Daily Archives: May 10, 2005

Just War and Proportionality

This entry was posted in bush Iraq War on Terrorism on by

Professor Bainbridge in the course of an interesting discussion of VE Day and the strategic bombings of German and Japaniese civilian populations notes:

Indeed, there seems little doubt but that the strategic bombing campaign violated the precepts of a just war. In particular, it violated the tenets of proportionality and discrimination. Proportionality holds that the response to aggression should not be disproportionate to the original aggression. Was the deliberate firebombing of Dresden or Hamburg, say, proportional to the Blitz? As for discrimination, there is no doubt that Bomber Harris and his US counterparts deliberately targeted German and Japanese citizens.

So, at point do the Afghani and Iraqi campaigns breach the proportionality principle? When we have killed 3000 of them? Destroyed property in value equal to the WTC buildings and related economic damage? Or, what?

Mr. Floatie

This entry was posted in Canada Humor Politics on by

Stories from the British Columbia campaign trail:

The BC Liberals had 71 of 79 seats in the B.C. Legislature when the election was called. But many of its incumbents are ducking the all-candidates meetings that are a staple of politics here.
The Liberals’ absence is the object of mirth. When incumbent Lillian Trumper dodged a meeting in the Alberni-Qualicum riding or electoral district, a candidate from the BC Marijuana Party filled her empty chair with a flowering pot plant and an 18-inch glass bong.
A smiley-faced balloon was attached to the chair marked “Liberal” at a Victoria meeting boycotted by two Liberal lawmakers.
The best scene, however, came at a Friday candidates’ forum in the Victoria-Beacon Hill riding, where Carole James is running.
A man named James Skwarok showed up dressed as “Mr. Floatie,” a 6-foot-tall piece of excrement. He was protesting the Liberal government’s refusal to begin treatment of Victoria’s sewage. Skwarok claimed to represent a group called People Opposed to Outfall Pollution (POOP).
He wasn’t let in. But James said the sewage must be treated and that her party would look at the issue as a priority.
With other Canadian cities at last building treatment plants, Victoria may soon be the only major waterfront city in the United States or Canada to discharge all of its sewage raw and untreated. Eleven million gallons gets dumped into the Strait of Juan de Fuca each day.

British Columbia really does need to fix this problem! They could at least process this stuff and use it as fertilizer for more fields of BC Bud.