Cluck Cluck Harper

Prime Minister Stephen Harper said Wednesday that it was his defence minister, and not himself, who ended the practice of lowering Parliament's flags to half-mast when soldiers are killed in Afghanistan. Harper diverts flag flap to defence minister

Oh and the Tories are saying that the Legion agrees with them. Well that's true because the Legion represents Veterans not current serving soldiers. For them Nov. 11 is the sacred day of the dead. For the Legion that is the only day that should be set aside for Rememberance.

However even with that as I pointed out here before the Legion's did not lower their flags on Nov. 11 until 2003. As a result of the Federal Governments changes in the flag policy that they opposed then. Now the Legions lower their flag. So there goes another tradition of the Legions adapted to the modern day.

Furthermore the flag flies at half mast when RCMP officers are killed, as occured last year with the Mayerthorpe massacre. The RCMP are not just a police force but are considered a military force. Always have been.

And the fact remains this and the ban on media covering the returning bodies at CFB Trenton is a cover up for the fact that Harper will not be appearing at Trenton anytime soon to see the results of his policy on Afghanistan.

Harper and the Tories are using the families of the fallen as their cover for his failure to do his duty.

The Conservative government vigorously defended its decision to block public images of Canadian war casualties arriving at Canadian Forces Base Trenton in Ontario, insisting yesterday the privacy of relatives greeting the returning coffins trumped the right of media to record their arrival. "It is not about photo ops and media coverage. It is about what is in the best interest of the families," Prime Minister Stephen Harper said in the House of Commons. He added the government's priority is to "do everything possible" to assist grieving families.Harper defends ban on images of coffins

Using the grief stricken families and now the Legion as an excuse is the same as using O'Connor as the scapegoat for a PMO policy. Proving again that Harper is more Chicken then Hawk when push comes to shove.

As for the ultimate Hawk, Gen. Lewis Mackenzie who has been all over the media with his 'professional opinion' on this matter, let us not forget he ran for the Tories as a candidate and is just protecting the party. Hack. No I don't have a cough.

Harper's home province of Alberta is lowering the flag, so is Ontario. As did Canada Post. The groundswell iprovesthat the Harper was wrong to arbitrarily decide to override the previous UNANIMOUS decision of the house to lower the flag after the friendly fire deaths of our soldiers. Unanimous as in He and the Tories voted for it. Now he is blaming O'Connor. Cluck, Cluck,Cluck.

Also See: Flag Flap

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Censorship and Murder

CTV reports that police have censored a website frequented by the girl and her boyfriend accused of murdering a family in Medicine Hat. Site asked to delete postings in Medicine Hat case

Meanwhile, Edmonton police have asked a popular teen-oriented chat website to delete postings from two people accused in the murders.

Before the material was removed, it showed disturbing statements from the accused 12-year-old girl, who cannot be identified under provisions of the Youth Criminal Justice Act.

"WelcomeToMyTragicEnd" and "Are you stalking me? cuz that would be super" -- a line made popular by the film "Van Wilder" -- were among the messages the girl posted on Nexopia.com.

The girl's profile included pictures of her in dark Goth makeup and described her as being 15.

But in doing so they are trying to limit media from learning more about the two accused killers whose persona exists in public space. Which is still censorship by any other name. It is this very public persona, at least in the girls case, that reveals to the public meaning to an otherwise meaningless act. Even if that meaning is not what it seems.

In a 23 Feb entry on her blog, she wrote: 'I go crazy if I'm kept inside my house for (too) long.' In another photo, she can be seen holding a gun up to the camera, professing her love for goth, punk and death metal music. Accused killers met on vampire website
Electric New Paper, Singapore

The girl cannot be named under the Youth Criminal Justice Act, but in the small city of 56,000, her identity is no secret. Some have been shocked by newspaper revelations that she met her co-accused in a Goth vampire chat room on the Internet. According to a friend who spoke to the Calgary Herald, the girl met Steinke online at a website that caters to "Gothic industrial culture" and claims to have over 500,000 members. The website features blogs and online journals by people with user names such as SuicideOfLove, TeenageOddity and RottingNails who share feelings of depression, loneliness and anger mixed with gallows humour.Accused killers' `blank stares' anger watchers

Yes they had blank stares, like Kurtz in Apolcalypse Now; "The horror, the horror".

The fact that the girl was getting into a Goth Persona further shows that she was getting into an inconography of horror as I pointed out yesterday. Before the inevitable blaming game begins let us understand the she was attracted to goth as an expression of a psychic state she was already in. And as such was "not herself".
She was costuming herself to change her age, to appear older, to disappear into another self, which Goth socially allowed her to.

Prof. Corrado is quick to point out that it's not the Goth culture that creates these violent acts, but rather that susceptible teens are drawn to culture itself.

The Goth culture, he said, is attractive to teenagers who have problems fitting into the classic high school personalities, such as jocks, cheerleaders, GQ-kids, and have often been victims of some sort of bullying.

For girls, he said, the increased cultural impact of violent characters in video games, television and in real life has also had an impact. He said it reached a turning point in Canada with the 1997 killing of Reena Virk by Kelly Ellard.

Such actions have a contagious effect in society, he said, which may account for the increase in female violence in Canada. More girls being charged with violent crimes

She and her boyfriend reveal all of the conditions of shock and horror of those whose acts have overtaken them.

Handcuffed, shackled and dressed in a prison jumpsuit, the 12-year-old accused of killing her family fidgeted, but showed no emotion yesterday in court.
Moments later, before being read his three murder charges, her 23-year-old boyfriend, Jeremy Allan Steinke, had to be admonished by provincial court Judge Darwin Greaves to stand as he slumped into a courtroom bench.
When asked if he had a lawyer, or if he understood the charges against him, Steinke replied quietly, his voice barely audible to the back of the courtroom.

• 
  

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The Real Reason for Migration

I knew it. Normally sane people who become religious quacks eventually sucumb to the stupidity of their ideology.
And the criminal makes everyone a shill for his new found schtick.

In this case Born Agan Christian and former Watergate Bungler Chuck Colson.

Abortion has caused Need for Millions of Illegal Aliens says Evangelical Leader Colson

Which I consider to be on par with this;

Addressing a caller's suggestion that the "lost revenue from the people who have been aborted in the last 30 years" would be enough to preserve Social Security's solvency, radio host and former Reagan administration Secretary of Education Bill Bennett dismissed such "far-reaching, extensive extrapolations" by declaring that if "you wanted to reduce crime ... if that were your sole purpose, you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down." Bennett conceded that aborting all African-American babies "would be an impossible, ridiculous, and morally reprehensible thing to do," then added again, "but the crime rate would go down."Media Matters - Media Matters exposes Bennett

Now if we used Bennetts logic about eliminating crime, then if Mrs. Colson had done the deed way back when, then Chuck would never have been around to become a criminal.And the world would be a better place.

C0lson runs a prison ministry for fellow corporate criminals, who find god. So successful has he been that he now operates a wing of a Texas prison of his own.


More on Migration

Also see: Anti-Abortion Movement Calls This Success



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Fat Cats

Oh this is rich, King Ralph complaining about fat cats.
(let's play count his chins)

While "fat cats'' may want to spend the province's oil wealth on social programs, Premier Ralph Klein said Wednesday the average folks he's talked to appreciate some cool, hard cash. "You get some of the fat cats, you know the rich guys, saying, `you know, you should spend it on education and you should do this and you should do that.' But the guy who handles the towels says, `Hey, right on!'''Klein wants more prosperity cheques


Klein was working out at his private club. So Fat Cats want more money spent on education. Gee could that be because our school boards are in deficits in the land of billion dollar surpluses. Seems like these fat cats are not quite as fat headed as our short dumpy drunk Premier.


Also See Alberta Surplus

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Same Sex Marriage Attacked in Alberta, Again

Never say never. Ted Morton wannabe Premier,former member of the inner circle of the Reform Party and Stephen Harpers mentor, is using this sitting of the legislature to mobilize the social conservative base in the PC's to gain support for his leadership bid.

Already the alerts are out and the email campaign has begun by the Save Straight Marriage types. You see Morton has cleverly introduced a private members bill that attacks Same Sex Marriage

And the right wing neandrethals are mobilizing the emails and phone banks, the church brunches, and the gatherings at Gus's Garage to get the word out to lobby their MLA's in support of Mortons bill which Lifesite News says; " would offer protection to those who oppose homosexual “rights.”"

Not Same Sex Marriage, homosexual rights (you have to drawl on hoooommmooosexual to get the full effect). And why is Morton doing this, knowing private members bills usually have zip possibility of passing in the house, especially controversial ones. Well when you are running for party leader as a backbencher (not even trusted to be in the cabinet) on a beer budget what a better way to get free publicity and campaign support than being a shameless opportunitst.

Yep that's Morton. Shameless.

How do you spell loser....M O R T O N

Also See Same Sex Marriage

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Privacy for Harper

Let's not use the families of the fallen as the excuse for the Harpocrites draconian decision to ban the media from CFB Trenton. That is shameful and crass politicking as it gets. Or indeed for the reason the government refuses to fly the flag at half mast. Father of dead soldier wants flag lowered, MP says

Defense Minister O'Connor in defending the indefensible actually said in question period today that the media should show up at family funerals instead. Yep he said that. He also said that the arrival of the fallen at Trenton would be the first opportunity for the families to see their sons, fathers, husbands and brothers. Yes them and hundreds of dignitaries.



The arrival of the bodies of our fallen soldiers arrive at Trenton is not for a private viewing by the family but for the full state reception, the military brass, the DND officials, the minister and other government members, representatives of the queen, and other politicians are present. It is a day and should be a day of national morning, since War is a public affair, not a private affair, that went out with the days of Richard the Lion Hearted.

And all Canada should share in the grief. The families private funeral is the time for their privacy. But then again O'Connor never consulted the families on this policy. Military families criticize new media policy

The real reason is simple, it's to protect the Harper. You see he will not be showing up at all the arrivals in fact he failed to show up yesterday.

And there are going to be more and more as this war continues. The fact he missed this arrival for the four most recently killed shows he is a more chicken than hawk. These deaths are a direct result of his stroke of the pen.

Canada leader accused of trying to de-emphasize danger to troops

We know that all that very well contrived media hype of his trip to Kandahar was. Just another attempt to look like his mentor; George Bush. Just like this policy is an imitation of Bush's Dayton policy. Cause Bush doesn't visit there either when the body bags come home.

The Tories are using the families of our fallen as a human shield to protect Harper.

That is the lowest of low in politics. And the Tories have hit rock bottom with this one. In all the bruhaha about the families, the Harper was not noticed missing in action. If one were cynical one would believe the PMO thought they could pull off a fast one by using the flag and banning the media as a smokescreen so they wouldn't notice his nibs abscence.

Harper decided arbitrarily to take over the American operations in Kandahar. For what reason we do not know. Did Bush ask him too? Likely. Because this operation is seperate from the British/NATO operation that was only launched last week in the North of Afghanistan. The Americans are now concentrating on finding bin Laden, while Canadians are left to handle the Taliban and Opium War Lords around Kandahar.

The Canadian Armed Forces were sent to war in Afghanistan by stealth and Harper and Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor believe, incorrectly, will only be kept in Afghanistan by muzzling the truth about what is transpiring on the ground. This approach has not worked for U.S. President George W. Bush and it most certainly will not work for Harper. Very extensive and oppressive media censorship during World Wars I and II is no longer acceptable in contemporary democratic societies. The age of deference to political and religious authority is long past. War is not a private matter. It is the most public of all public policies. The Canadian state, which represents every Canadian citizen, is responsible for arming and engaging Canadian soldiers to kill on its behalf. Canadian citizens have a right and a responsibility to know what is transpiring on the battleground, even if the news is unpalatable and, on occasion, downright depressing. Michael D. Behiels, Professor of Canadian History, University of Ottawa

The real reason that the media was banned is that Harper failed to show, and had no intention of showing up for the arrival of the four most recent fallen soldiers. Men who died by the stroke of his pen. Coward.

Media ‘not allowed’

Casualties of war hidden from the public eye

J.P. MOCZULSKI/REUTERS

The flag-draped casket, containing the body of one of four Canadian soldiers killed in Afghanistan, is carried to a hearse after being unloaded from a military transport plane at the air force base in Trenton, Ont., yesterday.

The airport ceremony was precise, well-practised, and for the first time in years, private and off limits to reporters. This is the new face of Canada’s war in Afghanistan.

A military Airbus, bearing the bodies of the four Canadian soldiers killed in Saturday’s roadside blast north of Kandahar, touched down at this eastern Ontario air base at 6.25 p.m. yesterday.

But in sharp contrast to the reception given Canada’s “fallen heroes” in the past, the government tried to bring the latest casualties of the Afghan conflict home away from public eyes.

JONATHAN HAYWARD/CANADIAN PRESS

Anne Bennett and her son Brandon show support for the four soldiers killed on Saturday by standing at the main gate to CFB Trenton with a flag at half-mast yesterday.

The bodies of Cpl. Matthew Dinning of Richmond Hill, Bombardier Myles Mansell, of Victoria, Lieut. William Turner, of Toronto, and Cpl. Randy Payne, from CFB Wainwright, Alta. were returned to Canadian soil — and the care of grieving family members last night. A beefed up cadre of military police officers patrolled the property to keep reporters and photographers off the base.

“Here in Trenton, you’re not allowed on any (defence department) property,” Capt. Nicole Meszaros told one reporter



More on:

Flag Flap

Afghanistan





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No Nukes

Twenty years after Chernobyl and Ontario is facing a massive PR campaign to approve nuclear power as a clean, green energy.

Indeed since Kyoto the nuclear industry in the US and around the world has been rubbing its hands with glee over the prospect of a renewed interest in expanding the industry.

Regardless of the financing
scheme, clean air credits are
a legitimate incentive that
will help stimulate nuclear
construction and provide a
mechanism for addressing
the challenge of Kyoto.

The status and future of nuclear power in the United States

The reality is that nuclear power is no more safe now than it was twenty years ago. Nailed: the lie about Chernobyl's death toll

And in fact it was construction short cuts that resulted in Chernobyl failure as it did with Three Mile Island and Hanford in the U.S. Short cuts made to save money. Nuclear power is all about making money, not creating safe energy.

In fact the United States promised twenty years ago it would pay for the sarcaphogus to cover Chernobyl, but that too is another broken promise, caught up in the crony capitalism that has overtaken the Ukraine. Ukraine to demand new tender conditions for Chernobyl casing

I have had three Westinghouse coffee makers fail on me in less than a month, why would I trust them to build a nuclear reactor. And they are one of the major builders of nuclear power plants. The CANDU is safer and better constructed but it too is problematic as we found out at Pickering.

I am not against nuclear power in principle, I am opposed to it as it is now, and as if functions under capitalism. The principle is to make a profit, to cut corners at all levels of construction and post construction safety. Radioactive materials cannot be profitabley disposed of, so they will be disposed of at the expense of communities and watersheds. The plants are operated until they become a liability, and only then are they taken offline, glowing in the dark from excess radiation.

Top executives are out amid huge cost overruns at Pickering

Nuclear power production is frankly irrational. It is using the 18h century principle of steam turpines as applied to the 19th Century power generation by boilers, and powering it by steam created by superhot radiation.

In other words nuclear power is simply tacked onto the old model of coal and gas fired power plants. That's like putting a kettle over a lava flow to make tea.

Think nuclear power is clean, reliable and affordable...sure but at what cost. Chernobyl monitoring to go on at least 50 years - chief doctor

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CAW Moves Right

"We will move ahead and we will have a stronger position in terms of progressive politics down the road," union president Buzz Hargrove said after the vote CAW ends all support for NDP


Yep Forward into the past, backwards into the future. Been there done that, we have had Liberal Labour and Conservative Labour candidates back in the 1906. A hunderd years later, and several workers parties, socialist parties, and even a couple of communist parties later and Buzz and the CAW return to the Gomperism of the past, reward your friends and punish your enemies.

Except what happens when no-one wants to be your friend.

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Canada (tm)

Your tax dollars well wasted. Apparently the Treasury department is looking to stop folks who dare to use the Canadian coat of arms, or any official government logo's, in their material. They have told these folks to cease and desist.

But they aren't the only ones, apparently Blogs in Canada has been told to cease and desist too. And the cost for all these cease and desist letters, a cool quarter of a million. Now what was that about the Tories cutting government waste?


A tip o' the blog to opinionated lesbian for this.





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Babble update

The labour dispute that dare not speak its name, continues over at Rabble.ca on their Babble page.

And it continues to be an issue with the creation of a babble counter site set up by protesting babblers, and a petition of reinstatement, for those who are outraged at the firing of the Babble editor; Audra Williamson.

And while some have said this is much ballyhoo about nothing, I would point out that this was a FIRING not a layoff. An arbitrary decision by the collective management, whose power is that they can fire each other, etu brute.

And all Audra wants is quite reasonable, workers control of her hours of work , being paid for it and not expected to do the work as unpaid overtime , which rabble.ca progressive management justify as 'doing it for the love of the cause'. And she is even willing to share othe work load.


People keep asking me what I want to happen. Would I go back? It feels egotistical to think in those terms when there has certainly been no indication from management that this is even a possibility. But I guess my dream result would be that babble be given 32 hours of paid moderating a week (currently it's got 24) and I get 16 of those hours and Michelle gets 16 of those hours. I would feel that we could really do some great things with babble with that much paid time, and the weight of having to constantly make subjective decisions would be lifted from me if I had an equally-responsible (as in, with as many paid hours) colleague with whom to discuss and collaborate with.

It's the story that won't die.

And shows why all workers in the Internet media, especially those that are exploited as contract workers , need the Industrial Workers of the World, the union for the rest of us.




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IWW,

Harper's Bush League

The Harpocrite has taken as his play book all the wrong White House moves. Let's review shall we.

Banning the media from CFB Trenton when our war dead come home.

"It's a very fine balancing act the prime minister has to manage, communicating to Canadians that Afghanistan is not Iraq," Griffiths said. As reports of Afghan civilian and Canadian military casualties mount, "it's going to transfer that negative image of a bungled enterprise, of hopelessness, from George Bush to Stephen Harper."

The comparison came quickly Tuesday after the government ordered journalists away from the Trenton, Ontario, air base when the coffins of the four soldiers arrived.

"Mr. Bush instituted the policy of not allowing the caskets to be open to the media, and now Mr. Harper has lifted a page from George Bush's book," Ujjal Dosanjh, a member of Parliament and the Liberal Party's point man on defense, said in an interview from Ottawa. "This is absolutely unacceptable and un-Canadian. You don't build support with Canadians by trying to hide casualties." In Canada, An Uproar Over Army Casualties Washington Post,

Gagging all his ministers and then gagging the military including the CF highest ranking officer. Which some suspect is because the fix is in for a Tory pal to get the military aircraft contract and the Haprocrite doesn't want any complaining or leaks out of Hillier.

We were promised a made in Canada environment policy by the Harpocrites. Which of course was code for Not Supporting Kyoto. So instead we get a made in the USA environment policy. Tories consider US-led effort to fight pollution

Betcha the NDP are sorry they kept harping on this; saying that the Liberals had a worse record than George Bush on the environment. Now Harper has taken Jack Layton at his word, and is aligning Canada's environmental policy with George's.


And then there is that God Bless Canada thingee he is doing at the end of all his speeches. Just like George with his God Bless America. And Tiny Tim with his God Bless us everyone. But that's ok because that most Liberal of all Liberals; Warren Kinsella gives it his blessing.


The list goes on an on, but to spare you the lengthy details here, consider this fair, balanced and objective view; The Prime Minister who would be president




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Conservatives Revolt

Ah there are signs of intelligent life in the Conservative party. The Harpocrite faces a revolt in his backbenches, about time too....Harper defends ban on images of coffins

Caucus rebels against Harper media ban as soldiers' bodies return 'Don't believe the government,' says Manitoba Tory

Gee thanks for the advice, I never do.

This is the picture that the Harpocrite doesn't want you to see.

TANNIS TOOHEY/TORONTO STAR

One of the four Canadian soldiers killed Saturday in Afghanistan arrives at CFB Trenton yesterday. Photographers and reporters viewed the ceremony from the road.Return of fallen soldiers not meant for public eyes

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Thank Goodness For Gun Control

Whew good thing we have gun control, and the long gun registry. I hope this guy is registered.

"I'll tell you one thing -- if they brought my son home from that war in a body bag, I'd shoot the first media that come on site," Wild Rose MP Myron Thompson said.

Of course under the new Conservative tough- on-gun- crime laws he would be jailed and the key would be thrown away. But being the red neck idiot Thompson is he would probably try and claim it was justifiable homocide.

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The Return of Charles Starkweather

Alta. man, 12-year-old charged in triple murder
MEDICINE HAT -- A 12-year-old girl -- along with her 23-year-old boyfriend -- are charged with the horrific murder of her family.

Which reminded me of the mass murderer Charles Starkweather and his girl friend who did the same thing in the US fifty years ago. Their story was iconic and apocryphal so much so it was made into a bio-pic movie in the seventies with Martin Sheen and later told as Natural Born Killers.

In Jungian terms Charles and his underaged girl friend were archtypes of a specific historical zeigiest of social problems. The y were the result of the decline of rural America and the rise of the new post war metropolitan culture. And Medicine Hat is a rural city.

One's place in American geography was less important than the impact of movies and pop culture. In this case Starkweather, as you can see, thought he was tough guy bad boy James Dean.


These murderous spectres, archetypes of crime become a cultural zeitgeist beyond their historic time and space, indeed beyond geography infecting our culture with later increasing numeric replicants.

Like Jack the Ripper and the later rise of Lust murders, the imitative Yorkshire ripper, etc. Or Fritz Haarmann:the butcher of Berlin who engaged in cannibalism and homosexual pedarsty in Berlin after WWI predating the horrors of Jeffery Dahlmer. Again memorialized in film, first as 'M' and later by Fassbinder.

The rise sociopathic killers begins in the sixties with the likes of the Zodiac killer, who as a cultural trans-historical spectre hover's over his children; mass murders like the Columbine killers.


With the move from rural to urban culture, to the metropol, the deviant becomes the norm, alienation becomes psycho-social, reflected in the increasing psychopathology of daily life and the increasing normative nature of sociopathology. In the sixties psychiatriasts first noticed that unique phenomena amongst certain murderers, a small deviation from the psychopathic norm if you like. One psychiatrist commented that in the sixties he might see one sociopath every couple of years by the eighties he was seening no less than twenty five a year.

These kinds of murderous phenomena are what Reich called the emotional plague of authoritarian patriarchical capitalist society. A continuing psycopathology of daily life that produces these 'sick' individuals. The result of the contradictions between the moral and social values attributed to proper social behaviour and the reality of life under the 'moral facade of the happy family'.




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Conservatives Cut and Run on War Dead

This just in, from CTV the Harper Government has ordered a corridore sanitare around Canadian Forces Base Trenton. No media will be allowed into the base tommorow when the four dead Canadian solidiers return. This is the same policy the Bush regime uses south of the border. Bet you didn't think you would get George Bush when Stephen Harper got elected with no political capital.

It's suspicious that the Harpocrites should do this, late in the day, avoiding major news broadcasts. Perhaps because of the got flak in the house during question period over the Flag Flap. And ironic in light of the comments made by veterans groups over the flag flap.

Cliff Chadderton, War Amps CEO and chairman of the National Council of Veteran Associations, said the Bush administration has made the same mistake as an earlier White House with Vietnam, attempting to suppress information while it has brazened out the Iraq conflict at heavy public price. "In the Canadian government, we have done the opposite," said the World War II veteran. "It's okay sending troops to Afghanistan — but if there are casualties, let's play it up as a national disaster. Well, it is a disaster, but it's not a national disaster. "Just simply tell the public the truth instead of all this play-acting and `should we put the flag at half staff or not.'"Media reports `over the top,' vets say

I guess this isn't over the top any more.And I guess we are no longer doing the opposite of the Americans. Which as Chadderton says is a mistake. A bigger mistake than just a flag flap. It's a policy of burying the story and the bodies.

Shame, shame, shame, as they say in the House.


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Cherniak Snivels

Sniveling Liberal Jason Cherniak who has a NDP phobia the size of the 401 rants again today attacking the NDP for the parties union connections.Without unions, the NDP can compete But as the saying goes he is a day late and shy short of a load.

In praising the Harpocrites new accountability act, he fawns and gushes that the new act will limit union funding to the NDP. Been there done that.

Happened in Manitoba under a NDP government, Gary Doer did that years ago. Opps so did the NDP in B.C. And gosh golly gee wilikers so did Chretien.

I knew Cherniak was wet behind the ears, but I thought advanced senility only attacked the elderly. Apparently he forgot that it was his Great Leader Chretien that actually changed the federal act that limits both corporate and union donations. Never one to let the facts get in the way of his anti-NDP rants though, Cherniak also engages in some historical revisionism.

I believe that the NDP has long been harmed by its connection to the unions. Although the connection provided long term funding and a new building in Ottawa, it also gave the NDP an inarguable bias in politics. No matter what the leader might say, there could never be any denying that the NDP was the voice of the unions.....Under the new rules, though, unions cannot donate money to political parties. How long will it be before they lose their voice in the NDP membership?

Well the unions did buy the building before the Chretien rules came into effect. The Doer government got re-elected under the same rules and the NDP in B.C. made a come back last election. Shucks I guess that shows that the party has a real base in the unions, able to mobilize workers for electoral success provincially or federally more than any other party.

And yes the party was the creation of the CCF and CLC after all. And when labour in Canada has had Liberal or Conservative Labour candidates or conglomerations, as it did at the turn of last century, it got nowhere. It actually took a Socialist Party in B.C. to hold the balance of power with the Liberals in the 1890's to get minimum wage, hours of work, and an end of child labour in the mines laws passed. Socialist Party. Canada has a left wing history, and it ain't the Liberals.

But the Liberal party across Canada currently benefits from union support in the Building Trades. Yet with their alliance with the Liberals, these unions and workers still they have never gained much party control or voice as they have in the NDP. But these unions are like the Liberals, a top down business that runs rough shod over their rank and file. And thus the Liberal Party is home to the professional pork choppers that run these unions. That won't change. In fact the Liberals have a mighty link into the General Workers Union in Ontario, and it hasn't helped them any more than having an ethic link into that same community of workers.

And while Buzz ranted and played footsie with Martin, his executive assistant got elected in Toronot for the NDP. So whose the winner and whose the whiner.

But actually what worries Cherniak is all this unite the left crap, which he precently realises will lead to a further winnowing of the Grand Old Ruling Party of Canada.

The Liberal Party must not be tarred with the position of "left"; then we will be fighting on NDP territory against an enemy that has been forced to drop its obsolete cavalry.

A cavalry that the Liberals and Conservatives are jealous of, a cavalry that delivers voters to polls. Something that neither of the parties did to the degree that the NDP did this past election.

So don't count this old war horse out yet. Be afraid Jason, very afraid.


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How Green My Pasture Is

Well the leader of the Green Party, that other Tory Harris, has stepped down.Harris won't lead Greens into next vote: report Luckily they have a trilingual Ukrainian Canadian in the wings to run for his place David Chernushenko. And there is the possibility that the brilliant and principled Elizabeth May of the Sierra Club could run as well. She showed up as a co presenter at the Mulrony Green Thumb award last week. Of course always in the wings is the perennial wanna be party leader, any party any time, David Orchard, if he doesn't run for the Liberal Leadership race, or even if he does.....


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More Flag Ballyhoo

CBC runs a 'reality check' article on the lowering the Flag issue. Where upon they point out;

But the fact is, veterans' groups were not happy when the Liberals first started lowering government flags to half-mast in 2002. Officials with both the Royal Canadian Legion and the National Council of Veteran Associations opposed the idea, arguing it was unfair to the memories of those who died in other wars and who were not accorded the same show of respect. Canada's war dead, they said, should all be honoured the same way and on the same date, Nov. 11, when the country pauses to remember. Their objections, however, were largely overlooked in the huge outpouring of grief and national anger over the fact that the U.S. did not seem, initially at least, to be fully investigating the friendly fire deaths caused by one of their pilots.

Except the Legion never lowered their own flags, even on Nov. 11, until 2003, after sixty years of lowering and then raising the flag, they left the flag at half mast until the bugle calls at sunset. The way it is actually done in the field.

Hey traditions can be stupid, and some traditions, like doffing ones hat for ones comrades when entering a Legion Lounge can be used for racist purposes, like denying Sikh's the right to enter a Legion because they wear turbans.

Even though the Sikh's turban is part of their regimental uniform in the British Forces, ever since the British Raj used them as a military force. Or like the RCMP full dress uniform, since they too are a Military Force. Dress skirts were not part of the uniform until the eighties when women were allowed in to the old boys club.

So lets not get hung up on what the Legion tradtions are. What's the right thing to do?

Indeed, Prime Minister Chretien, the opposition leaders at the time and the country's top military brass all attended a special memorial service for the four friendly fire victims at CFB Trenton – something that is not usually done either. And this politicized aspect of their deaths and the flag-lowering rankled some even more.

Oh and who did it rankle, why the right wing, once again falling on tradition to defend the indefensible. This gathering at the time was seen as a protest against the Bush regime. So said Mr. Military Tradition, Peter Worthington at the time.

Writing an op-ed piece in The Wall Street Journal, Peter Worthington, the feisty former editor of the Toronto Sun and a Korean war vet, suggested there was not only a political but "an almost pathologically antimilitary" subtext to the Liberal government's decision to lower the flag. It was reflective, he wrote, of a government that just didn't understand the true concept of military service.

Bollocks. Here let me give you a new military tradition the right wing loves. We recognize Canadians who fought in Vietnam, which was not our war. We sent no units not even as peace-keepers or UN forces. It was not even a war as it was never declared such by the United States government, it was a police action.


Canadians who fought in Viet Nam are recognized now in Canada as 'Veterans' yet Canadians who fought the fascists in Spain are still under a draconian edict that declares their actions illegal. But of course the frormer were fighting communism and the latter were commies fighting fascism.

Military tradition is what ever rites and rituals the military and its veterans accept, they are ameable to the ever present. They are not written in stone.
So enough of this excuse making, its just a cover up for doing the right thing. Like not using bylaws and traditions around doffing ones cap to exclude folks cause of the colour of their skin.






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Your Blog Is Being Traced

I am always amazed by who reads this blog, or at least drops by for a visit. Or perhaps, if I was a wee bit paranoid, who is monitoring me.

And you have to watch what you say on your blog because Big Brother is watching.

In this case corporate bosses are watching, and monitoring my articles on AFI the professional security company that protects scabs and promotes union busting. Such as they are doing at the BHP Diamond mine strike.

And the bosses at the Diamond Miner BHP are also scanning the internet on the coverage they are getting on the current strike at their mine in Nunavit. They popped by for a visit here yesterday via bg03.bhpbilliton.com (Sita-societe Internationale De Telecommunications Aeronautiques)

I guess I should be flattered they visited. Or just a tich paranoid.

In the case of AFI they have hired a professional company; Reputrace to monitor the web and the media for stories about them. And they popped by my blog for a visist.

Nice to see AFI supporting Canadian Software developers. The privatization of intelligence gathering can be a scary thing in the wrong hands though. As NARUS shows.

As for protecting AFI's reputation that's kinda hard to do when they specialize in union busting , intimitadition, harrassment and general ne'er do well activities for the bosses.





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Canada Post Gets It

CUPW and Canada Post agree on something for once.

Canada Post lowers flags in Edmonton to honour military bomb ...

One of the fallen soldiers, Lieut. William Turner, was a part-time army reservist who worked in the city as a letter carrier. The Canadian Union of Postal Workers asked that the flags be lowered and Canada Post has agreed, said Ramon Antipan, president of the CUPW local.

"It is important because (Turner) was one of our members," Antipan said. "He truly believed in the mission. This is in recognition for what he was doing."

Antipan said the union has also received permission for staff to wear black ribbons or arm bands.

While the Harpocrite continues to avoid the body bags and the lowering of the flag in order to avoid responsibility for the deaths caused by his ChickenHawk policy of not cutting and running.

Now he says he won't do the decent thing and show up Canadian Forces Trenton to observe the return of the bodies of his fallen men, cause it might be a photo op for the Taliban. I knew the Harper had a low opinion of the media but they are not the Taliban. And I don't think the Taliban read the National Post. What a coward, cluck, cluck.

Now think if CUPW takes it a step further since one of their own was killed and launches a Get Out Now campaign. Harper will face his own political fire-fight.

In a ceremony that has become all-too familiar at Kandahar airfield, the flag-draped casket of a Canadian soldier is carried into the open belly of a Hercules on Monday. (CP / Murray Brewster) Defence minister defends change in flag policy

Apparently the above picture will give succour to the Taliban. So sez Stephen Bush, err George Harper.

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The Working Class Dies For Harper

Turner, a Canada Post letter carrier stationed in Edmonton, and Mansell, a carpenter, were two of the more than 400 reservists currently serving in Afghanistan. Fallen Canadian soldiers begin long journey home

No flags lowered, Harper won't show up when the body bags return to Canadian Forces Base Trenton. All this is still just a rich mans war.

No need to tell us how we are being protected from Osama bin Laden Inc., all we are doing is protecting the Caspian oil pipeline and its counterpart the Opium pipeline.

And our volunteer reserves, ordinary Joes and Janes working full time and being soldiers part time are being sacrificed on the altar of the Harpocrites political ego. His failure to show up for their funeral shows he is more chicken than hawk when it comes to facing his responsibilities of sending our military to war.

As the troops on both sides of the conflict in WWI learned, there is no honor in dying for the capitalists and their war machine. But I guess Harper never read Johnny Got His Gun in school.

There's nothing noble about dying. Not even if you die for honor. Not even if you die the greatest hero the world ever saw. Not even if you're so great your name will never be forgotten and who's that great? The most important thing is your life little guys. You're worth nothing dead except for speeches. Don't let them kid you any more. Pay no attention when they tap you on the shoulder and say come along we've got to fight for liberty or whatever their word is there's always a word.

Just say mister I'm sorry I got no time to die I'm too busy and then turn and run like hell. If they say coward why don't pay any attention because it's your job to live not to die. If they talk about dying for principles that are bigger than life you say mister you're a liar Nothing is bigger than life There's nothing noble in death. What s noble about lying in the ground and rotting. What's noble about never seeing the sunshine again? What's noble about having your legs and arms blown off? What's noble about being an idiot? What's noble about being blind and deaf and dumb? What's noble about being dead. Because when you're dead mister it's all over. It's the end. You're less than a dog less than a rat less than a bee or an ant less than a white maggot crawling around on a dungheap. You're dead mister and you died for nothing.

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Mutualist Economics of SETI

This is the market economy that my mutualist and free market anarchist comrades evoke as an example of what makes the market different from capitalism.

In this case SETI . Which has no hope of ever being profitable.

But which can raise funding and labour by volunteers for scientific projects. In this case a project organized along mutualist economics and cooperativism that even Kropotkin would see as an example of anarchist science.

I contribute to the SETI project along with the climate change project.

It takes up so little effort and time and space on your computer, you should to.

The project is one small example of SETI's slowly growing respectability as a scientific enterprise. Where scientists once had to beg for time on radio and optical telescopes to conduct the hunt, they now build instruments dedicated to it full time.

The SETI Institute in Mountain View, Calif., for example, plans to flip the switch on 10 of its 30 new radio- telescope dishes at the Allen Telescope Array in Hat Creek, Calif. later this month. By using off-the-shelf equipment to hold down costs, and developing some fancy processing techniques for incoming signals, the Allen Telescope Array team will be able to hunt for radio signals from ET at the same time astronomers use these antennas for more mainstream research.

Although scientists have given these efforts a broad nod through organizations such as the National Research Council, funding still comes largely from private donors. The Allen array is named for Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen, who wrote the check for the observatory's initial installation. The money for Horowitz's telescope came from the Planetary Society in Pasadena, Calif., and a private foundation.

So SETI needs YOU and if you sign up you will get a nice letter from Sir Arthur C.Clarke, yes the sci-fi author. Of course it is a begging letter. But this is a mutualist project.

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This Blog Makes Newsweek

And the MSNBC website since they are owned by the same corporate media conglomerate. The article in particular is on Internet Censorship; The Limits of Freedom And it made it to the Blog Talk column at MSNBC/Newsweek. Aw Shucks, blush, I guess stuff I have to say is of some value after all.


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