It's unlikely that Stephen Harper, John Baird, Mitt Romney or Newt Gingrich have ever heard of Tamir Pardo, Meir Dagan, Amos Yadlin, Gabi Ashkenazi or Yuval Diskin. But it would probably make no difference if they had. After all, Benjamin Netanyahu certainly knows them well and ignores them completely.

So the reckless escalation of aggression against Iran, both physical and rhetorical, continues apace. Presumably the end game is both regime change in Tehran and an end to Iran's nuclear ambitions -- admirable, if unrealistic, objectives. Far more plausible is an uncontrollable conflict that will spread throughout the Middle East and from there to, well, no one knows. But it is not wrong to fear the worst, as many knowledgeable observers do.

On this, the second anniversary of the January 12, 2010 earthquake in Haiti, the website of the Canada Haiti Action Network contains a rich collection of articles and studies looking at the perilous conditions still prevailing in the country and the challenges that lie ahead. Here is a selection of some of the articles:

-  Haiti After the Quake: Seven Places Where the Money Did and Did Not Go. This article is a remarkable insight into how aid pledges made in early 2010 have played out.

This week marks two years since a massive earthquake devastated Haiti. Hundreds of thousands are still in tent camps, without proper shelter and housing. Cholera stalks the country, having already claimed thousands of victims. Unemployment and poverty are rampant, and peasants are denied the right to work the land.

Those extremely generous African philanthropists are at it again. You'd think they'd be overwhelmed by compassion fatigue after all these centuries of enriching the rich Western world, making possible so much of our development. And it even comes at the expense of their own well-being. You know -- slaves, colonialism, ivory, racism, rubber, neo-colonialism, diamonds, cheap labour, coltan, odious debts. How humanitarian is that?