Remember the three capitalized letters, WMD? They used to stand for the words Weapons of Mass Destruction. Nobody uses the term anymore, but those three letters were all over the news when the George Bush presidency was trying to capitalize on the fear of Americans still reeling from the September 11 attacks.

That fear gave the Bush regime a moral mandate to launch the second American war against Iraq in 2003, thus cementing modern disaster in Mesopotamia and setting the stage for a historic comeuppance against Republican ideals in America.

Even as early as 2005, former US Secretary of State Colin Powell, the man tasked with characterizing the WMD threat for the world, was already admitting publicly that this period of his career stood as a blot on his record. Mr Powell's then admission marked a stunning retreat from the Bush regime's assertion that Iraq not only possessed weapons of mass destruction, but maintained a state of readiness to use them within a 45 minute timeframe. 

As it turned out, the invading American led forces found no WMD program in Iraq. In the recriminations that followed, it became clear that the evidence touted as the reason for invading Iraq had been entirely fabricated by elements of the US administration, up to and including the then Commander in Chief, George W Bush.

And so, some would say by the will of Allah, victory for freedom Iraq became the mother of all American military quagmires as thousands of well motivated insurgents made it their duty to send all the Americans home, one body bag at a time.

By September of 2008, the voting public in the United States had also decided that the reign of error in American politics had to come to an end. They pinned their hopes on the most unlikely seeming candate possible, a black man with a Muslim sounding name. The WMD debacle became the straw that broke the proverbial camel's back.
 
 Barak Hussein Obama's election can therefore be read as a repudiation of decades of mean spirited public policy in the United States. These policies have consistently punished the weak and increased suffering in the United States and abroad. The recent epoch in American life has seen the country reviled as a rogue nation, it's leadership openly ridiculed by even friendly governments, its people singled out for terroristic attack at every turn.

In this atmosphere, a black man has become America's golden child.

But this alone will not be enough to lead the United States out of its dark ages. There's already plenty of well publicized evidence to suggest that any informed observer should have been able to comfortably predict that Saddam Hussein's regime did not possess the means to attack far away countries with WMDs.

And the President of the United States is nothing if not an informed observer.

And so if there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, then the people of Iraq are being made to suffer for some other reason. What could this other reason be?

The task of finding the answer to this question may well fall under many jurisdictions both within the United States and without. These include the FBI, US Congressional review, and the World Court.

The point of any legal post mortem of the Bush legacy would be to assure the world that America recognizes its uniqe place in the world. It  has become a nation so powerful that it cannot be sanctioned by other nations. And therefore its people and leaders must maintain strong institutions for policing themselves on the world stage.

Barak Obama's presidency must not squander the opportunity to reaffirm the values of the American Constitution. The leaders of all nations must be held accountable for the actions they initiate. America can be no different. And where those actions abridge freedom and cause egregious harm, then special care must be taken to ensure that the guilty are found out and punished.

It's the American way.

Urban sprawl is a euphemism commonly used to describe the paving of the earth.

It is characterized by a situation whereby a muncipality's jurisdiction perpetually expands outward from the civic core, in a seemingly unbound fashion.

In the Greater Toronto Area, the direction of urban sprawl is largely dictated by a local geography that forces growth north from Lake Ontario towards Lake Huron, and east and west towards Peterborough and Hamilton respectively.

Because urban sprawl is associated with increased automobile use, it is seen as one of the main causes of air pollution and fossil fuel dependency. Consequently, there is a growing public debate and awareness of the problem.

By 2004, Toronto Public Health was already producing estimates to show that poor air quality was affecting the health of thousands of people in the GTA, some to the point of premature death.

But urban sprawl does not only affect human health.

To the north of Toronto lies a sprawling watershed known as the Oak Ridges Moraine. This health and preservation of the ecosystem surrounding the Oak Ridges Moraine has become one of the most contentious environmental issues in southern Ontario civic life at the dawn of the 21st century.

Urban development on the watershed has pitted a diverse group of stakeholders against each other, as Non Governmental Organizations, governmental and citizen's groups battle for control of the agenda with respect to the moraine.

In recognition of the public concern over the Oak Ridges Moraine, the Government of Ontario has acted to limit development in the area, and there is a lively public debate about the best way to manage the health of this sprawling ecosystem.

Because urban sprawl and commuter transportation are tightly linked, new funds have been allocated to public transit as a way to mitigate automobile use in the Greater Toronto Area, and the Official Plan has been drafted to mandate that new development will be linked to the expanded transit system.

Although the nearby Oak Ridges Moraine dominates the environmentalist debate in the GTA, there are other areas of concern.

Because urban areas consume enormous quantities of electricity, sustainable power generation policies are also prominent in the public consciousness. The GTA derives it's electricity needs from coal, gas and nuclear power generation. 

Through a mix of conservation initiatives and propaganda, residents of the GTA are encouraged by local government to take an active role in reducing electrical consumption. But until sustainable energy production is deployed on a wide scale, unfortunately this issue remains mired in interim solution seeking, and maintenance of the status quo.