Ya Miss Me

Thanks to everyone who commented here and sent emails inquiring as to my absence from blogging.

I took an unannounced break considering I have been blogging almost daily here for four years.

But I appreciate the concerns, my health is fine thanks. Just took a needed break. I do that occasionally.

What began as a week off ended up being a month off line.

Anyways I will be back to blogging on a regular basis again as we approach May Day.



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Tories Fail Martin

Brenda Martin who languishes in a Mexican jail got a visit from Harpers Mouthpiece; Jason Kenney yesterday. After the media focused on her case of Mexican injustice, the Harper government has finally acted. After two years. However considering the corruption of the Mexican judiciary and cops Kenney should have simply taken a bushel of money with him and paid off all concerned, and Ms. Martin could have been winging her way home.

Instead after a weak tea protest she has been promised yet another trial on trumped up charges, in thirty days. Thirty more days, perhaps Kenney should share her cell to insure she gets her trial. After all it's his government that got her put there in the first place. Despite Harpers protests to the contrary.

"Brenda Martin failed to receive any of this from the Canadian consulate. The inaction of the Canadian consulate contributed to the problem."

Martin eventually hired a lawyer from a list provided by the Canadian consulate. He turned out to be a "mercantile" lawyer, rather than a criminal defence lawyer. Family in Canada and friends in Puerto Vallarta raised $10,000 to pay the lawyer who promptly disappeared with the money and did nothing for Martin.

If she would have had an experienced criminal defence lawyer, that lawyer would have simply paid a bribe to justice officials at the local level to secure her release before her formal arrest warrant was filed.

Once again the Department of Foreign Affairs fails another Canadian, it is not only dysfunctional and incompetent in this case it is criminally negligent.

Free Brenda Martin Now Petition

SEE:

Fix Those Balconies

Mexican Cover Up Redux

Mexican Murder Cover Up


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NHL The New Taliban?

Well one could be forgiven for thinking so considering this headline.....

Ex-NHLers square off with troops in Kandahar

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The Father of the Neo-Cons Dies

William F. Buckley passed away late last month. And in his passing the liberal media myth that he was the 'public intellectual of American Conservatism', continues. The laudatory obits forget top mention he was not a public intellectual but a scion of Big Oil, with aristocratic pretensions which were mistaken for intellectualism.

His Catholicism was a pining for the old world, Old Europe and its pre-revolutionary, pre-modernist, social order. On the other hand those on the far right knew him for what he was as this John Birch Society obituary reveals;

The fact of the matter is that Buckley, far from being the father of anything resembling true conservatism (as best exemplified by Senator Robert Taft, who was denied the Republican nomination in 1952 by Buckley's philosophical brethren), was merely a very capable quarterback for a team of neoconservatives (neocons) who had graduated from the World War II-era OSS into the CIA, bringing their anti-Stalinist, but definitely Trotskyite, ideas with them. The repackaging of this anti-American philosophy as "neoconservatism" rivaled any campaign Madison Avenue ever concocted for a "new" detergent that would get your clothes whiter and brighter.

The original OSS/CIA neocons, including the aforementioned Willmoore Kendall, spotted young Bill Buckley when he was on the staff of the Yale Daily News, and tagged him as a likely rising star of their movement. (Buckley, of course, was also tapped to join the secretive Skull and Bones society while at Yale, as had both presidents Bush and Senator John Kerry.) At Kendall's urging, Buckley joined the CIA after graduating from Yale. Through Kendall, Buckley became acquainted with James Burnham, another OSS/CIA veteran who would become a prominent figure at National Review. So strong was the CIA connection that the brilliant economist and former contributor to Buckley's magazine, Murray Rothbard, said in 1981: "I'm convinced that the whole National Review is a CIA operation."

He his lauded for his debating skills, the laconic eyebrow that would rise, the Bostonian drawl all a pretense aimed at creating the illusion that he was the master debater. Like his Catholicism, it was all for show.


Buckely's Firing Line was the model for later public affairs debate shows like Cross Fire. However unlike Firing Line these later versions simply declined into shouting matches. Despite the pretenses and his dismissive attitude towards opponents Buckley at least used reason in his debates with opponents. The new turks of the neo-con establishment have adopted his dismissive style, but added shouting and rank rhetoric to make their points.

He was perhaps the last real American voice of the neo-con right in America, having been replaced by ex pat Canadians like Charles Krauthammer and David Frum. Ironic that the new spokesmen for the American right are ex-Canadians.
They of course moved south because the right in Canada is not the mainstream of our body politic (which is social democratic an anathema that Frum and Krauthammer revile) as it is in America. The other irony is that the Buckley neo-con establishment has replaced the Democrat establishment as the voice of the American Empire.

And this right wing voice of the American Empire has its echo chamber in Canada, it is the core of the Harper Conservative Party. In fact one can find a little Buckley in the imperious and dismissive attitude of our autarkic PM.

SEE:

The Fifth International

Leo Strauss and the Calgary School

Post Modern Conservatives

Why The Conservatives Are Not Libertarians


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On Magick and Technology

In my obit yesterday I had overlooked my favorite quote from Arthur C. Clarke, his definition of magick.

It ranks up there with any given by Aleister Crowley or Robert Anton Wilson.

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic

Which of course was the logic behind the Technomages on Babylon 5, who quoted Clarke to explain their magick; "using technology to create the appearance of magic". Ah yes Babylon 5 one of the best SF TV programs ever.

And befitting his humanism Clarke leaves this vale of tears as he came.

Clarke's brother was traveling to Sri Lanka for his burial, due in Colombo's general cemetery later this week. Clarke left written instructions that his funeral be private and secular.

"Absolutely no religious rites of any kind, relating to any religious faith, should be associated with my funeral," he wrote.

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Childhoods End

Arthur C. Clarke the great SF writer who put the 'science' into science fiction has passed on. He was a humanist who believed in the spirit of man. I got emails from Clarke because he supported the SETI project.

In 1945, a UK periodical magazine “Wireless World” published his landmark technical paper "Extra-terrestrial Relays" in which he first set out the principles of satellite communication with satellites in geostationary orbits - a speculation realised 25 years later. During the evolution of his discovery, he worked with scientists and engineers in the USA in the development of spacecraft and launch systems, and addressed the United Nations during their deliberations on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space.

Today, the geostationary orbit at 36,000 kilometres above the Equator is named The Clarke Orbit by the International Astronomical Union.

Space expert Robin Scagell told Sky News: "He was very much a scientist and science was at the heart of his work.

"As well as predicting satellites, he saw that rockets would go into space."

Astronomer Sir Patrick Moore paid tribute to his friend.

"He was a great visionary, a brilliant science fiction writer and a great forecaster," he said.

"He foresaw communications satellites, a nationwide network of computers, interplanetary travel - he said there would be a man on the moon by 1970, while I said 1980 - and he was right."

Childhood's End is a science fiction novel by Sir Arthur C. Clarke. It was originally published in 1953, and a version with a new first chapter was released in 1990 due to the anachronistic nature of the opening chapter (the first attempts to launch rockets into orbit by both the Americans and Russians are in progress but aborted suddenly when aliens arrive, with a sense of the death of a dream). This story was originally a short story dubbed Guardian Angel which Clarke first published in 1950 for the Famous Fantastic Mysteries magazine. It is basically the novel's section after the prologue, Earth and the Overlords but with some different text in certain places.

Clarke struck notes that were poignant and challenging, as with this final, anguished question which ends "The Star":

"There can be no reasonable doubt: the ancient mystery is solved at last. Yet, oh God, there were so many stars you could have used. What was the need to give these people to the fire, that the symbol of their passing might shine above Bethlehem?"

May he join the stars in his passing unto the duat.

"Term of all that liveth, whose name is Death and inscrutable, be thou favorable unto us in thine hour. And unto him, from whose mortal eyes the veil of physical life hath fallen, grant that there may be the accomplishment of his True Will. Should he will absorption in the Infinite, or to be united with his chosen and preferred, or to be in contemplation, or to be at peace, or to achieve the labour and heroism of incarnation on this planet or another or in any star, or aught else, unto him may there be granted the accomplishment of his true will."

My libertarian science fiction opera loving uncle Phil Smith, a bread truck driver, turned me on to sci-fi as a kid. Clarke, Asimov, Heinlein, Andre Norton, the books he read he passed on to me. And we both shared our love of sci-fi with lots of political debate as well as I became a radical teen ager. He was right wing libertarian and I was a left wing anarchist, yet we agreed more often than disagreed. My favorite memory of my uncle was the two of us seeing 2001 together.I got to help him pass into the duat when he died of cancer.

Unfortunately as I cruise the sci-fi section of bookstores I find that it is stuffed full of fantasy novels, sci-fi has been eclipsed by the money making fantasy genre. Hopefully with Clarke's passing more folks will decide to read his works, as dated as they me be, and to begin to read more sci-fi because science fiction has always been a radical critique of existing society unlike fantasy. Which may be why the publishers like it, safe money making literature, not unlike that other fantasy genre; romance novels.



SEE

Vonnegut, Dresden and Canada

RAW RIP

Octavia Butler RIP

Van Allen Belt

LEM RIP

Andre Norton 1912-2005

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Crash

While President Bush and his fan club over at Fox Business News refuse to admit America is in a recession the economists have moved on from fears of stagflation to absolute terror;

Wall Street fears for next Great Depression Independent

But there's no mistaking the mood within the US Federal Reserve at the moment. Pessimism was replaced by fear months ago. While the economy is moving inexorably towards a slowdown, a high-speed train wreck is taking place on Wall Street.

It is that combination that has scared the living daylights out of the Fed's hierarchy and prompted them into a history-making bail-out of the Wall Street broker Bear Stearns. To put the weekend's action into context, this is the first time since the Great Depression that the US central bank has funded the rescue of a financial institution that wasn't a regulated, deposit-taking bank.

Financial markets turmoil stirs economists' memories of 1929 crash

"The threat of contagion and wholesale breakdown on a scale of 1929 is real," said University of Maryland business professor Peter Morici.

"The real questions are - which of the big banks will be next to fail? How many more banks will fail? Will the whole system turn to panic if Citigroup (another troubled bank) unwinds?"

Harvard economist Martin Feldstein said the U.S. economy could suffer the worst recession since the Second World War.

Many economists now believe the U.S. economy has already slipped into negative territory,

Ben Bernanke has likened the Great Depression to the Holy Grail of macroeconomics – an experiment in unravelling the mysteries of global economic collapse.

As an academic specializing in the Dirty Thirties, the former Princeton University economist ultimately concluded that U.S. banking authorities botched the Depression by letting panicked runs on banks wreck the real economy.

Years from now, a new generation of academics may similarly try to draw lessons from how Mr. Bernanke, now the U.S. Federal Reserve Board chief, handles the great credit collapse of 2007-08.

By running to the rescue of investment banks and opening up the interest rate spigot, Mr. Bernanke is eager to avoid the same problems he dissected in his seminal 1983 paper, “Non-monetary effects of the financial crisis in the propagation of the Great Depression.”

SEE:

Black Gold

The Return Of Hawley—Smoot

Canadian Banks and The Great Depression

Bank Run

U.S. Economy Entering Twilight Zone

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Spring Has Sprung 2

Well it is official spring has sprung earl. With the Liberals winning three of four by elections yesterday they are now gearing up for a spring election.

How do I know?

Well it could be that big honking Claudette Roy Liberal Candidate for Edmonton Strathcona sign gracing the corner of 99th st. and Whyte Avenue over the launderette.

Or like pussy willows it could just be another sign of spring; the same sign was up last year too, same location.

Dion mum on election plans after byelection wins

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5000 Posts

As of March I have officially passed 5000 blog posts. Whoa. 5023 blog posts since I began blogging back in November 2004. Pop the champagne and read on.

Of course that's just my blogspot count. Originally I had three blogs when I started, the other two defunct blogs, Red Between The Lines and Heresiology, can be found in the side bar. Total blog posts would then be closer to 6000.

And I of course also blog over at the Carnival of Anarchy.

So again even more Plawiuk pontifications.

Which began on the web way back in 1997.




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Spring Has Sprung

In Edmonton, Spring is now officially here. The pods covering my pussy willow tree burst this week, and the pussy willows are now blooming a sure sign spring is here.

Pussy Willow branch with catkins in early spring

Today we turned our clocks back to Mountain Daylight Time another sign of spring, and it came a week early due to the alignment with the Americans.

Yesterday and today I drank beer on the outdoor patio at my corner pub, a sure sign of spring. People watching I saw someone wearing shorts and the motorcycles were out. Spring is here, though not officially until March 21, which this year coincides with Good Friday.

So we actually get a day off to celebrate the return and resurrection of the Sun, and the end of winter. Which after all is what Easter is all about.

Not surprisingly the pussy willow represents resurrection, even the branches I chopped off the main tree last fall, are now sprouting. The moister of the snow feeds the orphaned limbs abandoned behind my garage.

The Lord and Lady of the Dark have given over their domain to their children of the fields and the Sun.

Within some neo-pagan traditions this is represented by The Willow King, who returns to battle winter for dominion; the passing of the old year into a new year.
After all the Willow King is simply another form of the Green Man; the old mole Robin Goodfellow, or Robin Hood.

In the signs that bewilder the middle class, the aristocracy and the poor prophets of regression, we do recognise our brave friend, Robin Goodfellow, the old mole that can work in the earth so fast, that worthy pioneer — the Revolution
Karl Marx

See:

In Like A Lion

Passover Song

Palm Sunday April Fools Day

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