Monday, December 6, 2010

WikiLeaks: A Cyber-Deep-throat?

The Watergate Scandal of the early 1970's ultimately led to the resignation of US President Richard M. Nixon in August of 1974. The whole thing began as a little noticed story; a break-in at the Democratic Party National Headquarters, followed by arrests, cover-ups, tapes, denials and finally presidential resignation. The whole process was fuelled to the end by enterprising journalists from the New York Times and especially Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein of the Washington Post. Many of the details came from the Post's whistle-blower source nick-named 'Deep Throat' but now known to be former Associate Director of the FBI W. Mark Felt.
I'm not sure if the WikiLeaks data dump(s) from Julian Assange will have as much or even more impact than the Watergate story, but I'm hoping it does. I'm hoping its bigger.
The stories coming out of WikiLeaks have already had an impact as far as I'm concerned. Canada's new three year commitment to the Afghan debacle has been immediately spotlighted from the WikiLeaks releases. Now everyone here knows that Hamid Karzai and his gang of thugs is corrupt, if there were any doubts before.
Canada has lost 153 dead and thousands injured physically and mentally, with billions of dollars frittered away by spineless politicians and bureaucrats. What is our strategic gain from this mess? Are Canadians, Americans, anyone, safer today than they were a year ago? Five years ago? Will we ever leave Afghanistan?
We also know from WikiLeaks that Hilary Clinton thinks the Saudis, American allies, are the "most significant source of funding to Sunni terrorist groups worldwide." I'm sure glad all the terrorist funding sources have been plugged up almost a decade after 9/11.
Talking about 'plugging,' its good to know that American security is so tight, that a 23 year old soldier who can lip-sync Lady Gaga can steal thousands of classified documents and show that government incompetence is forever and everywhere.
In a strange way WikiLeaks is reassuring, how can anyone believe in government conspiracies after this? How can anyone believe in any kind of conspiracies? How can anyone believe in government/politicians announcements? WikiLeaks encourages skepticism, and that kind of disbelief is what will keep us all free.
To those who think Julian Assange should be prosecuted or worse, executed for treasonous acts, I think otherwise. I think he's done us all a great service, in fact I think we should remove the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize from its undeserving winner and hand it over to Assange. That would be a worthwhile tribute. By the way the 2007 Peace prize was also undeserved, but that's a story for later.

Friday, December 3, 2010

The last Gulag?

A column in the National Post today (Dec. 3/10) by Jonathan Kay made me just shake my head.
The column titled The Invisible Gulag describes conditions within North Korea through the eyes of a German doctor, Norbert Vollertsen, who was given unimpeded access throughout the North Korean countryside for his act of charity. Vollertsen, who worked with an international NGO, describes horrors in the article that reminded him of NAZI concentration camp prisoners he had learned about from the Second World War. Eventually his disgust with conditions in North Korea led him to a surreptitious protest and an eye-witness report that appeared in the Washington Post 10 years ago. For this he was expelled from the North and now lives in South Korea as a human-rights activist.
Vollertsen is dismayed that the media seem to focus on relatively small-scale Western and Middle-Eastern human rights abuses while ignoring what is a virtual concentration camp in North Korea in 2010.
  

From the Brights: Earth and Life: Changes over Time

It's a poster for classrooms, or as a gift, and according to The Brights' it is unique. They describe it this way:
"Earth and Life: changes over time" is a pictorial representation of evolution from the “Big Bang” to current times. The unique feature of this poster is that it combines physical science and life science events on the same time scale. The viewer will be able to see connections not seen in other timelines of evolution. Educators will be able to show students the impact of physical and geological events on the evolution of life, while others can enjoy the grandness of the presentation and gain a new perspective of the processes involved in our changing world.
Have a look here.

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Econ 101: The Keynesians have it backwards

Its income and savings that drives an economy, not spending and consumption. Watch: