I just had an incredible 2 day experience at a course on the Transition Town Totnes movement and how to get something like it off the ground here in Port Alberni. There were people there from all over North America as well as some from New Zealand. I will have more to say once my mind is able to digest it all but for now I wanted to put a link to the resources for those of the people that were not able to get the digital files at the Course.

Here they are.

Chris

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Lest we forget, today is the 90th anniversary of the Armistice that ended The Great War (WWI). Today is known as Armistice Day in Europe, Remembrance Day in Canada and Veterans Day in the US.

I have written extensively in the past on my feelings about the two world wars and my pilgrimage to Dieppe and Vimy Ridge in 2003.

We must never forget the sacrifice of our military men and women and those that supported them. In 1918 Canada had a population of around 7 million, yet she sent over 300,000 men to war and 64,000 Canadian soldiers did not return. A mind boggling number not even eclipsed by WWII.

Lest we forget that Russia in WWI and later the Soviet Union in WWII suffered incredible loss in the defense of their country.

And Lest We Forget that this day serves also to remember the sacrifice of German, Austro-Hungarian, Italian and Japanese who while in history will be seen as aggressors, suffered no less in a human way from the two wars and indeed history tells us that were it not for the sacrifice of millions of innocent Japanese at Hiroshima and Nagasaki from nuclear war, the death toll could have been even more staggering.

We have just been through 8 years of what many could see as a return to war fighting. The attacks of September 11, 2001 instigated invading Afghanistan and a new policy from the Bush Administration to attack pre-emptively in order to defend itself. The invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq has dragged on… unprovoked strikes against terrorists in Pakistan, Syria, Oman, Somalia… torture of prisoners in Abu Graib and Guantanamo…

I believe some of the people in power have forgotten what today is about.

The Great War turned out to be only the beginning of what was the bloodiest century in human history. We have now embarked on a new century with more war making.

As if there is not enough expectation put upon one mans shoulders already, Barak Obama now as the opportunity to make a new start for this century by reversing the policy of his predecessor and embarking on a new vision that still addresses the challenges of the 21st Century, Islamic extremism, Climate Change, and fossil fuel Energy Depletion. All three can and already have caused conflict between and within nations. It will be up to Barak Obama, his counterparts and his successors to relearn the lessons of the 20th century and apply it to today so that 90 years from now we are not again wondering what went wrong.

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I’m going to embed some code thanks to MSNBC…. all my posts should end up having their Election results widget Cool!!

They have more versions for everything under the sun at the link above, even a Dashboard version!

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Oh man… classic…

FYI: they rattle off a few french phrases… key words you hear:
“fok” (phoque, is “seal” in French).
“coshon” (cauchon, is “pig” in French).

I recorded this from a website I frequent, it’s in MP3 format, feel free to download it and spread the joy.

Click for the Palin Prank

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I have the Moscow Times in my RSS feeds because it is one rare example of an excellent english newspaper from a decidedly non-western perspective.

Is Obama or McCain Better for Russia?

If Barack Obama is elected U.S. president on Tuesday, he will join President Dmitry Medvedev in becoming the first post-baby boom leader of his country. Both men were born in the 1960s — well after the tumultuous post- World War II decade, when the United States and Soviet Union were preoccupied with nuclear arms races and a deep divide in Europe.

Their early careers show how different they are from their immediate predecessors, President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. Although Bush did not go to Vietnam, his young life — through his time in the Texas National Guard — was shaped by that proxy struggle between the superpowers. And Putin, who served in the KGB in a small town in Germany, was on the front lines of the Cold War.

Obama, by contrast, spent the 1980s working in the neighborhoods of Chicago — a different kind of battleground, formed in the race riots of the ’60s and ’70s. By the time Obama began his work, the violent struggle had abated but the problems had not, and his work was vital to developing new ideas that stressed not so much race as community solutions. This is one of the reasons that Obama can lay claim to being the United States’ first post-racial leader.

Medvedev, for his part, spent the 1980s learning the lawyer’s craft in Leningrad. By the time that city became St. Petersburg again, his career had been formed by studying and teaching law rather than climbing through the Communist Party hierarchy. Although Russian law is different from the Anglo-Saxon tradition, it still formed an intellectual system different from the Party’s nomenklatura ladder. For that reason, Medvedev can lay claim to being Russia’s first post-Communist leader.

Therefore, Obama and Medvedev have the potential to start a truly modern phase in the U.S.-Russian relationship, finally leaving the Cold War behind. This will not be easy, as the summer’s tragic conflict in Georgia showed. In the aftermath of the fighting, voices could be heard in Washington, claiming that Russia is an untrustworthy, violent adversary and needs to be contained.

In Moscow, the voices were equally loud, proclaiming that the United States was trying to cling to its status of global gendarme, including in Russia’s backyard. The bombers and naval ships that the Kremlin sent to Venezuela were supposed to convey that Russia would respond in the United States’ backyard if the United States persisted in supporting Georgia and Ukraine.

Obama and Medvedev would do well early in their relationship to make some policy decisions that would sharply break with Cold War patterns. For example, although Obama would not have assumed command of the U.S. military when Russia’s naval flotilla completes its exercises off Venezuela in mid-November, he could suggest that the Pentagon invite the Russian commanders to stop off at Central Command in Florida before their return to Russia. The purpose of the stop would be to discuss urgent issues that are engaging both navies, such as the piracy that is running rampant off Somalia.

And Medvedev, although he would have to push back against Kremlin hard-liners, could recommend that Moscow and Washington have some urgent issues to work on together with Tbilisi. Smuggling through South Ossetia has been a persistent problem, and it has at times involved that most dangerous of contraband — fissile material that could be used to make nuclear bombs. Both Georgia and Russia have cooperated with the United States to build defenses against nuclear smuggling, and all three could cooperate to confront this terrible problem.

These two examples show clearly what must be done to get beyond the Cold War. They convey that Russia and the United States can cooperate rather than compete, even in their own backyards. Since Obama and Medvedev are so clearly of a new generation, they are the leaders who may finally succeed in breaking the old patterns.

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