Dion Kennedy Merger

This; Liberal leadership candidates Gerard Kennedy and Stephane Dion have held talks that could lead to an alliance that vaults one of them to first place on the final ballot at the convention next week.

Explains this: Dion says Canada should withdraw its troops from Afghanistan


See:

Liberal Leadership Race

Afghanistan






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Dion Ghost Writer

On Don Newmans Politics (CBC) yesterday Liberal Leadership candidate Stéphane Dion took credit for being consulted by Harper on the four little words that PM Harper added to the BQ motion on Quebec/Quebecois as a nation.

Yet another Liberal leadership candidate, Stéphane Dion, was actually called by Harper's office Tuesday night to sound him out on the proposal. He is also happy, saying it reflects the compromise he'd floated privately with his opponents. "I have no problem with this," said Dion, also a former political scientist and intergovernmental affairs minister who had been viewed as the most staunch opponent of recognizing Quebec as a nation.

Dion got a call from a Harper adviser, seeking his advice as a constitutional expert and as a Liberal contender. Dion told the Star last night that "within Canada" was close enough to his proposal to recognize Quebec's nation status as a "sociological," not legal fact. "It's no big deal," he said.

Despite the plea of Warren Kinsella that Dion oppose this motion in the house, it appears that he took the opportunity to play constitutional consultant.

He told Don Newman he will support the Conservative Government motion.

To bad Warren. No one is listening to you anymore. Except Robert McClelland. And that's the definition of 'irony'.

See:

Liberal Leadership Race

Quebec A Nation Pro and Con

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Colombia Deal Dead

Democrats to throw out Colombia trade deal

And its a good thing too. Colombia has the record for most murders of trade unionists.

Union to appeal court's dismissal of lawsuit against Coca-Cola

A Colombian labor union plans to appeal the dismissal of a U.S. lawsuit against Coca-Cola Co. and local bottlers in an alleged conspiracy with local paramilitary groups to murder, torture and threaten trade unionists at its plants.

Which is why the Democrats in Congress tossed the Bush bilateral trade deal with that country.

The congressman said labour standards were at the “core” of Democrats’ objections - a sign that the influence of the labour movement within the party has been strengthened by the election result, which saw a notable rise in economic populism among voters.

Thea Lee, policy director of the AFL-CIO union, said, “Colombia is a very emotive issue for people in the labour movement”, adding that the country was regarded as the world’s deadliest for union organisers. More than 1,200 deaths of activists and rank-and-file members have been recorded in recent years.

The opposition from Democrats is also a setback for Alvaro Uribe, the president of Colombia, who came to Washington to lobby Democrats for support.

Mr Uribe’s visit to Capitol Hill last week was upstaged by difficulties with his own Congress, where three members of the House and Senate in Bogotá were arrested for links to rightwing para-militaries.

The trio are being charged, along with others close to the government, with financing death squads. Senator Alvaro García is charged with helping to plan a massacre of civilians in 2000.

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2021

Thats how long NATO expects to be in Afghanistan till.

Nato’s difficulties in Afghanistan have forced the alliance to scale down its ambitions for a showpiece summit next week and raised questions about its ability to get to grips with the insurgency in the country.

A classified document obtained by the Financial Times, and due to be endorsed by leaders, maps out new ambitions for the next 15 years, including development of the ability to carry out more than one big operation at once.

A senior Nato official said: “Are we magically going to get big new news against the artificial deadline of the summit? I don’t think so. For a number of those heads at the table, they have not invested as much in Afghanistan as others. This is a wake-up call for everybody that it’s a long term mission.”

See:

Afghanistan






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Kandahar

The N Word

A lot of sturm and drang over the Kramer (Michael Richards) affair. Was he racist, yes. Did he use the N word. Yep. Do I hate the N word because its historic meaning is derived from slavery, yep. But I hate it whenever I hear it. Not because the media decided to focus on this particular incident.

I also hate the hypocritical media mania over how it gets used and abused, and the virtual silence over it when it makes money. Lots of money.

Though it has been used in effectively in comedy, both by blacks and whites to confront its real historic social meaning in America This was not the case. It was the result of a breakdown on stage by a comic on his way down.

IT'S ALL ABOUT THAT WORD'

Kenny Robinson, founder of the all-black Nubian Disciples Of Pryor comedy series at Yuk's, also noted Richards' attempt at backtracking. "He was saying 'It's that word, it's all about that word,'" Robinson said. "I'm sorry, this isn't 1964 and you're not Lenny Bruce."

Perhaps he should have rapped out the 'N' word. Hip Hop and rap music using the N word gets lots of airplay on my alternative campus radio station. But of course thats okay for multi-millionaire rap artists, it's an expression of their oppression.

Just like it's ok for some rappers to use sexist put downs of women calling them byeetch and ho's. Or to express their unbridled homophobia. It's an affirmation of Afro-American masculinity that is oppressed in racist white supermacist culture. Except it isn't.

Is it just me or has Rap music gone to the dogs?

I being from NYC living in the inner city, and growing up in the 80's and 90's naturally grew up listening to rap. In those times when rap music wasn't mainstream, the music was about something. Be it an outcry of the horrendous poverty and discrimination minorities grew up around, or just having fun and letting your voice be heard.

With the onset of gansta rap (I once liked but now despise because I matured) is when things started to go downhill.

Hate, violence, degradation of women, selfishness, greed, and all other decadent behaviour associated with most, not all, rap music.

The Oppositional Gaze

The rap music that gets the most news is the music that is pushing misogyny. We think of rap music as a little third world country that white people can take out of it what ever they want. There is extreme violence, misogyny and black hate, young men bought this and this became the top type of rap. If a black guy knows that he can make millions of dollar by singing about fucking women and hoes then they’re going to do it.

Anti-Feminist and slavery driven rap makes the most money. Rap and assault are the defining exchange in black youth this is a fall out because individuals get wealthy off this. They are making strategic choices to do this music and this should set off a red light. This is what the country finds appealing. The white middle class suburban boy wants music about violence, fucking, degradation, blacks as ‘the other’.

Rap videos have reinscribed the female body in pornographic imaginary. Rap music and black music uses the black female body making it fall into overly sexual terms. They are the girls who will do what the nice clean white girls won’t. This is produced in rap videos.

American culture is obsessed with transgression. Commodified blackness is controlled and altered by the culture and consumer to how we’ll accept it. White boys who try and be black are still afraid of the black guys on the street; blackness is still violent and animalistic. White culture, however, is too wonder bread. Let’s get some of the endangered species to be hip, exotic and different so that we can keep our white people conservative and static.

Gangsta Rap, the million dollar pop culture industry is the 'voice' of the violent subculture of the lumpenproletariat, in America, Canada and Europe. It's not just about the N word it's the colour of the person saying it. Which in itelf is a contradiction.

The cultural studies interpetation of the meaning of this is that it is the liberation of the word from its original meaning if it is used by those whom it describes by themselves. In other words the words of oppression take on a different 'meaning' or 'signifier' when used by the oppressed themselves.

The irony is that N word may appear to be about liberating the word for other meanings for those who use it in rap music the fact is that it is also about the colour of the folks listening to the music. Which is why it is popular music for white middle class boys. They get to imagine being bad (black) boys. And thus invert the fear of Afro-Americans or immigrants of colour in Europe, into the other whom they embrace for all the wrong reasons.

Turn it down!: Rap music and the far right: Germany goes gangsta

If it doesn't work out with hip hop," shrugs Bushido, Germany's most notorious rap star, "then I'll just sell drugs." It probably won't come to that. The 26-year-old half Tunisian Berliner is turning the world of German hip hop upside down. The child of a German mother and an immigrant father is attracting, against all normal logic, a massive audience of neo-Nazis who love his hard-edged, racist and nationalistic lyrics.

There has never been any doubting Bushido's bad boy credentials. He is currently, and not for the first time, in an Austrian jail, waiting to see if he must stand trial on GBH charges. Earlier this month, an unfortunate 20-year-old Austrian man made the mistake of wandering too close to Bushido's pimped-up 7 Series BMW. It is alleged the rapper and his two bodyguards suspected the man had punctured the tyres, and beat him senseless. Bushido could face 10 years in jail.

Bushido's latest brush with the law was par for the course for a true gangsta rapper. 50 Cent, Ja Rule, Snoop Dogg: all the American rap stars worth their platinum discs and pimped-out Hummers have had run-ins with the law or spent time behind bars. But there is something different about Bushido, a beefy man with five tattoos. He has sparked a huge debate in Germany, a country still new to gangsta rap, about how racist and offensive song lyrics can be before they become outright neo-Nazi propaganda.

Sirius-ly Funny: Now I Remember Why I Miss Howard Stern

Then, as now, Stern's brand of "shock radio" is one where everything and anything from wrestling midget lesbians to Ku Klux Klansmen playing Hollywood Squares is considered fair game. In other words, it is so ridiculously over-the-top, anyone who would for a minute take it seriously needs to pick their brains up off the floor. Or at least, find a sense of humor.

Some of Stern's biggest fans back at my record company office were our rap artists. These guys would often ask us if bits featuring peripheral Stern characters like "The King Of All Blacks" could be legally sampled on their records. That is because stereotypes like that are so ridiculous they become the joke in and of themselves. And the joke is a laugh out loud, falling down funny one — especially to someone who knows what that stereotype means first hand.

It is the same as with the use of the word faggot. Which supposedly becomes liberating when used by gays with each other, when in reality it is the acceptance of an ugly epithat. Just because those who are called N***** or faggot now accept the label with pride, does not make it less derogatory.

It does not matter about the colour or sexual preference of those using the word it reamains a slur. The difference here is the acceptance of the labels of oppression by the oppressed to express pride. Real Pride is about overcoming those words with words like Black Pride, Black Power or Gay and Gay Pride.

Either the word remains a slur or epithat or it is transformed. When the word is transformed, then anyone can use it because the word itself takes on a new transformative meaning. Such is the case with the word Queer. Which itself is now used in Academic setting such as Queer Studies. Such is not nor ever will be the case for the N word.

When Lenny Bruce challenged America with words like the N word or references to fellatio, etc. he was not putting down Afro-Americans or homosexuality, he was challenging the bigots. And he got busted for it. Kramer on the other hand was just a bigot on stage.

And the multi million dollar media busted him. The same media that exploits the N word for profit in producing Gangsta rap. The capitalist media cannot cry holier than thou when in fact they made the N word an issue, not out of moral outrage, but as a commodity. Good or bad they profited from increased sales around the Kramer affair the same way they profit from Gangsta Rap.

Did Kramer flip out of course he did, most stand up comics do after being heckled. But they handle it better.

I don't expect that Richards will get much sympathy. Except, of course, in private from some of his peers, who understand enough about the process of stand-up comedy to understand how this incident could have happened. And enough about the public feeding frenzy to stay out of the limelight while he's beaten like a piñata until everyone moves on. In Defense Of Michael Richards

Was he personally attacking his audience? Yep. Was he an idiot? Yep.
Is he racist. Yep.

But lets not be hypocritical about the 'N' word. Not when I just turned on my campus radio station to hear it loud and clear. I switched the channel.


See:

Da Death of De Hip Hoppy

Hip Hop Gun Culture

Martin Blames Gun Collectors

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Fish Fights

Not dog fighting, not cock fighting, those are illegal. Fish fights though seem to have allowed scientists to discover that yes fish do have personalities. So I wonder when the teacher will impose no fighting rules in the undesea school yard.

Fish certainly have more personality than what meets the human eye, as according to biologists in Britain, not only do different trout have different characters, but these change as the fish experience life's highs and lows.

Winning or losing a fight, or even watching fellow fish negotiate the perils and pitfalls of encountering strange new objects, influenced the future behaviour of rainbow trout studied in the lab.

Researchers led by Lynne Sneddon, of the University of Liverpool, identified different 'personalities' in their fish by observing the boldness or shyness of individuals. Like people, some fish are very confident in the face of novelty or confrontation, whereas others are reticent and fearful.

Predictably, shy fish that won a fight also gained more confidence. But surprisingly, shy fish that lost their bout also grew bolder when investigating strange new food. Sneddon says that this could be due to what she calls a 'desperado effect'. Shy fish that know they're pathetic in a fight must race for food if they want to get any, she suggests, admitting: "This is totally presuming that fish think about winning or losing."


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Quebec A Nation Pro and Con

The political Blogosphere in Canada has responded to the Conservative Governments motion that This House recognizes that Québécois form a nation within a united Canada. Lets see who is pro and con and undecided.

If you think I have placed you in the wrong catagory please let me know.

This is of course based upon postings on the Progressive Bloggers, Blogging Tories and the Canadian Blog Exchange aggregators as of the time of this posting.

And there is national unity here the Pro side recognizes the Quebecois as a historic nation, peoples, etc. The Con side declares itself for pure Federalism. Ah finally we can all talk to each other.

The management takes no responsibility for any underwear that gets tied in a knot.


Blogging Tories Pro

Why does the NDP support the Bloc's "nation" motion?

Yes, Quebec is a Nation. Live with it.

On nationhood, Part XVII

Quebecois called nation, world continues to spin

Call me anything you want, just not late for dinner...

Tories do the right thing.

Quebec Is A Nation Within A State

Nations within Nations

A KerPlonka! crash course in nationalism, OR: Why I'm unmoved by the overractive bleatings of many


Blogging Tories Con

Québec is NOT a Nation. Québec is a Province.

Much Ado About Nothing?

The Harper Bombshell

Quebec nation, Canada nothing

Blogging Tories Undecided

Political Staples

Nation: Pick a definition

Progressive Bloggers Pro

Harper: Québec a "nation within a united Canada"

Today, Canada is Stronger

Harper Acknowledges Quebecers Form Nation

Government to recognize Québec as a nation

Four Little Words

Québécois / Quebec Motion


Progressive Bloggers Con

WHO WILL STAND UP FOR CANADA

Canada - A Nation of Masochists.....or a grouping of people....or an autonomous collective....er, what?

The Reviews Roll In!

So Much For Sanity

What happened to Federalism?



Progressive Bloggers Undecided

Harper Says Quebecers are a Nation Within Canada

Canada as a Country, Quebec as a Nation

Is the New Nation Proposal/Compromise a Harper Idea

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Rhetorical Question

"But big tax cuts cost big money. As the Star's Les Whittington reported this week, one of the anticipated cuts is income splitting, a neo-conservative pet project that would reduce federal revenues by — holy smokes — $5 billion annually.Is that good value? Or just family values reinforced with a tax break for stay-at-home parents?" Asks Toronto Star Columnist Jim Travers.

Why of course it's Conservative family values writ across the tax code. It certainly is neo-con politics and bad economics. It fails to address the need to change the tax system to reflect 'individual' taxation rather than family taxation.

It is an extension of the Tories Child Care Benefit, doling out money to their base, the middle class, while failing to provide for needed social programs like daycare. Calling it all along tax fairness which it is anything but.

Because they are not taxing profits from corporations, financial markets, and money markets anywhere close to what they tax Canadian citizens. Nor have they reduced EI payments nor expanded EI payouts.

Neither have they addressed the need in Canada for a Living Wage/Guaranteed Annual Income for the working poor the majority of whom are women.Single women, just as the majority of surviving pensioners are single women. So income splitting does not address their economic needs.

"All the fevered talk about falling birth rates and the need to import skills, labour and consumers misses the central point that contradictory tax and support policies ensure the working poor aren't escaping poverty or contributing fully to the economy.Part of the problem is that politics and life are on different cycles. A middle-class tax windfall is rich with immediate promise for the party in power while education's rewards are a generation away. Even less appealing are the high costs and low returns of attacking something as significant, and yet as arcane, as the marginal tax rates that help keep the poor, well, poor. Parties know people struggling through life stay home on election day."

Ironically the idea of income splitting is not even Flaherty's, it belongs to Garth Turner whom the Conservatives kicked out of caucus a month ago. And they only adopted it for seniors to offset their broken promise when they taxed Income Trusts.

This is conservative social engineering through the tax system.

See

Not Real Tax Fairness



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Rent Controls

With the boom in Alberta and housing shortages in Toronto renters are being soaked says Stats Canada.

Almost a third (31 per cent) of people who rented spent 30 per cent or more of their budgets on shelter compared with only six per cent of those who owned their homes, and most of them were living alone, relying on government assistance, or had low incomes. Traditionally, households that use 30 per cent or more of pre-tax income for housing costs are considered to face affordability problems.

Time for rent controls as an immediate solution.

Long term has to be land banking and building affordable housing. It is the only way to cool off a highly speculative market.

Housing in Canada should be a right.

Not a way to flip investments making spectacular profits which increase inflation and reduce access to affordable housing.

See:

Housing

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Bye Bye Miss American Pie

While the White House and Congress discusses time lines for 'phased withdrawl' maybe in four to six months, maybe, the Brits have announced they are getting out of Iraq. After all what else can you expect when your PM publicly calls Iraq a
' disaster.'

UK handover in Basra 'by spring'
MINISTERS yesterday raised the prospect of a British withdrawal from Iraq within months, predicting that UK forces could start handing over control of Basra to the Iraqi government next spring.

See:

Iraq


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