"Projected to become the number one source of imported oil to the United States"

The Alberta Tar Sands project....

The splendor of North America being raped and left a grey expanse of filth.

Oh... and a bunch of people having their health destroyed.

Naomi Klein speaks about it from about the 5 minute mark:

This isn't Marlboro Country

Corporate scumbaggery... Not their worst unfortunately.

Philip Morris, the tobacco giant, are trying to insert "investor state" provisions in the upcoming Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement.

The background of this is that Australia and the United States signed off on a Free Trade Agreement in 2005. As is normal with our puppy dog desire to be a good mate to our immensely more powerful friend, we rolled over and had our balls scratched on some of that deal.

There was one thing about which, however, that we said "no".

We will NOT sign up for "investor state" provisions, those being provisions that allow corporations to sue governments that happen to legislate in ways that limit their business activities.

So, for example, if it should be found that certain building materials are found to be bad for bushfire prone areas, and those materials are excluded from new safe-building codes, the producer of those materials, who could be a foreign company, cannot sue our government.

Sorry... make better materials. Not "sorry... we'll compensate you because you make crap".

In effect Philip Morris, dedicated as they are to getting my children addicted to their carcinogenic filth, want to take my taxes as recompense for being frustrated in the attempt.

"Negotiations relating to the trade agreement - between the US, Australia, New Zealand and six South American and south-east Asian countries - intensified last year and are expected to be completed in September.

In a submission on the proposed trade agreement last year to the Office of the US Trade Representative, Philip Morris cited Australia's plain packaging laws among ''initiatives of concern''. The company said it supported laws to reduce the harm caused by tobacco (yeah sure...), but opposed, ''extreme and disproportionate regulation … which has the effect of violating international law and expropriating intellectual property rights''.

Simon Chapman, a professor of public health at the University of Sydney, said the company's stance was consistent with the tobacco industry's history of attempting to use trade agreements to defeat individual countries' health laws.

''It's yet another sign of the degree to which the industry will go to defeat and delay any measure that will actually work to cut smoking rates,'' he said.

He said the World Trade Organisation's Uruguay Round had established the right of countries to put health considerations above international trade considerations.

The laws that Philip Morris are getting stroppy about related to packaging regulations.

"Craig Emerson, the federal Minister for Trade, would not commit to insisting investor state provisions be excluded from the regional trade pact, saying he was not prepared to make policy on the run. But he said Philip Morris would be ''whistling in the wind'' if it tried to undermine national anti-tobacco laws.

''I will not be recommending the empowering of Philip Morris or any other tobacco company to overturn Australian government policy on plain packaging of cigarettes.'' "

Not exactly stone-cold determination.

What if this costs us the treaty...?

"Patricia Ranald, the convener of the Australian Fair Trade & Investment Network, an alliance that advocates on human rights and environmental issues, said Australia would receive little export benefit from the treaty, because it already had AUSFTA and strong trade partnerships in the region."

Screw it then. By the way... Marlboro is the biggest selling cigarette brand in the world, and is made by Philip Morris.

Plutocratic Fascism?

I was idly poking around the net and found some interesting quotes by people who are extremely concerned about the future of their country. I don't know who wrote them.

Nearly 10 years old, but it hits the mark:

" I'm afraid your suspicions regarding the rise of plutocratic fascism are correct. Southern Conservative Christians are peripheral to the ultimate purpose of this coup, but are essential to provide popular support. The truth is that really big money has coalesced for the purpose of turning back the tide of economic leveling that was quickly destroying the basis of the relative power upon which plutocrats rely. "

this dated to 6 months before 9/11 (and no I'm not one who thinks it was an inside job):

" Republican representatives are almost openly advocating a state religion. A destruction of welfare and social security. A militarized USA and the creation of foreign provocation to set off the need of military action which will facilitate internal police control of dissent. "

and...

" We fear the term fascism because it exists very close to the surface of America's skin. Corporatism, or corporate fascism, is the American form of this disease. It has thrived here unchallenged for several decades. And it has rewritten our language of social discourse at the same time it has taken half the wealth of this nation and concentrated it in the hands of a few. "

Since when does Homeland Security work for BP?

Two weeks before the accident in the Gulf of Mexico, a BP refinery in Texas spewed an immense amount of toxic chemicals into the skies. BP says it did not percieve the scale of the emissions till weeks after.

Freelance photographer Lance Rosenfield was working on assignment when a BP security guard followed him. Rosenfield was later detained by police after taking photos. The police shared his personal information with the BP security guard on grounds of "Homeland Security". Then an FBI agent shows up...

The photographer's own disturbing version of events is here.