Life Goes On

This is good news. Life will survive a nuclear war/nuclear winter. Of course not human life.....

Scientists Discover Bacteria That Use Radiated Water as Food; 'A Completely Different World'

Subterranean bacteria hint at life on Mars



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Wetmonton

Hark what light on yonder window breaks....why it's the sun....after weeks of depressing overcast weather and cold rain.If I wanted to live on the Wet Coast I would move there. But for the past three weeks Edmonton has had rain. Rain in October.

Not exactly our normal weather for the fall. Sigh. But at least it's a dry rain ;)

Rainfall in Edmonton varies from 36.0 to 258.0 (mm/month).

Rain mm inch 500 20 400 16 300 12 200 8 100 4 0 0 J F M A M J J A S O N D

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Ralph Keynes

Oh what a clown King Ralph is. Having spent a decade denouncing Keynesianism, he ups and turns out to be one....

Klein's advice to cities illogical

Ralph Klein found the biggest cow pie in the field this week and jumped right in -- with both feet.

The premier now says Edmonton and Calgary should put off building new roads and arenas because it's just too expensive in this overheated economy. Don't worry about all those new citizens who need libraries, more transit and fire halls.

"Delay the projects. Put them on hold until they're affordable," thundered Klein, who will retire shortly -- though it's not soon enough in our view.

The premier then proceeded to pass on a little helpful advice.

"The best time to build is during a recession or depression. That's when you get the best possible prices," he said.

Really? So why did Klein spend a decade doing exactly the opposite?

Because he is a neo-con who said Keynesianism was dead all that is important is to fight the debt and deficit. And of course toss in the privatizing of public services, which leads to private profit at public expense.

Shame on Ralph

Alberta Liberals say Ralph Klein is being hypocritical for telling cities to delay projects with runaway costs when his own government is routinely approving massive cost increases on its own projects.

The Liberals produced documents showing more than 50 projects with cost overruns as high as 106% in the past two years - and that doesn't even include recent projects.

"Ralph is saying you have to get your costs under control," said Liberal MLA Maurice Tougas.

"Maybe he should practise what he preaches. We've found cost overruns by the truckload."

Tougas said he was concerned millions of dollars in overruns are being quietly approved behind closed doors without any discussion in the legislature.

See:

Klein


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PET Would Not Be Amused

The quiet death of Trudeau Liberalism. Grits declare Quebec a nation And the guy touted as the New Trudeau, well he ain't. Frontrunner Michael Ignatieff was among those to welcome the move. "I speak for those who say Quebec is a nation, but Canada is my country," Ignatieff said in his opening remarks.

Of course the NDP already beat them to it.



Also See

Liberal Leadership Race



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The Church of Global Warming

It appears that the some in the Evangelical Movement in the United States have seen the light and are now concerned that Global Warming might not be good for God's creatures.

In other words Global Warming must be the work of the Devil. After all Satan's abode does produce a lot of Greehouse Gases.

And Lucifer ,as Promethean Man, is the meme for fire which leads to industrialization.

Took them long enough to realize what William Blake did three hundred years ago when he denounced capitalism for it's dark satanic mills.

Of course these evangelists aren't that radical.

Holy Global Warming!

An alignment of faith, science for the planet's sake




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More Corporate Welfare

During her press conference on the Tories Hot Air Act Environment Minister Rona Ambrose tossed about the phrase CO2 sequestration It is experimental technology and it is being developed in Socialist Saskatchewan thanks to government funding.

Now this is interesting the guys who are making record profits want more government handouts to create Greenhouse Gas Technology. CO2 sequestration to be exact. And that is what the Tories Hot Air act promises, an infrastructure fund. A fund paid for by taxpayers, not by fining business or taxing them for their Greenhouse Gas emissions. More corporate welfare from the New Canadian Government just like the Old Canadian Government.

Alberta's booming oilpatch pleased with Ottawa's new clean air act
In April, Shell Canada CEO Clive Mather said the energy giant was in the early stages of lobbying officials in Ottawa and Alberta to develop a framework for an emissions market and help fund infrastructure to make such a project, commercially viable.

CO2 sequestration is being looked at not to reduce Greenhouse Gases, but as a way of extracting Methane gas from coal and for Natural Gas extraction. Business after all doesn't exist to be charitable or do good for the environment unless there is a profit in it.

Study Finds Plenty of Carbon Dioxide Storage Capacity Underground

Geologic sequestration refers to the process of permanent underground storage of carbon dioxide captured from sources such as coal-fired power plants, cement plants, and others manufacturing plants. Widespread deposits of shale are generally thought to be the seal or cap for deeper storage reservoirs that would prevent sequestered CO2 from leaking to the surface. Injection of CO2 into black gas-producing shales may have an additional value of enhancing the recovery of natural gas.

However as with so called clean coal technology this too is experimental and may not actually work.

US researchers who injected carbon dioxide in a depleted oil field in Texas found it caused the minerals underground to dissolve, raising fresh doubts about carbon capture and storage technology as a viable solution to global warming.


Of course that makes it a risky investment. Risk is of course something capitalists abhor, so pass it on to the taxpayers instead with a innovation fund as proposed by the Tories with their Hot Air Act. Which Shell lobbied for.

As my pal Larry Gambone calls it Socialism for the Rich. Public investment for private profit.

The irony in all this is that the forests in Canada are the largest carbon sink going, they actually scrub the CO2 out of the air, but are being destroyed for the sake of the lumber industry. Another of the contradictons of capitalism, which is not sustainable.

See:

Ambrose

Environment

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Time To Resign

Remember this; Environmentalists call for Ambrose to resign, that was back in May.

Now that she has proven she is a shill for the oil industry, with her hot air act, that makes it even more of a reason to call for her resignation.

Clean Air Act wins plaudits from business

A tip o' the blog to Devin Johnston for this.

See:

Ambrose

Environment

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Whistle Blower

In a Globe and Mail story on the WestJet scandal and the whistleblower who exposed WestJets rip off of confidential Air Canada computer information, the whistleblower; Melvin Crothers, may have had more than just good intentions for his actions. Mr. Crothers made $180,000 a year at Signature Vacations in the late 1990s, plus bonuses. At WestJet, he drew an annual salary of $50,000. Hell hath no fury like an employee scorned.

Comments on this story were rather interesting with several commentators calling him a rat and a snitch. These are probably the same people that approve of scabbing during strikes.

The fact is that Westjet owners, you know those folks who work for Westjet and are featured on their TV ads, aren't. They may have profit sharing but the ownership is a fiction, it is WestJets way of avoiding unionization. The real owner is Clive Bedoe who is the guy responsible for the WestJet/ Air Canada scandal.WestJet CEO used purloined data, court files show

And of course while the whistle blower is fired the big guy keeps his job. It's business as usual.

As a result of the legal suit between Air Canada and West Jet, they both collude to appear as good corporate citizens.Air Canada, WestJet feeling charitable
Call it forced charity, the result of the court case not corporate generosity. Since both companies are making record profits, at the expense of their workers.

The funniest thing about all this is that Westjet is awarded for having the best corporate culture in Canada. Of course they overlooked the fact that it is also a 'criminal' corporate culture. Who say's crime doesn't pay.


See:

Criminal Capitalism



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Make Robert Milton Happy

This should be good news to Robert Milton CEO of Air Canada, it's what he has been waiting for; open skies. Remember Open Skies....it was brought into Canada by the Mulroney Conservatives as part of NAFTA and allowed for the privatization of Air Canada. it led to the death of Canadian Airlines and the small air carriers to be swallowed up by the privatized monopoly.

Capitalists love privatized monopolies, which is what happens with globalization. And thats what United is hoping for. Since it is the only airline in the U.S. that is not teetering on bankruptcy, with foreign ownership, say ACE which is the parent company of Air Canada and rolling in dough, it could buy up its competition and we could end up with two or three airlines operating in contiental North America.

United CEO: Bring globalization to US airlines

United CEO Glenn Tilton is calling on U.S. regulators to lift ownership restrictions that limit how much of a U.S. airline can be owned by foreign investors. Such rules have so far blocked a global consolidation that some in the industry say is needed, Tilton says. "U.S. airlines should have the right to grow their businesses in the global marketplace," Tilton is quoted as saying Thursday to the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. "It's about time we abandon the policy of fragmentation," he adds. Reuters writes that "Tilton, long an advocate for international airline partnerships, reiterated his view that foreign airlines are better positioned to thrive than those in the United States partly because foreign carriers face fewer restrictions to cross-border consolidation." Current rules dictate that U.S. carriers must be controlled by American citizens, though foreign investors are allowed to hold up to 25% of a U.S. airline's voting stock. Reuters adds that "there is little or no foreign investment because of [that] long-standing federal regulation that prohibits overseas interests from having a say in airline operations."

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Fox Guarding Hen House

Remember those coal mining disasters last year in the United States, they weren't a problem of enforcement of the law, say corporate apologists, just mine companies failures to comply with exisiting regulations, and this guy should know....

Ignoring Senate, Bush Taps Mine Exec to be Safety Chief

The Senate has refused to confirm former coal company executive Richard Stickler as the head of the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA). So, while they were out, Bush gave him a recess appointment to the post. According to the Charleston Gazette, Stickler's mines had accident rates of twice the national average. At a Senate hearing in March, Stickler explained that if U.S. mines were unsafe, it wasn't an "enforcement problem," merely a "compliance problem.".

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