It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Sunday, August 27, 2006
Historical Amnesia
See
Iran
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Kim Jong il Bush
Only the strong can defend justice in the world today where the jungle law prevails. Neither the UN nor anyone else can protect us. The past history and the present reality show that only a country with its powerful force can defend the national dignity and its sovereignty and independence. It is a day-dream to calculate that our principle will alter due to the change of the world. We have already clarified that we will have no option but to take stronger physical actions should someone take issue with our army's training of missile launches for self-defence and put pressure on it.
Sounds like something George W or John Bolton would say about the UN and the need for America to have the right to pre-emptive self defense in a Post 9/11 world.....but read on.........
The Foreign Ministry of the DPRK is authorized to clarify as follows in view of the grave situation prevailing on the [Korean] peninsula:
First, our Republic vehemently denounces and roundly refutes the UNSC "resolution", a product of the U.S. hostile policy towards the DPRK, and will not be bound to it in the least. Second, our Republic will bolster its war deterrent for self-defence in every way by all means and methods now that the situation has reached the worst phase due to the extremely hostile act of the U.S.
Oh that Kim he is such a clever fellow using American policy and American arguments. And the Americans will denounce North Korea as in violation of international law, kettle, pot, black.
This strategy is based on a conception of preemptive self-defense.10 Preemptive selfdefense,
however, is clearly unlawful under international law.The Myth of Preemptive Self-Defense
Along with this American Defense Policy Kim has made a recent foray into religion, funding a Russian Orthodox Church (from funds given by Russia, gee just like that Katrina disaster relief) and now inviting the American Evangelist of the Hour; Rick Warren to speak at an open air evangelical rally next spring.
Records from the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom show that North Korea has one Catholic and two Protestant churches in addition to the new Russian Orthodox church.
Kim is appealing to the Bush Republican base with his policies.
And it is working. Evangelicals break with Bush on North Korea
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McGuinty Corporate Welfare
He left the family Honda at home, but Premier Dalton McGuinty was greeted by more jeers than cheers yesterday in the middle of an Oshawa General Motors assembly plant.This after being named "personality of the year" last week by Foreign Direct Investment magazine, a U.K. business publication, for his astute business acumen and passion for research and innovation.Some workers who joined in the catcalls said they were still angry with the premier for calling a 4,000-strong GM job cut "a little bit of contraction" in the auto industry last November. On hand yesterday to mark GM's plans to relaunch the Camaro, to be built in the plant for the 2009 model year, McGuinty was accused of taking advantage of a photo opportunity.Poor reception for McGuinty at GM
While amongst the right wing business types this corporate welfare is being denounced, quite humourously by Andrew Coyne, as another big tax hand out. Which it is and of course Coyne is right it's to produce the ultimate sixties gas guzzler; the Camaro.
So how come Dalton didn't tie his corporate welfare to production of hybrid and alternative energy automobiles, a green car? Oh because thats the NDP platform.....
Green backs for Green production...what a radical concept, it's called industrial ecology. A better environment plan than going nuke and banning coal...which is the other brilliant environmental policy of the McGuinty team in Canada's industrial heartland.
Also See:
GM
Social Ecology
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Katrina Mission Accomplished
A review of congressional testimony and other documents by Gulf Coast Reconstruction Watch found a total of at least $136.7 million in corporate fraud in Katrina-related contracts. In addition, government investigators have highlighted contracts cumulatively valued at $428.7 million that they found troubling because of lack of agency oversight or misappropriation.Profiting from Disaster: Greed Has Stallled Gulf Coast Recovery ...
Taxpayers around the nation who urged the federal government to pay for relief and reconstruction after Hurricane Katrina probably didn’t expect their money to be spent on $279 meals and $2,500 tarps. But according to a newly released report, corporations hired by the federal government have not only inflated costs but committed labor abuses and delayed the reconstruction process, making millions while local companies and workers have been left behind. Katrina Recovery Funds Wasted by Contractors, Govt.
Ever wonder what happened to all the foreign donations given to the United States in the aftermath of Katrina? It's not good news. It turns out that, like so much of the federal response to the crisis, the largest influx of foreign assistance to the US in memory was met with foot-dragging and clumsy bureaucracy. None of the donated funds has actually made its way to evacuees. What happened to the foreign cash for Katrina victims?
More Than Half of Congress' Katrina Money Unspent
Katrina Victims See Scant Evidence of Bush Funds in New Orleans
See Internationl Relief scams and scandals plaque the US just as they did the victims of the Tusanami in Indonesia and the earthquake in Pakistan. The difference is that under state capitalist regimes in Asia it is government inefficiency in the U.S. it is just the opposite.
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Post Katrina Monster Executed
Some days it is better to not have gotten out of bed.
And while this photo and story about the gator in Texas circualte this is also claimed to be a photo from Flordia from a year ago.
Both versions of this story can't be true, obviously — the big gator couldn't have been shot in Texas and Florida — but the emailed image of game warden Joe Goff striding beside the hulking alligator he shot and killed in April 2005 is authentic.Giant Gator Bagged in Texas (or Florida) - Netlore Archive
Of course the reality is all about photoshop and perspective. Sort of like what the Tories have done on their webpage.
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Saturday, August 26, 2006
Ignatieff NEP Lite
Liberal Leadership candidate Michael Ignatieff (The Man Who Would Be PET) has announced his Green Plan. Ignatieff proposes carbon tax at pump
In Alberta it reminds everyone, government and NDP opposition of the failed Trudeau NEP....not the NDP NEP which created PetroCanada and which rescued the declining petro industry in Calgary and Fort McMurray. But the Liberals tax and grab NEP....of course for Alberta Liberals, Ignatieff's plan reminds them of the NEP so they have been deafingly silent about it.
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Obama Misses The Real Crisis In Kenya
While lecturing Kenyans on AIDs the reality of poverty and famine in his familial homeland was overlooked by Democratic Senator Obama.
On his arrival earlier in Kisumu, he took an AIDS test at a local hospital with his wife Michelle, setting an example for the tens of thousands of Africans who fear the stigma of being tested for the disease ravaging sub-Saharan Africa
AIDs would be less of a problem if this was not happening;
Nightmare of Seeking Medical Care in N Kenya
or this;
The number of Kenyans in need of food aid has nearly doubled to almost four million,
Issues not addressed by the American Senator, showing that despite have his roots in Kenya, his focus is all American view that the only crisis in Africa is AIDS. Not the alarming poverty and cycle of famine that has succoured a mass of deadly tropical diseases, of which AIDS is only one.
U.S. Senator Barack Obama (C) gestures as holds his step grandmother Sarah Hussein Onyango Obama (R) as he returned to his ancestral rural village Kogelo August 26, 2006. REUTERS/Radu Sigheti
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Friday, August 25, 2006
Nuclear Chickens Come Home To Roost
US built major Iranian nuclear facility The Tehran Research Reactor represents a little-known aspect of the international uproar over the country's alleged weapons program. Not only did the U.S. provide the reactor in the 1960s as part of a Cold War strategy, America also supplied the weapons-grade uranium needed to power the facility—fuel that remains in Iran and could be used to help make nuclear arms.
Iran was under the Shah whom the CIA put in place....and whose CIA trained secret police put opposition activists in jail. Of course that was the Cold War and as a result the CIA created the mess in Iran. Just as they created the situation the mess in Afghanistan; by arming the Mujahadin. Which through internecine conflicts ended up with the dominace of the Taliban and their support from and for Al-Qaeda.
The American occupation of Afghanistan is due to the failure of US Cold War Imperialism.
Also See
CIA
Afghanistan
Iran
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Thursday, August 24, 2006
Oh he is a columnist
The bias at the National Pest is rearing its head again.
In a story on the Liberals Retreat to Vancouver, err retreat in Vancouver, John Ivison of the National Post says this; Liberals spent the previous evening patting themselves on the back at an event in Surrey, proud of being, in Michael Ignatieff's words, "the progressive social conscience of this country." But Lyotier's message mocks such complacency. That last sentence is an opinion by the writer, but it ran in the paper as a front page story, NOT identified as a column.
Though once you dig through the NP web site you find out that Ivison is listed as a columnist. Except he also is a reporter. So which is he? When is a column a news story and when is a news story a column?
Such media bias should set off the tinfoil hat crowd, except it's not CBC showing bias, it's the national media voice of the right wing. So I guess Scott Taylor won't be complaining about this. Nor will his pal and National Pest blogger Kinsella.
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National Post
Kinsella
Blogging Tories
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A new twist on Computer Crime
U.S. prosecutors allege that Sriskandarajah and Mylvaganam used their studies at the University of Waterloo as a cover for terrorist activities.U.S. officials claim the men approached high-tech companies for equipment they claimed was for "school projects" but was actually for Tamil fighters in Sri Lanka, according to a report in The Globe and Mail.RCMP arrest two more in alleged Tamil plot
Let us pause and see what it is he is accussed of doing. Basically, besides being linked to the attempted purchase of weapons in the U.S., which he was not 'directly' involved with, he is accussed of shipping computer software to the Tamil Tigers. Hello, computer software, not guns. Legally purchased military software. Only illegal because the Sri Lankan government bans access to it by the Tamil Tigers.And he did this PRIOR to the Conservatives banning the LTTE as a terrorist organization. So his arrest is 'after' the fact. The allegations are that he had organized a support group for the Tamil Tigers, however as far as the FBI accusations of his link to the gun buyers in the US, that is still unclear since their information is sealed. However the accusations he is facing in Canada are that he did something perfectly legal at the time, purchase computer software. The allegation that he supplied it to the Tigers is irrelevant since they were not designated a terrorist organization at the time.
His extradition to the United States should NOT BEALLOWED. This should be challenged on the grounds that a Canadian citizen should not be charged in Canada with commiting an offense in the U.S. which is what he is being charged with.
Here is his home page.
Also See:
Sri Lanka A Marxist View
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