Contracting Out is a Virus

Once again hospitals that have contracted out their cleaning staff have been hit with another viral infection.

Contracting out=Norwalk virus reported at two BC hospitals



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Is God A Cosmonaut

Before there was intelligent design there was the cosmology that the universe is alive, and that it is a holographic memory of itself, therefore the origin of the original I think, therefore I am paradigm.

Since we are alive and think and we are part of the universe, the universe is always in the process of self becoming; Gnosis.

In other words the universe is god, and man being part of the universe is god. Deus est Homo. Which of course is heresy.

The gods of cosmology

Questions about why we and the universe exist are worth asking even if there are no answers

Tim Radford
Tuesday March 21, 2006
The Guardian

For the third year running, a physicist has won the Templeton prize. This is the one that is not just bigger than the Nobel - it is worth £795,000 - but also more imprecise: it is awarded for "progress toward research or discoveries about spiritual realities".It went on Wednesday to the cosmological polymath John Barrow at Cambridge; last year it went to the American Charles Townes, who discovered the maser; the year before it went to the South African George Ellis, whose big research theme was the large-scale structure of space and time.

Barrow made a name beyond astrophysics 20 years ago by co-authoring an argument known as the anthropic principle: that the universe looks as though it has been tailored for the emergence of intelligent life. This frames two huge riddles: is there something special about the universe that means intelligent beings will inevitably emerge to understand it? Or does it just appear like that because we look back down the long tunnel of time so of course it would seem to point exactly towards us?

Einstein put one version of the same question when he observed that the most incomprehensible thing about the universe was that it was comprehensible. The Nobel prize winner Steven Weinberg put another version when he said, in a 1977 book called The First Three Minutes, that the more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it also seems pointless. Most science involves taking a large subject and reducing it to ever smaller, more precise questions. Physics seems to start with precise questions about atomic particles or strong nuclear forces and end up with very big, imprecise ones such as: why are we here? No wonder even physicists who don't believe in God tend to invoke Him. Einstein famously claimed that God did not play dice. Stephen Hawking ended his most famous book by claiming that humans might one day read the mind of God. Leon Lederman called his book on the Higgs boson The God Particle. Others leave the divine question open; yet others overtly believe in God. This is not quite what anyone expects from science, which got where it has by firmly excluding the supernatural and following the evidence of the natural.

True but most scientists were/are deist, that is they believed/believe in Natures God. Hence Newton was an alchemist, not looking for Gold, but rather the metaphysical expressions of natures god in the elemental world.

Also see: Heresy

For a Ruthless Criticism of Everything Existing

Intelligent Design

Dialectial Materialism

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The Voice of Reason

The Archbishop of Canterbury steps into the debate on Creationism on the side of the Angels, well the Darwinists anyways.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, has stepped into the controversy between religious fundamentalists and scientists by saying that he does not believe that creationism - the Bible-based account of the origins of the world - should be taught in schools. "I think creationism is ... a kind of category mistake, as if the Bible were a theory like other theories ... if creationism is presented as a stark alternative theory alongside other theories I think there's just been a jarring of categories ... My worry is creationism can end up reducing the doctrine of creation rather than enhancing it," he said.



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Are Income Trusts Money Laundering

In an interesting article on Terrorism and money laundering, the old Hot Money contradiction of capitalism is exposed by Prem Sikka in the Guardian. Before the world worried about Bin-Laden Inc., the various American franchise states that got monies from the IMF and from drug running, and being clients of the CIA would ship their funds offshore, to banks in the Caribbean and Switzerland. Canadian banks have a reputation for having been early money laundering operations in the Caribbean. Today billions in hot money transeverses the globe and guess who profits?

What is interesting is that in all the debate in Canada about Income Trusts their role in money laundering was never brought up. Nor has the hot money/money laundering connection been made between mutual funds, international loans, or the infamous mutual fund IOS scandal that has become the modern model of both these.

The corporate scams that aid terrorist money launderers

With the advance of electronic money transfers, easy formation of companies and deregulation, money laundering has escalated to an estimated $2,500bn each year. The laissez-faire US washes about half of this laundry and Britain probably accounts for over $300bn. Secrecy is the key ingredient for this trade.

Banks have technologies to trace suspicious transactions, but profits always come first. Following a US Senate inquiry, it was alleged that General Augusto Pinochet, the former Chilean dictator, used British banks to launder money. There is silence from the British authorities. Of the billions stolen by General Sani Abacha, the former Nigerian dictator, at least $1.3bn turned up in 42 accounts at 23 UK banks. The British government has refused to name these banks and warn the public about their standards. Unlike Switzerland, it has failed to return any of the loot to Nigeria.

Almost every money-laundering scam reveals the use of shell companies: firms that have virtually no assets, employees, physical presence or trade, though large sums of money pass through their bank accounts. These can be formed for a few pounds and are fronted by banks, accountants and lawyers to disguise true ownership. As with other corporate vehicles, they can be owned by foreign and domestic trusts with post-office-box addresses. A recent US treasury report noted that trusts are key vehicles for disguising illicit funds. Yet there is no regulation, registration or public accountability of trusts in the UK and it is impossible to know their beneficiaries.

Also see:
Income Trusts
Corporate Welfare Bums
Criminal Capitalism
Crime



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There's No Life Like It

To my friends on the Right and Left who believe Canada is right in continuing its involvement as the agent of U.S. Imperialism in Afghanistan, may I suggest you put your money where your mouth is.

Join the Canadian Armed Forces!

Don't let it be just unemployed and under-employed youth in the Maritimes, where the bulk of the current TV ads are running, who go and fight the good fight you support. Because they can't find jobs, they join the military to pay for their post secondary education, or get trades training. No one thought they were signing up to kill and be killed.

But now all that has changed. So here is your opportunity to prove that your patriotism is more than just a lot of blog hot air, or crocodile cheers, put up or shut up.

Remember you can blog from Kandahar. No need to sit on your ass in Canada, this is YOUR WAR. Go Now, don't delay.

Thank you this has been a free public service announcement on behalf of the Department of National Defense and our Brave Men and Women in combat. Defending Canada from the Taliban Navy and Al-Quaeda Airforce.

From April 2003 to March 2004, the Department of National Defence undertook an advertising campaign to help recruit close to 10,000 personnel for the Regular Force and Reserve Force. The campaign primarily targeted Canadian youth between the ages of 16 and 34, as well as those who influence youth in their career choices, such as parents and career counselors in colleges and universities.

It aimed to convey two key messages:

• The Canadian Forces is a unique employer with many possibilities to offer youth who are looking for a (new) career.
• The Canadian Forces is hiring for full- and part-time openings in more than 100 different occupations.

Target Audience:

• Canadian youth aged 16-34, specifically the sub-group of 18- to 24-year old.
• Youths' influencers—their parents, teachers, guidance counsellors, friends, community leaders and so on.
• For some of the occupations, advertisements were targeted to youth who study specific programs at colleges and universities across Canada, or who already possess some of the skill set required for that occupation.

International Women's Day, March 8 2006

Published by Canadian Forces Recruiting Group Multimedia Services 3/6/2006

On the occasion of International Women's Day 2006, a new poster entitled "In Praise of Women in the Canadian Forces" is available for download.
The Canadian Forces takes pride in being a leader in the field of equality and women’s rights and is actively recruiting women for dynamic, rewarding positions.







The defence of our country is serious business and that is what combat arms is all about. Soldiers take pride in protecting and fighting for what all Canadians believe in, here and abroad. Do YOU have what it takes?

Or are you all Talk Talk Talk?

OUR SOLDIERS IN THEIR OWN WORDS


See My Articles On Afghanistan

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France: Crisis of the Capitalist State

For my Left Libertarian friends and Liberaltarians who insist that there is some ideal capitalism that has existed without the state, some anarcho-capitalist ideal, the current crisis of capitalism and it's state in France proves once again what I have said here, ad nauseaum, that there is no modern State without Capitalism.

They go together like a horse and carriage as the song says.

Or as Herr Doctor Marx once said; the State is the "executive committee of the ruling class."

Business leaders tell Villepin to stand firm

Another executive who attended the meeting and declined to be identified was less optimistic.

"There was a feeling among many of the participants that if the law is withdrawn you can kiss goodbye to reform for the next 10 years," he said, according to his spokesman. "It would send a terrible signal.".

The businessmen's comments come against a backdrop of escalating social unrest over the First Employment Contract, an initiative known by its French initials as the CPE and closely associated with the prime minister, who drafted the new law in an effort to ease double-digit youth unemployment.

Six weeks after student organizations and labor unions embarked on their campaign to have the new contract scrapped, the latest battle on France's streets goes well beyond the fate of one unpopular law.

It has become a critical test of another French government to carry out economic change and has emboldened an opposition that has rallied around job security ahead of next year's presidential election.

"We are now at a point that is well- known in France: the point at which a reform measure has become a symbol of reform itself," said Elie Cohen, a member of the Council of Economic Analysis, a panel of independent economists advising the prime minister. "This is no longer just about the CPE, it is about the ability to reform France."

As the IWW preamble says; The Employing class and the working class have nothing in common.It's class war in France. France under threat of general strike Less than six months after violent riots erupted across its cities, France is in turmoil again as opposition to a controversial new employment law threatens to shut down the country.


And as we syndicalists say Political Power, parliamentarism, will change nothing. And France as much as America is the home of the revolutionary syndicalism.



It will take the whole of the proletariat, employed and unemployed workers, students, housewives, immigrants, sans papiers, etc. to mobilize direct action, to overthrow the neo-liberal State whether the new bosses are the Left or Right of Capital.

If the executive class of Capitalism in France fails to get what it wants with a Right Wing government well there is always the Left Wing it can appeal to. Which shows that to mobilize itself as class for itself, even the traditional Left must be superceded by the revolutionary proletariat.

Beigbeder, another prominent entrepreneur, said that any future French government - even if it was a Socialist government - would have to attempt labor reform to jump-start economic growth.

"In the end there will be a flexible labor contract in France, even if we are the last in Europe to adopt this kind of reform," said Beigbeder, who also leads the research and innovation arm of the French employers' union, Medef.

Indeed, he said it might take a leftist government to win the fight on labor market reform in France.

"If the left wins," he added, referring to the 2007 elections, "they will present a similar contract, maybe even a better one, because sometimes it's easier for the left to get the support of the unions and others from the left."

So far, business has been slow to take a public stance on the contract, fearing that this could create an even-greater backlash against a law regarded by many as a charter for exploiting young employees.

As I have said this is a revolutionary situation in France, not unlike May 68, and like the mass strike wave of a decade ago. It comes as a rejection of Blairs Thatcherism for Europe, and the EU constitution which would transform the member nations into modern neo-liberal captialist states. Like Britain.

And for a different view from the student/workers side of the Barricades see: Parisian riots, take two



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No Shock and Awe

Three years ago the world watched as America invaded Iraq in what it called operation Shock and Awe. A phony war based on a phony excuse for the President to teach nasty Saddam a lesson his daddy wisely forego.

Three years later and the demonstrations against the war continue. Smaller than the mass demonstrations that greeted the first months and year of the war. Global demonstrations to mark third anniversary of Iraq war

Leaving Blogging Tories and right whingnuts to giggle and chortle in their beards. But the laugh is on them. Sure the numbers this weekend were small 500 in Australia, 2000 in Toronto, 15,000 London, thousands in the U.S. but there were protests that's whats important.

Enui may have settled in now that we are three years into the war, the urgency that created an unprecidented groundswell of protest in those early days three years ago has given way to "I told You So" as Iraq falls into Civil War.

The fact is that in the early days before the Invasion and after record numbers of people, in the millions did something they had never done before, protested a war before and as it was just begining.

What the right wing isn't laughing about is the fact that the American public three years later is now giving George Bush and his War the biggest thumbs down in public polling ever for a War President.Sky falls in on Bush the outcast

A tip o the blog to the comrades in Edmonton who managed to brave the snowstorm on Saturday to march. Good on ya. Protesters defy heavy snow to march against war
Edmonton Journal , Canada - 19 Mar 2006
EDMONTON -- The near-record snowfall blanketing Edmonton on Saturday didn't stifle the messages of groups rallying for peace on the third anniversary of the US ...

'Way too much bloodshed'

Sun, March 19, 2006
Protesters across the country call for an end to military action in Iraq and Afghanistan.


The demonstrations in Canada were important in order to oppose our involvement in taking over US operations in Afghanistan. Qualified support for Afghan mission: poll They will have an impact on Canadian public opinion.

Especially now that Defense Minister O'Connor has clarified that there will be NO DEBATE on the current commitment in Afghanistan. As he told CTV news Craig Oliver on Sunday's Question Period, that debate is over. Even the redeployment in February will not be debated. He said only NEW operations will be debated.

Which is contrary to what the Conservatives have been saying for the past month.

Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor is adamant that there will be no vote on Canada's role in Afghanistan, even if that vote were to strengthen the Conservatives' mandate to continue that mission.

While Canadian troops have been in the nation since 2001, some have called for new debate as Canadian troops take on a more aggressive combat role that is at odds with Canada's more traditional role as peacekeepers.

However, O'Connor rejected that notion.

"Our policy is that if we take on a new venture in a different country, we will bring that forward to Parliament for a vote," the former general told CTV's Question Period Sunday.

"But this is a continuing commitment. This started in December of 2001."




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In Like A Lion

Winters final rage against the coming of the Spring dumped 25 centimeteres of snow on us between Saturday and Sunday. That meant three shovelings in order to clean up the mess. What a dump on the final weekend before Spring arrives. Largest snowfall ever recorded.

Record falls along with all that snow

Between 20 and 25 cm of snow fell between late Friday and Saturday evening, when the flurries tapered off.

- That virtually ties the record snowfall for a single day in March, when 23 cm fell at City Centre Airport on March 11, 1982.

- Record snowfall at International Airport for a single day in March was 21.1 cm, set March 13, 1974 .

(Source: Environment Canada)

Which is what this winter has been all about record breaking. Driest, brownist, coldest days, mildest winter over all. Weird. As in them Norse sisters.




All of March has been cold and snowy in Edmonton, indeed across Alberta. Remember it was only in late January and we were having grass fires in southern parts of the province. The longest brownest winter we had. And since the begining of March we have had cold frigid -26 below weather and Snow. Fine Winter in one month, ok.

Now that we have gotten that out of our system can we now move on to Spring.

Which begins today officially this morning

SPRING March 20 2006 at 11:26

Of course it's going to be a white spring.

In like a Lion out like a lamb as they say.

I wonder if the Lion's name is Aslan since we are so close to Easter?


Aslan the Lion in art from Walt Disney Pictures'
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - 2005


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LNG

Those darlings of Monopoly the Irving Family Compact are in another battle with the Citizens of New Brunswick as this blog documents. I have written here about their infamous paternalistic capitalism.

Now they want to set up a Liquified Natural Gas, LNG, terminal on the island and then set up a pipeline to ship the gas south to the USA. Ironically their deal which is with Repsol, the Spanish oil giant, is about delivering Bolivian gas into the U.S.

While Bolivia has yet to deal with Repsol on new terms for purchasing the peoples resources in that country. Repsol is accused of not paying duty on 230,000 barrels of crude oil valued at some €7.5 million.

Premier Bernard Lord's Conservative government introduced legislation Wednesday that will clear the way for the city of Saint John to grant a special property-tax rate for Irving Oil and Repsol YPF, S.A., its Spanish partner in the LNG project.

The proposed rate is a fraction of what the property taxes would be normally.

''We're doing this on behalf of the city of Saint John for the LNG terminal,'' said Local Government Minister Brenda Fowlie.

''They felt they needed to do this in order to make sure the facility did come to New Brunswick and to the Saint John area specifically.''

The city of Saint John has voted to give Irving Oil, owner and operator of Canada's largest oil refinery, a fixed property-tax rate of C$500,000 per year for the terminal for the next 25 years. Irving Oil Gets Clearance for Major Tax Break

Where-ever LNG is delivered by tankers concerns are raised about safety; Coast Guard has safety concerns about LNG terminal plans and of course the environment.

LNG is supercooled liquefied gas that is shipped from far-flung countries -- Iran, Qatar, Russia and Indonesia are major suppliers -- to coastline terminals, where it is heated, vaporized and fed into a pipeline. Sempra and other companies are convinced that LNG is key to keeping a lid on gas prices in the United States as domestic supplies dwindle.

The rub: Many coastal communities don't want massive fuel tankers hogging their shores. Regulators approved five new LNG terminals in Texas and three in Louisiana, but companies have struggled to find a home outside the Gulf of Mexico, particularly in California and New England.

That's not to say that all Mexicans welcome LNG either. Lobster fishermen and the owner of a neighboring resort say Sempra's hulking plant threatens business. Surfers say a phenomenal surfing spot was destroyed after the San Diego-based company began construction in March.

Environmentalists have waged a spirited -- and so far unsuccessful -- campaign to derail Sempra, regularly blocking traffic at the plant entrance and bringing activists from around the world to rally local opposition. They sued the California Public Utilities Commission in state court last year to force the regulator to reconsider a ruling that cleared the way for Sempra to pipe gas from the plant to the U.S. grid near Tecate, Calif. West Coast's first LNG terminal finds a home in Mexico

As usual for the Irvings they are demanding tax breaks from St. Johns NB for their business of setting up the LNG terminals and pipelines. And they are asking the Volk to pay for the destruction of their tourist industry to benefit the greedy family compact that is the Irvings.New Brunswick town hopes to stop LNG tankers

Saint John city councillor Glen Tait is dismayed at the pressure tactics used by Irving Oil Ltd. to extract a long-term municipal tax break for its latest megaproject. In his view, it's a form of blackmail. "They're big enough to come down with a hammer," says Mr. Tait, describing the ultimatum that forced city council to ram through a 25-year tax deal for Irving's $750-million liquefied natural gas terminal -- or risk losing the project for Saint John.

While in St. Johns citizens were told they had to give the Irvings a tax break so they can run the LNG pipeline through a public park! Protests are now growing around saving the park from the Irvings.

The provincial and municipal tax breaks, meaning citizen funding, gives the Irvings extra cash to invest in Ireland!. The artistocratic gaul of the Irvings knows no bounds.

Irving Oil Eyes Global Expansion

Besides the Saint John oil refinery, Canada's largest, Irving Oil owns and operates more than 500 convenience stores in eastern Canada and New England primarily under the brand Bluecanoe. It has also partnered with Repsol YPF, the largest private energy company in Latin America, to develop an liquified natural gas terminal in the Port City, according to the report.

Alhajji said in the report Irving's dominance in the downstream oil industry makes it perfectly suited to jump into Ireland's market.

"They are suited to take over, basically, because they are focused to serving the consumer at the end," he told CanadaEast.com.

Bill Simpkins, an energy industry consultant in Halifax, said in the report that convenience stores are profitable operations for oil companies. The market for quick to-go foods and beverages can be quite lucrative.

"I think overall the Irving companies are very astute in terms of where they invest," he said.

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What's Your Value

Canadians worth $137,300 each: Statistics Canada
Which just goes to show that we should not be paying personal income taxes until we begin earning over $100,000 annually. See my; A Peoples Program for Alberta


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