Live Fast Die Young

And leave a beautiful corpse as the saying goes. Or in this case a record in time from deep space. Here is the earliest know explosion near the begining of the universe and thus the begining of Time. And you can watch it on your computer. I am in awe.

Flash from the Beginning of Time Reveals Strange Event By Robert Roy Britt Senior Science Writer posted: 08 March 2006 01:00 pm ET

The most distant explosion ever recorded, signaling the birth of a black hole near the beginning of time, was more chaotic and lasted longer than astronomers would have expected.

The event was first reported last fall. Today scientists released new findings and an animation that depicts a strange sequence of events in which the explosion of a massive star first settles down but then fires back up several times toward the end.

Astronomers speculate that the black hole did not form instantly, as theory predicts, but that it was a prolonged process.

ANIMATION: Surprising multiple outbursts during black hole formation.

"This was a massive star that lived fast and died young," said David Burrows, a professor of astronomy and astrophysics at Penn State and author of one of three papers in the March 9 issue of the journal Nature.

The burst, named GRB 050904, originated 12.8 billion light-years away, which means it occurred 12.8 billion years ago and the light took that long to reach us. It erupted very nearly at the beginning of time—the universe is about 13.7 billion years old.

The event provides the first glimpse of a star when the universe was in its infant stages. Until now, only entire galaxies had been observed so far away.

"Because the burst was brighter than a billion suns, many telescopes could study it even from such a huge distance," Burrows said.

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We Are Still Evolving

Yep that's a headline that should cheer us all up, well with the exception of the creationists. And despite President Bush's vain attempt to prove the contrary on every occasion.

Human selection is alive and kicking

Geneticists track evolutionary forces in three populations.

Michael Hopkin

Written in the genes: researchers can see evidence of recent human evolution. © Getty

Humanity's response to the challenges of the past few millennia, from adapting to different environments to taming crops and animals, are writ large in human society. Now geneticists have shown that they are also writ small - in our DNA.

Researchers at the University of Chicago, Illinois, have identified the regions of our genetic sequence that show the strongest marks of natural selection. Their work highlights the genes that have been most important in adapting to new lifestyles, and could help to identify the genetic factors involved in complex medical conditions such as high blood pressure and alcoholism.

Genes that show the most evidence of recent selection include those involved in milk digestion. Although most mammals drink milk only in infancy, humans seem to have adapted genetically to digest it throughout life.

Genes for skin pigmentation also bear the hallmarks of rapid evolution - highlighting the fact that many populations have become more fair-skinned as they have colonized more extreme latitudes with less sunshine.

But wait we are not alone as recent studies have shown, Great Apes in Zoos are evolving too. And apparently so are Whales.

Sperm whales use fishing boats as floating buffets

Scientists recently realized that sperm whales in the Gulf of Alaska zero in on boat engines to locate miles of fishing lines hung with valuable sablefish.

"That's the whales' cue," said Jan Straley, an assistant professor at the University of Alaska Southeast who since 2002 has helped lead the study.

Sperm whales don't tune in to just any engine noise to track what are essentially miles of sablefish shish kebabs. The endangered whales key in on the engines' sporadic bubbling as fishermen turn them on and off while hauling in longlines, the ongoing study said.

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Hacker Capitalism

Once the Agents of Doom for corporate capitalists like Microsoft, or the Imperialist death machine like the Pentagon and CIA, hackers have now become simply gangsta's of the internet. Viruses decline as hackers target PC users for money

But they are in good company with folks like Shaw Cable who gouge and screw Canadians every chance they get, using the CRTC regulations to dominate the cable market and now the VOIP market. Its downright criminal, legal but criminal. Its called Monopolizing the marketplace, something Shaw whines about when it talks about the Telcos.

Shaw fingered in CRTC complaint

Thinly-veiled taxes levied by Shaw against Vonage users are falsely inflating prices for those using Internet-based telephone services, charges a complaint a complaint filed with the CRTC.

By charging $10 per month to customers who choose to subscribe to the Vonage VoIP service, Shaw is unfairly trying to push out competition in the voice-over Internet provider (VoIP) service, Vonage spokesman Joe Parent said yesterday.

"We're left to draw the conclusion that this is a tax for not using their VoIP service, which competes with ours," he said.

"They're suggesting that any of their customers who decide to subscribe to a voice service, other than their own, pay an additional $10 fee."

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Blonde Lobster, No Joke

New animal resembles furry lobster

Divers have discovered a new crustacean in the South Pacific that resembles a lobster and is covered with what looks like silky, blond fur, French researchers said Tuesday.The animal is white and 15 centimeters (5.9 inches) long -- about the size of a salad plate.

Perfect.It fits the plate. mmmm lobster mmmm.....as Homer Simpson would say.

Just kidding. Besides the Lobster Liberation Front might be a tad teed off. Free the Lobsters!

It makes a better picture than a meal. And since this newly discovered species lives deep in the ocean off Tahiti it is unlikely to be fished.

They could have named this blond lobster after Linda McCartney, since she and her husband Sir Paul opposed Lobster fishing before he even found out about seals. Or since it is a French blonde perhaps they should have named it after Bridgette Bardot another anti-sealing, anti-immigrant activist. or Pamela Anderson, no she is Canadian, but she is blonde.

International stars Pamela Anderson Lee, Brigitte Bardot and Mary Tyler Moore have all reported thrown their weight behind lobster liberation. Sir Paul McCartney and his late wife, Linda, are also supposed to have spent thousands of pounds saving captive lobsters from the plate. BBC News | UK | The cost of posh nosh

Even folks who eat Lobsters are aware that there are limits such as in this case; Sympathetic Customers Save Giant Lobsters From the Pot Unfortunately not all such rescues succeed.

Earlier this month, 23-pound Bubba attracted national attention when shoppers spotted him in a tank at a Pittsburgh seafood market and urged the Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium to intervene. Bubba ended up in a quarantined tank at the zoo on March 1. But he died less than 24 hours later, presumably from the stress of being moved many times.

On the other hand while we like our lobster we recognize that it is a matter of sustainable eco-nomics (ecological economics), the balance between fishers and the lobsters, as in the case of any costal peoples who rely upon the economy of the sea for their existence under capitalism. What was once a sustainable local economy under capitalism becomes overfishing, a threat to the continuation not only of sea animals but those who fish them. Even scientific studies of marine animal populations have to be suspect when the studies are done without input from the fishers themselves.

The Secret Lives of Lobsters

Cowan sees the conservancy’s mission as “protecting and conserving
lobster populations, and the industry that supports lobsters.” She is also
committed to breaking down the barriers between the scientists who
study marine life and the fishermen who make their livings from lobsters.
After all, it was local people who led her to one of her greatest discoveries
about lobsters. While looking for a spot to launch her kayak, she saw
two boys flipping rocks on the beach. When she asked what they were up
to they replied, “We’re playing with baby lobsters.” Cowan was stunned. For
years, scientists had thought juvenile lobsters lived in deep water, not
intertidal mudflats; however, these two sons of local lobstermen had
always known where to find baby lobsters.

Recent years of record high catches are making state officials uneasy.
Many of the lobsters brought to market are too young to have
reproduced, so there is talk of increased regulation to prevent a
population crash. Cowan is supplying the hard scientific data that will
help protect the lobsters and the industry. Lobsters are a $200 million
a year industry in Maine, providing a livelihood for thousands of people.
As more nurseries were discovered on New England beaches, Cowan put out
a call for volunteers.

Lobstermen and their families were the first to sign up, and have proven
to be her best helpmates. They know where to look for the babies
and how to handle them. Their knowledge of lobster behavior is extensive,
some of it passed down through generations of their families.
Lobstermen also provide specimens for her research station. With
permits from the state, Cowan can accept large lobsters that are beyond
the legal catch limit. It is not uncommon to see a boat motor up
to the dock and a burly Maine lobsterman deposit a monstrous lobster
with claws the size of boxing gloves into Cowan’s outstretched arms.
Big lobsters have big appetites, so the lobstermen stop by at
the end of the day with fish, mussels, and crabs—dinner for the big guys.

And capitalism is rapacious, demanding unsafe fishing practices and increasing the numbers of lobsters fished which counters any ecological balance. Saving the lobsters for fishers is saving their communities, it is an economic and social neccisity.

What can be done to save the lobsters?

Local people organize for a greater say over their economic future

By Roger Hamilton, Corn Island, Nicaragu

The fishermen's complaint, said Pineda, was not that there are too many regulations, but rather that there are not enough. They insisted on the need for tough, well-enforced restrictions to protect the lobster. Although he called this year's catch "phenomenal," he said it could just be a natural fluctuation. "The government studies say that the lobsters are not overfished, but we see that overall, the fishery is down."

As a first step, the fishermen want lobster fishing to be banned during the February-March-April spawning period. But such a ban would have to apply to all fishermen, including foreign boats that operate on government-granted concessions. "We can live with the limitations, if they will save the fishery," said Pineda. "But if the law doesn't apply to everyone, why should we obey it?"

Diving for lobsters is another problem. The practice is encouraged by the big packinghouses because of its efficiency. But diving is hard on both the lobster population and the divers themselves.

Saving the Lobsters for Sir Paul McCartney is a moral issue, like saving the seals, which has no impact on his life since he is a vegan.

Most importantly, Paul and Heather promoted the Boycott of Canadian Seafood products and pointed out that the boycott of snow crabs from Newfoundland alone had cost the Canadian seafood industry 129 million dollars, a fact that Williams could not deny. They specifically mentioned the boycott of Red Lobster twice, which will put considerable pressure on the restaurant chain to stop their purchase of Canadian fish. Last week, Trader Joe’s joined Whole Food Market and thousands of restaurants that have signed onto the Boycott of Canadian Seafood.

See Green Opportunism: The Anti-Sealing Lobby

As with the anti-seal hunt Lobster Liberation Front moralists have little care for the impact they have on the human communities that live in a precarious balance with the sea.

They are obviously picking on small fisherman. It's my livelihood. I'm only a one-man band trying to muddle my way through life bringing up my two children. My job happens to be that I'm a fisherman. I don't know what they are trying to do. They say they are trying to save the lobsters but they will do more harm than good.

Saving the Lobsters for fishers is saving their heritage and the real eco-onomy of the community. It is also a matter of needing greater self management since clearly neither State regulations nor scientific studies in the past have been based on community input or community needs.

Researchers ponder old menus to save fisheries. 24/10/2005. ABC ...

Australian stocks of orange roughy are among some of the fish species coming under increasing pressure from over-fishing, according to a new report.

A snapshot of the world's fish stocks points not only to the current state of fisheries but also how changes in tastes over the years have impacted on the supply of seafood.

Marine historians picking through 200,000 US restaurant menus since the 1850s, schooner logs and archaeological sites are finding that capricious human tastes have let some species thrive while other stocks have been over-fished for centuries.

Americans scorned lobster until the 1880s while the ancient Romans loved fish so much that their catches depleted the Mediterranean, according to the study that may give clues about how to restore damaged world fish stocks.

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Shame,Shame

Shame on anyone, especially Liberals, for questioning Canada's mission in Afghanistan. Pulling out now would be reckless and cowardly. At the same time, shame on the Conservatives for surpressing debate. Says Syncategorematic

Well I question our involvement in Afghanistan, now and when we first went in. The attack on Afghanistan was based on Bush Administration lies much like the attack on Iraq. The alternative was to find Osama bin Laden and try him.

First Bush said it was to take out Osama bin Laden, who is at this date still at large. Then it was to take out the Taliban for supporting Osama, given a short window of opportunity to give him up according to an American time table the same ploy used to justify the invasion of Iraq; a shrot time table for Saddam to give up his non existant WMD. And lets not forget the Americans invaded because the Taliban oppressed everyone especially women.

So the U.S. special forces, the CIA and their Northern Alliance Warlords invaded, taking out the Taliban, with the usual air bombings killing civilians and of course our own troops. But the fact is once the U.S. and the Northern Alliance seized Kabul, the job was done. The U.S. now demanded more support from NATO so as to allow them to invade Iraq.

Well women are not free in Afghanistan. Elections were for Warlords, the Taliban are not gone, and Osama is free. This is not a liberation struggle by the people, no one asked the U.S. and NATO to invade. Nor are many happy with us staying there.

Opium production has increased, and Warlords maintain their power. So yes we do have to ask what the hell we are doing there.

I do not support our Government who sent our troops there, either the Liberals or the Tories. And no I do not support the gung ho military war mongers like General Hillier, or his syncophantic commanders like Fraser.

What should our troops be doing? Defending our Northern Soverignty, our 200 mile offshore limit on both coasts and seizing foreign fishing Trawlers.Defending our airspace from secret CIA flights. Peace Keeping. And oh yes cleaning Toronto streets next time there is a major snow storm, that's what.

All the same if one is going to support our Troops in the field with blind jingoism, my country right or wrong we do a disservice to them since they cannot express a free opinion since they are indentured servants of the State.

The State sends them to fight and die and they have to follow orders regardless of what they think. As citizens we have the duty to speak out against those orders that would endanger them if we do not support those orders. They cannot.

No one asked us, the citizens of Canada, about sending our troops to Afghanistan, nor are we being consulted now. Nor will the troops be, because democracy and the military are corollary opposites. So anyone who says challenging why we are in Afghanistan is betraying our troops is doing a far worse betrayal, a betrayal of democracy, which those troops are supposedly fighting and dying for.

“We have a saying in the army . . . we defend democracy, we don't practice it,” Gen. Rick Hillier

More on Afghanistan



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Nessie was an Elephant?

It is being reported today that another theory of the Loch Ness monster has appeared, that Nessie was an elephant.

Well I like my theory that like other Fresh Water Lake Monsters it is a Lake Sturgeon.

Of course then there is the guy that claimed to have found Nessies tooth.

And then there was the idea that maybe it is a crocodile. Crocodiles, elephants wandering around on the loose, it gives new meaning to Scotland the Free.

A tip o the blog to Nunc Scio for this,he tells his own Nessie tale as well.

Elephantine Theory Stirs Misty Waters of Loch Ness

By Mary Jordan

Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, March 8, 2006; Page A14

LONDON, March 7 -- So maybe the Loch Ness monster was actually a circus elephant.

Neil Clark, curator of paleontology at the Hunterian Museum in Glasgow, sees striking similarities between descriptions of Nessie and what an Indian elephant looks like while swimming. And perhaps not coincidentally, a traveling circus featuring elephants passed by the misty lake in the 1930s at the height of the monster sightings.

According to a curator of paleontology, a swimming Indian elephant, left, looks strikingly similar to the Loch Ness monster, allegedly pictured in a 1934 photo by R. Kenneth Wilson taken at the height of the monster sightings. (By John Mcconnico -- Associated Press)

"It is quite possible that people not used to seeing a swimming elephant -- the vast bulk of the animal is submerged, with only a thick trunk and a couple of humps visible," thought they saw a monster, Clark said in an interview Tuesday.

By publishing his theory in the current issue of a British scientific journal, Clark has reignited passionate discussion here about the great Scottish mystery.

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IWD Economic Freedom for Women

Today is International Women's Day from where we get the slogan, and a great song, Bread and Roses. How appropriate.

So rather than commenting on the usual; women are still oppressed under capitalism, or the latest outrage of censorship in the name of National Security, or the stupidity of the American right in returning us to the bad old days of backstreet abortions. I will leave that to others.

I thought I would give us some good news about womens struggles for economic liberation.

Because that's what its all about. When women can earn a living under capitalism, they become individuals free of the chattel ownership of fathers, husbands and families. It's what makes capitalism revolutionary.

Modern capitalism has allowed the birth of the independent woman who is no longer economically dependent on her husband.

Camille Paglia

And this is why the humanistic values accorded to liberalism/capitalism are seen as a challenge to patriarchy. Women need to earn their own bread and need the time to appreciate the roses too.

In the developing world, Africa in particular, where the last vestiges of the marketplace are not dominated by global capitalist corporations, micro-loans and micro-economics are creating a peoples bank ,as Prodhoun called it, a credit union culture of lenders and producers.

It is a model of capitalist economic development that is missing in Welfare Reform in the West, that simply kicks mothers off welfare and tells them to get a job. And it is a model for capitalist economic development in depressed economic zones such our First Nations. It certainly is better than the alternative, the expansion of gaming establishments on reserves.

The real power of revolution has always been in the hands of women, who after all are the real majority in society. And thus are the majority of the proletariat.

As these articles show women need unions, associations and cooperatives AND micro-credit to be able to advance. And ironically in India it has often been in provinces under the control of the Communist Party that these models of economic self governance have been promoted and sucesseded.



One we met with was the Self Employed Women Association (SEWA),
a union for the most oppressed workers in India-- women working largely in the informal sector of self-employment or home-based contract work. Started in 1972, it now has almost 700,000 members in India, a third of them outside Gujurat. Because these workers often have no formal employer or an employer who can easily disappear, much of their organizing is based on self-help-- organizing cooperatives, creating benefits funds for health and other forms of social insurance, and seeking to enforce legal rights against contractors defrauding workers. Part of the goal is to give these women workers the economic means to escape both oppression from poverty itself and from the often violence-based oppression women suffer within the gender inequality of their family life.


Now we have a cow, we have a rice mill, and we have money. Before, we had nothing. Before, we ate at most once a day. Our clothes were torn. Our children couldn't go to school because they didn't have proper clothes or food or books. We couldn't leave our homes or participate in the village government. My husband never bothered to discuss anything with me. Today, if we buy a piece of machinery or a piece of land, we, husband and wife, buy it together and keep it together. Now, our husbands help us with our work and we help them with theirs. And they help us in raising our children.”
--Bahanur Begum, participant in Uttaran, credit and training program in Bangladesh

New Book on Third World Microcredit

Via Zvi Galor on Worker-Owned Co-op list. Reaching the Poor With Microcredit: The Missing Link, by Abono Humfred Mbah Awanka of the University of Dschang in Cameroon. Galor comments:
The book has a very interesting survey of the existing MF industry of today. What is the situation in the rural Africa of today, and possible ways to do better. It is a very important tool to scholars, to practitioners and to the big public who wish to learn more about our contemporary problematic situation regarding poverty and as to how to be able to improve the situation and to eradicate poverty from our society.

"It turns out that poor rural women are better credit risks than many companies, meaning that default rates are low. Accion [A major microfinance find ]reports a historical repayment rate of 97 per cent. No Accion or Calvert investors have lost money to date."

Microcredit reaches more poor women

by Farhan Haq

---

United Nations, Sep 3 (IPS) -- Poor women today were gaining greater access to savings and credit mechanisms worldwide, according to a survey of more than 900 microcredit organisations that serve 22 million clients.

The 925 programmes reporting to the survey, conducted by the Washington-based Microcredit Summit Campaign, said that more than 12.5 million of their clients came from groups that qualified among the countries' poorest.

Further, 74 percent of the poorest clients of the 40 largest microcredit programmes involved in the survey were women.

Beneath the Surface
Microcredit and Women's Empowerment

By Abdul Bayes

Once the beginning of the microcredit programmes that mobilise and organise women at the grassroots levels and provide access to supportive services, the issue of women's empowerment started to constitute the cornerstone of any discussions on planned interventions for poverty alleviation. Following the foot steps of the Grameen Bank's minimalist credit strategy, a number of NGOs in Bangladesh (e.g. BRAC, ASA) have been targeting rural women hitherto been subjected to socio-economic subjugation of different types. The unique aspect of such a strategy is not its financial intermediation of credit for the poor but also its social intermediation. Needless to mention here, perhaps, is the fact that the viability of the former intermediation is ensured by the latter intermediation.

"Green earth, women's power, human liberation": women in peasant movements in India.

Omvedt G.

PIP: The experience of 2 peasant women's movements in India's state of Maharashtra--Stri Mukti Sangharsh and Shetkari Mahila Aghadi--highlights the potential power of women in resisting capitalist exploitation of peasant and forest-dwelling communities. The former organization is the women's branch of a movement that is resisting the ecological destruction and displacement of peasants and tribal people resulting from development projects such as dam construction; the latter addresses the demand for fair prices for agricultural produce and inequities created by a market economy. Both are mass-based, self-financed people's movements unconnected with any political party. Although women are under-represented in the formal decision-making bodies of the parent organizations, they are struggling to become a central force in the development of alternative technology and agriculture. In 1990, Stri Mukti Sangharsh activists devised a new slogan--green earth, women's power, human liberation--summarizing this process. Similarly, Shetkari Mahila Aghadi calls upon women to monopolize political power and runs all-women panels in district council elections. These campaigns have challenged women's exclusion from ownership of land in spite of laws granting property rights and placed the issues of women's health and nutrition on the political agenda. Moreover, peasant women have played a leading role in the current experimentation with energy-recycling, regenerative, low-input agricultural development. Together, these developments may provide Indian women with the power to recover their former centrality in agricultural decision-making and production.

Bread and Roses

As we go marching, marching, in the beauty of the day,
A million darkened kitchens, a thousand mill lofts gray,
Are touched with all the radiance that a sudden sun discloses,
For the people hear us singing: Bread and Roses! Bread and Roses!

As we go marching, marching, we battle too for men,
For they are women's children, and we mother them again.
Our lives shall not be sweated from birth until life closes;
Hearts starve as well as bodies; give us bread, but give us roses.

As we go marching, marching, unnumbered women dead
Go crying through our singing their ancient call for bread.
Small art and love and beauty their drudging spirits knew.
Yes, it is bread we fight for, but we fight for roses too.

As we go marching, marching, we bring the greater days,
The rising of the women means the rising of the race.
No more the drudge and idler, ten that toil where one reposes,
But a sharing of life's glories: Bread and roses, bread and roses.

Our lives shall not be sweated from birth until life closes;
hearts starve as well as bodies; bread and roses, bread and roses




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Brison Knew Better

It's not only what Scott Brison knew in advance about the Governments Income Trust announcement, but what he said to those in the investment business on Bay Street.

Brison regrets sending income-trust e-mail
MP says he told banker he'd be 'happier' but denies advance knowledge of decision

BRIAN LAGHI , STEVEN CHASE and SINCLAIR STEWART

From Wednesday's Globe and Mail

OTTAWA and TORONTO — Liberal MP Scott Brison owned up yesterday to sending an e-mail to a bank official discussing an imminent government decision on income trusts, telling the employee that he would be pleased with the outcome.

"I think you will be happier very soon . . . this week probably," Mr. Brison wrote in the e-mail, which the former public works minister released yesterday. The e-mail was written the day before the government announced it would not slap a punitive tax on the trust market, which some investors had feared.

Trading in income trusts spiked the next day, leading to an RCMP probe into whether there had been a leak from the federal government.

Had no inside info: MP Winnipeg Sun
Brison defends email in income trust probe CTV.ca
Income-trust affair entangles Liberal star CBC Saskatchewan
Edmonton Sun - CTV.ca - all 27 related »


Scott Brison's aww shucks attitude about sending that email to an investment banking pal announcing the government decision on Income Trusts wears thin when you remember he has a BA in Commerce, unless they don't teach ethics in Business school and he was a registered Investment Banker.

In 1989, he graduated from Dalhousie University with a Bachelor of Commerce degree in finance. Mr. Brison has had extensive private sector experience ranging from business start-ups and U.S. market development to serving as Vice-President of a Canadian investment firm.

That firm was Yorkton Securities which says;
We are committed to: Professionalism: integrity and professionalism that meets the highest standards, striving continuously to embody our core values, strong principles and sound ethics

One of those ethical standards supposedly is not leaking insider information to ones pals in the business.

Yorkton Securities was one of the more tech savvy Investment Bankers in Canada as Microsoft likes to attest to, since they used their products. So Scott's initial claim of not knowing about the email or about sending the email rings downright hollow. In all his busy time preparing for Question Period I guess, he forgets about a little old email he sent.

"Our clients are savvy, and we need to offer them technically-advanced services that give them greater control over their finances," says Rodney Sim, president of Yorkton Securities. "Investors need to make quick decisions in today’s Internet economy Once implemented, Yorkton Securities Inc. will be one of only a few North American investment brokerages currently offering electronic statements.

Business Wire: Yorkton Securities Selects Pivotal for Financial Services Demand Chain Solution.

However all that high tech savvy did not save Yorkton from getting caught up in the wonderful world of the Internet Dot.Com Bubble Boom and High Finance Crime when in 2001 it was fined by the OSC for illegal trading activities while Brison was a VP.The company ,its CEO and several other officers were charged, but Brison wasn't.

Scott Paterson, the controversial investment banker who touted tech-related startups during the Internet bubble that later collapsed, has taken control of an on-line television company that hopes to go public. It would be one of Mr. Paterson's more notable moves since the days of the tech boom, when he headed up Yorkton Securities Inc. The firm became one of the country's largest technology and media investment banks before it was hit with conflict of interest allegations in 2001. Mr. Paterson was fired from Yorkton that year and paid $1-million to settle the allegations with the Ontario Securities Commission. Without admitting guilt, he agreed to a two-year suspension from the industry.

The result was a Class Action suit against Yorkton, which was finally settled this year.

Deloitte & Touche LLP has been appointed by the Courts as the Administrator of the Book4Golf Yorkton Securities Class Action Settlement (the "Settlement").

So much for their claims to; "continuously to embody our core values, strong principles and sound ethics"

In 2003 Yorkton changed its name to Orion Securities Inc.The name change did not preclude Orion from being responsible for legal actions against Yorkton.

So Brison's investment banking experience with Canada's leading high-tech venture capital firm occurred during those heady days of the dot.com bubble, when anything goes.

The result as we have seen is Enron, World Com, Nortel, etc.
After the bubble burst, the freewheeling cowboy capitalism of Wall Street and the Investment Bankers came crashing down. Which also impacted on Canadian banks who were caught up in the fraud. Including CIBC who was fined billions for its involvement.

That Brison would email a pal at CIBC the day before the pending government announcement on Income Trusts to say that CIBC would be happy with the decision is not an oversight, a slip, a mistake. Its the culture of Bay Street, where regulations are for those who get caught. And with his experience in the midst of the Yorkton Securities scandal you would think he would have learned that eventually you do get caught.

To then lie as he did about it, to fail to tell the RCMP during their investigation about it, is not a slip either. He is a trained investment banker who knows the rules. It may be that it was his email that led to the rush of insider trading on Income Trusts that got Ralph Goodale into trouble. The point is that he knew better.

It certainly looks bad for his Liberal leadership campaign. And it looks bad for the Liberal Party.






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Our Great Leader

"The power to make cabinet appointments is a power that resides in the office of the Prime Minister as the highest democratically elected official in the country and this Prime Minister has no intention of acceding that jurisdiction in any way, shape or form to any government official," Mr. Harper told reporters in Ottawa.

Yep our newly elected Great Leader is looking more and more like another Great Leader, sans the moustache, as Right of Centre Ice writes; "Stalinization" of Harper's government begins















Is this Harper's ethical cleanup?
Toronto Star, Canada -
Prime Minister Stephen Harper promised during the recent election campaign to "clean up Ottawa." He said "accountability and ethics will be at the centre of ...
Harper won't bow to ethics czar on cabinet powers Globe and Mail
Shapiro will go ahead with Harper probe Globe and Mail
PM ratchets up battle over ethics probe Toronto Star
Winnipeg Sun - Winnipeg Sun - all 48 related »

Forget a debate on Afghanistan: Harper
National Post, Canada -
Prime Minister Stephen Harper and General Rick Hillier greet members of the Canadian Forces as they arrive for annual Canadian Forces Appreciation night. ...
Afghan mission not up for debate, Harper says CBC Nova Scotia
Canada's Harper rejects debate on Afghan mission Reuters AlertNet
Forget debate, Harper says Canadian troops are staying in ... 940 News
Toronto Star - Toronto Star - all 21 related »


Also See:
Harper the Autocrat

Harpers Broken Promises: Accountability

Democracy Is Messy


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Mexican Murder Cover Up?

The murder of Ianieros has shown the extent to which Mexican State authorities and their allies in the travel and tourism industry in Mexico and abroad will go to cover up a horrifying murder that could impact on their business. Or is it something even more sinister?

And what does the Harper government do, why nothing. MacKay satisfied with Mexico's co-operation

What co-operation, they have blamed Canadian tourists for the murders. To distract from the real murderer(s). Who may have struck before. Since the murder of tourists in Cancun is not unheard of and another couple had been killed only two months before, and one of the killers was still at large.

However this was not initially seen as a robbery but a professional hit! And blamed on the victims! Anybody but a local.

The tearful niece of Dominic and Nancy Ianiero delivered an emotional eulogy for her aunt and uncle today in which she indignantly dismissed suggestions that organized crime had anything to do with the pair’s brutal death. Rosanna Ianiero held back tears throughout a heartfelt tribute to the couple, but her voice grew strong and purposeful as she chided authorities in Mexico for their repeated insinuations that the tragedy could be linked to illicit activities.

And the Mexican authorities still insist it was a professional hit, though why or by whom they don't know, or want to say, the later being more likely.

The attorney general for Quintana Roo state (Bello Melchor Rodriguez y Carrillo) initially said it appeared to be a "professional" manner. But he now says he doesn't think the killings are related to organized crime.Organized crime not involved in murders, authorities

Now why would he say that could it be because of this....Drug War Hits Vacation Hot Spot

CANCUN, Mexico, Dec. 1, 2004

Moving to halt a bloody drug war that has moved south, Mexico was investigating the federal prosecutor's office in this beach resort town for possible involvement in the killings of nine people, including three federal agents. Soldiers seized the Cancun Attorney General's office at the center of the probe on Tuesday, and Mexico's top drug and organized crime prosecutor said all federal employees there were under suspicion.

Official Says Tijuana, Gulf Cartels Have United
Published by the Los Angeles Times, 1/14/05
He said the restructuring of Mexico's cartels comes amid almost daily drug-related murders from Cancun, an entry point for Colombian cocaine, to Reynosa and Tijuana, border transshipment centers.

frontline: murder money & mexico: readings

Tourism projects have always been a prime venue for money laundering investment by Mexican drug traffickers. Felix Gallardo invested in Hermosillo and Puerto Vallarta, as did Chapo-Guzman in Southern Nayarit and Banderas Bay in Nuevo Vallarta. In time, we may discover that Juan Garcia Abrego has investments in Punta Diamante, as he does in Monterrey and Matamoros, and that the Cancun-Tulum project is another example of money laundering symbiosis between narco-power and elites in Mexico.

And the cover up began in Mexico from day one.

Wilson, who stayed two buildings away from the Ianieros, first caught wind of the murders two days after they had occurred. All he heard were rumours, and there never was an official announcement made to anyone at the resort complex, he said. "I'm surprised at how big of a story it is here, because down there, there was no story. There was just rumour and speculation and that's it," said Wilson.Travellers still heading to Mexico, despite murders

And the cover up continues, this is more than mere ineptness, with stalled press conferences, lack of cooperation with the RCMP, lack of news about it in Mexico or in Cancun. etc. in order to minimize the impact on Mexicos tourist trade.

Christiane Theberge, vice-president of public affairs for the Association of Canadian Travel Agencies, said the group received only a handful of concerned calls from the public when news broke about the killings. “It was kind of clear the next day that it looks like something very close to a personal incident than an trend,” Theberge said from her office in Ottawa. “It was mostly seen as an isolated act of violence.

The Ianieros may have been victims of mistaken identity by the Cocaine Cartels in the region. Since it was alleged that their room was mistaken for another according to initial police reports. And that fact would hurt Cancun's tourism more than just a random murder, which may explain the Mexican cover up.

And MacKay is satisfied.Twit.

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