Rafe Mair Online

Yet another man, this time in Langley, shot dead by the police. Of course this not so, but this seems to be a daily occurrence. Polish immigrant killed by Taser. Accused in Air India case acquitted (though, in fairness, the judge goofed). Police Chief in Vancouver apologizes for bad investigation into the Picton case. Civilian head of RCMP deemed to be aggressive and boorish. BC government looking at reviving the BC police and ousting RCMP. All calls for a Royal Commission into policing shunted aside.

It is obligatory to say this so I will – no one, least of me, has anything but admiration for the rank and file police personnel.

For a police force to be effective – that is to say making communities safe through proper police methods – it must have the confidence of the public it serves. This cannot be said by far too many communities. Continue Reading »

Shed no tears – the American House of Representatives has turned back “cap in trade”. Good riddance, I say. I honestly cannot understand how President Obama was so much in favour of it.

The theory was that producers of “green power” would get “green credits” which they could sell to polluters to help them pay environmental assessments. The idea was that funds from polluters would encourage non polluters.

Quite apart for all other considerations this would be a broker’s dream as a whole new market in “Green Credit Futures” would spring up, providing no value to society excepting, of course, to the brokers themselves.

As always, at least part of the problem is the old adage, “the devil is in the details”.

To me an instant “sticking point” is how one defines “green” as in energy. No, let me rephrase that. I have no doubt that the Gordon (Pinocchio) Campbell government would give green points galore to the private power producers, IPPs, … they would call what they do as producing sustainable, green energy thus getting them lots of credits to sell. Continue Reading »

American politics has become a great mystery to me. There was a time when I thought I had a pretty good handle on what was going on with our neighbour’s politics but no more. I guess the high water mark of my play calling came when I predicted that the mid term elections after Bill Clinton’s “trouble” would not penalize the Democrats and I was right.

Now I’m truly puzzled starting when in 2004 a draft dodger Bush was able to paint much decorated John Kerry as a coward and get away with it. Bush denied that he had anything to d with the Swift Boat exercise but he can scarcely believed when he didn’t raise a finger, as Commander-in-Chief to come to Kerry’s rescue.

Now we have a very unpopular Barack Obama and I’m shaking my head.

He’s pilloried for bailing out banks and businesses that went mad under the de-regulation of business under the Bush II years. He was damned if he did and damned if he didn’t. Had he done nothing the Republicans would have been screaming that he was against the business community etc. They certainly would have demanded that he bail out the people, all Republicans, who broke the economy in their ongoing orgy of greed. Of course, having saved all those jobs by a bail-out he has violated the basic capitalist notion of survival of the fittest … which is devoutly believed by the business community until they look like they won’t survive. Continue Reading »

We will be hearing more and more on “cap and trade” and it will be sold as being just super dooper for the environment.

There are lots of variations of this scheme which, sadly, is being pushed by President Obama.

The theory is not complicated – those whose industry reduces greenhouse gases will get credits and those who damage it will have to pay. Those who get the credits can sell them to the polluters and thus reduce their penalties. For this to work, obviously the credits must cost less than the penalties.

Sounds pretty good? Continue Reading »