News of the Restless

Quotable: William Blum on “trickle-down” economics

Posted on April 23, 2012 by Sabina Becker

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Posted in Economics for Dummies, Filthy Stinking Rich, Quotable Notables | Comments Off

Musings on “Stand Your Ground” and dumb gun laws

Posted on April 23, 2012 by Sabina Becker

My best friend wrote me an e-mail a few hours ago that got me to thinking. Here’s what he wrote:

I keep hearing people who support the murderer in the Trayvon case saying that the “stand your ground” law in that state should get Zimmerman off scot-free. Well, Trayvon “stood his ground” against an armed stalker who was chasing him through the streets — and he died as a result! If “stand your ground” laws are supposed to mean anything then I don’t see how it could possibly protect a person who chased down, confronted, and murdered someone in the streets. It only makes sense if you are confronting an intruder who has come into your own home.

Of course, it being Florida (or LA, standing for Lower Alabama — thanks, Cort, for that one!), laws that make sense are in short supply. The law there favors the gun-toter, and “Stand Your Ground”, in particular, assumes that the shooter is the aggrieved party, rather than the aggressor. It has less to do with defending oneself than it does with shooting first and asking questions (or making excuses) later. And in the case of Trayvon Martin, it has nothing at all to do with an unarmed person under attack defending himself against a raging gunman.

It used to be that you had to actually find yourself under attack before you could shoot in self-defence; now, that condition has been removed. You can shoot, basically, at any old time, merely on the pretext of feeling threatened. Even if the threat is all in your own fever-swamp of a mind (as appears to be the case with George Zimmerman, who ignored a police dispatcher’s warning to leave Trayvon Martin alone), there is still the chance of getting acquitted if you can convince a court that you felt threatened, and therefore had no choice but to shoot and kill.

And, seeing as Florida is the wang-end of the Deep South, when all’s said, with all the racist mores of a Lower Alabama, well — there’s a good chance that Zimmerman’s racist perception of a threat in Trayvon’s very appearance will, absurd as it sounds, form the basis of his legal defence. After all, how was he to know that all black kids aren’t thugs? Especially lanky black kids in hoodies, out after dark and buying convenience-store snacks. Gawd! Don’tcha know canned tea and Skittles are dangerous?

There’s just one problem with that: Racist legal defence is still racist.

And innocent black kid is still innocent…and very, very DEAD.

And stupid gun laws are stupid…and still on the books.

And worse, they’re probably coming to Canada, too. Harpo & Co. are very much in the pocket of the NRA lobby. Meaning, the next Mayerthorpe Massacre…could be perfectly legal. After all, that crazy motherfucker was just standing his ground against the threat of the nasty, scary Mounties! See how that works?

I’d rather not. But I fear we will. If not immediately, then soon.

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Posted in Canadian Counterpunch, Guns, Guns, Guns, Isn't It Ironic?, Law-Law Land, The United States of Amnesia | 3 Comments

Music for a Sunday: The Crickets

Posted on April 22, 2012 by Sabina Becker

What better to warm up a dreary, rainy Sunday night than a bit of bossa nova? Here, the great Marcos Valle jams with the young BossaCucaNova. Don’t miss the Doors-like keyboard riffing in the middle.

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Posted in Brazil is the Bomb!, Music for a Sunday | Comments Off

Wankers of the Week: Nits, twits and two-faced gits

Posted on April 21, 2012 by Sabina Becker

Crappy weekend, everyone! And crappy Day Between Marijuanukkah and Earth Day, too, for whatever this is worth. Apparently, about as much as those “Arrest Kony” posters, since there was supposed to be a huge blitz on that yesterday, and the motherfucker’s still running loose. And so are all of these other good-for-nothing motherfuckers, in no particular order:

1. Michele Fucking Bachmann. Go away, you horrid wench. And stop talking about insults to other women, and that racist “tar baby” shit, too. Your entire political career has been nothing but one big insult to female intelligence, and it’s time that it ended. In earnest.

2. Allan Fucking Hunsperger. Go away, you horrid homophobe. And stop talking about gay “sinners”. Your political career should be aborted and cast into the Lake of Fire before it even gets a chance to begin. PS: You’re on the wank-list, baby, you were born that way. PPS: Sorry, we don’t believe you!

3. The Fucking King of Spain. Can someone please explain to me how the honorary president of the WWF of Spain gets to go on an actual shooting safari in Botswana…and I don’t mean the camera kind? Qué vergüenza. Yeah, definitely grounds for a resignation. (Unearned privilege is also a fuckery.) PS: Wankpology is still wanky.

Yes, they have demotivational posters in Spain, too. This one reads: The King of Spain. He won’t speak clearly, but he’s more famous than you and makes 1000 times more than you.

4. John Fucking Baird. Yay, he issued a plea for clemency on behalf of a Canadian citizen sentenced to death in Iran! What a pity he wouldn’t do the same for one on Death Row in the US. Two-faced Squealer!

5. Katie Fucking Roiphe. Yes, AGAIN. This time for her pulled-from-the-ass conclusion (she draws no other kind!) that a certain crappily-written BDSM vampire fanfic repackaged as “mommy porn” is somehow an escapist product of the “demands” of the feminist movement. No, it is NOT. It is the product of intense and overblown hype on the part of marketers looking to sell a boring-ass smut book. Nothing less, nothing more.

6. Anders Fucking Behring Fucking Breivik. Double Fucking, due to doublepluswank. First off, blowing up downtown Oslo AND going on a shooting rampage at a youth camp is not, under any circumstances, construable as “self-defence”. The government buildings of Oslo were not attacking you, and neither were those Social Democrat kids. In fact, pictures of the crime scenes show the exact opposite. And secondly, pleading “self-defence” while simultaneously refusing to recognize the laws of a country that is going to go right on being multicultural no matter what you say? Yup, that is an incredible bit of mental masturbation right there. I’m sure it makes perfect sense in the land of busted cuckoo clocks that is the fascist xenophobe “community”, but out here in the real world, it’s grounds for permanent incarceration in a max-security prison. Preferably the psychiatric wing.

7. James Fucking Jeffery. At the risk of pointing out the blinding motherfucking obvious, let me point out that abortion is not a “product”, nor is it “skilfully marketed and sold to women at the crisis time in her life” [sic]. It is a medical procedure, chosen by women who require no marketing whatsoever to convince them that a pregnancy “at the crisis time” (whatever the fuck that is supposed to mean) is a bad idea. As for it being profitable, if that were true, abortion providers would all be riding around in chauffeur-driven Rolls-Royces, able to delegate the car-bomb check to a platoon of Blackwater guards, like the corporate CEOs do. And while we’re on the subject of motherfucking blinding obvious, abortion is NOT “murder”, as murder, by legal definition, requires malice aforethought. You know, like hacking into a confidential database of medical providers and patients and threatening to make it all public, just because you can’t fucking agree with your own sister making a decision for herself, one that was not yours to fucking make?

8. and 9. The Fucking Romneys. Why?

That’s why. Talk to us about struggling when you don’t know where your next paycheque is coming from, you two. Until then, STFU. PS: Ewwww. PPS: Oh, Mittens. Mittens, Mittens, MITTENS.

10. Newt Fucking Gingrich. Of all the people in the world to get bitten by a penguin, I can’t think of anyone more richly deserving.

11. Jennifer Fucking Stefano. Never mind the little old F-bomb; Bob Beckel was right. The one with no personal responsibility is the Tea Party twit who really doesn’t know what the fuck she’s talking about, and can’t be bothered to learn, because all she can do is spout teabagger talking points. INCESSANTLY. Including that typical ‘winger slam that goes: “Typical liberal. No personal responsibility”. Why not just replace her with a tape recorder?

12. Stephen Fucking Harper. Even a non-partisan thing like the Charter of Rights and Freedoms has become politicized under the Harper Government™. He won’t celebrate its anniversary because of “divisions” he and his New Conservative Party™ themselves created around it? And he actually thinks it was Dief’s baby? Um, no. Sorry. Dief didn’t patriate our Constitution from England, nor did he embed the Charter in it upon doing so. And no doubt Harpo is bitter because he can’t do so himself, nor rewrite the thing to his own liking. Talk about divisive.

13. Yasir Fucking Mehmood. Some people commit identity theft in the hopes of getting rich. Others, in the hope of getting laid. Him? So he can furnish his home with stuff that does what his own hands could do for so much less. And now, where he’s going, he’s gonna have to use his hands anyway.

14. Joe Fucking Oliver. One man’s “streamlined process” is everybody else’s rubber stamp of censorship. And the environment’s loss. Not that he or his boss, ShitHead (#12), seriously care.

15. Ted Fucking Nugent. Being an NRA member makes you a de facto racist (check its history if you don’t believe me; also check out who shows up at its conventions, and who they hang out with). Uttering assassination threats? Um, yeah, that too. Plus a murderous fucking asshole. Ted, shut up, go home, do some more drugs, and soil your britches some more. You’re less obnoxious that way. PS: You forgot your hooded sheet and swastika, dipshit. PPS: A child rapist, too? Time this SOB stopped getting away with shit.

16. Kim Fucking Kardashian. That name, and the words political career, should never be placed side by side. Ever, ever, EVER.

17. Ron Fucking Leech. Why?

That’s why. Newsflash: Being white (and RACIST) does not mean you speak for everyone! Not even in Alberta, fergawdsakes.

18. Allen Fucking West. Oh sure, Ted Fucking Nugent made all kinds of wild, racist death threats against His Barackness, including shooting and beheading. But that’s no sign of “ill will”, even if he did incite a crowd of fellow teabag dumbasses to acts of murder and treason. What kind of a fucked-up notion of “patriotism” includes such barbaric behavior and even sees it as normal free expression and, Bog help us all, benevolent? And who is so goddamned fucking dumb as to vote for another McCarthyite witch-hunter in this day and age?

19. Dana Fucking Loesch. Hey stoopid, I’m a leftist woman, and I’ve never been raped, not even by a rightard trying to “teach” me a “lesson”. You, on the other hand, have been fucked in the head so many times by right-wing nuts who want to scare all women back to the kitchen that you don’t know which end of you is up anymore. And yeah, nice Bitefart shirt. He was nothing but a raging drunk, and you think he had a “message”? How does such an absolute idiotess get hired by the Chicken Noodle Network? Oh yeah…Fair and Balanced. ’nuff said. PS: Stay classy, bitch.

20. Scott Fucking Walker. So, Ted Fucking Nugent was the “best part” of the Fucking NRA convention? I’d hate to see what the worst was. But I’d love to see your ass tarred and feathered out of office. Can’t come any too soon now…

21. The Fucking Vatican. Who the hell cares about the poor? Nuns are supposed to be in the business of gay-bashing and slut-shaming. Didn’t you American sisters get the memo? Uppity feminists.

22. Hunter Fucking Moore. Who’s afraid of a widdle old class-action lawsuit? Oh wooky, I see somebody who is! Hahahahaha. And still a fucking asshole, too. Quel surprise…

23. David Randall Fucking Chaney. Not only is he one of about a dozen Secret Service Missing-Links-in-suits who thought their trip to Colombia was all about the hooker-shopping (and supporting your local drug- and human-trafficking cartels), he also made a point of posting a picture on Facebook of him eyeballing the Paliness’s backside when he was supposed to be watching the people around her for potential threats. Complete with lewd remarks about how he was “really checking her out, if you know what I mean”. Yeah, Dave, we really do. Really.

24. Brad Fucking Seng. Grodiest. Slut-shamer. EVER.

25. Silvio Fucking Berlusconi. Well, I know one woman who is NOT a “natural exhibitionist”, because there is NO FUCKING WAY IN A MILLION FUCKING YEARS that I would even bare an ankle in front of this dirty old coot. Who, coincidentally, happens to be a million fucking years old. Hence my unwillingness. Can you blame me?

26. Bachir Fucking Boumaaza. Instead of sitting around videogaming and tweetbombing your charity spam all over other cyberpeople (like Xeni Jardin, who, heaven knows, has enough on her plate right now), how about just forking over more of your own cash to that charity of your choice, and (politely) urging your Twitter followers to do the same? Too polite for ya? Not Kony-esque enough?

27. and 28. Camille Fucking Chidiac and Rema Fucking Dupont. Who? Oh, only two of the Pentagon’s numerous professional cybertrolls. This brother-sister team run a crapaganda firm specializing in dirty smears against anyone the Pentagon wants anonymously smeared. Not so anonymous now, and bound to need a new profession soon, if the law catches up to them as it damn well should.

And finally, to my latest troll, calling himself “Joe Canada”, alias super2cool@excite.com, at 24.69.167.139. Joe is, in his own words, a “pissy little cunt”. He’s also in dire need of medication and a restraint jacket. Poor widdle thing, he thinks I’m a “liberal”. (Try SOCIALIST, Joe. Boogaboogabooga!) And it’s painfully obvious that he is a little new to the Internets, because he thinks stupid, unself-aware shit like this would actually upset me:

Unfortunately, Joey Dearest is about to find out the hard way that I don’t fuck around. I can and WILL trace his dim-witted ejaculations to his home town (Parksville, BC), and forward all confirmation e-mails to the abuse address of his ISP (Shaw Cable…figures!), getting his tiny penis cut off from any further wanking material. He also doesn’t realize that I have a spam folder specially designated for abusive trolls like him on my home computer. Just, you know, in case a criminal or civil case ever needs to be made against anybody who harasses me. That IS a criminal offence, Joe, in case you wonder. And no, “freedom of speech” is NOT an excuse. Meanwhile, there’s always Glinda in my trusty ban filter. You’ll be seeing a lot of her if you try to come back. This is all the shrift you’re gonna get from me, Joe, so enjoy your public humiliation. And your lonely gay sex fantasies, too.

Good night, and get fucked! (You need it worse than you think I do.)

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Posted in Wankers of the Week | 12 Comments

What happens when local news gets decimated

Posted on April 21, 2012 by Sabina Becker

When local channels are no longer locally run, but just part of some big corporate conglomerate, bad things happen. Bad things like this:

CHCH’s vice-president of news Mike Katrycz said he believes the station ultimately aired around a minute of “hardcore pornography.”

“But as I say, it seemed like an eternity,” he said in a telephone interview Friday.

Katrycz said he noticed the issue right away and frantically called the network’s master control to try to fix it. But since the problem originated elsewhere, they weren’t able to immediately pull the material off the air.

“It was out of our hands,” he said.

CHCH is — or WAS — a locally owned/operated station in Hamilton. It’s now being run out of Toronto by a conglomerate called Channel Zero. Sounds very faceless and anonymous, and no doubt it is. There’s no more local content, outside of the news, and even that has been suffering in the name of maximized profit and minimized cost.

And if the viewer reactions are any indication, it’s gonna be suffering a lot more:

“Just eating some pancakes this morning watching .CHCH … I no longer like pancakes or the news,” wrote Twitter user (at)derek1913.

Others weren’t quite so amused.

One woman, who said she was angry, tweeted that it was lucky no small children were in the room when the pornography came on.

Apparently, no one was paying attention at the controls, either. And no wonder, since porn literally shuts down the brain.

See, kiddies, this is what happens when corporate honchos get greedy. Even local news isn’t local anymore when some jerkoff is wanking at the switch.

And it isn’t news, either.

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Posted in Canadian Counterpunch, Filthy Stinking Rich, Newspeak is Nospeak, The "Well, DUH!" Files, The WTF? Files | Comments Off

Festive Left Friday Blogging: We can haz new proggregator?

Posted on April 20, 2012 by Sabina Becker

Yes, we can haz.

And this is terrific news, since teh illiberalz eated the old one.

I’m still waiting for the bumper sticker (and the typo in the banner to be fixed), so I can add it to my sidebar for further prettification. Muchas gracias to the always-awesome Pale of A Creative Revolution for making it happen.

See you there!

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Posted in Canadian Counterpunch, Festive Left Friday Blogging, Uppity Wimmin | Comments Off

A cautionary tale for would-be “sugar babies”

Posted on April 19, 2012 by Sabina Becker

Before you sign up for Seeking Arrangement or any other similarly sleazy site thinking that you’ll be “empowered” or otherwise set for life, girls, there’s something you need to see. Namely, what REALLY happens to women who sign on for the “job” of rich man’s kept woman:

HE FLEW HER ALL over the globe, gave her a black American Express card, bought her an apartment and showered her with cash.

But C.C. Wang — wedding-dress designer Vera Wang’s widowed father — refused to make an honest woman out of his loyal mistress of 30 years, Betty Phillips.

And when Phillips flew from her home in Singapore to Wang’s New York sickbed after his second stroke, she was cast off like a stained bridesmaid’s gown.

Instead of love, she got a cold-as-ice letter that outlined the terms of the relationship: no wedding, no money and, please, no visits.

Phillips signed the breakup letter — and a judge now says that means she isn’t entitled to the fortune C.C. left when he died.

“There is no proof she was forced to sign the letter,” the judge wrote Wednesday, ruling against Phillips’ claim she deserves $10 million and a hefty allowance.

Is that any way to treat a lady who threw away thirty years of her life — presumably the “best” years in terms of looks, health, and fertility — on a dirty old hypocrite? I mean, what else would you call a man who did this?

Wang and Phillips met in Singapore in 1980. She was leaving an abusive husband, the court files say. Despite about 30 years difference in age, Phillips and Wang lived together for a time, and her lawyer describes their coupling as a “sophisticated partnership.”

But when wife Florence died in January 2004, Phillips was no longer content to be a mere lover, and began pressuring Wang to marry her.

He wasn’t looking for another trip down the aisle, though, and when Phillips visited his house in Pound Ridge, N.Y., he would hide her from his kids, court papers say.

Wang’s health deteriorated, and when he had another stroke in July 2004, Phillips rushed from Singapore to his home in Southampton, L.I.

There, she was presented with a letter to “set forth for you my understanding of our relationship” — in decidedly unromantic terms.

“I have told my children and by this letter I am making it absolutely clear to you as I did in the past, that I have no intention of marrying you and that under no circumstance whatsoever will we ever be married to each other,” the letter said.

“Further, I have already adequately provided for you financially and there will be no further financial transfers from me to you. Please confirm that you waive any claim of any kind or nature against me, my family or my estate.”

And sadly, that’s just what she did. And the relationship ended forthwith, his “generosity” (as recognized by the courts) notwithstanding.

I don’t know about you, but I’d say that a man who put me at his constant beck and call, but ordered me not to presume that there was any real love there, could not be called truly generous no matter how much cash was forked over in exchange for…what, exactly? Secretive sex behind a smokescreen of intact family relations? Listening to him belly-ache about business? Or pretending to believe him when he claims his wife “doesn’t understand” him, but he just can’t be bothered to divorce the less-than-understanding lady because then he’d lose half of what he has (even though what’s left would still be more than plenty)?

Nope. The “love” of a rich man for his mistress is NEVER generous. It is selfish, deceitful, false and unkind. And Betty Phillips found it all out the hard way.

One hopes that she kept her hand in, professionally, and that she at least has a good career to fall back on. Also, one hopes that it isn’t yet too late for her to find true love. But when one squanders 30+ years of one’s prime propping up the ego of an old coot who will only spurn one’s loyalty and love in the end, it must be damn hard to get back into the social pool and not find it icy cold.

So, girls…does that “sugar baby arrangement” thing still sound “empowering” to you now?

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Posted in Filthy Stinking Rich, Good to Know, Isn't It Ironic?, Uppity Wimmin | Comments Off

“I woke up gay”

Posted on April 19, 2012 by Sabina Becker

Are all gay people just “born this way”? Most apparently are. But a rare few, including the young man in the documentary above, find their sexual orientation changed when their brains are suddenly altered by a cerebrovascular accident…a stroke. Chris Birch has lost large chunks of his memory, and with it, his former self — a heterosexual, chubby, “chavvy”, rugby-playing bank clerk with a lengthy string of girlfriends. Now a hairdresser making plans to marry his boyfriend, he’s trying to piece together a coherent picture of who he was, and how he became the person he is. He’s also trying to reconnect with old friends and family from whom he became alienated as a result of his stroke. He is certain that the stroke changed his entire sexual orientation, as well as wiping out his old personality and the memories that came with it. And since being gay is indeed a state of brain, it turns out that he is right. He is literally a different person since his stroke, and it is all because of a fundamental change in the structures of his brain.

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Posted in She Blinded Me With Science, Teh Ghey | 3 Comments

Canada’s gift

Posted on April 18, 2012 by Sabina Becker

It’s been thirty years this week since Pierre Trudeau brought our Constitution over from England, and appended our Charter of Rights and Freedoms to it. Cause for celebration? Definitely, and especially in light of this:

“Could it be that Canada has surpassed or even supplanted the United States as a leading global exporter of constitutional law? The data suggest that the answer may be yes.” So conclude two U.S. law professors whose analysis of the declining influence of the American constitution on other nations will be published in New York University Law Review in June.

As the first Commonwealth nation to adopt a bill of rights, Canada has influenced other former British colonies as they create or revise their own constitutions, the study finds. Israel, Hong Kong and Eastern European countries have also drawn from the Canadian example.

Both the Charter itself and the nation that gave birth to it serve as an example to the world. “Some countries may be especially prone to borrow from the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms because they perceive themselves as sharing the same goals and values as Canadian society,” write David S. Law, who is professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis, and Mila Versteeg, who teaches law at University of Virginia.

In contrast, professors Law and Versteeg conclude that the American constitution, once the foundational document for new nations in search of a government, has fallen out of favour. It fails to protect rights, such as freedom from discrimination based on race or sex, that are considered fundamental in our time; it enshrines rights, such as the right to bear arms, that other nations don’t value; its courts increasingly interpret the American document so perversely – by claiming that it must only be applied as the founding fathers originally intended – as to render it useless as a tool for tackling modern problems.

Bam! Suck on that, con-tards. While you’re so busy bitching about our so-called lack of cultural identity (which, by the way, is a figment of your limited imaginations!), and admiring the yanks and their Second Amendment, which was written in the days of muskets and blunderbusses (and seems to be most in favor with people as primitive and unreliable as those same), other countries are busy emulating us on the very progressive grounds you despise the most. Namely, those of our much more flexible constitution.

And more to the point, there are a lot more of those countries. And you want to know what they love most about us? The fact that we’re NOT the US:

The Charter of Rights and Freedoms not only prohibits discrimination based on race or gender, it protects mobility and language rights and enshrines the presumption of innocence. It balances the rights of legislatures and courts through the “notwithstanding” clause, which gives the federal and provincial parliaments limited powers to override court decisions.

Beyond the Charter itself, the Canadian Supreme Court is considered an exemplar in balancing constitutional and legislative powers, a role the American Supreme Court lost entirely after Republicans and Democrats turned it into an ideological battleground.

“The Charter is widely admired, and so are the decisions of the Canadian court,” observes Peter Hogg, one of Canada’s foremost constitutional authorities. “And one reason is that Canada is not the United States.”

The U.S. study, which offers a meticulous comparison of how constitutions around the world reflect and influence each other, leads the authors to conclude that “other common-law countries are looking either directly or indirectly at the Charter,” as they draft and amend their own constitutions, Prof. Law explained in an interview Sunday.

“Overall, the evolution of global constitutionalism has tilted more toward the mild-mannered country to the north than its superpower neighbour to the south,” the report concludes.

And the reason for that is our progressive, socially liberal democracy. Which the Charter has helped us to build. Its drafting was a non-partisan affair, with members of all three major parties contributing. Which means that it rightly belongs to us all.

And that’s just what pisses off Harpo, who would like nothing better than to see his not-so-new Conservative party owning our country in perpetuity. Little wonder, then, that he is so petulant as not to be celebrating this milestone.

Tough toenails, Harpo. Canada is a progressive country still. And it will go on being one in spite of your efforts to make it over in your own regressive, repressive image. It will still be one long after you are dead and gone. Our progressive base is too strong to be snuffed out by you or anyone.

I guess it’s asking too much to tell you to stuff your spite and get over yourself. Doesn’t matter; the rest of us are quite content to celebrate this cornerstone of our national identity…without you and yours.

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Posted in Canadian Counterpunch, Cool Beans, Law-Law Land | Comments Off

Harpo go home! (and smarten the fuck up already)

Posted on April 17, 2012 by Sabina Becker

First, a little music to set the mood:

Ah, that was lovely. Now, the story:

Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his wife Laureen were awakened by a major earthquake as they overnighted in Chile’s capital of Santiago.

Buildings shook throughout the city at around 12:50 a.m. local time in what the United State Geological Study rated as a 6.5 earthquake centred 112 kilometres from the city.

Harper’s director of communications, Andrew MacDougall, said the prime minister and his wife remained in their rooms and were fine.

Still, the event shook up the media and delegation travelling with Harper who were wrapping up a four-day trip to Colombia and South America.

It shook up the media, but no word on what it did to ShitHead. Probably nothing. Maybe because he’s a robot?

Meawhile, on a related note, we have this:

Two separate studies are providing insights into the earth-shaking consequences of the controversial gas extraction process known as fracking.

Both studies confirm that hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, can trigger manmade earthquakes when water, sand and chemicals are blasted deep into the ground to fracture rock to obtain oil and natural gas.

Energy companies are increasingly using the technique across Canada, including in B.C. where there is already regular seismic activity and an ever looming threat of various sized tremors.

The U.S. Geological Survey is set to release its findings Wednesday that a “remarkable” increase of quakes in the U.S. midcontinent since 2001 is “almost certainly” the result of oil and gas production.

And also, disgustingly, this:

The federal government will limit the ability of environmental groups to intervene in reviews of major resource projects, as it moves to speed up approvals for pipelines and other resource projects.

Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver said Tuesday that Ottawa will soon table legislation that will reduce the number of projects that undergo federal environmental assessment by exempting smaller developments completely and by handing over many large ones to the provinces.

Mr. Oliver said the government will also bring in new measures to prevent project opponents from delaying the assessment process by flooding hearings with individuals who wish to speak against the development.

The Conservative government was dismayed when the National Energy Board extended its hearings on the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline, which would carry oil-sands bitumen to the British Columbia coast for export to Asia by super-tanker. The regulator was responding to requests from more than 4,000 individuals to give oral testimony at hearings now under way.

After railing for months against radical environmentalists bent on blocking resource development, the Natural Resources Minister signaled Tuesday the government will cut them out of the assessment process unless they can prove they would be directly affected by the project.

Hmmmmm. You don’t suppose FRACKING projects could be among those, do you?

And if an earthquake in the Andean nation of Chile can’t shake Harpo’s complacency about THAT, nothing can. And that should worry us all.

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