Compromise Saves Softwood Deal

While claiming to have gotten more concessions from the Americans what has really saved the Harper Softwood Deal is lowered expectations of Canadian Lumber industry support...... "With Emerson softening his [95-per-cent] threshold requirement for approval, there wouldn't be enough companies to kill it," he said. Like the whole softwood deal this is a case of lowered expectations. And it is the end of Free Trade accords like NAFTA. Mr. Herman noted that for Canadian industry, it does not represent free trade but "managed trade that gives you some years of commercial peace. Many of us are concerned for what this means for dispute resolution under the NAFTA. Obviously it doesn't work," he said.

Also See

American Exceptionalism

Softwood

Free Trade



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Bigfoot Blog

I found a blog dedicated to the Yeti aka the Sasquatch. The real thing not the ones in commercials for beer or beef jerky.

CTV.ca | Controversy brews over BC sasquatch statue

Also See:
Cryptozoology

For more stories on dinosaurs and cryptozoology see my Live Journal Heresiology


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As I predicted

See my Smoking At Home Will Be Banned I was doing a humble Johathan Swift imitation when fiction became fact; Landlords using Quebec's new smoking ban to weed out smokers

Also See:

Smoking


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Sri Lanka A Marxist View

I am posting this as a backgrounder on the crisis in Sri Lanka, between the competing nationalist movements of the Sinhalese and Tamils, from a Marxist perspective, one that is not often heard in the western media. The article is well worth reading for the history of this conflict and the role of the Left socialist parties in Sri Lanka. The author has his own website with excellent articles as well.

Whither JVP?
By Vasantha Raja

Thus, a wider campaign to democratically transform Sri Lanka’s post-colonial state structure – the Pandora’s Box that gave rise to all ethnic troubles since independence – would be the most prudent path.

No partial or regional solution that leaves the central government intact will solve Tamil/Muslim problems. On the contrary, a prospective northern Tamil state besieged by southern enmity may well end up as the albatross of all Tamils – rather than a guarantor of their democratic aspirations.

Perhaps, the answer is to unite all Tamil parties in a democratic vision, and build bridges to southern movements committed to radical democratic change of the entire state structure.

Above all, profound changes in the Tamil campaign along above lines may help close the JVP-LTTE gap indeed.

For, unlike the two corrupt elitist capitalist parties – the UNP and the SLFP – the ‘Marxist’ JVP understands equality as the focal point of democratization.

In fact, the JVP has suffered immensely under both SLFP and UNP governments, when over 60,000 Sinhala youth were killed. And the JVP knows what post-independence Sri Lankan regimes are all about. So, it would be a misfortune if the Tamils failed to harmonize their aspirations with the southern campaign for social, political and economic emancipation.

But, to win the trust sincere dialogue is necessary. Respecting Tamils’ ‘right to divorce’ should be the starting point to convince them that keeping the marriage is in everyone’s interest.

Perhaps, the time has arrived for all nationalist movements – Sinhala/Tamil/Muslim - to rise beyond narrow nationalist perspectives and merge with the unfolding social revolution to reach a common goal: the democratic transformation of the capitalist state and revolutionising the economy on socialist values.

Also see

Paper Tigers

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Too Much Democracy?

Is democracy a threat to capitalism? Fox News thinks so. On The Cost of Freedom yesterday they actually posited this thesis. That promoting democracy abroad may not be such a good thing cause in the Middle East these guys and these guys get elected. Of course then again they may have a point since at home in Amerika democracy is under threat... from the neo-con right....Losing our Democracy to the "New Authoritarians"



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CIA Reading Your Health Files?

OTTAWA (CP) - Software that will help sort millions of Canadian health records was developed by a company funded through the CIA's venture capital partner, sparking concerns about the confidentiality of patient data. Privacy advocates are raising questions about Canadian use of the Initiate Systems indexing program given its creator's financial connection to In-Q-Tel - a private firm that helps the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency zero in on promising technology.

The CIA has a venture capital company? So we should call them the Capitalist Intelligence Agency, heck why not they have always acted as an outsourcing intelligence company for American Big Business......


Also See:

CIA

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Butt Out

Once again the social fascists and morality squad called City Council in Edmonton are planning to beat up on nicotine addicts.
Smokers may face fines for dropping butts Already forced to huddle outside doorways just to get a hit of nicotine, the much maligned tobacco connoisseur could soon be subject to a new burden -- heavy fines. The result of forcing smokers to throw out butts in the trash would be this;
Cigarette butt blaze costs pub $160,000 EDMONTON - A south-side drinking establishment suffered extensive fire damage early Friday morning when cigarette butts started a fire in a wastebasket.

Instead of fining smokers, how about putting ashtrays out on the street. Nope that would be much to sensible and cost effective.

Also See:

Smoking


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Tories Put Endangered Species at Risk

The Harper government is quietly drifting away from protecting endangered species that are standing in the way of economic expansion, a leaked federal document has revealed.The draft policy document from Environment Canada suggests federal officials want to water down the Species at Risk Act in order to allow government regulators to factor in "socio-economic" concerns -- such as forestry, oilsands exploration and residential construction -- when they identify critical habitat areas that require protection. "Obviously that happened under a previous government, but we've accepted the recommendations, and our government is about openness and transparency and accountability and those problems will be solved," said Ms. Ambrose's spokesperson Ryan Sparrow. He added that the government planned to continue consultations before implementing any policy on species at risk.Species at Risk Act being weakened by Tories

Open, transparent acoountable. Yep that's why the Species at Risk Act is being quietly rewritten in the Harper backrooms. And they are consulting with, big oil, big business, and not special interest groups like this: Tories ignoring owl extinction: environmentalists

Yep ignore the owls and have a Sparrow defend our MIA Environment Minister.

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Stephen Lewis for Secretary General

Right whing blogger Jacks Newswatch writes an impassioned defense of Stephen Lewis and calls for him to be elected to be the next Secretary of the UN. No kidding. Watching Stephen Lewis bang his head on a wall Well said Jack.


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Your Sunday Bible Reading

It's Sunday and fellow blogger Ianism provides us with this pithy bible quote from the Old Testament, on the importance of Ishmael the son of Abraham and the current Arab Israel conflict over nationhood. Not a biblical quote you will read in a Michael Coren column.

The muslims view themselves as followers of the book, the Old Testament, thus they and the Jews are descendants of Abraham.

Call Me Ishmael.

Is the opening line of the Great American classic novel; Moby Dick. Showing that in the 19th Century Orientalism, was present in American literature.

The Great White Whale is of course a metaphor, one that could be applied to the current situation of the US in Iraq.

apocalyptic components of Melville's novel to the foreground. A novel that uses the Pequod as a microcosm of American diversity-in terms of class and race-ends with the destruction of that symbol. Furthermore, as Lakshmi Mani proposes in The Apocalyptic Vision in Nineteenth Century Fiction, Melville's apocalyptic ending relies on the vast ocean as the site of imperialist conquest and its failure, The Cold War's "undigested apple-dumpling": Imaging Moby-Dick in 1956 and 2001,


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