... willow?

September 24th, 2008 - The presidential campaign of the United States may slow to a halt as Republican candidate John McCain wants to postpone all debates and electoral appearances. Mr. McCain feels that the current economic crisis is more important than the electoral campaign and therefore all should stop while the different branches of gouvernment establish a short and long-term solution. Meanwhile, the Democratic Party insinuates that this is only a campaign tactic in the midst of waining support for the Republicans. Furthermore, Democrats argue that the electoral campaign is crucial to acertain the motives and personal solutions of the next President who will be thrust into a financial nightmare very soon.

Firstly, one would think that McCain's gesture is a noble one, embodying integrity and courage to adress the real issues. He seems to aknowledge the general boredom and indifference of the Amercian populace towards an endless election year filled with propaganda, super-delegates, debates, an electoral college and Bristol Palin. In parallel, he acknowledges that the small voter cares a lot more about his wallet, his mortgage and the potential evaporation of his retirement fund than this excercise in democracy. Conversely, these elegant realisations seem to explicitely imply that Mr. McCain offers a concrete solution to really engage and solve American economic preoccupations. He is not, it is a ploy. He will join the president in the White House and they will debate over a 700 billion dollar plan to bail out financial institutions that dug their own fiscal grave over the past decade. I fail to see how anything will change for the accountant or sales clerk in Montana if the proposed plan is successful and what Mr. McCain will contribute to it.

This brings me to another point. Very few senators and gouvernors have come to the apocalyptic realisation that if this insane amount of capital fails to refinance and rebuild America's financial institutions, this recession will inevitably progress into full-blown depression; the kind with suicides on wall street, massive bankruptcies and food coupons.

In the blue corner, there are two very valid arguments against postponing the upcoming presidential debate this Friday ; one of which they have not used and may find interesting if they read this blog. Firstly, president Bush may be ridiculed worldwide yet the man is president and has a full cabinet that administer the most powerful nation on earth; he has my respect for that. Having established my lack of animosity towards the character, even I have to admit that he is the last person that should be adressing the Nation about economic policy and fiscal resolution. Furthermore, his presidency ends at the end of this year and if anyone is certain of anything, it is that the US economic quagmire will still be there in 2009. This is why both candidates must establish their own economic foresight and convince the electors of their worth (Note to CNN – this will constitute what we actually want from you, not a 2 hour exposé on Sarah Palin’s glasses). This is not a time to postpone anything; it is actually the WORST time to postpone anything.

The second argument against halting this campaign brings us to the historical portion of today’s class. Mr. McCain declared that this financial crisis supercedes politics and that we must stop this campaign to adress it. After mush research, I have discovered that this has NEVER occured in the United State’s 232 years of existence.

That’s right, when James Madison won the presidency in 1812, the British and French were intercepting and sinking their commercial ships and funding Indian raids on the country (a few randy Canadians even took a boat ride down south and burnt down the White House). When Ulysses S. Grant campaigned and won his 1868 elections it was amidst a painful national reconstruction following a civil war and the secession of the South. In 1916, promoting an impossible agenda of neutrality, Widrow Wilson would not pause his campaign as tens of thousands of soldiers were dying in trenches. He won months before he sent his own troops to Europe. Perhaps the greatest president the Americans have ever had, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, courageously campaigned his way to four terms as president. First in 1932, he proposed a shiny « New Deal » to lift the country out of economic depression. He did not have the wait and see attitude that would have left incumbent Herbert Hoover (the president who clearly failed to prevent the crisis *wink) to dream up his own 700 billion dollar solution. Finally, if there was ever a time to halt a campaign and postpone a debate, it was in 1944 when president Roosevelt won his fourth term. Pearl Harbour had shocked American minds, dissipating the illusions that the war was confined to Europe and that the dreaded "Yellow Peril" was an uncivilised nuisance at best, as social darwinism had stipulated at the time. 10,000 people died every day during the war and conscription guaranteed that every American family was impacted in some way by the war effort. Nonetheless, the campaign raged on and two candidates proposed their plan of action to end the war victoriously, speedily and decisively.

Republican candidate McCain may have fooled the public into thinking he was a considerate genius but we can be sure that he underestimates the importance of the electoral process profoundly; no matter how drawn-out and boring people may find it.

(Pictured: President Roosevelt signing the declaration of war against Japan - John McCain, stopping a speech to point out a squirrel)

End.

THE END IS COMING...AGAIN!

September 15th 2008 – Hackers have attacked the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) or the biggest and most expensive scientific experiment ever devised. Although causing minimal damage, these attacks come mere days after the collider conducted its first successful tests. You may not know what a Hadron collider is (much less a very large one) therefore I will tell you a story of immeasurable horror and how it may simply be a historical sequel.

Built underground across the Swiss-France border, this monstrosity is a circular particle accelerator. The “large” aspect of it comes from its 27 kilometers in diameter. It will be used for extensive and breakthrough nuclear research by spinning and smashing atoms, molecules and subatomic particles at speeds unseen as of yet by humanity and quite impossible in our immediate sector of the universe. I purposely used the grandest and vaguest terms to describe it so that you may see the elusive and mysterious glow of uncertainty that surrounds the machine and that has terrified extremist groups.

It may recreate the Big Bang and destroy the universe, it may produce a microscopic black hole and destroy the universe, it may create “strange matter” which theoretically transforms all connecting matter into unstable goop, destroying the universe and finally it could simply create a nuclear explosion that will kill us all. Unfortunately for the radical fear-mongers, the scientific parameters of the machine have been developed over the past 13 years (and 15 billion dollars) to produce limited effects and reactions that will be controlled and studied underground. No wonder CNN has covered 3 hurricanes continuously for the past two weeksinstead of this. If the Americans aren’t spinning the possible end of the world, there mustn’t be much credibility to the threat. That being said, there is a small possibility that we may all die very soon.

You see, even the scientists that have spent decades on the project have admitted that there is an infinitesimal chance of these catastrophic phenomena occurring, destroying the universe. We are talking one in a billion or so but that is assuming we currently possess all scientific knowledge that exists. We unfortunately know very little of the universe and its physical laws (scientists have proposed that over 95% of the Universe is unaccounted for, seriously, check it out). That is to say that the European Organization for Nuclear Research may be the next Manhattan Project who’s aims are noble and concern scientific advancement yet could end in human annihilation if it falls into the wrong hands.

In the early 1940s, the United States, England and Canada were arduously battling the Nazi agressor (or waiting for the Japanese to provoke them into doing so) and therefore these nations collaborated in an important scientific endeavour of defense and progress. Directed by J. Robert Oppenheimer and assisted by a plethora of specialists such as Albert Einstein, the project not only aimed to research the nuclear weapons that Nazi Germany were potentially developping but to create them as an incentive for peace. Oppenheimer and Einstein would never have though that their ingenious creation would become the angel of death for tens of thousands of Japanese civilians. Furthermore, they probably never thought that their research would lead to a terrifying 50 year stalemate where all industrialised countries would practise nuclear shelter drills in the utmost terror and where belligerent nations could potentially annihilate each other within a single day and a few buttons pressed.

Don't get me wrong, the LHC will not shatter the fabric of space-time, it will probably not even reveal the very interesting things that we are promised. It will slowly go back to being an unknown project that is just very big and very expensive (or will it...).

Have a nice week (please keep in mind it could be your last so go spend those RRSPs)

(Pictured: Trinity test, the first atomic bomb developped by the Manhattan Project - The LHC, a cross-section of the 27 km tube)

End.

Wind, Rain and Fire

September 1st, 2008 – Hurricane Gustav has just made landfall in Louisiana. Funny enough, after the last 100 hours of constant coverage, we realize that we know very little of this hurricane, its trajectory or why people keep building homes in New Orleans.

Firstly, to address televised media, especially the Cable News Network (CNN), we only had to tune in during the past four days for an immediate and crucial update. An update of what you may ask? Of absolutely nothing I would say. We begin by visually sifting information from the two news tickers at the bottom and the blue storm watch bulletins on either side of the screen to be told that a hurricane hit New Orleans a while back and that this recent one will also contain winds and is going really fast. We proceed to see Anderson Cooper holding onto a telephone poll about 4 meters away from the hurricane screaming “This hurricane is windy and it’s raining sideways!”. Then, for the twelfth time in one day, the camera abruptly cuts out and the newsroom at CNN tells us not to worry; Anderson cooper may have been impaled by a Chevrolet but at least the population knows that a hurricane-prone region of the world currently has a hurricane and that it is a windy and rainy one. Lather, rinse and repeat. Lather, rinse repeat. Blah, blah, blah… You may think I am dramatically reducing their expert journalism to a minimum of cynical critique yet I promise you that in the last 4 days, CNN has not told us anything about Hurricane Gustav that a 10-year old couldn’t have guessed. It is important to know that there currently is a hurricane, several thousand citizens have been evacuated and there is a possibility of raising gas prices (exactly how and why, no one knows). But to pound out images, specialists and reports every hour, simply to promote fear should be below CNN and below basic journalistic integrity (obviously if we do not take into consideration the six months of non-stop fear mongering following September 11th, 2001).

Secondly, just as the inhabitants of southern Japan, Hawaii’s Western Islands, most of Florida and the Swiss Alps, the denizens of New Orleans inhabit a natural hazard zone…on purpose. Safe for the Third World deserts and flooding deltas of Southern Asia, the regions including frequent earthquakes, cyclones, avalanches, typhoons and volcanic eruptions are inhabited by people who have the means to move; especially if it means avoiding a violent death at any given time. I understand nationalism and regionalism. I understand a sense of belonging and community. I even understand a sense of tradition or a fear of change. What I will NEVER understand is someone believing that any one of the former justifications is enough to risk their life and their family’s life every day.

Taking into account modern transportation, internationalisms and globalization, uprooting your family and moving around is as easy as 123. Take these things away and you are left with the early modern cities of XVIIth and XVIIIth century Europe. Moving required braving the elements, disease, days or weeks of walking to the next towns and ultimately being shunned for being an outsider. Instead, generation after generation of very poor people littered the streets and overcrowded the few urban centers of the Old World. Ghettos sprouted like mushrooms and thus the great epidemics and deadly fires (being the greatest “natural” disasters of the time) of the last 700 years took place.

As an example, ironically not fitting my own profile, is the great fire of London in 1666. Burning down 90% of all houses, the fire spread rapidly throughout the poor districts of the city. It destroyed millennia of historical heritage from the Roman walls to the medieval infrastructure for 3 days, sparing the aristocratic domains. This was certainly not the first nor the last fire of London yet they rebuilt on top of the rubble for lack of options. This example does not fit my rant simply because of the adjective “deadly”. Somehow, this epic conflagration killed 8 of the city’s 80,000 inhabitants.

To New Orleans I say be strong, be careful and MOVE!

To CNN I say: If the people are watching you give the same 5 facts about rain and wind for four straight days, you must be geniuses.

End

(P.S.: Another more intangible reason for which people didn’t move after natural disasters during the Modern Ages was that they believed God did it. They obviously deserved it and God would do it again no matter where they would be.)

(P.P.S.: I always found it suspicious that the Great Fire of London happened in 1666. It is very possible that it never actually happened and was invented by the King to scare people out of smoking in bed.)

(Pictured: The Great Fire of London - Hurricane Gustav, CNN caption reads "Hurricane knows where you live and is coming to get you!")