Today's Stories

May 20, 2008

Ralph Nader
A Trip Inside Google

Uri Avnery
With Friends Like These

May 19, 2008

Saul Landau
Cuba Will Live

Paul Craig Roberts
The Metamorphosis of the Conservative Movement

Brian McKenna
Brotherly Love in Philly's Badlands

Patrick Cockburn
City of the Dead: Mosul on Lockdown

B. R. Gowani
The Central Problem Pakistan Needs to Tackle

Dr. Trudy Bond
Psychologists and Torture: If Not Now, When?

Cindy Sheehan
Whose War is It?

John Mohawk
The Warriors Who Turned to Peace

Remi Kanazi
When Free Speech Doesn't Come for Free

Robert Day
I Get a Horse

Website of the Day
Evolve or Die

May 17 / 18, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
The View from the Crusaders' Castle

Tim Wise
Testosterone is Not to Blame: Why Sexism isn't the Reason for Hillary's Loss

Andy Worthington
Gitmo Trials: Betrayal, Backsliding and Boycotts

Robert Fantina
The Double-Talk Express Derails

Karim Makdisi
In the Wake of the Doha Truce

Harry Browne
Only Ireland Can Vote on EU's Future

John Ross
Suicide by Taco? The Demise of Mexico's PRD

Dave Lindorff
Fear at the Pump

Robert Weissman
Pharmaceutical Payola

Laray Polk
Bush Family Appeasement

David Yearsley
Puritans in Seattle

Ron Jacobs
Riot Squads, Privatization and the National Front

Paul Quinnett
My Last Flight

Sam Bahour
Refugees are the Key

Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor
Poverty Wages

Dr. Susan Block
The Groom May Kiss the Groom

Kim Nicolini
Paranoid Park: Inside the Fractured Landscape of Male Adolescence

Jeremy Scahill
John Cusack's War

Jeffrey St. Clair
Booked Up

Poets' Basement
Dominguez, Gerard and Davies

May 16, 2008

Stephen Soldz
Involuntary Drugging of Detainees

Jonathan Cook
Police Attack Al-Nakba March

Paul Craig Roberts
Lies of Aggression

Christopher Brauchli
A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Pharmacy

James L. Secor
Olympic Torch China: the View from Shaoxing

Franklin Lamb
Did Hezbollah Thwart a Bush/Olmert Attack on Beirut?

Linn Washington, Jr.
The Price of Protecting Racist Cops

Dave Lindorff
What West Virginia Means

May 15, 2008

Stan Cox
Big Brother Close Up

Jeff Halper
Rethinking Israel After 60 Years

Greg Moses
Living for the Children of Palestine

John Ross
Why Mexican Justice is a Euphemism

Ron Jacobs
Go to Work, Go to Jail

Binoy Kampmark
Indian Jailbirds: the Case of Binayak Sen

Eve Spangler
We Should Not Celebrate Dispossession

Martha Rosenberg
Meat Wars with South Korea

Website of the Day
Idaho Wolf Killers

May 14, 2008

Ismael Hossein-Zadeh
Oil Wars

Reza Fiyouzat
Torture, a Bully's Creed

Felice Pace
California Water Politics: Of Dams and Water Buffaloes

Hamdan A. Yousuf / Dania S. Ahmed
A Generation Defined by War

Robert Weitzel
Hillary's "Final Solution" to the Persian Problem

Ralph Nader
You're Either with the American People or the Big Auto Bosses

Dave Lindorff
Hillary, McCain and the Stupid Vote

Missy Comley Beattie
White Heaven: Hillary's W. Virginia Idyll

Neve Gordon
Israel as a Site of Struggle

Dr. Susan Block
A Washington Witch Hanging

Website of the Day
Hillary's Downfall

May 13, 2008

David Rosen
Sexual Terrorism: the Sadistic Side of Bush's War on Terror

Alan Farago
Nuclear Florida: Beachfront Reactors in an Age of Rising Sea Levels?

Saul Landau
The Crisis at Home

Saree Makdisi
Forget the Two-State Solution

Paul Craig Roberts
How Empires Fall

Andy Worthington
Gitmo's Suicide Bomber

Brother Bede Vincent
The Problem with Rev. Wright--There are Too Few Like Him

Linda Mamoun
Marketing Ethnic Cleansing

David Macaray
The Myth That Won't Die

Website of the Day
Burning the Future: Coal in America

May 12, 2008

St. Clair / Frank
The Pentagon's Toxic Legacy

Ziga Vodovnik
Rebels Against Tyranny: an Interview with Howard Zinn on Anarchism

Gary Leupp
Why All of Our Efforts Won't Stop an Attack on Iran

Frankln Lamb
Choufeit's Bloody Pentacost

Suzanne Baroud
The Ambition of Hillary Clinton

Martha Rosenberg
Farmer Ernie's Chamber of Horrors

Dave Zirin
The Boss's Boycott

Carl Finamore
I Ain't Gonna Work No More

Peter Morici
Recession Watch

Richard Rhames
The Third Way to Nowhere

Website of the Day
The Untold Story of Black New Orleans

May 10 / 11, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
Real Clear Numbers: 101,000 Casualties a Year

Franklin Lamb
Hezbollah Eases Up and Beirut Opens Its Shutters

Ciara Gilmartin
A Surge in Iraqi Detainees

Diane Farsetta
Inside a Nuclear Industry Soirée

Kent Paterson
Mother's Day in Ciudad Juarez

Alan Farago
The Social Engineers

Rannie Amiri
Beirut on the Brink

Patrick Irelan
Bolivia, Morales and the Red Ponchos

Robert Fantina
The Lexicon Legacy of George W. Bush

Nikolas Kozloff
El Salvador 2009: Another Feather in the Cap of Chavez?

George Ciccariello-Maher
The Yumare Massacre, 22 Years On

David Yearsley
Bacharach at 80

Ron Jacobs
Rosa Luxemburg's Shock Doctrine

John Holt
Can Yellowstone Survive?

David Michael Green
It's So Over

Ben Terrall
Dealing Sleep

Kim Nicolini
The Best Film of the Bush Era?

Jeffrey St. Clair
Booked Up

Poets' Basement
Gibbons, Orloski, Frisella, Gladstone-Gelman

May 9, 2008

Franklin Lamb
A Wild Day in Beirut

Andy Worthington
The Afghans of Gitmo

Benjamin Dangl
Polarizing Bolivia

Mark A. Huddle
Remembering Mildred Loving, an Unsung Hero of the Civil Rights Movement

David Macaray
Hollywood Gives SAG the Brush Off

Dave Lindorff
Team Clinton: Going Down Ugly

C.G. Estabrook
The Way We Live Now

Matt Kosko
McCain, Clinton, Obama and the Wages of Lesser-Evilism

Robert Weissman
Big Business is not the Solution to Global Poverty

Michael Dickinson
Jailing the Joint

Website of the Day
The Role of Third Parties in the U.S.A.

May 8, 2008

Sharon Smith
Rockefeller Family Fables

Saul Landau
The NATO Axiom

Laura Carlsen
A Primer on Plan Mexico

Binoy Kampmark
Food Riots are Coming to the U.S.

Kenneth Couesbouc
China's Paper Feet

Liaquat Ali Khan
Pakistan's Constitutional Shenanigans

Franklin Lamb
Blindsided, Hezbollah Mulls Its Response

Sen. Russ Feingold
Government in Secret

George Wuerthner
The Problems with Conservation Easements

Richard W. Behan
A Brief Exposé of a Fraudulent War

Adam Federman
Marching for Sean Bell

Website of the Day
State of the Air

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Big Oil on the Water

Skating Around the Tanker Issue

By CHRIS GENOVALI

A well known Victoria, British Columbia radio talk show host once told local  Conservative MP (Member of Parliament) Gary Lunn on air that he was such a  good skater (as in skating around the issues) that he should be competing in  the upcoming 2010 Winter Olympics.

As Canada’s federal Minister of Natural Resources, the pro-nuclear, pro-asbestos, pro-offshore oil drilling Lunn is a throwback to the infamous Reagan-era American Secretary of the Interior James Watt, sans the born-again religiosity. Lunn’s industrial evangelicalism is entirely secular, but appears just as fervent.

In a recent letter to the editor to a Victoria newspaper Lunn once again  proved that he can skate with the best of them. Lunn stated that “the  federal government steadfastly maintains all existing tanker restrictions,  particularly the tanker exclusion zone.”  It was fairly obvious that  Lunn  was carefully parsing his words in an attempt to escape the criticism he has  been receiving over his constant hedging on the oil tanker issue. The  current debate swirling around oil tankers in B.C. has much to do with  various politicians acknowledging or rejecting that a moratorium actually  exists.

Lunn went on to essentially obfuscate the matter by conveniently neglecting to  define the phrase “existing tanker restrictions.” But the spectre of an  Exxon Valdez type catastrophe playing out on the province’s magnificent  coast has British Columbians casting a skeptical eye at Lunn’s hazy  protestations.

In the June 9, 2007 edition of the Times Colonist, Judith Lavoie reported  the following:

There has never been a moratorium on oil tankers in B.C.'s northern inside  waters, says Natural Resources Minister Gary Lunn.

Despite a widespread belief that tankers are banned from the unpredictable  waters of Queen Charlotte Sound, Hecate Strait and Dixon Entrance, and  government documents referring to a moratorium, it never really existed,  Lunn said in an interview.

"There has never been a moratorium," he said. "There's a voluntary exclusion  zone for tanker traffic that comes from Alaska down to the Strait of Juan de  Fuca."

Also writing in June 2007, the Tyee’s Richard Warnica stated that “Gary  Lunn, the federal minister of natural resources, is trying to push nuclear  power, rev up the oil sands, and make way for more pipelines and  supertankers on B.C.'s coast. He also happens to represent one of the most  environmentally conscious ridings in the country, Saanich-Gulf Islands.”

Blogging on his website "Paying Attention" in July 2007, Paul  Willcocks wrote:

..."There actually is no moratorium for traffic coming into the West Coast,"  he [Lunn] says…American companies have been willing to stay out of  B.C. waters, but there's nothing to say they couldn't start sailing through  tomorrow, according to Lunn...There hasn't been any other kind of tanker  traffic in the past. B.C. hasn't imported or exported oil or gas products  through its ports. But the Alberta oil sands could change that. There are  five pipeline proposals to link Alberta with Prince Rupert or Kitimat. Some  would transport crude; some would send condensate, used to produce the heavy  oil, to Alberta.

A February 2006 story by Leanne Ritchie in the Prince Rupert Daily News  stated that “a Transport Canada spokesperson said the voluntary tanker  exclusion zone that prevents U.S. oil tankers from traveling through Hecate  Strait won’t apply to Enbridge’s proposal to ship oil from the North Coast.”

Lunn also claims in his April 26 letter to the editor that “with respect to the  offshore oil and gas moratorium, it remains unchanged, in effect and  supported by our government.” He subsequently makes the assertion that he  has consistently made this point numerous times.

That technically may be the case, but when it comes to the 35 year old  tanker moratorium, the only thing Lunn seems to be consistent about is that  he doesn’t believe such a moratorium exists...or does he?

Writing in the Globe and Mail in April 2007, David Beers declared  that “one who is leading the charge [to lift the tanker ban] is Minister of  Natural Resources Gary Lunn, MP for Saanich-Gulf Islands...”

In a June 2007 news item in the Goldstream Gazette, Brennan  Clarke reported that Lunn “told the Canadian Press there is no moratorium on  tanker traffic. Lunn acknowledged there is a moratorium on offshore  drilling, but said restrictions on tanker traffic amounts to a voluntary  exclusion zone.”

Covering the tanker debate for Pacific Yachting magazine’s October 2007  issue, Hilary Henegar wrote:

The federal government has been accused by environmentalists (among others)  of scheming to enable companies to skirt the moratorium. In fact, Minister  Lunn, a Conservative leading the charge to bring oil tankers into B.C.  waters, has stated in the past that there is no moratorium...

However, at a July 10 press conference in which Prime Minister Stephen  Harper participated, Minister Lunn recanted his original position, saying,  “In terms of the tanker traffic, there is a voluntary moratorium. That’s the  legal state in play which has been an effective prohibition for a period of  time, and we don’t see any anticipation of that breaking down.”

The record shows that with regard to the tanker moratorium Lunn’s public  statements are evasive and lack clarity. It would be gratifying to be able  to commend Lunn for taking a strong stand to protect B.C.’s coast, but how  can British Columbians have any confidence in what their federal minister  of natural resources says on the subject given his ongoing ambiguity and  equivocation?

Chris Genovali is the executive director of Raincoast Conservation Society. He can be reached at: chris@raincoast.org

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