Hitchens on Religion

One of Christopher Hitchens redeeming values is that, despite his support for Imperialism, he remains an outspoken atheist.

He described his forthcoming book, God Is Not Great, as "a general case against religion." He says religions promote hatred, while demanding protection from hatred for themselves, usually in the form of censorship, to which he is intensely opposed in all its forms.

"Religion is now in the position of being an optional belief, which is quite new for it. You can say, if you like, that God is behind all this, and people say, 'Well maybe that's a point of view.' But it can no longer be said that God would explain what is otherwise mysterious to us. That's out, it's gone, and I think people haven't fully appreciated how important it is for religion to be one opinion among many on such an important question," he said.

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The Alberta Disadvantage

As the province rolls about in surplus cash, we still face a crisis in our medical and long term care facilities. Health Care Reform begins with replacing the cuts in beds and staffing that have occured in this province since the bad old days of 1995. And this is not just a provincial problem but another Federal Conservative broken promise; wait times.

Nurses are being physically abused and verbally threatened because of staff and bed shortages in Calgary hospitals, say leaders with the United Nurses of Alberta.

Patients who face longer wait times in emergency rooms, and lack privacy and beds for treatment are taking out their frustrations on nurses more than ever, health-care workers say.

Documented cases in which nurses have reported unsafe working conditions have jumped significantly over the last year at Foothills, Peter Lougheed Centre, Rockyview and Alberta Children's Hospital.

"Nurse abuse is huge. It's huge in the emergency room, it's huge in the psych units, it's rising all over the hospital," says Tanice Olson, a day surgery nurse at the Peter Lougheed and second vice-president for UNA Local 1.

"Patients are attacking nurses. They're hitting them, they're scratching them, they're throwing phones at them.

"Everything is backed up. We're short of beds. People are waiting longer for care. And the longer they wait, the more anxious and frustrated they become."

Statistics from the Professional Responsibility Committee, a health-care group that includes union and management representatives, show incidents in which nurses reported unsafe working conditions are clearly on the rise.

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Harper Supports Morton

In the race for leader to replace Ralph Klein, extreme republican right winger Ted Morton is geting support from his pals in Ottawa. Morton's team has reportedly benefited from lists of supporters from federal Conservatives Stockwell Day and Prime Minister Stephen Harper

As I said this leadership race is important for the whole nation. one Calgary blogger wrote. "If the **** hits the fan with the Liberals and the Quebec thing, I'm a Morton man."

Its not only the Blogging Tories that are going gaa-gaa over Morton. His campaign is a grassroots social conservative mobilization. The Candian Taxpayers Federation, Jason Kenneys old employer, has ranked Morton #1 in their books.

Be afraid Canada. Be very afraid. Morton Tory leadership campaign showing surprising strength

See:

Conservative Leadership Race

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Did He Or Didn't He

After all the bravado and bluster about how the Harper was going to give it to the Chinese over human rights well did he or didn't he? Nope he got his Andy Warhol moment with the Chinese president and he did not discuss human rights. It was alot of hot air media hype for the Conservative supporters back home.

Harper had said previously that he hoped for a full bilateral meeting with the Chinese president, and said on his way to Hanoi that the Chinese had actually withdrawn an offer to meet. But Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao told reporters earlier Sunday that they had never planned such a meeting. Hu met with at least six other leaders in the 30-to-60 minute one-on-ones. A Hong-Kong based reporter tried to ask Harper a question about being snubbed by China, but he walked away.

Harper himself was reluctant to discuss human rights issues he raised with Hu. "We spoke about 15 minutes, I certainly touched on a range of issues but obviously we only discussed a couple of issues in any detail. I made it clear there where I've made clear elsewhere, which is that Canada will in its relationships bring a range of concerns to the table." Jianchao said that while the two men discussed the case of Celil — whom China regards as one of its citizens — human rights issues were not discussed. "I don't really think that the human rights issue was raised during the meeting," said Liu.

See:

PMO Spies On Cabinet Ministers

Harper Is No Statesman

Harpercrsy

Gong Show Redux

Harper




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CPC Opens Up To Canadian Media

The Communist Party of China not the Conservative Party of Canada. In order to get any information about our Prime Ministers discussions at the APEC meetings the Canadian Press corps had to rely on the Chinese Foreign Ministery and other countries to find out what was going on. They were denied access to Stephen Harper by Sandra Buckler. This from the guy who lectures other countries about freedom of the press. Do as I say not as I do seems a fitting epithat for our PM.

Harper was also asked about his accessibility at the APEC conference. And the news of his discussion with the Chinese president came by e-mail to reporters travelling with him 14 hours after the fact. It was the Chinese foreign ministry official who gave the Canadian media the first substantive description of the meeting.It was the Korean government that told Canadian reporters about the visit of a Canadian diplomat to North Korea. Harper's staff also blocked Canadian journalists from attending all but the first of Harper's public activities, even while foreign media were present or invited.

CTV's Roger Smith, travelling with the prime minister told CTV Newsnet Harper has kept an extraordinarily low media profile during the summit. In fact, on several occasions, reporters learned key details from media briefings held by other countries.

In fact, Harper's office didn't confirm that the meeting with Hu had taken place until 14 hours after it took place -- long after the Chinese had announced it had happened.

"We all found it very ironic we were getting more information, and faster, from the communist government of China than we were from the Conservative government of Canada," Smith said.

See:

PMO Spies On Cabinet Ministers

Harper Is No Statesman

Harpercrsy

Gong Show Redux

Harper




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Stephen Mulroney

The more we learn about Harper the more he seems like Mulroney. They are Conservative PM's who suffer from PM (potty mouth).

TORY! TORY! TORY!
We even get to see Harper's famed temper. (Note: F-word alert!) Writing about how the Tories ran out of steam in the home stretch of the 2004 campaign, Harper snaps at his staff: "I can't fucking believe there's no fucking script for tomorrow. I want some fucking answers. And I want a fucking script." After a pause, Harper adds: "I also want to know why nothing ever happens unless I use the word fuck."

THE SECRET MULRONEY TAPES: Peter C. Newman
Thanks to the headlines splashed across the front pages this week by the bombshell launch of The Secret Mulroney Tapes, we now know a great deal of what Brian Mulroney was thinking while he was prime minister, and a lot of it isn't pretty. He freely slags both enemies and former allies and displays a pottymouth to shame a trailer-park boy. If this book were a TV show, it would be prefaced with a coarse-language warning.

It comes as no surprise to learn that Brian Mulroney thought Pierre Trudeau was "an asshole," and we always knew he looked down on reporters - especially the Ottawa Press Gallery - as "corrupt, venal people."



See:

Stephen Mulroney Brian Harper

Canada's Real Prime Minister

Not Your Daddies Conservative Party, well...

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The Leadership Races

Lets compare the surprising similiarity between the Liberal Leadership race and the Alberta PC Leadership race.

Both Leadership races overlap each other being held on the same weekend. Both races will have to go to at least a second ballot. Both have frontrunners who have 'anybody but' campaigns forming for the second ballot. That second ballot will be held on the same weekend. The Alberta Tories go first next weekend followed by the Federal Liberals the weekend after.

Both races have progressive centerists as front runners. Both have close second place candidates.

Both have had funding scandals associated with them.

Both lack any real charismatic leader.

Both races have taked about party renewal, though that seems to be more about PR than genuine remaking of either party. An attempt to say that the parties have changed. As if.

Both have eight candidates. The difference is that the only woman running dropped out of the Tory race and there is one woman running for the Liberals.

Both frontrunners are the choice of the backroom boys.

Both campaigns have raised the issue of nationhood. The Liberals are discussing Qubec as a nation, and the PC's have Ted Morton running to create Firewall Alberta.

Both races are a snore fest. They have gone on much too long and have lost the attention of the average person and only appeal to 'true believers'.

The winner of the Alberta leadership race becomes Premier. The winner of the Liberal Leadership race hopes to become the next PM.

Both races have major implications for Canada. But one gets national media coverage while the other gets an after thought. One expects that from normal provincial political leadership races. However Alberta is not a normal province it is a one party state.

The Alberta PC leadership race has major implications for the rest of Canada at this moment in history. Forget Quebec seperatism, or the decline of Ontario, the real economic and political power in Canada is in Calgary. And who gets chosen as leader of the province is far more important that who gets elected leader of the Liberals.

So pay attention to both races because they will both have implications for the Federal Conservatives and the New Canadian government.

See:

Conservative Leadership Race

Liberal Leadership Race

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South Park Takes on Canada

The Harpocrites deserve the wrath of the South Park kids and the rest of the world community for their position on the destructive practice of bottom trawling. When it comes to the environment the Tories are bottom-feeders.

Blame Canada

Greenpeace enlists South Park boys to roast Canucks for opposing fishing ban.

Now the potty-mouthed kids from South Park are featured in an online advertisement - and their target is the Canadian government and its opposition to a ban on bottom trawling on the high seas. Greenpeace posted a video spoof online starring Stan, Kyle, Kenny and Cartman, who slam Canada's stance on deep-sea dragging just as a six-day round of talks on sustainable fisheries began at the United Nations.

See:

Fishing

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Seperated at Birth

Bubbles from Trailer Park Boys and Roy Forbes (aka Bim) They are both folksingers

The Trailer Park Boys hosted the 2006 East Coast Music Awards as Ricky, Julian and Bubbles (in character). Bubbles performed his single "Liquor and Whores".

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Christian Cannibals

This is what happens when you deny the reality of evolution. You end up eating your relatives.

The Demise of the Great Apes of Africa
Kerry Bowman


The great apes of Africa are being pushed to extinction. Across the forest region of West and Central Africa commercial hunting, facilitated by western-owned logging operations in the area, has become the leading threat to the survival of many primates, including gorillas and chimpanzees. This is a wildlife crisis of huge proportion, with impacts on the Great Apes, African economies, ways of life, and human health.

In the utterly remote rain forest of central Africa large populations of lowland gorillas and chimpanzees have been shielded from outside disturbance since before the last Ice Age. In recent years however the drive to sell African rainforest hardwood has had a catastrophic side effect - the explosion of gorilla and chimpanzee hunting for what is known as "bushmeat'. This commerce, facilitated by new logging roads into the pristine forests of the Congo, is now a major wildlife crisis.

The depletion of west Africa's forests, where Europe traditionally bought its tropical hardwoods, has launched an influx of French, German and Middle Eastern logging companies into the more inaccessible forests of central Africa. At the same time, a regional economic crisis has only accelerated the timber boom: Local currency devaluations in the mid-1990s effectively halved the cost of hauling 800-year-old trees through hundreds of miles of forest to the parquet-flooring and furniture-making markets of Europe and Japan.

Strapped for cash because of slumping cacao exports, the central African governments have gratefully seized a multi-million dollar lifeline created by logging revenues. At the same time, the appetite for wild animal meat is strong in the teeming cities of central Africa. Forest animals including gorillas and chimpanzees, have been a staple of local villagers' diets for millennia, but Africa's swelling urban populations, nostalgic for village foods, have turned a subsistence activity into a burgeoning, multimillion-dollar industry.I learned that these people were not monstrous and selfish, purposely ignoring an environmental crisis and the suffering of a human-like endangered species; rather, they simply held a different worldview. Their views on the natural world represented a tight weave of fatalism, fundamental Christian beliefs and Animism. Generally people believed the natural world was able to replenish itself. It was God-given and well beyond human influence. People also did not see the environment or animals in finite terms. As one white-haired man put it This is the part of Africa with an abundance of forests and animals; eventually the trees grow back and the animals give birth. What most people were saying implied that people cannot affect the natural environment. A hunter put it this way. It's natural that animals are going to be eaten. People eat animals. Animals eat each other. That is the way things are. It really doesn't matter what we say or what laws we have. No one I interviewed saw the death of the great apes in moral terms, rather they saw animals as a God given food supply. As one hunter said: Gorillas are not people. Animals don't suffer the way people do. They are not the same as us. God has not given them reason and feelings. In reality, the expansion of human moral vision to include the great apes seems to occur only in Western culture, and even there is intermittent.



See:

Eating Raoul

Apes

Evolution

Primates



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