Recall

Do you recall the Reform Party platform on Recall. Apparently its been forgotten by Harper and other former Reformers in his Conservative Party and the new government.

But not by some Tories upset with Harpers appointment of David Emerson; here and here are two sites doing just that calling for Emerson's recall and a byelection.

Now in B.C. the right wing has used recall several times to try and remove sitting MLA's with no success.

However I guess its all about principles. Something that parliamentary parties conveniently forget once they are in power.

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Spam You

You are about to lose control over what you can accept in your email if you belong to Yahoo or AOL email services. They are about to become an online post office, charging businesses to access your email account with their adverts. You will have no control even using a spam filter if you rely on these services for your email. And of course if they get the go ahead MSN won't be far behind, will Google g-mail?

AOL, Yahoo to Charge for Email
Net providers want businesses to pay to guarantee email delivery to their members.
February 6, 200

Net Neutrality

“AOL and Yahoo believe this will help them identify legitimate email and lessen the risk of ‘malmail,’” said Jonathan Spira, chief analyst at Basex, an IT research firm specializing in knowledge sharing and collaboration. “It gives the companies that pay a ‘do not stop, go straight to the inbox’ filter.”

He sees a certain logic in its resemblance to the regular postal system, where the sender, not the recipient, pays, and senders pay more for certified delivery than for regular first-class mail.

It also fits into the concept of the tiered Internet system. Some Internet service providers such as AT&T, BellSouth, and Verizon Communications have recently been calling for services that require heavy amounts of bandwidth to pay them to use their pipes (see Telcos Propose Web Tiers).

“That differs from the basic architecture of the Internet from its inception, which treats all data in the same way,” said Mr. Spira. “Depending on your catbird seat, this type of tiered payment structure does threaten the neutrality and the openness of the Net.”

The Senate Commerce Committee plans to begin hearings Tuesday on legislation calling for so-called “Net neutrality” that would prevent Internet service providers from prioritizing their traffic in this way.

Whether or not they will want to extend Net neutrality to email service providers is debatable, since Congress has also passed laws such as the CAN-SPAM Act to punish senders of spam messages, and that is what AOL and Yahoo claim they will be able to do with the CertifiedEmail service.

Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates has also called for charging email senders as a way to cut down on the volume of spam email, but his proposal did not attract much support. AOL claims to have reduced spam email by more than 85 percent since 2003, so spam control apparently isn’t the only consideration for moving to charge for email delivery.

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Google Stock Crash

Google stock crashed and burned last week. Interesting article at Internet Free Press about how they knew something fishy was happening with Google when they didn't get their usual paycheque for their Google Ad Sense ads on their site. Which is a better reason for Brad Spangler to drop Ad Sense off his website. See; Google Censorship China

Google is set for a fall because it is a dot.com remember them the artificial bubble that was the dot.com industry. Google produces nothing, it is a consumer product, for searching the internet, thus its ability to make money is its customer base, you and me.

Google stock set for fall-Hopes for the Internet giant are simply too high, Francois Pouliot writes

And the reason for Googles crash and burn, well like those other dot.com's it plays fast and loose with its financial reporting. And it is overpriced as Pouliot asserts.

Google's stock plunge rattles investors

FEB. 1 11:33 P.M. ET Google Inc.'s market value dropped by more than $9 billion Wednesday as investors bailed out of the Internet's leading search engine after an earnings letdown reminded them about the perils of owning stock in a company that refuses to provide financial guidance.

The Mountain View, Calif.-based company's stock price plunged by as much as 10 percent before rebounding slightly as Wall Street digested a series of analyst reports that continued to predict a bright future for Google. The shares closed on the Nasdaq Stock Market at $401.78, a decline of $30.88, or 7.1 percent.

The stock price is now 15 percent below its record high of $475.11 reached just three weeks ago but the shares remain a golden investment for those who bought at $85 in an August 2004 initial public offering.

And some folks got really worried, were shocked in fact at the crash. And then there were those who like the executives of Enron, knew what was going to happen and far from being shocked benefited from this insider knowledge. Google boss sold $45m stock ahead of shares dive And surprise folks thats perfectly legal for him to do to! The sales are part of a legal process that allows top executives in the US IT industry to reap rewards worth hundreds of millions of dollars a year without being seen to be awarding themselves salaries that would be thousands of times higher than those of most of their employees.

Oh I am shocked to learn that! Not. Despite the rantings of the Randites and other pro-capitalist liberaltarians, here is another example of surplus value, profit, not created by the capitalist being appropriated by them. Leaving crumbs for their workers, and shortfalls for their investors. So much for the joy of the market.

So now we have another explantion for why Google accepted the conditions placed on it by the Chinese government, no worse than those placed on it in the Middle East, in order to get access to that billion dollar consumer market. In order to bouy its overbloated share price.

GOOGLE (NasdaqNM:GOOG) Delayed quote data

After Hours (RT-ECN): 385.00 0.10 (0.03%)
Last Trade: 385.10 Trade Time: Feb 6 Change: 0.00 (0.00%) Prev Close: 385.10 Open: N/A Bid: N/A Ask: N/A 1y Target Est: 476.31		Day's Range: N/A - N/A 52wk Range: 172.57 - 475.11 Volume: 0 Avg Vol (3m): 11,813,400 Market Cap: 113.82B P/E (ttm): 76.70 EPS (ttm): 5.02 Div & Yield: N/A (N/A)

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Google Censorship China

The response to Google in China has been interesting to say the least. Internet censorship in mainland China - Wikipedia

A great Sturm and Drang in the U.S. over this, since Google is playing hard to get with the U.S. government and 'hey sailor' with the Chinese.

Dan Verton calls for a Boycott of Google over their Chinese Search Engine. My Left Libertarian pal Brad Spangler agrees and has dropped all google ads off his site. At least he also posts that he is looking for alternatives to Yahoo and MSN search engines which comply with all national legal standards and supply information to those governments upon court ordered request.Microsoft censors Chinese blogs

I hate to break into legalise but thats what this amounts to. In the U.S. Google can challenge the government because it has a constitutional right to and as a corporation it is seen as an 'individual' under the law. In China or Germany or heck Canada, the Criminal Codes and laws are different.

This Boycott will fizzle, because Google is the largest search engine in th world, and its worth billions, and because only a small circle of friends will join in, and.....because its silly. Google complied with China for one and one only reason, a reason all neo-cons, neo-lberals and libertarians should recognize. To get their business. It was a business decision. And business is amoral. Capitalism is amoral.

Brad quotes another Libertarian free marketer L. Neil Smith who is all in a tizzy over Google.

Google sees nothing wrong with this, nor, apparently, do many of the people I correspond with on a regular basis. It's their business, my friends reply, and they can do anything with it that strikes their fancy.

Besides, goes the cant, if they comply now, they may even be able to help the Chinese people to gradually become freer than they are today.

Google is helping the Chinese government keep the Chinese people oppressed.

Plain and simple.

No way out of it.

Google is helping the Chinese government keep the Chinese people oppressed.

Simon mistakes the Internet for Google. Google is just one way to access the internet. It's the WWW that keeps the world afloat in a new counter economy. One which sees the free flow of information circumvent such things as national laws, copyright, and intellectual property laws.

And contrary to his assertion that Google is limiting freedom for the Chinese people such is not the case as these two articles from 2004 show. China has been online for just over a decade and in that time it has seen the increase in free speech online.

BBC NEWS | Technology | Bypassing China's net firewall

PCWorld.com - China Finds Freedom Behind Great Firewall

So why has Google done this you ask. A billion dollar company could have waited to enter China or waited till it could set better conditions of doing business in China. Well that's the whole key to Google and all the other internet businesses wanting into China isn't it. Business. A billion comsumers.

And in Googles case it was facing the fact that the Chinese economy has been driven on the illegal, by Western standards, production of replicas and bootleg products. From watches to DVD's and computers. China's capitalism has been one long litany of criminal based enterprises. Only now that it is accepted into the international gang of Capitalists, the WTO has it agreed to reduce its favoured method of primitive accumulation of capital, counterfeit products and copyright violations.

In Googles case it was a business decision, it was facing a Chinese search engine modeled on Google that was launched last year with much fanfare. And it was already making money on the Hong Kong Stock exchange. Google is trying to limit its competition, if not wipe it out. Google Agrees to Censor Results in China

Baidu.com Inc., a Beijing-based company in which Google owns a 2.6 percent stake, currently runs China's most popular search engine. But a recent Keynote Systems survey of China's Internet preferences concluded that Baidu remains vulnerable to challenges from Google and Yahoo Inc.

To obtain the Chinese license, Google agreed to omit Web content that the country's government finds objectionable. Google will base its censorship decisons on guidance provided by Chinese government officials.

Freedom be damned, this is war of all against all. Capitalism has nothing to do with freedom or democracy, or human rights. It's all about private property, profit and who has the most surplus value, toys, wins. And in this case Google is competing for market dominance, monopoly, over Baidu and Yahoo.

Thats why this happens:Within / Without: Internet, censorship, China and you

Microsoft takes down Chinese blogger

Microsoft’s MSN Spaces continues to censor its Chinese language blogs, and has become more aggressive and thorough at censorship since I first checked out MSN’s censorship system last summer. On New Years Eve, MSN Spaces took down the popular blog written by Zhao Jing, aka Michael Anti. Now all you get when you attempt to visit his blog at: http://spaces.msn.com/members/mranti/ is the error message pictured above. (You can see the Google cache of his blog up until Dec.22nd here.)

Note, his blog was TAKEN DOWN by MSN people. Not blocked by the Chinese government.

And instead of complaining about those horrible Chinese dictators and censors as L. Neil Smith does, with his rabid red baiting stereotyping, let us remember that China is not censoring the net, it is asking Capitalist American Companies to do it for them.

Virtual censorship is a series of defensive policies undertaken by the Chinese authorities to prevent China s “domestic cyberspace” from being merged with “foreign cyberspaces” and keep apart the apolitical and political domains of CMC. It is virtual because the control mechanisms, albeit implemented in both the tangible and intangible spaces, aim at constraining nonofficial OPC in the virtual sphere. It is censorship because the policies reduce the interactions between the cyberspaces and the scope of political discussion by means of prohibition, supervision and punishment. From the perspective of democratization, virtual censorship is an undesirable segment of the emerging virtual reality defined as “a simulation of existing realities” and “the
creations of a new reality” (Frissen, 1997:113), which attempts at rendering boundaries in the cyberspace and those in the real space congruent. Yet from the angle of globalization, it is natural and readily comprehensible since various forms of local resistance are constituents of the globalization process (Sreberny-Mohammadi, 1991; Appadurai, 1990)

And as usual in the real free spaces between corporations, governments, cops exists in cyberspace, where there is a problem thier is a hack, a freeware program to provide a solution to the problem. The internet remains a contradiction only to those who wish to dominate it, to the rest of us it remains liberated space, where real libertarian values are expressed. Don't boycott Google hacktivize cyberspace. Toronto 'hactivists' win grant

P EA CE F IRE

June 20, 2005
In response to the news that MSN Spaces China is filtering words from the titles of their users' blogs including "freedom", "democracy" and "Taiwan independence", the Committee to Protect Bloggers, of which Peacefire is a member, has released a set of instructions describing how the Chinese can bypass the word filtering on MSN Spaces and create blogs with banned keywords in the title. The instructions in English are here; they have also been translated into Chinese here.

October 24, 2004
We need your help!

Almost all Internet users in China and the Middle East are blocked from accessing political Web sites that criticize the government of their country. After the release of our Circumventor software in 2003, Internet users in "censored" countries had a way to get around Internet censorship, by asking someone in an "uncensored" country to install the Circumventor software for them. (If you install the Circumventor software on a machine in an uncensored country, it gives you a URL, which you can then give to people in censored countries such as China, so they can use the URL to get around Internet blocking.) However, few people in China or the Middle East actually had contacts in uncensored countries that they could ask for help.

If you download and install our Circumventor software, it will give you a URL that you can use -- and which you can also give to your friends -- to bypass all types of blocking software. And at the end of the installation process, the installer will ask you if you would like to share your Circumventor URL with users in censored countries such as China as well. By saying "Yes" to this option, you can help people in censored countries bypass Web blocking.

See Big Brother Bush

Tags libertarianism anarchism China Censorship Google hacktivism
internet

Opps.

Well call this a serious political miscaluculation after todays Cabinet surprise. Canadians wants clean gov't from Harper: study


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Coyne Nails It

This is scary I find myself actually agreeing with Andrew Coyne. WTF. metastasizes like this you mean Andrew, and this and this and this:and this

It may be that the big brains around Harper are right, and this is a "one-day issue," of interest to the media and no one else.

But suppose they're wrong, and this quickly metastasizes, casting doubt on everything the Tories do -- the filter through which every subsequent statement or action is viewed, the moment when they squandered their biggest asset: the expectation that this time, after so many governments came to power promising to "clean house in Ottawa", this time would be different.

Then I think the Prime Minister would be well advised to alter course, admit he made a mistake -- two, actually -- and get out in front of this. There's a simple way to do it, one that could even turn a retreat into an advance. Announce, no later than tomorrow, that both appointments will be put before the people: Emerson's, in a byelection, allowing his constituents to pass judgment on his change of party; Fortier's, in Quebec's first-ever Senate election.

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View from the South

Aaron Goldstein a former NDPer now a Republican writes an interesting column on the Canadian election I thought I would share with ya' all.

So I Guess Stephen Harper Won’t Be Resigning After All

Where he says this;

I do believe that observers of Canadian politics have not yet fully appreciated the gravity of this election. On the left hand you have Rosie O’Donnell lamenting, “It’s a very sad day for Canada when the Liberal government has been ousted by the Republican Right.” On the right hand you have Paul Weyrich of the Free Congress Foundation who states, “The people of Canada have become so liberal and hedonistic that the public ethic in the Country immediately could not be reversed. It will take time. But with leadership it well may be possible to change the public ethic.” Weyrich’s full article can be read at www.freecongress.org/commentaries/2006/060125.asp.

Well both O’Donnell and Weyrich are wrong. O’Donnell is wrong to claim that Canadians have embraced the “Republican Right” and Weyrich is wrong to brandish Canadians as “liberal and hedonistic”. If Canadians have yet to fully appreciate the gravity of the elections it certainly cannot be said for non Canadians such as O’Donnell and Weyrich.


So neither Rosie O’Donnell nor Paul Weyrich need fret about Canada. Rosie O’Donnell can rest assured that the Conservatives will be kept in check by a strong opposition. Paul Weyrich ought to know that Canadians support a public ethic of “peace, order and good government”. Remember! I said good government not big government. If Stephen Harper and the Conservatives can bring peace, order and good government they might earn a majority government next time around.

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Lifesite Breaks News and Wind

The anti-gay anti-abortion right wing fundamentalist christian, my gawd that's a mouthful, web site LifeSite breaks news about what government positions their Calgary buddies Jason Kenney and Diane Ablonczy, who didn't make cabinet, will get.

Many pro-life Canadians wondered at the absence of Jason Kenney, one of the most capable MPs and a stalwart defenders of life and family. LifeSiteNews.com has learned that Kenney has been appointed the Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister. Another pro-life MP of prominence within the Conservative Party who was passed over for a cabinet post, Diane Ablonczy, will be the parliamentary secretary to the Finance Minister.

And then for good measure they offer this reason that David Emerson joined the Conservative government.Finally, Liberal MP David Emerson was rewarded for switching to the Conservative Party with the position of Minister of International Trade. Emerson is pro-abortion and voted against traditional marriage on Bill C-38.

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Rempel Has Been Blitzed

Yeah yeah I know I am a glutton for punishment but I wandered over to the corpse in the blogosphere, Peter Rempels blog , just to kick it around to see if it really is dead and what do I find its off line.

Instead its been replaced with this:

For More Information email, greg@mediablitz.ca or call (403)634-8888

Then I check my links again and find it's here kind of.

Also see:

He's Baaaaaack

Good Riddance Not Goodbye

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Defense Lobbyist Now Minister

So did Derek Burney who is well established as a lobbyist for the Defense establishment in Canada have any say in the appointment of this Defense Lobbyist as Minister of Defense? Of course O'Conner was a natural for the job, however he was only elected 18 months ago.

And what influence will Burney maintain in the Harper government over issues of BMD which he promotes. With Peter McKay as the lame duck in Foreign affairs, a politcal perk appointment, who will really be pulling the strings? Burney, O'Conner and Harper I would suggest.

Boy Harper's cabinet appointments look more and more American style all the time. And less and less accountable.

And whats good for the Military is good for the Military Suppliers whom O'Conner worked for.

NOW magazine said; Ottawa-area Tory MP Gordon O'Connor has on at least two occasions publicly pushed military equipment of former clients.

Gordon O'Connor, defence minister
Carleton-Mississippi Mills, Ont.
O’Connor was first elected as an MP in 2004. He has since acted as the critic for national defence. O’Connor was also a member of the national defence and veterans affairs committee and the subcommittee on veterans affairs. A former member of the Canadian Forces, he retired with the rank of brigadier-general. His military appointments included responsibility for planning the future force structure of the Canadian Forces and co-ordinating resources related to about 300 Canadian Forces equipment and infrastructure projects. He has since worked as a consultant and in a variety of business operations.

And even the Blogging Tories are not comfortable with O'Conners close ties to the Military Industrial establishment in Canada

Forestalling the appearance of conflict at Defence

Firstly, how will Mr. O'Connor's history - as both a retired officer, and a lobbyist - with the current leadership at DND affect his ability to work with them as minister? Does he have a problem with the current CDS or others in positions of influence at DND? Refusing to attend a simple meeting on such an important procurement issue suggests he might.

If anyone at DND has personal knowledge of tensions between Mr. O'Connor and either the civilian or military leadership at the Department, or equally if anyone can put these concerns to rest, they're invited to drop me an e-mail in complete confidence (damian dot brooks NO SPAM at gmail dot com).

Secondly, how will Mr. O'Connor overcome the appearance of a conflict of interest when it comes to military procurement issues if he is appointed MND? Because while Airbus is the focus of this discussion, it was hardly his only client when he worked for Hill and Knowlton Canada.

Western Star, one former O'Connor client, was in the initial running for the Iltis replacement. That procurement was hardly without controversy: the G-Wagen won by default when every other competitor withdrew from the bidding process.

General Dynamics Canada, another former O'Connor client, is one of the big kids on the defence contractor block. They were part of the successful Sikorsky bid on the Maritime Helicopter Project to replace the CF's Sea Kings.

BAE Systems, another ex-client of O'Connor's, recently won one of the CF-18 modernization contracts.

I bring these up not to suggest any impropriety - far from it - but to point out to Mr. O'Connor and the CPC that they will have to deal with some significant challenges should he become the Defence Minister in a Conservative government.

Underneath his calls for quicker procurement strategies, less complex bidding, streamlining of the process, leaves one to wonder who benefits from this more the public and taxpayers getting bang for their buck, or the Military equipment suppliers?

CTV.ca | Gov't to purchase 16 military aircraft: CP

Earlier this month, the Conservative defence critic, retired general Gordon O'Connor, said he was concerned the government was rushing the process unnecessarily and made the requirements "so precise only one solution's possible."

But some say the acquisitions are inevitable, have been budgeted for and have such widespread support in Parliament they would be implemented by whichever party wins the election.

O'Connor - the former director of military requirements and an ex-industry lobbyist - said later there is nothing stopping the Liberals from going ahead with plans to replace aircraft.

Military wins no matter what after election

By STEPHEN THORNE

OTTAWA (CP) - The federal Conservatives say if elected they'll boost the national defence budget "in magnitude," assuring the military a win no matter who's in after the Jan. 23 vote. The Liberal government committed $12.8 billion to military expansion in last February's budget, which will bring the total defence budget to almost $20 billion within five years. Defence Minister Bill Graham has dangled tantalizing toys before Canada's military - new planes, ships and vehicles. He's expanding the forces by 5,000 personnel. But the Conservatives say they'll do even more for defence. "Certainly the Armed Forces aren't going to get less," said the Tory defence critic, retired general Gordon O'Connor. "There's going to be substantially more for the Armed Forces - in magnitude different." The Tories will boost military spending significantly - O'Connor wouldn't say how much - and expand personnel by 15,000, to 75,000, said O'Connor, who drafted the party's defence platform. All Liberal defence policies will be up for review, said O'Connor, including last spring's defence policy statement that was supposed to set the course for Canada's army, navy, air and special forces for 20 years. "We will review everything," O'Connor said. "We have our own policy. It may support what they are doing or it may modify what they are doing."
During the 2004 election campaign, Conservative Leader Stephen Harper promised an extra $5 billion in military spending over five years, 20,000 new soldiers, new tanks, new helicopter-carrying warships and muscular transport planes.
O'Connor, who retired as the director of military requirements and later became an industry lobbyist, said airlift now is his party's No. 1 defence priority.
But it's up in the air whether the Tories will go for 16 mid-range transport planes worth nearly $5 billion, as the Liberals announced Nov. 22, or opt for fewer of those supplemented by larger, heavy-lift aircraft capable of transporting troops and equipment over vast distances.
Under a Conservative government, the Liberal procurement project may go ahead or it may be modified, O'Connor said.
"We believe in airlift," he said. "I consider airlift as the No. 1 equipment requirement for the Armed Forces.
"But an airlift solution based on our policy may be different."
O'Connor said he expects Harper will announce his defence policy before Christmas.
He said the party won't be bound by preconceived ideas. They want to look at requirements before settling on what combination of aircraft would best serve defence.
A Conservative government would also buy more Arctic utility aircraft than the Liberals plan and base some of them further north, he added.
"I believe we should have a firm deployment of new aircraft in the Arctic," he said.
With the Liberals' blessing, navy planners are already in the early stages of acquiring new support ships and transport vessels, similar to those Harper promised in last year's election campaign.
O'Connor said he strongly supports streamlined military procurement practices, but he says the Liberal method will hurt competition and favour certain products - Lockheed Martin's C-130J transport plane, for example.
Prime Minister Paul Martin has said getting what the military needs takes precedence over regional and industrial benefits.
O'Connor said he also supports what he calls the "sensible" Liberal concept of setting out requirements based on performance needs. But he said regional and industrial benefits are a must in any military procurement.
"The biggest waste of time is in the Defence Department," O'Connor said. "They're spending four years now to arrive at a document that says this is what we want."
He said defence procurements have to be directed from the top down, not the bottom up.
"Things will be better for the military" under a Conservative government, O'Connor promised.
"In funding, you're going to see a substantial difference - quite a bit more than the Liberals. We've got to get this Armed Forces out of a hole."

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