Israel Lies Cost Lebanese Lives

Well the truth comes out. Israel was to blame for the loss of its soldiers, which set off this summers war on Lebanon. It was all a pretext to invade and destroy their neighbour who is in economic competition with them.

Of course it was also a benefit to the US which wanted Israel to show off its military strength in the region as a warning to Iran.

The result was thousands of civilian lives lost in Lebanon, the destruction of the Lebanese infrastructure. A war crime by any other name.

But it also showed that Israels military might was not up to the task of taking on a locally based resistance movement. Something the US has failed to learn as well in Iraq and Afghanistan.

And Israel still does not have its captured soldiers. Which was the pretext for the war in the first place.

Israeli army blamed for for Hezbollah capture of soldiers

A panel investigating the capture of two Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah on July 12 this year, has blamed the Israeli military. Investigators concluded the Israeli military ignored intelligence warnings that Hezbollah would attempt to abduct soldiers, and that there would be a major escalation on the Israel-Lebanon border in 2006. They also found the military was lax in protecting the border. The patrol that was ambushed by Hezbollah acted 'almost as though it was going on a hike,' investigators said.

The July 12 abduction led to a month-long war which resulted in the deaths of 1,500 people, mostly Lebanese civilians, severely damaged Lebanese civilian infrastructure, displaced about 900,000 Lebanese and 300,000 Israelis, and disrupted normal life across all of Lebanon and northern Israel.

Also See:

Lebanon

Israel

Imperialism

Iran







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The Joys Of Privatized Medicine

Here is another example of the perils of privatized medicine. I love the headline. As I have said before the business press tells it like it is.

A private monopoly threaens non-profit medicine in the U.S. But hey its a 'private' monopoly which the right wing loves they just hate 'public' monopolies. Here a private monopoly threatens the very existance of non-profits. Thats American competition for ya. The competition is not between capitalist corporations but between a private monopoly and public services. The monopoly will win of course. And that will leave the non profits relying on further taxpayer subsidies to make up for their loss.

Now if America had socialized medicine like Canada then the 'advantages' of cost reductions this private monopoly has would be a public advantage. Something the US state refuses to do right now under the Bush regime, which is use its economic clout to buy drugs at a discount.

Cancer Capitalists

Cancer treatment is one of the few bright spots on Dr. Dale Fell's income statement. His nonprofit Mission Hospital in Asheville, N.C. loses money on its emergency room, its pediatric division and its care for indigents. But not on radiation used to zap tumors at a cost of up to $50,000 per patient. Oncologists send 1,700 patients a year to Fell's hospital, one of two in western North Carolina with a radiation department.

Then last fall US Oncology, the giant cancer care services company, received approval from state regulators to buy a linear accelerator and launch its own radiation department three miles away from Mission. "This could cripple us," Fell says. He has sued state regulators, alleging us Oncology's radiation license violates state law.

Founded in 1999, US Oncology manages the business affairs of 1,000 cancer doctors, injecting practices with financial savvy and a competitiveness seldom seen in medicine. US Oncology's affiliated physicians treat 550,000 patients a year--one in seven new cancer sufferers. The company helps practices claim bigger chunks of the $80 billion cancer care market by recruiting new physicians, adding treatments and conducting clinical trials. It recently became the nation's single largest purchaser of chemotherapy drugs, spending a projected $2 billion this year. The clout allows US Oncology's doctors to demand drugs at a 24% discount on wholesale prices. US Oncology booked $239 million in operating income (defined as earnings before interest, taxes and depreciation) in 2005, on revenue of $2.5 billion.

The company has attracted a swarm of critics, often nonprofit or community hospitals, alleging that US Oncology destroys the fragile local economics of the U.S. health care system. The company has had to defend four whistleblower lawsuits alleging improper Medicare billing. (None went to trial.) Nonprofit hospitals in North Carolina have accused it of trying to push through anticompetitive legislation to help carve out a monopoly.

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Capitalism Is Not Sustainable

The Conservatives state the obvious, that Canada has not met its Kyoto targets. They then dismiss the targets as impossible to meet so why bother trying. But the fact is that the world has also missed its Kyoto targets.

Greenhouse emissions grow more rapidly

Greenhouse gas emissions have been increasing four times as fast as in the 1990s, giving added urgency to international talks on climate change. Research carried out for Unesco found on Friday that the rate of increase in emissions from burning fossil fuels between 2000 and 2005 was four times that between 1990 and 2000.

The reason? Globalization and the spread of fordist production models of capitalism.

The accelerated rise is a result of rapid growth in developing economies such as China, India and Brazil, as well as the failure of developed countries such as the US to mitigate their greenhouse gas output. Even in countries such as the UK, which is on target to meet its Kyoto commitment to cut emissions by 2012 by 12.5 per cent compared with 1990 levels, emissions have been rising in recent years.

Ironically theConservatives are partially right, the solution is not more Kyoto but the elimination of capitalism. Since the 'scientific' evidence shows captialism is not sustainable, but the very cause of global warming, either in its monopoly corporate model or it's state capitalist model.

Paul Crutzen, professor of chemistry at the Max Plank Institute for Chemistry in Germany and a Nobel Prize winner, said: “The jump in emissions is remarkable. One would expect a smoother transition but it seems there has been a tremendous shift in the past five years.

The lower rate in the 1990s was most likely due to the collapse of the communist regime. Unfortunately, once emissions go up it’s very hard to bring them down
again.”

Capitalism is a system that is unique, it is not merely an economic system but a system that requires production of value, not use value; that is material goods, but exchange value. In order to continue to make 'profits', interest, credit, exchange rates,etc. it must conitually expand and grow. Capitalism is rapacious growth for its own sake.

No reform of capitalism, no exchange of carbon credits, no green technology can save the planet from captials dominion.

Only we can. The Internationale, speaks of the Working Class, the proletariat, becoming the human race.

Arise, the damned of the earth,
Arise, prisoners of hunger,
For reason thunders in its crater,
It is the eruption of the end!
Let us make a blank slate of the past,
Army of slaves, arise, arise!
The world is changing at the base,
We who have been nothing, let's be everything!
|: This is the final struggle
Let us gather, and tomorrow
The Internationale
Will be mankind! :|

As long as the class system exists, as long as we work as cogs in the global capitalist machine, we are doomed to planetary ecological destruction. When we recognize our interests as a species, as the human race and abolish the class society and capitalism only then will we be able to save the planet. Otherwise we will continue to be trapped in the no sum game of jobs or the environment, short term gain for long term pain.

Real class conciousness is planetary conciousness, species conciousness, which is why Marx declared that for the destruction of capialism to occur we need to abolish the proletariat, thus we need to abolish class relations, the very social structure of capitalism; producer, worker, consumer, owner, employee, all of these relations reduce our human-ness, and thus our species being.

And as such these social relations of capitalism are poisioning the planet. Not bad corporations or negligent nation sates, but the very social relationships we share under and through capitalism.

The German Social Democrats hoped that capitalism would evolve into socialism, the revolutionary social democrats of the Third International thought a revolution in production would change capitalism into socialism.

But that has not occured. Because the socialism they envisioned was not socialism but a better reformed capitalism. A friendlier nicer capitalism. We need to abolish capitalism, and create a society based on our common humanity, of production for use not exchange. That is real socialism,the abolition of the wage system and that is the only solution to the environmental crisis that faces our species and all other species on the planet. Anything less will reduce us in the next century to barbarism.

The choice is clear Socialism or Barbarism.

Also See

Kyoto

A Critique of Kyoto Capitalism Is NOT Sustainable

Socialism

industrial ecology

Social Ecology.

Green Capitalism



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Liberal Or liberal Media

Back in the days when Toronto Sun columnist and right wing nutbar Lubor Zink would rant on about the liberal left media bias he meant 'liberal' veruses 'conservative'. You know like J.S. Mills versus Edmund Burke. Today's Blogging Tory no longer makes such distinctions. They talk about the Liberal Media bias as in Liberal Party of Canada, versus the Harpocrite Conservatives.

They view the corporate boards of the Globe and Mail and the Toronto Star as havens of Liberal backroom boys. And they are right. But that is no different than the havens of Conservative backroom boys in the Sun chain or the National Post and the Asper dominated media. But that is not the same thing as liberal or conservative politics, it is PARTY politics. And as such both parties have left and right, liberal and conservative adovactes.

So lets get off our high horses and stop the generalizations about the media and which ideology dominates it. It is one thing to point out the corporate political party interconnections, but to blanketly condemn the media as being too left, too liberal when really speaking of it being Liberal or Conservative is to mix metaphors. The press is the agent of capitalism right or left, liberal or conservative, Liberal Party or Conservative Party. It is a capitalist press and will always defend the status quo.

Which is why I read the Financial and Business Press, they speak the truth about capitalism and power. Whomever they support politically you know will be good for capitalism. And those they oppose may not be bad for capitalism perse but just not as good for their readership.

See:

Media Bias


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Post Your Own Caption

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White Poppy Debate

The debate over wearing white poppies for Rememberance Day was not just a story in Edmonton or in Canada. It was a world wide debate this weekend.

Lest We Forget

White Poppies

Afghanistan






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Words of Wisdom

From veterans on Rememberance Day. Something that armchair warmongers like Harper will never understand because they never have been in combat.

Afghanistan puts new slant on day

Military mourners called it a different Remembrance Day than most - 34 soldiers have died in Afghanistan this year, and while troop support remains high, criticism of the mission is mounting.

"I have the utmost respect for our soldiers, but honestly, we need to get the hell out of (Afghanistan)," said Leduc native Wave Reynar, a man most military types would listen to.

The 62-year-old is a recently retired U.S. Marine Corps gunnery sergeant, who's fought in Vietnam, Granada, Iraq, and saw legions of casualties while serving in Beirut.

War has brought him silver and bronze stars, lunches with U.S. presidents, and even a purple heart.

But it's also brought grief - Reynar's son was killed in Iraq.

"That miserable war isn't worth one more life," Reynar said before bursting into tears at the Leduc Legion, where he was celebrating Remembrance Day with friends, among them several members of the RCMP.

Aart Van Sloten - would-be father-in-law of slain soldier Cpl. Ainsworth Dyer, killed in the 2002 friendly fire incident in Afghanistan - agreed dialogue over pulling out is reasonable.

He spoke after attending a Remembrance Day ceremony at Rundle park yesterday at a bridge named in Dyer's honour.

"We send troops to the armpit of the world and they go through hard times there. No one likes war and every time we hear of another soldier's death it gets harder.

See:

Lest We Forget

White Poppies

Afghanistan






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Eating Raoul

Recent findings about early hominds shows that they were not vegan as earlier thought. Which was the reason scientists thought they became extinct.

Hominid extinction theory long in the tooth

The findings came as a surprise, since Paranthropus had previously been thought to have a fairly unvaried diet, especially when compared with the emerging hominids from the genus Homo - the line we are descended from. Their finicky eating had been cited as one of the reasons Paranthropus eventually went extinct in the face of a drying African continent. Meanwhile, the varied tastes of Homo meant it was better equipped to handle changing environmental conditions."Since we have now shown Paranthropus was flexible in its eating habits over both short and long intervals, we probably need to look to other biological, cultural or social differences to explain its ultimate fate," said lead author Matt Sponheimer.

So why did they become extinct?

Well perhaps it was because our ancestors ate them.

After all some folks still eat our primate cousins. Something the scientists have overlooked.

the food supply of the Huaroni tribe, who has lived in the rainforest for thousands of years and is one of the last tribes in the Amazon to voluntarily live in seclusion in the rainforest, Hartley says.They’re not farmers, she says, but hunter-gatherers, so they rely on eating monkeys, snakes and birds, among other things.

Of course eating our relatives is a bad idea. For several reasons. Not the least is it leads to their extinction. And it could lead to ours.

Team finds HIV-related virus in gorillas
In May, the same research team published results tracing the seeds of the AIDS pandemic to chimpanzees living in Cameroon. At the time, scientists reported evidence - gathered through genetic analysis of fecal samples - that chimps were infected with HIV-1 by eating infected prey monkeys and, in turn, humans became infected by butchering infected chimps for food.

And it is of course a moral issue as well. Which maybe why scientists have not looked at this possibility as the reason for the extinction of prehistoric non-homo hominds.

Drive to give 'human' rights to apes leaves Spanish divided
Spain could soon become the first country in the world to give chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans and other great apes some of the fundamental rights granted to human beings under a law being proposed by members of the ruling Socialist coalition.

Moral 'bastards' have brain hormone problems
Research by primatologists Sarah Brosnan and Frans de Waal at Emory University has shown that monkeys also have what look like moral values. When two monkeys work for food, a fair split is expected. If a fair division is not received, it elicits cries of outrage and hurled food by the wronged partner. Moral values have powerful physiological representations in humans, too, and we feel them strongly when they are violated.

See:

Evolution

Primates

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Psychedelic Saskatchewan

There are series of new academic papers and a documentary film published by U of A researcher Erika Dyck on the Weyburn Saskatchewan LSD experiments done in the fifties and sixties.

LSD finds new respectability

Old research on LSD treatment for alcoholism gets new look ...

LSD & Alcoholism Treatment: Saskatchewan Alcoholism Treatment with LSD

'Hitting Highs at Rock Bottom': LSD Treatment for Alcoholism

Long-forgotten LSD treatment might aid alcoholics start a trip to recovery


The Weyburn experiments along with later research by Leary, Albert, etc. proved LSD was a useful and safe drug.

It had to be safe or of course the CIA would never have used it. However the CIA planted stories in the press about LSD suicides, LSD users going blind staring at the sun, all of which were fictions like WMD in Iraq.

In Canada and the US counter studies were used to 'prove' LSD was harmful. Of course as most LSD users and researchers know it is all about the 'setting'. If you are in a secure comfortable setting you have a good trip. Being strapped down and tortured of course would create a bad trip.

The Saskatchewan results were soon attacked by institutions including the Toronto-based Addiction Research Foundation. It argued Osmond's research, in which subjects were given LSD in comfy surroundings and stimulated with art or music, was poorly designed and proved nothing. In contrast, the foundation sometimes blindfolded or restrained its LSD test subjects to isolate the effect of the drug. It failed to reproduce the Saskatchewan results, a finding that, combined with growing social concern about LSD, eventually led to the end of research into such therapy.

Well of course they failed, they deliberately did not use empirical research to 'duplicate' the experiment. They used a different technique, one closely resembling torture, to disprove the Weyburn experiments. They of course had an agenda, one that was anti-LSD and thus anti-scientific.



See:

LSD




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Republican Runs In London Byelection

Dianne Haskett claimed she moved to Washington for her daughters sake. In reality she went to hone her skills as a neo-con Republican.

Of course Washington has more private schools than London Ontario does, so she was able to kill two birds with one stone. In this case she not only sent her daughter to a Christian private school but got on the board as a Trustee.

Haskett's role as a trustee of Trinity Christian School in Fairfax, Va. -- in subuurban Washington, where the former London mayor has been living -- and her past assertion she can't separate her religious beliefs from her politics. Children at Trinity, the alert from the Walker camp, noted, are taught creationism, while Darwin's theory of evolution is debunked.

She was also a trustee at the Trinity Christian School in Fairfax, Virginia, where the upper-level reading list prescribes that students read Charles Darwin's The Origin of the Species -- the blueprint for the theory of evolution. The book is "essential reading in order to better understand the mindset of those who profess no faith in Christ and creation."

Now she is running for MP in the London By-election. She has two American elections under her belt as a rightwing republican policy wonk. Of course being well versed in Republican talking points may be why the Conservatives have shut her up during this election.

Her communications director is currently employed by the Federal Government which begs the question what the hell is he doing working at taxpayers expense in a partisan election campaign?

Ryan Sparrow, who has worked in media relations for Stephen Harper and federal Environment Minister Rona Ambrose;Sparrow has been limiting media access to Haskett, suggesting media requests don't match her availability.

Of course this not the first time this bigoted right winger has used the Silence Is Golden tactic.

Byelection candidate has sport with Tory rival

The Liberal candidate in a federal byelection has launched a backhanded appeal on behalf of his Conservative counterpart, who he says is being "unfairly muzzled."

Dianne Haskett, 51, is an accomplished politician who served London as mayor for six years before moving to Washington in 2000, where she did volunteer work for Republican Senator Elizabeth Dole. She is also an evangelical Christian who attracted a human rights complaint in the mid-1990s when, as mayor, she refused to sanction a gay pride parade in London.

A request by The Canadian Press for an interview with Haskett, as part of a riding profile, was rebuffed earlier this week after her campaign sought the request in writing. Haskett, a former two-term London mayor, has not granted an interview to national media since entering the race late last month

And the Tories are hoping for a win so they can have another vote against Same Sex Marriage. And she of course will support the current attack by the Harpocrites on the Judiciary in Canada.

And what about the Tories concern about Canadians with Dual Citizenship? I guess that only applies to Lebanese Canadians not American/Canadians like Haskett. Mind you they did pay to airlift her out of Washington to parachute her into the London By-election.

Contradictions abound within the Haskett mindset, she is a Monarchist who supports Republicans. Mind you that is no less a contradiction than this description of her politics; Ms. Haskett is a right-leaning liberal and religious evangelical -- a member of the largest United Church in Canada, Metropolitan of London. She considered running federally for the Liberals and, at one point, cautiously investigated becoming a part of whatever was to come out of the United Alternative. The UA of course was the move to merge the Reform Party with the Conservatives. Liberal, Reformer, Republican, Tory, opportunist.

Dianne Haskett - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

After Haskett's second, three-year term as mayor expired in December of 2000, she, her husband and daughter moved to Fairfax, Virginia, working with two D.C. area law firms in planning and implementing strategic business development and providing assistance in their immigration and estate planning work. Haskett completed her second Master's Law Degree in the Spring of 2005 from The George Washington University Law School in Washington, D.C.. She also passed the Washington D.C. Bar exam and was sworn in as an attorney and member of the DC Bar in December, 2005.

Haskett has also been involved in a number of other projects in the Washington, D.C. area, including speechwriting, research and marketing and acting in an advisory capacity in Senate and Congressional campaigns. She worked as a communications adviser and researcher for Republican Senator Elizabeth Dole.^[3] She is a member of the Board of Trustees for the International Center for Religion and Diplomacy in Washington, D.C. and of Trinity Christian School of Fairfax, Virginia.

Tory byelection candidate tied to U.S. faith-based diplomacy group

The Conservative candidate running in next month's Ontario byelection spent part of the last six years on the board of a group that promotes the "reconciliation principles of Jesus" as a means of resolving international political crises and advocates the U.S. government create the post of "religion attache" to help defuse sectarian conflict around the world.

Dianne Haskett, the former mayor of London, Ont., was a board member of the International Center for Religion and Diplomacy, a Washington-based, inter-faith organization that seeks to "live (Jesus') example by linking religious reconciliation with official and unofficial diplomacy in addressing ethnic conflict, tribal warfare," according to a website describing the group.

It has urged the U.S. State Department to "elevate the consideration of religious factors in foreign policy" by attaching American religious leaders to embassies in the Arab world, Asia, Africa and Latin America. The group believes conflicts are increasingly rooted in religious differences, and need a religious approach.

"Religion's importance will only continue to increase in response to the growing threat to traditional values posed by economic globalization and ... the revolutionary pace of technology change," wrote Douglas Johnston, the group's founder. "To underestimate these realities in the formulation of U.S. foreign policy is to tempt the gods, so to speak."

Richard Hudler v. City of London & Mayor Dianne Haskett

Board Decision - October 7, 1997

Key Words: Services; Sexual Orientation; Direct & Indirect Discrimination; Discretion

The complainant brought a complaint, on behalf of himself and the Homophile Association of London Ontario (HALO), against the Mayor of London, after she refused to grant a municipal proclamation of . Pride Weekend. in July, 1995. The complaint alleged discrimination with respect to services because of sexual orientation. The complaint also alleged discrimination by the City of London when City Council failed to grant the proclamation in the face of the Mayor's refusal.

The Board of Inquiry found that the Mayor and City Council discriminated against the complainant and HALO. The Board concluded that the Mayor did not issue the proclamation because the request came from a group whose membership identified themselves as gay and lesbian. The Board also found that the Mayor's policy, which refused to grant proclamation based on . sexuality. , had a differential impact on the gay and lesbian community. The Board refused to employ s. 2(b) freedom of expression Charter principles to insulate the Mayor's actions from scrutiny, and dilute the purposes of the Code. The Board awarded the complainant $10,000 in damages, holding the Mayor and the City jointly and severally liable. In addition, the Board ordered that the City proclaim any future requests for Pride Day/Weekend, and make a commitment to investigate ways of fostering improved relations with the Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual communities of London.

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