Friday, January 19, 2007

Blowing in the Wind

So is there a need for more federal corporate welfare for utility companies to go green, I think not.


TransAlta gets 25-year wind power purchase deal
Canada's top publicly-traded electricity generator, said on Friday it has been awarded a 25-year power purchase agreement to provide 75-megawatts of wind power to New Brunswick Power Distribution and Customer Service Corp. With the addition of Kent Hills, TransAlta will operate approximately 260 megawatts of wind-generated power in Canada. TransAlta said it has tripled its wind business since acquiring Vision Quest Windelectric in 2002.

No need for folks to pity poor Jim Dinning for not getting coronated as CEO of Alberta he still has TransAlta to play with.

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Environment

Hydro



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Free Speech Works

See no need for the Israel Lobby to throw a hissy fit, free speech and debate should not be opposed with threats and name calling, because it is about a controversial issue.

Anti-Israel motion defeated by Ontario teachers union local
CBC Toronto

Union rejects boycott of Israel Globe and Mail

However do notice the influence of the Lobby on the CBC headline versus the Globe and Mail headline which actually says what the motion was about.

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Israel

Zionism


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Corporate America Greener Than Harper

The whole focus of the Harpocrites attack on Kyoto, even under the new Environment Minister, has been on how useless carbon credit trading is......

Ten major US corporations, including industry giants General Electric, DuPont and Alcoa, have joined forces with leading environmental groups to call for a slash in carbon-dioxide emissions of 10-to-30 per cent over the next 15 years. The New York Times says introduction of the group is aimed at bolstering the recent impetus for Congressional action on emissions controls and creation of a market “in which allowances to emit carbon dioxide could be traded in a way that achieves the greatest reduction at the lowest cost.”


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Environment



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Star Wars The Next Installment


This will provoke another round of debate on the need for Ballistic Missle Defense and Canada's involvement with the infamous and ineffectual US Missle Defense System. Of course the Chinese took a page from North Korea when they saw how effective the U.S. was in countering it's nuclear tests.

Chinese missile destroys satellite
Telegraph.co.uk - 11 hours ago
By Toby Harnden and Alex Massie in Washington. The prospect of "Star Wars" between China and the West loomed last night after Beijing used a ballistic missile to destroy a satellite in space.

The U.S. has a policy of weaponizing space, and now China is obviously joining the club. We need to end the weaponization of space, period.

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BMD

North Korea


China



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Leahy Damns US Government Over Arar

U.S. 'knew damn well' Arar would be tortured: senator

Which is a stronger statement than the Harpocrite government has ever made about Arar. Oh yeah he is still waiting for that Official apology from the New Government of Canada.

Senator Patrick Leahy criticized the handling of the Maher Arar case: 'It's beneath the dignity of this country — a country that has always been a beacon of human rights — to send somebody to another country to be tortured.'
Gonzales was grilled relentlessly on Thursday by Senate judiciary committee chairman Patrick Leahy. Leahy said that when Arar — a citizen of both Canada and Syria travelling on a Canadian passport — was detained in 2002, American authorities knew he would be tortured if they deported him to Syria.

"We knew damn well if he went to Canada he wouldn't be tortured," said Leahy, a Democrat from Vermont. "He'd be held and he'd be investigated.

"We also knew damn well if he went to Syria, he'd be tortured. And it's beneath the dignity of this country — a country that has always been a beacon of human rights — to send somebody to another country to be tortured.

"You know and I know that has happened a number of times in the past five years by this country. It is a black mark on us."


And Arar still cannot get into the United States despite the weak tea protest by Harper, Day and MacKay. In fact he is still on the No Fly List, which the Government continues to collaborate on. Canada mum on giving US no-fly names


Mr. Chertoff refused to comment on why Mr. Arar, a Syrian-born Canadian citizen, still cannot enter the United States or fly over its territory.


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Arar


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No Profit In Ending Cancer


This hits it on the head. Why can't capitalism find a cure for the ultimate disease of capitalism; cancer. There is no profit in ending the disease.

Cancerous tumours can be shrunk without radiation by administering a drug already used safely in humans for decades, says a doctor whose research is creating a major buzz in medical circles. But because the drug cannot be patented, pharmaceutical companies won't be eager to fund clinical trials to bring it to market, leaving its future in question.

"We've succeeded in reducing tumours with a drug shown to have little side-effects in humans. You could essentially take it as a pill," said University of Alberta researcher Evangelos Michelakis.

The drug is called dichloroacetate, or DCA.

Michelakis, working with several researchers in Edmonton and Ottawa, discovered how DCA can reverse the hallmark weapon of cancer's plague: The sudden ability of abnormal cells to multiply indefinitely, unchecked.

DCA restores a specific function of mitochondria -- the mini power engines that drive cellular activity.

Mitochondria normally cause unhealthy cells to die off, but that function is suppressed in cancer patients.

"In more than 50 years, no one's been able to figure out how to fix mitochondria in cancer patients," said University of Calgary oncology professor Dr. Randy Johnston, who's been studying cancer for 25 years.



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Israel Lobby Opposes Free Speech

Union motion to debate Israel brings 'hate into the classroom': B'nai Brith head
OSSTF's Toronto district approves debate request by 2 teachers
A decision approving a request by two Toronto high school teachers to have a union debate on whether to condemn Israel's treatment of Palestinians has come under fire by human rights groups. It was approved by the Toronto district of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation, and is being opposed by B'nai Brith and the Jewish Defence League.

B'nai Brith is part of the Israel lobby, which regularly calls for the Canadian State to censor or arrest those who oppose the State of Israel. Pressure like this led to the successfull lobbying effort to censor the play about Rachel Corre.

B'nai Brith and the Jewish Defence League had described an earlier motion as propaganda and said it could easily morph into racism. The teachers' union shot back that the lobby groups were engaging in what amounted to a bullying campaign aimed at stifling free speech.

And the Jewish Defense League is not a human rights group but a known terrorist organization. Kettle, pot, black.

Once again any legitimate criticism or debate about the State of Israel and its aparthied program in the occupied territories is deliberately mislabeled Anti-Semitism.


Those who live in glass houses.....

Four Jewish youths who were arrested in Paris are suspected of a racially motivated crime against a truck driver originally from Mauritius. The incident occurred on Sunday in the Marais district, a major Jewish hub of Paris. According to a French police source the youths belong to the Jewish Defense League.

Eight Palestinians abducted; no international outrage.



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Israel

Zionism


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