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)
Saturday, November 18, 2006
No Nukes
Our PM denounces nukes in North Korea but remains silent about that other rogue nation that has nukes and does not belong to the Non-Proliferation Pact; India.
Opps thats right we sold them the nuclear reactors.
See:
India
Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
Harper, PM, Conservatives, Canada, US, Senate, India, nuclear-power, nukes, nuclear-weapons, Korea, North-Korea, Non-proliferation, WMD
More On Friedman
Two good articles on the death of the daddy of neo-conservative economics; Milton Friedman.
Relentlessly Progressive Economics
and
Milton Friedman and the Economics of Empire
Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
Milton, Friedman, VonMises, Hayek, Keynes, Schumpeter, Galbraith, neo-con, austrian-school, economics, nobel, American, Chigaco-school, Pinochet, inflation, monetarism, Chile, death, obituary
Made In Canda Kyoto Accord
Congratulations to Rona Ambrose for getting the UN to sign on to her Made In Canada Kyoto accord.
It is a pragmatic decision, one that recognizes that you cannot reform capitalism to make it sustainable. Now lets get on with making lots of money before the heat death of the planet.
The agreement imposes no new emissions-cutting commitments on countries but it keeps the Kyoto process alive at a time when some feared the whole effort could collapse.
"Canada's very pleased with the outcomes," Environment Minister Rona Ambrose said.
Member countries acknowledged for the first time that global carbon dioxide emissions must be cut 50 per cent to avoid dangerous climate change.
Industrial countries hope the next phase of the treaty will involve new commitments by developing countries, especially China and India, but this is not a sure thing.
Environmentalists were disappointed, saying the conference did not recognize the need for urgent action.
Following a long week of criticism, blame and damage control, Environment Minister Rona Ambrose said she was finally ready to show the world Canada can make the Kyoto Protocol a success back at home."When I was appointed as environment minister, we were faced with a very difficult challenge, and at that time, I was very hesitant about saying that we would participate in this protocol in the way that we hoped we could," she said.
"We've made a lot of progress in the last nine months to make sure that we can align our domestic policy with what we'd like to do internationally _ with our international obligations _ and so now we can say that."
See:
Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
Kyoto, Canada, Ambrose, Harper, Industrial-ecology, carbon-credits, EU, pollution
Kyoto, Canada,nuclear, climate-change, Conservatives, Liberals, government, environment, oil, electricity, capitalism, sustainablity
Censorship and Art
Very early on, proponents of modernism were demagogued as radicals, anarchists, and communists. This strategy proved spectacularly effective for opponents of modernist designs for public murals, such as Diego Rivera’s infamous Man at the Crossroads. Rivera included an image of Vladimir Lenin that outraged the press and led to the mural’s destruction by angry workmen. Visual Shock: A History of Art Controversies in American Culture
Actually the so called angry workmen were nothing of the sort, they were hired hands of Rockefeller who commissioned the mural by Diego Rivera for the Rockefeller Center. Controversy erupted over the mural and the managers of the Rockefeller Center demanded the removal of Lenin.
"Seeking a compromise, Rockefeller suggested that Rivera should replace Lenin with some unknown face; the artist offered to add Lincoln but refused to expunge Lenin. Charged with willful propagandizing, he declared only that "All art is propaganda." Since he had accepted his payment, Rivera was unable to force the Rockefellers to exhibit or even keep his work. The mural was subsequently removed from the wall..." The Encyclopedia of Censorship, J. Green, Facts on File, pg. 254
Diego Rivera & André Breton |
See:
100 years of the Avante Garde 1905 2005
Oriental Origins of Post modernism
Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
Diego, rivera, Lenin, mural, Rockefeller, art, modernism, anarchism, trotskyism, surreralism, Breton, Trotsky, Lenin, revolutionary-art,
Reds Under The Bed
In the early days of the Cold War and during the Post McCarthy Anti-Communist Witch hunts paranoid nutbars of the extreme right found communist conspiracies everywhere. It was the politics of fear; Reds Under The Bed of the None Dare Call It Conspiracy crowd.
With the decline of the New Left at the end of the seventies, McCarthyism rose again in the New Right under Reagan. They launched the new culture wars of the eighties and ninties. The same McCartyhite mentality was used to attack academics, universities etc. It is still going on. As one can see daily on American cable news TV or the attacks on unothodox academics of the left such as Ward Churchill and Noam Chomsky.
The Culture War of the Right is really just good old McCarthyism without the power of the Senate and HUAC. But it is no less paranoid, and no less ridiculous. Oh yes it is now being called The War On Christianity.
Marxist Subversion And Perversion Of America's Youth
By Linda Kimball
The plain truth is that both the GSA and Gay, Lesbian, Straight Educators Network (GLSEN), the organization that registers GSAs, are part of a vast, interconnected network of Cultural Marxist front groups known collectively as the New Left. For over forty years, the New Left -- a collection of Marxists, Stalinists, Trotskyites, Maoists, and anarchists have been waging a Gramscian style "quiet revolution" for the overthrow of Christianity and America's Constitution, Rule of Law, sovereignty, and way of life.
While propagandists in the media have deftly kept the attention of most folks riveted on what they've been told to believe are the 'real threats' to America, such as gas prices, genuine Christianity, and mad cow disease, Marxist-trained psychopoliticians, propagandists, and change agents have descended upon the schools and are subjecting children and older youth to thought control and social re-engineering methodologies.
Intellectual Indoctrination and Academic Fraud at Temple University
By David Horowitz and Jacob Laksin
The faculty treatments of Marx on the Intellectual Heritage Department website lack the basic apparatus of academic inquiry. No critical literature on Marx and Marxism is offered. There is no confrontation with the most serious question that a thinker like Marx poses, since his ideas have had a vast and vastly destructive impact on the history of mankind, namely: Did these ideas lead directly to the murder of 100 million human beings and the poverty of billions? Judging from the Intellectual Heritage webpages, Temple students are not even aware that this question needs to be asked.
Linda Kimball a fundamentalist evangelical born again right winger goes at it again falsifying history and the facts to create confusion, hysteria to justify her political witchhunt. She is in good company with former New Leftist turned right wing conspiracy theorist David Horowitz.
Kimball blames Gramsci for the subversion of America. Funny that he spent his years in an Italian jail under Mussolini, and died there. His prison notebooks are not exactly a dick and jane reader issued to students in schools.
Horowitz makes the usual right wing claim that Marx=Stalin, which of course is a perjorative canard. That's like saying Adam Smith=The Great Depression which is equally untrue.
For folks complaining of the Left taking over society these intellectual dunces use some flimsy arguments. But then again the basis of the right wing attack on the left is the Big Lie. Repeat the same unfounded accusations over and over again. Hence Kimball and Horowitz=Goebbels.
See:
Secular Democracy
Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
David Horowitz, Linda Kimball, Trosky, Trotskyism, Neo-con, Frontpage, Ramparts, Gramsci, Marx, Goebbels, War on Christianity, Culture War, New Right, conservatives, None Dare Call It Conspiracy, McCarthyism, New Left, gay rights, schools, academics, conspiracy theories, reds under the bed, anti-communism,
Friday, November 17, 2006
Not So Cute Seals
Now if only this had been a leopard seal there would be no divorce.
See:
Seal Hunt
Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
movies, penquins, seals, happy-feet
Cats and Dogs
Woman claims puppies were born to cat
Brazilian says neighborhood mutt impregnated feline; tests due next week
Reuters
MEOW-WOOF?: A Brazilian family claim their cat has given birth to kittens with dog-like traits, threeUnlikely hybrids have happened before but always between closely related species.
Lions and tigers have produced 'ligers', while a 'wolphin', half killer whale and half bottlenose dolphin, also exists. - Ananova.com
Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
Brazil, cat, dog, puppies, birth, biology,
Scoop
Prime Minister Tony Blair will be one of the first interviewees on the English-language version of Arab news channel al-Jazeera, it was reported. He will be interviewed by veteran broadcaster Sir David Frost on his show, Frost Over The World on Friday.
See:
Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
al-Jazeera, media, David, Frost, Tony, Blair, english-language-al-Jazeera
400 Year Old Nanotechnology
The Arabs do it again. But how did they do it? It is still a mystery.
A team led by Peter Paufler, a physicist at Germany's Technical University of Dresden, recently made that discovery when the researchers found multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWNTs) in steel from a 17th-century Damascus saber (Nature 2006, 444, 286).
First discovered just 15 years ago, single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) are molecules of pure carbon with many unique properties. Smaller in diameter than a virus, nanotubes are about 100 times stronger than steel, weigh about one-sixth as much and are among the world's best electrical conductors and semi-conductors. Smalley, who devoted the last 10 years of his career to studying SWNTs, pioneered the first method for mass-producing them and many of the techniques scientists use to study them.
See:
Arab
Danger Nanobots
Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
Damascus-steel, sabre, Crusades, Arab, muslim, nanotechnology, steel, swords, manufacturing, middle-east,
PMO Spies On Cabinet Ministers
I guess Rona Ambrose passes insepection from the PMO cause she stays on message. Even when her communications director is away working on the Haskett campaign.
The rest had better shape up.
Harper's PR aide secretly asks cabinet staff to critique bosses
A tip o' the blog to Dissonance and Disrespect for this.
See:
PMO
Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
PM, PMO, Sandra, Buckler, Cabinet, Canada, Harper, Ministers, spying, reporters, press-gallery