Chavez Re-Elected

Here is the strategy straight out of Iraq, must be getting their political advice from the CIA, now lets understand how this works; Sunni's boycott bad, but doesn't undermine democracy in Iraq. Venezuelan boycott good, undermines democracy in Venezuela. Hmm yep that makes alot of sense, to Dick Cheney and Pat Robertson.Chavez's party claims major victory in Venezuelan poll The poll was boycotted by the country's five main opposition parties, who accused election officials of favouring Chavez and manipulating electronic voting machines. Prove It! Whine, Whine, Whine, would you like some cheese with that.

Liberals Get Their Own Grewal

In Edmonton-Mill Woods-Beaumont. Liberals have nominated Amerjit Grewal (no relation to the Conservative Grewal). The old David Kilgour riding, the Liberal nomination on the weekend went to a Trade Unionist and the only Indo= Canadian running in a riding dominated by Indo-Canadians.

The Conservative and NDP candidates are relatively unkown White Guys. Last time around Conservative Indo-Canadian Tim Uppal almost defeated David Kilgour. Kilgour had a machine in the riding, and was well connected to the community. Such is not the case with Mr. Unknown White Guy running for the Tories. Big mistake and as rumour has it while Uppal went for the nomination this time around the constiuency association pulled a Ignatieff type move. See the Liberals and Conservatives both do it.

This gives the Liberals an advantage, as they have the only credible candidate, cause he is left wing, a trade unionist and Indo-Canadian. Gee aren't those NDP credentials? So this is where the Buzz Theory will be applied in Edmonton, vote Liberal rather than splitting the vote and letting Mr. White Guy Conservative get in.

Big fight for nomination in Alta. Liberal riding

61-year-old who works driving a transit van for the physically disabled has won the Liberal nomination in one of only two Alberta seats the party took in the last federal election.

Amarjit Grewal, 61, was chosen on the second ballot to succeed veteran MP David Kilgour in Edmonton-Mill Woods-Beaumont. Grewal places himself on the party's left wing and says he wants more spending on affordable housing and supports public health care.

Creationism be damned

In my never ending quest to debunk the religious ideologist here we go again with a science tidbit that proves once again the empircal basis for evolution.

Study: Earliest Birds Have Dinosaur Feet

The earliest birds had theropod dinosaur-like feet, according to a new study released yesterday based on the best reserved Archaeopteryx fossil.

These findings support the arguable theory that Archaeopteryx, the first known bird, was a closest relative of the theropod dinosaur, and that modern birds arose from the dinosaurs, German and U.S. researchers said in the Dec. 2 issue of the journal Science.

And the New York museum has opened its controversial display on Darwin, with no corporate funding thanks to the pressure groups from the right lobbying against evolution. Which is fine by me we have to much corporate scientism being offered as science.

The same right whingnuts who denounce climate warming as junk science are really saying that evolution is junk science too.

Ok lets be clear here they are actually saying science is junk, just believe in the big white guy in the sky.

SCIENCE, RELIGION CONFLICT

Florida State University Michael Ruse, author of The Evolution-Creation Struggle echoed that, calling America "a peculiarly religious country" which was also a "science powerhouse. How can it be such?" he asked.

Ruse suggested the answer lay partly in history, not least being the Civil War after which Southerners turned to the Bible, and evolution "was taken to represent everything about the North that they disliked."

The result, he said, was the "red state-blue state clash -- It's not science versus religion as such -- but very much a cultural clash that we've got in America today." Others concurred, saying that the schism was part and parcel of a broader cultural war over contentious issues like abortion, gay rights and gun control.

Part of the problem with Darwinism, is that it is the identification with the theory of evolution with one man. Evolution is not just a theory of Darwin there were others including Alfred Russel Wallace. Wallace and Darwin collaborated on the theory of natural selection. But given the dominace of the need for bourgoise culture to create a solo individual hero, we have forgotten Wallace and equated evolution with Darwin only.

In reality evolutionary theory pre-dates Darwin and influenced his own work.In particular the work; Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation.

Here we have another example of the missing link in the history of science and ideas, the role of the masses, and in particular the working classes; mechanics, in reading and practicising science as an aspect of their trades. Such was the case since the founding of the Royal Society in England, the clash between the aristocracy and its erudition of scientific experimentation and the mechanics who read their works and improved if not proved or disproved their hypothesis.

It was the creation of the popular culture of reading and study, of the science of the common man that was the basis for Darwins later popularity. But without those who came before him, promoting a materialist history of the world to counter the dominant hegemony of the Church, we would have no Darwin.

And those who came before him like Wallace and the unknown author of Vestiges were social reformers, radicals. Darwin was not as radical as his predecesors, but benefited from the reforms in the society around him that allowed him to publish and confront his antagonists with relative safety.

Evolution as a theory was the result not only of pure science, as there is no such creature, but of the movements to challenge the ideas of the day, the movement known as Free Thought, closely aligned to atheism, which was still a hanging offense in England. Luckily such is not the case now, though the rightwhingnuts might make it a capital offense again should they gain political and cultural dominance.

The history of science and evolution in the 19th Century is the history of social reform and radicalism, as much a part of the workers movement as it is of the parlour rooms of the bourgoise.

Victorian Sensation: The Extraordinary Publication, Reception, and Secret Authorship of Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation. James A. Secord. xx + 624 pp. University of Chicago Press, 2001.

Most historians of science have treated Vestiges as a minor remnant of mid-Victorian culture. It has been typically regarded as an indicator that the evolutionary ideas earlier formulated by Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck continued to intrigue and trouble, even after they had been thoroughly repudiated by established scientists. Chambers's book is certainly remembered because Charles Darwin feared that the clever but amateurish "Mr. Vestiges" would render the intellectual public ill-disposed to any evolutionary understanding of life. James Secord conceives of Chambers's book in quite different terms. In Victorian Sensation he contravenes the usual presumptions. Because of his striking erudition and extraordinary scholarship, he has produced an argument that cannot be ignored, even if it must be resisted.

Through some 16 chapters, Secord details how Vestiges was physically made (with steam presses, but with hand composition of the lines of print), the way in which prices of the various editions determined its public (it became a cause only with the "people's edition"), and the manner in which different segments of British society (from working-class mechanics, to radical reformers, to Whig scientists, to Tory churchmen, to the Queen herself) read the message of the book and what meanings they imparted to their reading. Middle-class consumers, for example, took up the book with the same enthusiasm they felt for the latest novels of Sir Walter Scott. High Churchmen condemned its materialistic message, whereas radical reformers thought it supported their efforts. Scientists quite generally dismissed its shoddy zoology and botany.

The second subversive reason for focusing on the reaction of the reading public is that it allows us to advance another model of science. We need no longer be in thrall to the heroes of science. We can, rather, look to underlaborers such as Chambers who made Darwin's so-called genius possible: "Like all forms of hero-worship, this celebration of the author undermines possibilities for individual action, for none of us can be a Darwin, at least in the terms that the myth provides. It sets an unobtainable ideal?the genius revealing great discoveries?as the model of what a scientist should be." So histories such as Secord's have a pragmatic, even a moral purpose. It is troubling, though, to recommend Chambers as a model for even the mid-Victorian scientist. As far as we know, he never identified a fossil, never cracked a rock with a geology hammer, never charted the course of the planets.

Angus Reid Poll Dec 3

Canada Election 2006: A Two-Party Race Develops
Source: SES Research / CPAC
Methodology: A national random telephone survey is conducted nightly by SES Research throughout the campaign. Each evening a new group of 400 eligible voters are interviewed. The daily tracking figures are based on a three-day rolling sample comprised of 1,200 interviews. To update the tracking a new day of interviewing is added and the oldest day dropped. Margin of error is 2.9 per cent.

Well at least they have included the Green Party in this poll. Though things don't look good for the NDP, thanks to Buzz.....dumb dumb dumb.......But considering the lead in announcements all week was the Conservatives for good or bad, they have had little impact on the Liberal vote. They have taken a point away from both the NDP and Liberals. Mind you this is only week one of what is going to be a very loooooong campaign. Its a two way race alright, for who will be the next minority government in Ottawa.

Conservatives Take Fashion Lead

" Get Thee To Henry Rosen's"

Election week one and the Harper takes the lead in the all important fashion look. Yep he got more comments from the Media and pundits about his New Look, which they mistakenly called the Turtle Neck.

Get with it folks. Don't you guys shop at Henry Rosen or Tip Top. Now I know guys don't watch Fashion TV ,except for the Victoria Secret segments, but come on we got some female pundits here and they should know the difference between a Mock Turtle Neck and a Turtle Neck.

The Harper is sporting the latest in casual yet office acceptable apparel for those who don't want to wear neckties. It's not a T-Shirt and its Not a Turtle neck its the Mock Turtle Neck.

And Lets not get confused again.

Mock Turtle


Turtle Neck


Harpers mock turtle neck seems appropriate for his politics they are after all mock conservative, and he specialises in mocking the Liberals, and well he got mocked for his choice of cowboy attire this summer, including by me.

And it makes him look like the University Professor he always wanted to be. Ah the Intellectual Harper, not the every man but the expert.

Well congrats to the Tories for finding someone to dress him properly after this summers Stampede cowboy debacle.


So first week of the election the Harper sets the fashion agenda. Image is everything in politics. Mssrs. Duccepe, Layton and Martin, gentlemen how will you top this?

Certainly not dressed like this....

Workers Control vs Corporate Welfare

The headline reads;

Union officials confront Martin

PM vows he'll examine help for laid-off workers
Country lacks industry strategy, Conservative says
CORNWALL, Ont.—Prime Minister Paul Martin, who has been trumpeting Canada's economic good times, got an earful here from union representatives about the 900 jobs that have disappeared with the closing of the Domtar paper mill. "We presented the absolute devastation for the city of Cornwall from the loss of Domtar," said Bob Huget, who along with two other union officials elbowed his way into a planned consultation between the Liberal leader and local authorities about the plant shutdown.

Well there is no industrial strategy, its just more corporate welfare. Liberal policies costly: think-tankWhile the Conservatives strategy is well, wait for it....more corporate tax cuts. And you know what I think of those. Nope no strategy. Retraining laid off workers is not an industrial strategy. Lets take a lesson from the workers in Quebec who took control of their Alcan factory when it was going to get shut down. Ran it for month and made a profit. Why is no-one talking about what is as obvious as the nose on your face. Taxpayer funding to the workers to own and run their own factories. If the bosses wanna leave fine, go. But the productive infrastructure no longer belongs to them it goes to the workers, including managers, and they get to run it. With capitalization from the government and from venture capital funds, including union funds and credit union debentures specifically targeted at supporting the specific plants. There thats democratic capitalism for ya.

A Plague on Both Their Houses

So your choice is Evangelical Christian Liberals or Conservatives. That's no choice.

In the case of Liberal Raymond Chan the Martin Government made a pre-election announcement about the Chinese Head Tax, but like their other announcements any repatriations were frozen once the election was called. It was all for show for Mr. Chan.

Now he is running against the Past President of the right wing lobby Focus on the Family, who is a Conservative. Part of the evangelical conservatives campaign to take over the Conservatives. And apparently the Liberals as this article shows.

I don't care what party they run for they have an agenda, to make Canada look like the USA. They are anti-gay, anti-women, anti-non protestant, anti-liberty, pro-America, pro-male supremacy, why do I care what party they run for. A plague on both their houses.

Multiculturalism Minister Raymond Chan, who won by 3,700 votes, is being challenged in Richmond by Darrel Reid, an articulate former senior aide to Preston Manning. Reid is already pushing two wedge issues to wrest support away from Chan in Richmond's large Chinese-Canadian community.

He says Chan's $2.5 million Chinese head tax redress package announced last week is inadequate, and Reid has made clear he is opposed to gay marriage, whereas Chan voted in favour. Both men are evangelical Christians.

The Liberals will show no mercy, however, in portraying Reid as the poster boy for the religious right. Reid was until recently president of Focus on the Family Canada, a creation of Dr. James Dobson, considered President George W. Bush's most influential evangelical Christian ally.

The Liberals will use the same approach trying to retain Don Bell's seat in North Vancouver, where the Tory candidate is Cindy Silver, who once did legal work for Focus Canada and lists at the top of her website's endorsements page the backing of former Reform MP Sharon Hayes, a Focus Canada board member.

But Silver is moderately pro-choice on abortion and is a far more telegenic politician than Conservative Ted White, who Bell upset last year by a narrow four-per-cent margin. More important, it will be tougher to portray Silver as "scary" given that both Bell, the former District of North Vancouver mayor, and Silver attend the same evangelical church.

Yep thats whats really scary the voters get to choose Tweedle Dee or Tweedle Dum.

NDP's Duh'Oh

Canadian press reported that Homer Layton, err Jack Simpson, err no make that Jack Layton needs to clean up his clarity act around Health Care. Its a faux pas, an opps worse a Duh' Oh the NDP does NOT need but well stuff happens.....
NDP Leader Jack Layton said private clinics are a “fundamental aspect” of the health-care system founded by former Saskatchewan premier Tommy Douglas and not much can be done about them.
Mr. Layton was trying to take advantage of a slow day on the part of the other leaders to frame the debate around the health-care issue. But he ended up leaving reporters following his campaign stumped about his position. Being generous the CP wire story entitled their story; Layton seems to support private clinics.

By the end of the day no matter the clarification given the headlines were reading;

Not opposed to private health care, Layton says

Layton softens stand on clinics

Layton not going to shut down private clinics, just stop the flow ...

NDP Would Keep Private Clinics Open: Layton

Which means his media handlers went wonky on their messaging leaving the NDP with a bad day for headlines. Lost in the headlines is what Jack wanted to say because he and his handlers said too much.

His speech yesterday was focused on the views of Liberal Senator Michael Kirby, whom he described as the "Wizard of Oz of health-care privatization."

Mr. Layton said both Mr. Harper and Mr. Martin support Mr. Kirby's proposals, as outlined in a Senate committee report, for privately delivered health care provided Canadians do not have to pay for it out of pocket.

Mr. Layton said the health-care platforms of the Liberals and Conservatives are indistinguishable and only the NDP would stop public money going to private health care.

This is what the headlines should have been, Layton would halt funding for private clinics but by trying to clarify, the NDP lost control of the messaging and it ended up coming out like this;

But when asked afterward about the specifics of his position, Mr. Layton suggested an NDP government would not do anything to stop such clinics provided they are 100-per-cent private.

"That's not our concern. What I've said is we would stop the flow of public money to the Copeman clinic," he said.

Some services at the Copeman Healthcare Centre, considered a mostly private clinic, are covered by the B.C. Medical Services Plan.

When asked if such a position would allow the two-tier health-care system his party has long opposed, Mr. Layton said that entirely private health care has always been an option for Canadians.

"That's been available since medicare was established. That's a fundamental aspect of what Tommy Douglas established in Canada. There's nothing new about that," he said.

"Our focus is on what happens to the public tax dollars that we all contribute to help take care of Canadians. We don't want them going to the American-style, for-profit health corporations that end up skimming off profits instead of financing people's health care."

The problem isn't just private clinics, in fact in Alberta the clinic I go to is private, the family doctors are all independent businessmen, part of an overall conglomerate they have bought into. In other private clinics called medi-centres doctors are available and they run these as franchises all paid for by Medicare.

Jack is right in principle the way Medicare funds doctors currently allows for a form of privatized delivery. That is the flaw in the system that pays out doctors on the basis of billing.

As I wrote here we need to create a publicly funded medicare system that proletarianizes medical services, doctors on salary, with clincs publicy funded as non-profit co-ops delivering multiple services including dentistry, psychological/psychiatric, naturopathy as well as allopathy, chiropractors, as well as pshysiotherapies, and wellness programs.

I gave the example of the Boyle McCauley Clinic in the inner city in Edmonton where such a program is done and the doctors, dentists and nurse practicioners are on salary. Such clinics are not limited to this kind of delivery to just the poor. It needs to be generalized. This is where Layton should have given his speech, and this is the alternative delivery system we need to make REAL Health Care reform. All else will be band aids.

Currently Family Health Centres are being tried in Ontario, where clinics like the one I go to are not availble. However while based on the Boyle McCauley model they still are allowing the doctors to bill for services rather than putting them on salary.

Labour A House Divided

For those making a big fuss and broohaha over Buzz and Paul ferget about it, its a flash in the pan. This too shall pass, and while Buzz's strategic voting strategy is doomed to failure I doubt it will have much impact on the NDP except as a one day news story.

As I said here, Buzz's Strategic Voting strategy began in 1999 after the Bobby Rae NDP Government screwed Ontario, and in effect Alberta, workers. Ralph Klein was only to eager to blame his social contract freezing and rolling back public workers wages on Bobby Rae and ironically the wage roll backs unionized Safeways workers took in the province. Ever an opportunist that Ralphy boy of ours. Anyways in the 1999 Buzz started his strategic voting campaign against Ralph Kleins doppelganer; Mike Harris. And Buzz has done this ever since. Such is his hatred of Conservatives. It really is not so much strategic voting for Buzz as much as Anybody but the Conservatives. So why all the shock and awe in the MSM and Blogosphere.

Buzz at least admits to being an NDP supporter, not a Liberal, and has what he thinks is a pragmatic plan for strategic voting as flawed as it is. While the NDP may have been the party of Labour it was never a Labour party. And Paul Martin has gotten support from unions before this, in particular the largest private sector building trades union in Canada, the General Construction Workers Union of Toronto. And the CCWU is not the only Liberal Labour supporter.

Dan McLellan of AUPE is a Liberal and includes in his fan club his golf partner Ralph Klein, as well as Right Wing Sun Columnist Neil Waugh. He is their favorite Labour leader. And like Buzz he is promoting Strategic Voting in Edmonton Centre for the only Liberal left standing in Alberta, Landslide Anne MacLellan.

Remember last election when the Liberals raided the NDP for candidates in B.C. including current Health Minister Ujjal Dosanjh, former NDP Premier of B.C.

As for Labour the Liberals in B.C. got David Haggard, the former President of the International Woodworkers of America to run for them last election. And recently he held a fund raiser for his pal David Emerson another B.C. Liberal and Minister of Industry.

Those in the know forwarded me this little missive to my email.

From Public Eye Online
www.publiceyeonline.com

September 23, 2005
Our definition of eclectic

Friends and associates of David Emerson paid out $200 each last night to
attend a fundraising roast for the federal Liberal industry minister's
constituency association. According to our operatives, former Industrial,
Wood and Allied Workers of Canada president David Haggard hosted the event,
held at Sun Sui Wah Seafood Restaurant. Barbs were delivered by Senator Jack
Austin, minister's regional office executive director Billy Cunningham,
Health Minister Ujjal Dosanjh and former provincial deputy minister Bob
Plecas. And a who's who list of powerhouse personalities was on hand to
witness that delivery.

From the union movement there was British Columbia Federation of Labour
president Jim Sinclair and British Columbia and Yukon Territory Building and
Construction Trades Council executive director Wayne Peppard. Former top
British Columbia bureaucrats John Allen, Lee Doney and Don Wright also
showed up. And so did Barrett administration cabinet minister Bob Williams,
ex-Vancouver-Fraserview New Democrat backbencher Bernie Simpson and 24 hours
president and former premier Glen Clark, who was sitting at The Pattison
Group's table. Other notables included First Nations Summit executive member
Grand Chief Ed John and Chief Stewart Phillip of the British Columbia First
Nations Leadership Council, as well as a number of forest industry
executives.

The house of Labour is truly divided. For the first time in fifty years since it founded the NDP the House of Labour is a family set against itself. And the Liberals will take advantage of this family fued as long as they stay in power.

Eleven Days of Scandal Alberta Style

So another of the shortest sittings of a Legislature in Canada has once again ended in Alberta. And it was business as usual in the only One Party State in North America. "There were also questions, but few answers, about the government's plans for health-care reform and how it intends to fix shortcomings in long-term care for seniors. "
And if you were expecting any explanation of the Governments 'Third Way' for Health Care as King Ralph did his Grande Tour of Canada, avoiding being in the Leg, well there weren't any. Albertas own scandal ridden Government sat for eleven days and failed to explain why it was giving out a contract on privatizing Health Care to a company charged with Fraud. Or why upon appointing a Chair for the Alberta Securities Commission (the Alberta Stock Exchange watchdog) he is found to have profited from insider trading and is fined by the OSC. Then he donates his ill gotten gains to the Food Bank and figures thats that. As does the Minister of Finance. And then the Klein Reich votes down a private members bill on Transparency in Government cause its not needed. Nope not here, cause all the pigs are at the trough and we can read about it in the press. Yep the Chretien Liberals pulled off Ad Scam in the wrong province, should have done it in Alberta and they would have gotten away with it. So is this the new ethical model of government we can expect from the Federal Conservatives, whose base is of course Alberta.