Powell River’s Skookum Food Provisioners' Cooperative and its Abundant Pantry Bulk-Buying Club

Another neat thing happening in my new hometown of Powell River is the The Abundant Pantry Bulk Buying Club that's part of the Skookum Food Provisioners' Cooperative. They have just started up in the past few months and are now a fast growing operation run by an energetic group of volunteers and their Coordinator Wendy Pelton.

They have a great website with an online shopping cart system for ordering from their list of over 2000 items which is expanding all the time. The website also has a FAQ page full of all the information a person needs to get started in the bulk buying club. If you want to participate in Powell River’s Abundant Pantry Bulk Buying Club it's easy and you can sign-up to become a member of Powell River’s one and only non-profit cooperative at the website too.

Powell River is full of interesting, energetic folks who are using the semi-isolation of Powell River as a platform to build unique community centered solutions. It occurs to me that having lived so long on the Southern Sunshine Coast near Roberts Creek which, because of its proximity to Vancouver's abundant services, has reminded me of the many smaller, more rural, associations that we in Roberts Creek once enjoyed but that have largely disappeared as the gentrification process slowly changed the character of that area.

Moving to Black Point south of Powell River has been like stepping back in time in many ways. When i first moved to Roberts Creek there was a rural non-profit co-operative, The Coast Family Society, which was similar to the Skookum Cooperative.  In the old days in Roberts Creek there were a lot more beaters parked outside the RC store and a lot less Beamers just like you see here at the Black Point store now. In Black Point, Lang Bay and Stillwater there's a lot more beer being drank than lattes, every body's got a dog or three, everybody stops to talk-even to newcomer/strangers like me. Seems like old times, or maybe it's just oldtimer's disease eh.

Blue Jays Win in Opening Day Thriller on Field of Dreams

Every baseball fan's dreams shine bright on opening day in Major League Baseball, even those of Blue Jay fans. In the picture above Toronto Blue Jays catcher J.P. Arencibia (centre) is met at home plate by teammates Brett Lawrie (left) and Omar Vizquel after hitting a three-run home run during the 16th inning of the Jays' season-opening game against the Cleveland Indians in Cleveland. Putting the undefeated Jays atop the American League standings [thought i'd better get that in now eh!].

Opening day is a magical day for baseball fans because every body's team, every body's dream is still bright and shiny, that's one reason we all love it so. Another is the memories of fresh mowed grass and the glory days of our youth. Another is playing ball in the backyard first with our dad's and grandpa's then with our friends in the neighborhood. Another. if you're a old coot like me, is growing up listening on the radio as our heroes came alive in our imaginations.

Those were the days, the days of youth, the days of dreams both on the field and off. In those long ago days are dreams were achievable, we were told, "you can be whatever you want to be in this world if you're willing to work hard enough". We were born in the best of times. Now...well...

The Blue Jays are Canada's team in large part because they are on satellite and cable TV from coast to coast to coast on Sportsnet who carries every game. It gives us a common baseball dream each year, it acts, like hockey and the CBC, as a glue that binds our far flung fantasies together. Growing up in New England, deeply immersed in the 'Red Sox Nation' community, taught me the value of a shared delusion. Now it's the Blue Jays who play out my magic fantasy moments of their field of dreams.

GO JAYS GO!

Saving the Stillwater Bluffs

Recently  my best friend Pancho and i went on a great hike to and through a beautiful and unique part of the upper Sunshine Coast named the Stillwater Bluffs. Being a fairly new resident to the area means being able to see things with new eyes [no matter how old they actually are] and a new sense of wonder.

The future of this wonder is under pressure. The 118 acres is privately owned by Island Timberlands Ltd. of Nanaimo and, like so much of the Stillwater area that's recently been clear-cut, they are preparing to 'harvest' the forest above and behind the bluffs themselves. Fortunately there are opponents to this short-sighted scheme. The opposition is led by The Friends of Stillwater Bluffs. They have an excellent website up and running with a link to a petition with a fast growing number of signatures, including mine.

The site was also recently the focus of an occupation by Occupy Powell River who were attempting to draw further attention to the importance of the area ecologically and the immediacy of the need for protection. Because the area is privately owned the only real long-term protection seems to be the purchase of the land from Island Timberlands. There are proposals before the regional and provincial governments to do just that but proposals aren't money and raising the money will take time. Five year moratorium on any logging of Stillwater Bluffs is the purpose of the petition mentioned above.

As The Friends of Stillwater Bluffs homepage says in part, "Somehow the dramatic scale of the geography allows greater appreciation of the fragile plants clinging to rock and crevice, and the subtle sounds of trickling water or the sea lions offshore...of the dense fir forest and through a bank of salal walls...of licorice ferns and pockets of ground orchids...of sloping bare rock expanses clothed with moss and reindeer lichen...of arbutus trees and shore pines...entirely dependent on the measured release of rainwater runoff from the upland tree stands.  The stark conditions of sea bluffs are a laboratory for survival of plant species which populate the margins."

Please help The Friends of Stillwater Bluffs to save this unique ecosystem in any way you can. Thanks in advance.

Autism Numbers Exploding-Pollinnator Numbers Plummeting-Better Living Through Chemistry-And Inheriting the Wind

Yesterday was World Autism Day so there was lots of interesting articles and information to learn from available online. The mainstream media concentrated on the 'Light it Up Blue' for Autism Awareness movement and mentioned a few of the alarming stats about its growth but went nowhere near any analysis of why the recent explosion of cases is occurring occurring None even mentioned the Stanford University study with 192 pairs of twins, with one twin autistic and one not, which found that genetics accounts for 38% of the risk of autism, and environmental factors account for  62%.

There was one great article by Dr. Brian Moench President of Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment that focused on the autism epidemic and disappearing bees being real public health emergencies created by allowing our world to be overwhelmed by environmental toxins. In that article Dr. Moench says, "But as participants in modern society we are all now exposed to over 83,000 chemicals from the food we eat, the water we drink, the air we breathe and the consumer products we use.  Pregnant women and their children have 100 times more chemical exposures today than 50 years ago.  The average newborn has over 200 different chemicals and heavy metals contaminating  its blood when it takes its first breath. 158 of them are toxic to the brain.  Little wonder that rates of autism, attention deficit and behavioral disorders are all on the rise."

Dr. Moench's fusion of autism, colony collapse disorder and the widespread death of pollinators in general lead me to Jeff Pettis of the Department of Agriculture's bee research lab in Beltsville, Md. and his study of Neurotoxic Pesticides Helping to Decimate Bee Populations where he says, "There's a general phenomenon of pollinator decline — bats, bird, butterflies, all kinds of things,"

Another thing Dr. Moench mentions is a recent study showed that every human tested had the world’s best selling pesticide, Roundup, detectable in their urine at concentrations between five and twenty times the level considered safe for drinking water.

All of this makes me ill in body and spirit. As a kid in the 50's we watched countless commercials from Dow Chemicals preaching "Better Living Through Chemistry". Never did they offer the disclaimer that i'd be peeing roundup in poisonous concentrations in a few decades, nor did they say anything about how the pollinators of 90% of our food would be dying off about now or how 1 in 32 kids in UItah would be autistic before i reached retirement age. We who blissfully grew up as guinea pigs during the living 'better' though chemistry era are now reaping what was sown in our name. We weren't meek in our blissful consumption of that better life and now we, and descendants, 'will inherit the wind'. And an ill wind it is.

Thank You Ellen Brown for Writing the Best Article Ever on Canada's 'Austerity Budget'

Ya-ya, 'ever' is a very loooooooong time, but this article 'Canada’s 2012 Budget: Imposing Austerity on the World’s Most Resource-rich Country' really is the best, clearest economics article this writer has ever read. In it she shows how and why the whole Canadian government's austerity budget is nothing but a cog in the wheel of greed that rolls over us daily not just in Canada, but everywhere around the globe.

A couple of quotes from the article, first: "Canada, called the world’s most resource-rich country, is now being subjected to austerity measures like those imposed on third world countries in earlier decades.  It is all done in the name of reducing a federal debt that got out of control in the 1970s, when Canada quit borrowing from its own central bank."

Second: "Between 1939 and 1974, the government actually did borrow from its own central bank.  That made its debt effectively interest-free, since the government owned the bank and got the benefit of the interest.  According to figures supplied by Jack Biddell, a former government accountant, the federal debt remained very low, relatively flat, and quite sustainable during those years. The government successfully funded major public projects simply on the credit of the nation, including the production of aircraft during and after World War II, education benefits for returning soldiers, family allowances, old age pensions, the Trans-Canada Highway, the St. Lawrence Seaway project, and universal health care for all Canadians."

Ellen's book 'Web of Debt' which focuses on the US Federal Reserve System is fantastic. She also is the founder of The Public Banking Institute. Ellen's exhaustive research into the complex and jargon hidden world of money and banking is to be commended. But even more important than her research and knowledge is her ability to communicate that knowledge in clear language. Thank You Ellen Brown.

Canada’s 2012 Budget: Imposing Austerity on the World’s Most Resource-rich Country by Ellen Brown

Time to Get Out the Candles and the Crank Up Radio 'Cause Earth Hour is Tonight

Earth Hour, which is either totally ridiculous or a slick meme transfer device, 2012 is here. Tonight, March 31st, between 8:30PM – 9:30PM (local time), millions, maybe billions, of folks will be you switching off their lights, turning off their TVs, and huddling around the candle flame to show their involvement in the fight against climate change and carbon consumption.

The World Wildlife Fund, ground zero in tonight's exercise, says a total of 5,251 cities took part in 2011, as the movement reached 1.8 billion people in 135 countries. Sydney's Opera House and Harbour Bridge were the first landmarks to plunge into darkness and were followed by the Tokyo Tower, Taipei 101 and the Great Wall of China. Also on the big time landmark list going dark are the Burj Khalifa, the Eiffel Tower and Louvre in Paris, the cupola of St Peter's Basilica in the Vatican and Buckingham Palace in London. From Egypt's Tahrir Square to New York's Empire State Building and the International Space Station, which will watch over the event as it rolls across the globe it appears the arms of authorities are breaking from patting themselves on the back.

My skeptical warning bells keep chiming things like when all these authorities tells us something like they are going to observe Earth Hour by turning off 'non-essential' stuff in their offices and lights on their monuments for an hour why, if it is non-essential, it's on the rest of the time. Guess that's part of why Earth Hour has met with lottsa criticism over the years. Plus the fact that perhaps many individuals can convince themselves that by taking part in small, basically useless, things like Earth Hour, Earth Day and recycling they are doing their part in creating a better world.

Switching a light off isn't going to save the planet but if, on the other hand, this little individual act is done in a manner that raises awareness and gets folks to think about it and then take action in many different ways it could be a very valuable baby step. If then Earth Hour can be thought of as tool that can be used to slip a meme, a small idea packet, beyond the veil of our daily consumer culture it is worthwhile. So mr. mud and his trusty companion Pancho the wonder dog are gathering the candles and dusting off the hand cranked radio in preparedness for our hour of enjoying the 'want-less' meme and remembering that  “We do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors…we borrow it from our children.”

Comox Expecting Large Crowds Tomorrow for Anti-Tanker Rally

Opponents of the Enbridge pipeline are gathering at the NEB Joint Panel hearings at the Comox Rec Centre on March 31. The No Pipeline No Tankers Rally will begin sharply at 1 pm behind the Comox Rec Centre at 1885 Noel Ave. People are coming from all over Vancouver Island and from the Sunshine Coast. Organizers are encouraging folks to ride their bikes or carpool, to come early with their blue scarves and to bring an umbrella-coastal BC weather being what it is.

Many locals from here in Powell River are making the journey to Comox most are going over on the 8:10 AM ferry out of Powell River and hoping to meet up to share rides and ideas once they get on the ferry. Plus The Wilderness Committee is organizing rides to the rally from the ferry terminal once it has arrived.

Certainly the focus of the media and the protests will have been sharpened by yesterday's federal budget which has retro-actively changed the ground rules for the environmental hearings process. It seems totally outrageous that the rules governing the hearings on such an important decision can be changed in mid-stream to grease the wheels for the oil industry backers of the Harperites. But...ain't democracy wonderful eh!

As the new ground rules haven't been laid out in any detail, other than to say there is now a two year time limit, it's hard to know what will ultimately happen. First Nations groups are 99.9% opposed to the pipeline and Canadian courts have ruled there is a duty to consult with First Nations whenever a project has an impact on traditional territory and Indigenous culture, but a lot of uncertainty remains over what constitutes proper consultation. So it appears, as the Harperites seem determined to push through the pipeline that benefits their financial backers no matter how much long-term destruction it causes to the environment, this will end up in the Supreme Court of Canada sooner or later.

The Delusion of Dominion a Huge Threat to the Bio-Sphere

The article titled 'Understanding Harper's Evangelical Mission' by Andrew Nikiforuk at the Tyee a few days ago where he wrote, "Unknown to most Canadians, the prime minister belongs to the Christian and Missionary Alliance, an evangelical Protestant church with two million members. Alberta, a petro state, is one of its great strongholds on the continent. The church believes that the free market is divinely inspired and that non-believers are lost." was the starting point for today's research into the Christian and Missionary Alliance of Canada and a stepping stone to the existential danger to our bio-sphere fueled by the delusion of dominion.

The name 'Dominion Theology' is derived from the Bible where in Genesis 1:28 God grants humanity "dominion" over the Earth. Religion has a long history of being a excellent tool for bonding small disparate groups into a more formidable cohesive group allowing them greater safety.

This commonality of purpose was both politically advantageous and a great comfort to our fear filled fellow humans down through time. None of this was ever a problem to 'the whole' until recently when the conjunction of humanity's technological abilities and self-deluded beliefs began to threaten the underlying interwoven web of life that supports not only humanity but every living thing as well.

Not every Evangelical Christian believes that science generally or climate change specifically is a pagan plot, but most do. The Alliance Church of Canada, which Harper and many of his fellow deluded Conservative cohorts belong to, absolutely believes that they are the chosen stewards of the earth. They believe that man's special relationship with "God" guarantees that everything humans do is part of the divine plan, that all of existence has been created by "God" for our benefit and use. Marci McDonald's book 'The Armageddon Factor' ties together many loose ends to weave a historical account of the people in Harpo's Conservative Party who are leading the charge toward theocracy in Canada.

So when Harpo and his cronies or like minded Republican 'Born Again' Christians or other deluded Evangelicals around the world denigrate any and all attempts to develop a 'green' or environmental ethos they do so out of the deep seated belief that they are following the path "God" wants them to follow, that their ultimate after death reward in "Heaven" depends of their unquestioning belief in the delusion that humanity's material success and comfort is part of the divine plan and that's why they are such a serious threat.

Austerity Budgets are Just Another Name for Plutocracy in Action

While corporations, the wealthy and especially the banks wallow in excess governments everywhere are enacting 'austerity budgets' that cut spending on services essential to economic growth, that freeze or shrink public sector wages and sell off commonly held public assets like parks and resources. All of these false austerity measures depress economic growth, which causes governments to lose more money in tax revenues causing a downward spiral like that being seen in the EU.

Austerity programs that cut spending without raising taxes on the banks, the wealthy and the corporations always hit the poorest segments of the population the hardest. Economists who oppose the plutocratic model of austerity budgets agree that Instead of cutting government programs austerity should be attained by collecting taxes from multinational corporations and the wealthy. And agree that austerity measures tend to depress economic growth, which ultimately causes governments to lose more money in tax revenues. In countries with already anemic economic growth, austerity can engender deflation which inflates existing debt.

The Financial Times of London defines 'austerity budget' as, "A national budget which aims to reduce the amount of money that people spend, for example by increasing taxes, or to reduce the amount that the government spends." Greece has become the poster child for the perils of one sided austerity, rocked as it is by social unrest and dashed hopes for the future. And, with ongoing economic uncertainty, even fiscally conservative institutions such as the IMF are now expressing concern about over-aggressive deficit programmes.

Nonetheless yesterday the provincial governments of Ontario and New Brunswick here in Canada toed the plutocratic line by introducing one-sided 'austerity' budgets. Tomorrow the federal government of Canada will introduce the same short sighted type budget. Why, when the budgetary benefits of raising taxes on the banks, the corporations and the wealthy are so obvious, does the neo-con's disastrous economic agenda continue to hold sway? Money honey. The rich can buy the influence they need. The rich, through endless propaganda, have convinced enough middle class voters that their self-interest lies in going along with charade of no tax increases on the wealthy when in fact that is the only solution that will work. Austerity for the poor and excess for the rich is a recipe for depression both economic and emotional for the 99%.

Global Speculators-Not Just the Chinese-are Playing Carnival Capitialism With Vancouver Real Estate

Vancouver real estate prices are insane, nobody who works for their money can afford to buy there anymore, only those whose money works for them can. The questions of why and what can be done about it have generated so many opinions that researching this topic leaves one spinning more than a carnival tilt-a-whirl. The real estate marketers neglect to collect any hard data on non-resident ownership and spin the rapidly increasing prices that line their pockets as a by-product of restrictive density regulation and, in Vancouver's case, geographic limitations.

The urban planner's spin wants the boomers to move out of their big houses and let 'em all be turned into duplexes, etc. Listing all the opinions would take volumes. But the one this writer wants to de-bunk is the semi-racist idea that it's all a problem created by those 'Chinese Devils' when in fact the Chinese and other Asians are just playing the game of unrestricted capitalism the same way any/all the other globalized capitalist mobsters do.

As prominent Vancouverite Sandy Garossino points out, "If you look at the investment climate everywhere, there's almost nothing better than Vancouver real estate. The equity markets are toast, the bond markets are toast, everything is doing nothing. For a global investor, Vancouver's real estate might go through some rocky points, but it's not going to lose more than 10 or 15 per cent of its value and certainly not over the long haul." So why shouldn't the carnival capitalist speculators be flocking to the Vancouver?

Here in Canada Prince Edward Island and most of the Prairie provinces have restrictions on non-resident ownership. Iceland, Denmark, Switzerland, Mexico, Poland ,Greece and Australia do too. The Aussie situation closely parallels ours here in Canuckistan, their introduction of tougher criteria for foreign real estate investment just a few years ago had an immediate effect. China itself has passed a number of laws designed to to penalize speculators who purchase homes and then leave them unoccupied while waiting for the value to appreciate. If Vancouver were to take this approach to protecting its residents — rather than inviting speculators to participate in year-round open-season free-fire “investment” — the social fabric of the city might show marked improvement.

That, the quality of life, is the real issue facing Vancouver specifically, and all of BC generally, as the speculative wave ripples outward through the rest of the Province. It's far simpler for the mainstream media, who themselves owe allegiance to their capitalist advertisers, to use pejorative fear based racist terminology as a wedge issue than to take on the real forces of evil-the self-interested greed of capitalist speculators. When the workers who build the buildings and the provide the services necessary for a cosmopolitan city to thrive can't afford to live there something must change or the city will spiral downward quickly.

Westcoast Fish Culture - Where Steelhead and Stillwater Meet

A few miles south of Powell River is the historic small town of Stillwater. Its idyllic shoreline bluffs slowly rise along the Eagle River to Lois Lake home of Westcoast Fish Culture. Westcoast Fish Culture is a small, but growing, locally owned and operated, integrated fish farming operation. They grow steelhead from eggs to harvest as full sized fish. They then process them at their processing facility in nearby Lang Bay for shipment to major chains and restaurants large and small all across North America.

Luckily i live next door to Nanette and Alex Wadden and their lovely extended family. Nanette is in charge of the processing plant at Lang Bay and her husband Alex helps run the hatcheries back at Lois Lake. Through getting to know them i've slowly learned some of the interesting details about the Westcoast Fish Culture operation. Like many a left coast hippy-type i've learned to dislike the fish farming industry for lottsa reasons.

This operation is different in many important ways. For one the steelhead live their whole life cycle in Lois Lake, a logging industry built man made lake, so have no contact with ocean species like wild salmon or with native steelhead. Another is that Westcoast feeds their fish only sustainable organic feed, they get no antibiotics and are never given growth hormones. Another is that Alex has invented a process that uses the by-products of cleaning and processing to produce bio-diesel which they use to run the generators needed to produce all the electricity for their off-grid farming operation.

Powell River Living magazine did a wonderful article on them a while back featuring one of Canada's most celebrated chefs Rob Feenie, Canada's only Iron Chef, and concept architect for the Cactus Club restaurants. Feenie, who was also a fish farm skeptic, is now sold on Westcoast's product and it is the only cultured fish he recommends and uses. This small family owned business employs many happy local folks in both its lake and processing facilities, please read the Powell River Living article for more information about what is one excellent solution to our growing demand for organically fed protein that can be, at least in part, supplied from an increasingly degraded environment.

Powell River Living - Stillwater steelhead make national headlines

Who Knew? Canada's NDP Re-Invents Vote Suppression

Ya gotta hand it to the NDP up here in Canuckistan, they know how to think outside the box. Pundits were puzzled last fall when the NDP brain trust announced a 7 month campaign to determine the next leader. Many outside the loop figured it was because people needed a long time to recover from the grief of losing the un-replaceable Jack Layton to cancer. And to be fair, at that point it probably was in large part.

Next the NDP executive committee announced an unending series of debates, each of which consisted of about a dozen candidates being thrown batting practice type pitches that they responded to almost identically. The TV ratings for the debates were just below 'The Friendly Giant' re-runs and usually on at about the same time of day here on the left coast. Throughout the 7 month run-up to today's convention in the center of the universe-TO-the dozen candidates each sent countless emails to every NDP member coast to coast to coast updating them on their totally un-unique positions on the most uncontroversial issues of our time.

Sooner or later even the most long time NDP supporters/members became so annoyed with the barrage in their inboxes they blocked all of their addresses. But on the months and the campaign rolled. Why asked the media pundits was this happening? Who cares was the apathetic answer of Canadians. But there was a method to the NDP madness and now The Mud Report has figured it out.

See the NDP  brain trust was feeling left out. Harpo and his troops had stolen the last election by sending opponents to the wrong polling stations, the best voter suppression tactic yet up here. And Moneybags Mitt Romney was mudslinging his way to victory stateside by annoying so many folks that only his supporters showed up to vote. The NDP had to do something, but who knew they'd miss the point of voter suppression and instead of rying to suppress their opponents turnout they'd just go for it and suppress their own.

Well it worked great. Less than 50% of the eligible voters bothered to vote and just to make sure they completed the job [so supporters wouldn't even want to vote for them in the future] today the computer voting system they picked has crashed so many times that the really important stuff, Hockey Night in Canada, may preempt the eventual winner's acceptance speech. So in recognition of their outstanding re-invention of the whole concept of voter suppression tactics The Mud Report is awarding the NDP executive council a copy of the book pictured above.

UBC Forestry Prof. Suzanne Simard's Work on the Web of Life That Supports Us All

Last night the CBC's 'Nature of Things' ran an inspiring and profoundly educational documentary titled: Smarty Plants: Uncovering the Secret World of Plant Behaviour [you can watch the full documentary here]. Smarty Plants follows lead scientist and ecologist JC Cahill from the stunning heights of Utah’s Great Basin Desert to the rain forests of Canada’s west coast as he treks the green world and discovers that plants are a lot more like animals than we ever imagined.

One section in particular [perhaps because i live in a Douglas Fir coastal rain forest] concentrated on the work of UBC Forestry Prof. Suzanne Simard, who at UBC lectures on and researches the role of mycorrhizae and mycorrhizal networks in tree species migrations with climate change disturbance. In it she walks and talks the viewer through an introduction to the interconnected world of the forest, specifically a Douglas Fir forest, but as my research this morning has taught me the same general story holds true in every forest environment studied in detail so far.

In an excellent 5 minute video [here]  Prof. Simard talks about Mother trees and the implications of the invisible interconnected nature of all forests in regard to our present day logging industry, its outmoded practices and how we are undermining the health and productivity of this resource with our short-sighted quick profit model of development.

A different short textual page on Mycorrhizal Networks shows how the survival of young trees was greatly enhanced when they were linked into the network of the old trees. This research provides strong evidence that maintaining forest resilience is dependent on conserving mycorrhizal links, and that removal of hub trees could unravel the network and compromise regenerative capacity of the forests.

This old pantheist's heart and hope "soars like an eagle", as Chief Dan George said, today. Perhaps the rationality of science can one day lead us to understanding intellectually and then emotionally that we are all-flora, fauna, microbes, minerals, forces and faeries-in this together.

Public Banking is the Remedy to the Banksters Bankrupting of Local and State Governments and Agencies

Today's article by Ellen Brown, president of the Public Banking Institute, outlines how the banksters  received huge windfall profits in the aftermath of their self-induced credit crisis and how those unearned/immoral profits are resulting in the bankruptcies of local governments and state agencies across America. Of course, those governments and agencies are really just the pocketbooks of American taxpayers who are paying increased taxes and suffering reduced services to accommodate the banksters 'profits'.

Everyday Americans, the 99% so to speak, are experiencing the same phenomena as their European cousins-austerity, by a different name but for the same reasons. A mass anti-austerity general strike is taking place today in Portugal, Spain and Italy will follow later this month. Greece is periodically in flames over the austerity package their unelected government is forcing on them. All of Europe's current economic troubles started with derivative type schemes going bad. All of them were caused by the greed of the rich. All of poor are now being forced to pay for them. What a wonderful world eh.

But there is now some hope on the horizon. The banksters have gotten away with their robbery of the 99% by bribing politicians and regulators to be their supplicants, to not pass the type of regulations needed to control the banker's avarice, then not enforce what meager regulations might have been passed anyway. Now though, with governments and public agencies going bankrupt, local and state politicians are under increasing pressure to pass banking regulations and to pressure their well bribed brethren in Washington to do like wise.

As Ellen Brown says, "The creation of credit has too long been delegated to a cadre of private middlemen who have flagrantly abused the privilege.  We can avoid the derivatives trap by cutting out the middlemen and creating our own credit, following the precedent of the Bank of North Dakota and many other public banks abroad. Public Banking already works in the United States. North Dakota owns its own bank. North Dakota is also the only state to escape the credit crisis of 2008, sporting a budget surplus every year since."

Harper Government's Refusal to Protect Fish Habitats Another Gift to His Oil Company Supporters

Day after day in every possible way Harper's Government is destroying Canada's future quality of life in exchange for the short term profits his oil patch supporters covet. In this case it's the neo-cons attack on the word 'habitat'. Harpo wants to jettison the protection of fish habitat in the current Fisheries Act. The Globe and Mail, not usually known for its lefty perspective, points out in an editorial today titled 'Fish habitat: Why rock the boat?', The current Fisheries Act is beautiful in its simplicity: Fish need habitat to survive, and harming their habitat will inevitably cause harm to the fish. It ain’t broke, so don’t fix it.

This obvious attempt to subvert current and future environmental challenges to destructive 'development' is under fire now from all sides including real conservatives, the kind that believe conservative means to conserve. John Fraser, fisheries minister from 1984 to 1985 in Brian Mulroney's government, said in an interview Tuesday, "To take habitat out of the Fisheries Act is a very serious error because you can't save fish if you don't save habitat, and I say this as a lifelong conservative,"  "People who want to eliminate the appropriate safeguards that should be made in the public interest, these people aren't conservatives at all. They're ideological right-wingers with very, very limited understanding, intelligence or wisdom."

Of course, environmentalists and a large network of environmental scientists are furious about the idea and say Ottawa is ready to abdicate its national and international obligations to protect waterways. They accuse Ottawa of giving up stewardship of the environment to promote energy and mining projects at all costs.

Last week former Fisheries executive Otto Langer released a whistle blower's email and Langer said the move is likely intended to help Enbridge, since the proposed pipeline that is enthusiastically defended by the Harper government would cross hundreds of rivers and streams en route to Kitimat. Since then criticism has poured into the press, especially on the independent parts of the internet where corporate advertising dollars hold very sway, but also more and more in the mainstream press.

None of this though has seemed to have forced the neo-cons and corporate ass kissers in Harpo's government to change course. These people must be stopped and their destruction reversed before it's to late. The only real solution on the horizon is some sort of co-operation between the NDP, the Liberals and the Greens in the next election. The only candidate in this weekend's NDP leadership race advocating this course is Nathan Cullen. Let's hope the rank and file New Democrats agree because all of the old guard and insiders there seem entrenched in the same old lines which, unless Cullen is elected over their heads, will only keep Harpo and his cronies in power and assist them in destroying Canada's future.

Greece's Public Assets Fire Sale Part of Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine Solution

Greece's publicly owned common assets are being forced to be sold by the EU and the IMF as part of the austerity package the unelected government there has accepted. This scenario is exactly the same one the IMF and World Bank have used in the last decades to force countries around the globe to sell their commons to the private sector at fire sale prices.

In her most excellent book 'The Shock Doctrine, Naomi Klein explodes the myth that the global free market triumphed democratically. Exposing the thinking, the money trail and the puppet strings behind the world-changing crises and wars of the last four decades, The Shock Doctrine is the gripping story of how America and the West's  “free market” policies have come to dominate the world-- through the exploitation of disaster-shocked people and countries. Now those same tactics are on display for all to see in Europe's debt ridden countries like Greece, Italy, Spain and Portugal.

Greece announced last month its Public Gas Corp. would be put on the auction block as part of the debt-burdened country's efforts to raise $25 billion through the sale of government-owned property -- a condition of its European bailout package. A little while ago the Greek government puts its marinas up for sale. These public assets, and many others in the troubled countries these predators descend on, were built by the sweat of the Greek people and their taxes for the common benefit of their society. After their sale all benefits from their use be it monetary revenue or royalty will go to the multi-national capitalists not the Greeks who paid for them.

The banksters are stealing the Greek commons. The people of Greece must rise up to stop these thieves before its to late. The 99%people of Greece have nothing to lose from defaulting on these ridiculous bonds, only the 1% will lose. Yet the people are being forced by the banks and their unelected government to sell the common assets that should continue to return real wealth to the people throughout their lives. The time for revolution in now in Greece and everywhere.

BC's Carbon Tax is Just Another Regressive Sales Tax

Ever wonder why Gordo Campbell and his 'Liberal Party' passed a Carbon Tax in BC when no other jurisdiction in North America has one? Because right-wing neo-con politicians love regressive taxation and the Campbell Liberals were able to spin the Carbon Tax as a green initiative to a hopeful green-y population of naive residents at exactly the right time, at exctly the time when it looked like others, especially Californians who BCer's wanna be like so much, were going to do it too for the same green-y reasons. The Californians in fact did do it until they had the next election cycle.

There's three basic types of taxes. Regressive taxes charge everybody, rich or poor, the same amount monetarily. They are called regressive, of course, because they proportionately hurt  the poorer person more. So all sales taxes, here in Canada or anywhere, hurt folks in reverse proportion to their income and wealth as does a Carbon Tax. A progressive tax is any tax that is collected in direct proportion to their income, like income tax, or in proportion to their accumulated wealth like property taxes or capital gains taxes. The third type are luxury taxes and sin taxes. Both of them are leveraged against things judged to be non-essential choices, like Hummers, BMWs, cigarettes and booze.

Rich folks love regressive taxation for all the obvious self-serving reasons. If all govt. revenue was collected from those most able to pay the corporate shareholder, the speculators, the robber barons and those born with a silver spoon in their mouths would have slightly less bling to amuse themselves with, might have to limit their holdings to one house in the Hampshires, might even have to settle for only one trip to the Rivera each season.

Poor folks live with regressive taxation because they don't have the extra funds it takes to adequately bribe enough politicians to get progressive taxes mandated. The rich are well educated in the cost-benefit analysis of paying off the every political party in every 'democracy' to keep their position secure. The poor spend their time in prayer and at the lottery ticket window.

If they made me, w. wallace mud, benevolent dictator taxation would be of two varieties only, progressive and luxury. Of course, the rich would moan, groan and buy copious advertising space trying to convince the poor of the unfairness of those dictates. Being a benevolent type though would mean using luxury taxes to their best advantage too. Things like cigarettes and booze carry lots in terms of externalized costs that everyone pays in health care and violence. Things like Hummers externalize their costs onto the coming generations in terms of lower air quality etc. Pity the rich bastards, someday w. wallace mud or some other unbribed type will come along and collect taxes fairly, will re-distribute wealth equitably and will stop capitalism from externalizing the true costs of its obscene destruction onto the unborn.

Green Beer and Paganism on St. Patrick's Day

Legend has it that St. Patrick drove all the snakes from Ireland. Sometime back in the fifth century he stood on a hill, the story goes, and used a staff to herd the slithering creatures into the sea, banishing them for eternity. In reality most scholars agree that snakes symbolize paganism, which St. Patrick is also credited for banishing from Ireland. Snakes as symbols of evil are prevalent throughout Judeo-Christian mythology, most notoriously in the Garden of Eden as a tempter of Eve.

St. Patrick's Day, like most Hallmark Holidays, has its roots deeply embedded in paganism. The historic St. Patrick was born in Wales around AD 385. Before becoming St. Patrick he answered to the name Maewyn and, until turning 16, he identified himself as a pagan (no real shocker there, as most people back in those days were pagan). He later, after being enslaved and hauled off to Ireland, had visions, heard voices and moved to a monastery in France where he converted. Subsequently he returned to Ireland and began converting the local pagan folks to the latest craze in self-delusion, Christianity.

Some modern Pagans and Wiccans quietly protest St. Patrick by wearing a serpent pin or shirt on St. Patrick's Day instead of those green "Kiss Me I'm Irish" badges. Though if you're not sure about the depth of your pagan devotion or about wearing a snake on your lapel, you can always jazz up your front door with a Spring Snake Wreath instead.

But all that is old hat and nobody, other than the odd grudge holding pagan, really cares anymore about the historic St. Paddy. Nowadays it's all about parades, the 'Luck of the Irish' and green beer-especially beer, green or not, here in Canuckistan. Oh, for sure you'll see a few folks drinking Guinness or toasting with Irish Whiskey but the real truth is Canucks, like most folks everywhere, like a buzz and whatever excuse there is for a party sounds fine.

Otto Langer's Warning About the Harper Government's Desire to Gut the Environmental Review Process

Harper and his fascist cronies are at it again. This time their objective is to gut any environmental review process that could stand in the way of his oily corporate contributors now, as in the environmental review under way into the Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline, or in the future. Harper and his thugs have, among other neo-conservative agenda items, the objective of turning Canada into a corporate petro-state.

In this instance the Conservatives plan to sneak this past the opposition by adding it their Budget Omnibus Bill was exposed when former DFO executive Otto Langer released an email he'd been sent by a current DFO employee and whistle-blower [who'd best be ducking as the fascists are surely circling the DFO staff's email accounts]. The video of an interview with Otto Langer about the repercussions of this move by the Harperites is available here.

NDP Fisheries Critic Donnelly is concerned these changes are designed to clear the way for industrial projects favoured the Harper Government. In a press release following the above exchange in the House, he stated, “The Conservative government is systematically dismantling environmental protection and regulation. By eliminating provisions to protect fish habitat, they can push through their agenda of pipelines, oil super tankers, mega mines and other projects that harm the environment.”

As Otto Langer writes in his article, 'Veteran Fisheries Scientist Warns Harper Government Watering Down Habitat Protections in Omnibus Bill' : "This proposed move by the Harper government is a travesty for our fishery resources and the health of the entire ecosystem and it ignores the needs of our future generations. It is little less than another attack on the biological systems that allow life to exist on this planet. To make matters worse, the political level has decided to not consult with DFO staff or the public on these proposed changes. The Harper government will attempt to sneak this neutering of the Fisheries Act through Parliament within the next two weeks by tacking it on to the end of the up coming Budget Omnibus Bill."


How BC Could Counteract Harper's Gutting of Environmental Protections for Enbridge  - Our esteemed contributor Otto Langer blew it wide open when he, using a leaked document, stated that under the Harper government the protection of fish habitat would no longer be enforced against industry and that it would use an “omnibus bill” to try to sneak it through.

"Bank of America took our homes, so we thought we'd move in here."

Today, March 15th, the Occupy movement in the US is taking on the Bank of America. The website 'Foreclose The Banks' has some very cool stuff and some great quotes. The Mud Report is totally behind the creative actions being taken across Amerika against one of that country's biggest banksters. Two Thumbs Up to the occupiers.

The website opens with, "Bank of America (BAC) is a morally and financially dead “zombie bank” poised to shock the entire global economy into crisis. Its time to Fight BAC and break up the bank! On March 15th, we will Foreclose on Bank of America." Then quotes Matt Taibbi who says, “There are two things every American needs to know about Bank of America. The first is that it’s corrupt… It is a giant, raging hurricane of theft and fraud… The second is that all of us, as taxpayers, are keeping that hurricane raging.”

One section called 'The Big Picture' reads, "We are fighting for economic justice and democracy. We are part of an international movement battling unchecked global capitalism, the crimes of Wall Street and the banks, a corrupt government controlled by monied elites, and the resulting income inequality, unemployment, environmental destruction, and oppression of people at the front lines of the economic crisis. The 99% are organizing to end the tyranny, greed, and selfishness of the 1% and usher in an era of protected freedoms, compassion, collaboration, solidarity, mutual aid, sustainability, economic justice, and democracy by and for the people."

Tonight mr. mud is going to his first General Assembly at Occupy Powell River, and couldn't be prouder. This small town group has already raised the consciousness of our little coastal rain forest community with its first few actions. There will be more actions and groups in communities both small and large  here in coastal BC and everywhere as first the spring then the summer of 2012 roll on.

As the article 'Occupy Movement to Blossom as Spring Approaches' says in part, "Organizers have also been using the winter to incubate grander plans, among them a May 1 Day of Action that may turn into a call for a nationwide general strike and proposals to occupy corporate shareholder meetings, the NATO summit in Chicago, and the Democratic and Republican conventions at the end of the summer."

As a prologue to a March 15 action against bank foreclosures, a crew of Occupiers moved into a Bank of America lobby carting their couch, coffee table and potted plant.