular jingoist slogans like “Freedom isn’t free” and “War IS the answer” that have proliferated in the U.S. for the last several years.
   No, it was the second part which read: “Thank a soldier today…” that had been altered by hand. The ‘Th’ in “Thank” had been crossed out and replaced by “Sp.” “Ah ha!” I thought, “Someone with both a sense of humor and the initiative to express it. Perhaps there is hope.”

Dow Chemical: On guard for thee
by Al Pope, 20 April 2009
In 1991, the town of Hudson Quebec adopted a bylaw banning the use of pesticides. The following year the municipality issued $300 fines against two companies who violated the ban. The companies fought the convictions all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada, where they lost, nine years later.
   That was the end of that. All legal avenues exhausted, the companies paid their fines and moved on. Things are different today. Dow Agrosciences, the US chemical giant, has a similar beef with Quebec’s law banning its lawn herbicide 2,4-d, but they won’t be pursuing the matter through the Canadian court system. They’ve launched a NAFTA claim.

The Club is All Their Law
by Cornet Joyce, 19 April 2009
In olden times, a criminal was either personally responsible for a criminal act or he was “possessed” by the powers of darkness, in which case his lot was unlikely to be better than if he were personally responsible. With the insanity plea, which begins in Dickens’ England with the killing of a politician, mental disorder takes the place of the powers of darkness and the defendant is absolved of the guilt of selling his soul to Satan. A defendant classified as insane is said to lack responsibility for his actions, which he can not control.
   Perhaps we are witnessing the birth of a category similar to the insanity defense as Mr. Obama declares government torturers not responsible for their crimes.

Masters of the universe
by Joseph Burgess, 17 April 2009
Did you notice that after months of it being fixated on grim economic news, mainstream media recently shifted their principal narrative to a mix of international events? Yep. They did. As pointed out recently on Journalism.org:
   "Coverage of the economic meltdown fell to 15% of the news hole the week of April 6-12, according to the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism. That is the lowest level of attention to that subject since the week of President Barack Obama’s inauguration. As recently as the last week in March, the story had accounted for 41% of the coverage examined by PEJ’s News Coverage Index.
   "Not only was the faltering economy a smaller story last week, but for much of the year, other major weekly stories often intersected with the financial health of the nation. That was not the case last week. Four of the five biggest stories were unrelated to the financial crisis and together, they filled nearly one third of the overall news hole.
   "The No. 2 story, just behind the economy at 14%, was the Somali pirates who targeted a U.S. merchant ship and triggered a high-stakes hostage drama. Next (at 8%) was Obama’s overseas trip, where the media focus was on his visit to Turkey and continued outreach to the Islamic world. And two foreign crises of a very different nature rounded out the week’s top-five list — the deadly earthquake in Italy (6%) and the North Korean launch of a long-range missile in defiance of much of the international community (4%)." [1]
   To make up for that omission and to remind or depress or anger -- or all three -- this Green Dog is generally about those financial "Masters of the Universe," the wheeler-dealers whose greed and stupidity lent in huge measure to the economic meltdown.

T-Ball: The Right puts its best feces forward
by Bryan Zepp Jamieson, 15 April 2009
I have read the tea leaves, and the tea leaves say “clusterfuck!”
   Today was tax day, and of course that meant the loony-tunes right had their big tax protests, the “teabagging parties.” As Anderson Cooper memorably remarked, “It's hard to talk when you're teabagging.”
   Not, mind you, that this slowed down the diarrhetic right any. Governor Perry, dubbed forever “Governor Goodhair” by the late Molly Ivins, stood and proclaimed Texas' right to secede from the union. I had to remind myself that Texas has ports and resources that are valuable to Americans, and that not all Texans are batshit crazy like the gubbiner. Even if they do keep electing clowns like Goodhair and before him, George W Bush. Besides, someone should ask Mexico if they want a third world buffer state between themselves and the US, especially since about all Texas can do is contribute to the gun running and drug addiction problems Mexico and the US inflict upon one another.

The 2012 Campaign Continues
by Cornet Joyce, 14 April 2009
It’s time for a campaign update, and a backward glance at our expectations for the historic president and his historic ways. Mine were quite modest and Obama, for the most part, has lived up to modest expectations.
   “Foreign affairs progressives will be loudly declaiming that President Obama is as ardent an imperialist as his predecessor," I said back in October. “That will probably be true, but he will have reduced the population of the torture camps and, although he will not have ended the torture, the media will no longer hear the screams.” That, I think is approximately what has happened. Nor was it hard to forecast: all one had to do was take the man at his word.

Afghanistan: killing and dying for a lie
by Al Pope, 8 April 2009
Prime Minister Stephen Harper is “deeply troubled” by news of Afghan legislation that de-criminalizes rape within marriage, forbids women to leave the home or see a doctor without the protection of a husband or father, and places custody of children solely in the hands of male family members. Or so he says.
   Finland’s foreign minister brought the proposed new law to world attention at this week’s NATO summit in the Hague. The revelation threw a spanner into what should have been a Barrack Obama love-in, with the U.S. president using his star status to push plans for a major escalation in the Afghan war.
   As soon as the matter was out in the open, politicians were tripping over each other in the rush to denounce the scandalous law. U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton told reporters, “This is an area of absolute concern for the United States. My message is very clear. Women's rights are a central part of the foreign policy of the Obama administration.”

A Summer in Nepal
by Silver Donald Cameron, 5 April 2009
Colin Macdonald's trip to Kathmandu started with a conversation at a breakfast table in Montreal. His friend Mishuka Adikary was contemplating volunteer service in Nepal with an organization called Volunteer Abroad. Colin didn't know where Nepal was, but he was captivated by the idea.
   Colin and Mishuka -- "Mish," as she's known -- are Canada Millennium Scholarship Foundation "laureates," whose scholarships are based on leadership and community service as well as grades. The two had become chapter co-ordinators, organizing events for the laureates in their regions and participating in national conferences and workshops.

The April Fools' Budget: GOP holds a feast of St. Swithins
by Bryan Zepp Jamieson, 1 April 2009
As someone of British background, I regard April Fools' Day as a high Holy Holiday, on a par with Festivus or St. Swithin's Day (both holidays center around the use of bare poles). It's a day for reverently reflecting on the spaghetti farms of Switzerland, or the flying penguins that Terry Jones found in the Arctic.
   I do my part, of course. This year, I sent a piece out on my newsfeed that, pursuant to his conversion to Roman Catholicism, Newt Gingrich had proceeded to resign from the GOP and re-register as a Democrat. Last year, I grandly announced that the LA Dodgers had signed Barry Bonds to a ten-year, $250 million contract.
   But this year, the best tribute to April Fools' came from that most unlikely of sources, the grim, humorless stalwarts of what's left of the Republican Party.

Human lab rats at the grocery store
by Al Pope, 29 March 2009
In June, 2005, a German court ordered Monsanto Corporation to publicise the findings of its study on Mon 863, a genetically modified root-worm resistant strain of corn. The report revealed that rats fed on Mon 863 developed increases in lymphocytes and white blood cells, blood pressure problems, increased blood sugar levels, kidney inflammation, liver and kidney lesions, and other abnormalities.
   A 2005 Russian study found that infant mortality in rats whose mothers were fed on Monsanto's Roundup Ready soy was 55.6%, as compared to 9% in a control group. In November 2008, the Austrian Agency for Health and Food Safety released the results of a long-term feeding study showing that GMO corn causes serious reproductive problems in mice.

Bryden Bonvie's Christmas Message
by Silver Donald Cameron, 29 March 2009
In 2007, 12-year-old Bryden Bonvie wrote a Christmas card.
   "Dear Dad," she wrote, "I love you more than ever and I need you more than ever, now can you come back please. Oh ya, Merry Christmas, I love you."
   But her father couldn't answer.
   Bryden Bonvie's words were ringing in my ears last week as I prepared a keynote speech for Safety Services Nova Scotia, formerly the Nova Scotia Safety Council. I am no great authority on safety, but I know something about taking responsibility for one's actions -- and that's the core of the Internal Responsibility System, which is the heart of today's occupational health and safety regime.

Lessons learned from Adolf
by Joseph Burgess, 28 March 2009
Do you recall that great surreal Warner Brothers cartoon released in late 1943, "Daffy the Commando"? Remember? Daffy Duck parachutes into a European war zone (this was before the Americans landed in France and after they had landed in Italy) and starts his own private war against a German officer (who looks like a vulture) and his scapegoat orderly, Schultz. At one point Daffy takes to the air where he is attacked by German fighter planes. Before shooting them down. he splutters out the hilarious line -- "Messerschmitts! A whole messa Messerschmitts!" Later, Colonel von Vulture captures Daffy and puts him into a cannon and fires it. Daffy spreads his wings and lands at a Nazi rally where Adolf Hitler is ranting and raving -- until Daffy hits him over the head with a huge mallet, prompting Der Fuerher to furiously shout "Schultz!" The cartoon is full of early 1940s caricatures, throw-away gags from early 1940s radio shows and movies, and other popular gags and expressions of the time.

Rage against Greed
by Lorenzo A. Canizares, 28 March 2009
Today’s New York Times (3/28/09) has several articles dealing with problems created by Greed in our society. The most salient one to me (Front Page Article) is the one about the two Pennsylvania judges that sent over 2500 juveniles to a private detention center that earned the two Greed-Addicts over $2.6 million in kickbacks. The article indicates that red flags began to appear in 1999 but were disregarded. It is easy to understand why; these judges were part of a privileged clique of an old-boys network that allowed them to flaunt their “earnings” without much questioning.

The trickle-up effect
by Al Pope, 23 March 2009
When word got out this week that AIC executives had skimmed themselves $165 million in bonuses out of their $167 billion government bail-out, America was outraged. Political anger swelled to evangelical levels when President Obama told a Whitehouse gathering, "I've asked Secretary Geithner to pursue every single legal avenue to block these bonuses and make the American taxpayers whole."

AIG on Our Faces: The real reasons behind the sudden “bonus” rage
by Bryan Zepp Jamieson, 19 March 2009
During the French Revolution, little old ladies sat, doing their knitting and chit-chatting, and watching with mild amusement as the guillotine chopped off the heads of hundreds found by the Revolutionary Committee to be at odds with the needs of the people.
   America isn't there yet, but it isn't so outlandish a notion as it was a year ago. There's a lot of anger, and it's building.
   As long as the social anger doesn't have a nexus, a focal point on which it can concentrate its rage, it's unlikely to result in much of anything expect loud voices and a few fights in bars, and a lot of sullen expressions out on the streets.

Threat to the nation's future
by Joseph Burgess, 18 March 2009
Have you ever heard of force majeure?
   Well, it's a common law concept borrowed from French civil law. Force majeure means superior or irresistible force that excuses a failure to perform. It has been defined by the United States Supreme Court as a cause that is "beyond the control and without the fault or negligence" of the party excused. And it's a possible legal answer to the AIG bonus debacle. [1]
   The Green Dog personified is far from being an attorney-at-law (see the bottom of this Green Dog), so there may be some holes in the understanding that, according to force majeure, a major change from the conditions when a contract was first drawn up can invalidate the continued fulfillment of that contract's obligations. And, apparently, force majeure can be defined in a contract -- or defined or determined by a court. The term usually refers to events such as wars, political uprisings or natural disasters -- events to which the current economic crisis is being compared.

The Long Dark Shadow of The Tar Sands
by Silver Donald Cameron, 15 March 2009
The Alberta tar sands, says Andrew Nikiforuk, represent "a nation-changing event" which has made the rest of Canada into "a suburb of Fort McMurray." A distinguished Calgary-based journalist, Nikiforuk was in Nova Scotia in early March to discuss his new book, Tar Sands: Dirty Oil and the Future of a Continent (Greystone, $20).
   The tar sands, boasts Prime Minister Stephen Harper, have made Canada "an emerging energy superpower." Because of them, Canada now produces more oil than Kuwait, derives 9% of its GDP from oil exports, and has overtaken Mexico and Saudi Arabia to become the number one foreign supplier of oil to the United States.
   Out of sight in the northern wilderness, the tar sands projects are tearing up a chunk of Alberta's boreal forest roughly the size of Florida -- but, says Nikiforuk, the sands have their black, gooey handprints on every part of the country, whether we recognize it or not.

Crying poor, spending millions
by Al Pope, 14 March 2009
Say the word Yukon, and what springs to mind? For many, this vast, sparsely populated territory in Canada’s northwest corner is the very symbol of pristine isolation, one of the last great wild places. Our roads are few, long, and often rough, and lead to communities that are tiny and isolated, and nestled in the beauty of nature.
   Keno City is one such community. Once a boom-town surrounded by active mines, for the past two decades it has been home to a handful of hardy souls, struggling to make a living on small-scale mining, tourism, and the arts. A couple of years ago, most people in Keno were delighted to hear that Vancouver-based Alexco Mining was revisiting the old United Keno Hill silver deposits.
   Support for Alexco’s plans began to weaken as residents learned the details...

Truth and consequences
by Joseph Burgess, 9 March 2009
Did you notice that on March 4, 2009 the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, whose chairman, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), has called for an independent "truth commission" to expose Bush administration abuses and excesses, held its first meeting to discuss the formation of such a commission?
   Well, you might have missed it, since it was not widely reported and was covered by few reporters. The most common report on the meeting published or reported by the mainstream media was by an Associated Press reporter. Here's how the March 5 AP report by Larry Margasak began --

Happy International Women's Day
by Cindy Sheehan, 8 March 2009
International Women's Day (IWD) is marked on March 8 every year. It is a major day of global celebration for the economic, political and social achievements of women.
   My remarks to a gathering in Los Angeles celebrating IWD:
   First of all, I would like to thank the organizers for inviting me and bringing me here to celebrate with you all. San Francisco is my home but Los Angeles is my hometown!
   I hope my remarks don’t offend any men out there, but if you are here, they probably won’t. In any case, my remarks aren’t meant to offend, but to inspire.
   A double “X” chromosome makes a person a FEMALE but does not guarantee that she will be a WOMAN.

Mining the tar sands - for votes
by Al Pope, 8 March 2009
Last week Michael Ignatieff addressed a luncheon crowd at Edmonton’s chamber of commerce. To no one’s surprise, the Liberal Party of Canada’s latest attempt at a leader leapt to the defense of Alberta’s great economic engine, the tar sands.
   "The oilsands are an integral part of the future of Canada," Ignatieff told the business crowd in the capital city of a province where oil is money, and more to the point, where no oil would mean a sudden and dizzying drop from boom to bust.
   Come election day – and even the Liberals can’t duck that day forever – it may do Ignatieff some good with the voters of Alberta if he seems to support continued development in the tar sands. But the Liberals can’t afford to drive away voters who are looking for action on global warming.

Slim Gyms
by Silver Donald Cameron, 8 March 2009
The mature male body is a depressing sight. As we age, says my friend Ervin Touesnard, "we all develop Furniture Disease -- our chests slip into our drawers." And then the doctor says, Hey, you've put on a bit of weight. Not good. At your age, you're at risk for heart disease and stroke. Get some exercise. Start going to the gym.
   What a revolting idea.
   Gyms are for smooth young athletes, not for myopic, jiggle-bellied grandfathers with furniture disease. Gyms are peppermint liniment and louts snapping towels at one another. Gyms are for infantile oafs like Don Cherry. Besides, I'm too busy.

The Greed Machine Prepares for Class War
by Lorenzo A. Canizares, 7 March 2009
Rush Limbaugh said to his faithful listeners “I want Obama to fail.” He understood clearly what he meant. But, did most Americans? Limbaugh is a most important component of the Greed Machine that controls the Republican Party. If you have any doubt see what happened to the Republican Congressman from Georgia Phil Gringery who dared to criticize Limbaugh, and then the following day had to eat crow telling all that cared to listen that he regretted putting his foot in his mouth. Gringery, begging forgiveness, continued by saying “Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Newt Gingrich, and other conservative giants are the voices of the conservative movement’s conscience. Every day, millions and millions of Americans – myself included – turn our radios and televisions to listen to what they have to say, and we are inspired by their words and determination.” If you continue to have doubt then see what happened to Michael Steele, the nominal head of the Republican Party. I know is hard to envision a buffoon as head of a major party in the most influential nation on the planet, but what was Goebbels before he became Minister of Propaganda for Nazi Germany?

Obama for King? Maybe so...
by Amy Dalzell, 3 March 2009
After discovering Lori Montgomery’s March 1st Washington Post article on the Obama budget in my ‘In Box’ I couldn’t help but be reminded of several conversations I’ve had in the past with anti-federal government proponents of ‘states’ rights.’ These are always little bit like getting into a time machine and going back to 1832. We fought a war over the legitimacy of the federal government to defend the Union, and the Union won. Remember 8th grade history?
   Ms. Montgomery states: “As Congress this week begins reviewing Obama’s request, Republicans are blasting the proposal as a historic and irresponsible enlargement of the federal bureaucracy that ultimately will force Obama to break his pledge to avoid a broad-based tax increase.”
   Ah, the Tariff of Abominations revisited…

For What Noble Cause, Mr. Obama?
by Cindy Sheehan, 2 March 2009
"I am not opposed to all wars. I’m opposed to dumb wars." - Barack Obama: October 2002
   For the record, I did not support Barack Obama for President of this country. Of course the above quote was from his famous “anti-war” speech, that was not an anti-war speech, but an anti-Iraq war speech and this is just a sound bite from a mostly nationalistic and pro-war speech.
   I opposed Obama, though, because I actually listened to what he said about foreign policy when he was Candidate Obama.

American "Conservatism" marries their Rabble
by Hunter Gray, 2 March 2009
While I watched via CNN portions of the Conservative Conclave at DC, I had some approximation of the feeling I'd had decades ago when, with a young woman from California [a short-lived relationship], we toured the San Diego Zoo's snake exhibits. [It's been many decades since I've killed snakes, but, frankly, they do make me uneasy.]
   From several personal perspectives, I like the idea and practice of a healthy measure of individual freedom and I strongly support the concept that a society should enable its people to have a maximum number of -- reasonably reasonable --choices. I've always seen this as a basic challenge confronting mass urban-industrialism, whatever the respective flag. I like the time-honored practice of "tribal responsibility": i.e., the individual has an obligation to the tribe and the tribe has one to the individual; when the two conflict in a substantive way the tribal good can transcend; but there are always areas of individual and family autonomy into which the tribe cannot intrude.

The man who stilled the waters
by Al Pope, 28 February 2009
On his first official visit to Canada, US President Barrack Obama reassured America’s largest trading partner that “buy American” provisions in his multi-billion dollar stimulus package do not signal an end to “free trade” between our two countries. "Now is a time where we have to be very careful about any signals of protectionism," Obama told the assembled press in a joint news conference with Prime Minister Stephen Harper. And with these words he stretched out his hands, and calmed the winds and raging waves in the Canadian political teapot.
   US government contracts have always carried “buy American” provisions, both at the state and federal levels. To some extent these have been tempered by NAFTA and other trade agreements, but for the most part they include the very sensible provision that American taxpayers’ money should be spent, where possible, on American goods and services. There was never any reason to panic, or even to be mildly concerned, about the latest assertion of America’s desire to use American materials and labour in government projects. Not only did it reflect long-standing practice in the US, it’s similar, if not identical, to Canada’s own policy.

The Fourth Estate's crisis and the consequences: Part Two
by Joseph Burgess, 27 February 2009
Most people who have been paying attention know that in addition to television news's continuing popularity, there's been a world of things negatively affecting America's newspapers over the near-47 years since Cronkite took over the CBS Evening News anchor. They include declining readership because of television news -- and now the Internet -- an overall decline in Americans reading anything.
   In recent years, paid subscriptions and advertising revenue have fallen and basic costs have increased. And many newspapers, now owned by national chains whose corporate masters too often are more interested in the bottom line than in good journalism, have become near-empty shells of what they once were. Now, George W. Bush's and the Republicans' Great Recession have pushed the newspaper industry in general into an Edgar Allen Poe-style vortex, with many newspapers facing a descent into the maelstrom.

SOTU 2009: A new tone as a legitimate President speaks
by Bryan Zepp Jamieson, 25 February 2009
It's heresy to say this, but the fact is the economic crisis is a much larger crisis than 9/11. It has already cost America much more money, and has weakened America significantly more. Chances are it's already killed more people. In a worst-case scenario, it could turn America into what right wingers contemptuously refer to as a “pauper nation.”
   Obama is as popular as Bush was four months after 9/11. The difference is that Obama's popularity is based on trust and respect that he fought years to gain, whereas Bush was the bemused and somewhat amused beneficiary of being in the White House when a catastrophe struck, an event he memorably referred to as his “trifecta.” Not since Pearl Harbor has a president had such luck. Guess whose popularity is likely to hold up better for six more years?

The Fourth Estate's crisis and the consequences: Part One
by Joseph Burgess, 24 February 2009
In recent years, paid subscriptions and advertising revenue have fallen and basic costs have increased. And many newspapers, now owned by big national chains whose corporate masters too often are much more interested in a fat bottom line than in good journalism, have become near-empty shells of what they once were. Now, George W. Bush and the Republicans' Great Recession have pushed the newspaper industry in general into an Edgar Allen Poe-style vortex, with many newspapers facing House of Usher-style ruination.
   This Green Dog -- Part One: The Fourth Estate's crisis and the consequences -- is the first of two that thoughtfully and deeply review the crisis affecting newspapers and the resulting awful consequences to Americans that are occurring and may worsen.

Could You Do It?
by Cindy Sheehan, 21 February 2009
Could you plunge a knife into the heart of a sleeping baby or into the stomach of a pregnant woman?
   Could you shoot an entire family while they slept cozily in their beds at night?
   Could you pick off students with a sniper’s rifle one-by-one as they skipped out of school while viewing their innocent faces clearly through the scope?
   “No!” Why not? “Because I am not a psychopath,” you smugly tell yourself.
   What if you could murder these people long distance by either ordering their killings, or pressing a button from hundreds, even thousands of miles away that would drop a deadly bomb on their innocent heads? Could you, would you do it?

Liberals stand for equality – on round heels
by Al Pope, 21 February 2009
In 1978, a majority Liberal government under Pierre Trudeau passed Canada’s first pay equity legislation. For the following 20 years a succession of Liberal and Conservative governments resisted that law’s natural outcome, a multi-million dollar settlement with underpaid women in the public service.
   It was not, of course, that the Liberals had suffered an ideological reversal on the subject of a woman’s right to equal pay for work of equal value. They simply had to slay the deficit dragon, at all costs. By 1999, when the Chretien government lost its final court challenge and was forced to cough up, all costs including back pay and interest came to more than $3 billion.

The Battle For Change Has Begun
by Joe Parko, 18 February 2009
The election of Barack Obama was historic in many ways. It was a crucial and powerful blow against right-wing Republicans and their corporate bosses that signaled a major realignment of the nation's politics. It was an historic affirmation of centuries of struggle against racism and discrimination -- a struggle that continues with new inspiration. Obama's election has opened a new path to progressive change, a path that can lead to deeper, more transforming change. The Obama victory confirms an emerging progressive majority -- a majority that must become more organized and able to connect the various issues confronting the country into a coherent political force for change. That is decisive for moving our nation in a more progressive direction. That is the profound challenge before all working Americans. President Obama can’t change America by himself. We have to be involved.

F.D.R., Obama, and the Republicans
by Joseph Burgess, 18 February 2009
The song (Happy Days) was written on the eve of the Crash of 1929 and was popular throughout the 1930s, probably because it was the theme song for F.D.R.'s first winning presidential campaign in 1932. It was so popular -- even in hard times -- that from 1930 through 1939 it was used in at least 37 movies, ranging from the screwball comedy "Twentieth Century" to the noir downer "City Streets" and became the unofficial theme song of the Democratic Party.
   New York Times columnist Paul Krugman pointed out in a commentary after last fall's presidential election that, "Suddenly, everything old is New Deal again." That being so, it's a wonder that "Happy Days Are Here Again" hasn't had a revival in popularity. However, in the face of the worsening of the Great Recession and of Barack Obama and the congressional Democrats' efforts to develop and pass economic-stimulus legislation to rescue the economy, conservative Republicans have been reprising again the right's denunciations of F.D.R. and his economic policies during the Great Depression.

Principles Before Principals
by Edward Pickersgill, 18 February 2009
In some of the circles I travel the expression "principles before personalities" has some credence. The wordist in me has sometimes riffed that into "principles before principals". Kennedy, Johnson, Carter, Regan, Bush, Clinton, Bush and Obama are all, for better or worse, principals. Seems to me our struggle includes principles (many of which we share which is part of what brings us to huddle together in various ways). Seems to me the Principal Principals in U.S. politics also share principles or pledge allegiance to a common set of principles (with some differences of priority from regime to regime).

Where have all the scandals gone?
by Al Pope, 17 February 2009
This week, Prime Minister Stephen Harper quietly withdrew his lawsuit against the Liberals in the so-called Cadman affair. To recap that sad sordid little tale, Chuck Cadman was the independent conservative MP who rose from his deathbed to cast the deciding vote that kept the Paul Martin Liberals in power in 2005.
   The opposition Conservatives, sniffing their first chance at power, had been strong-arming the ailing Cadman prior to the budget vote that could have brought down the government. Journalist Tom Zytaruk, who was working on a book about Cadman’s life, heard from members of the MP’s family that prominent Conservatives had gone so far as to attempt bribery.