Still Quiet

Not a peep. Not a word. Nothing. Nada. Zip.

The Blogging Tories still have nothing to say about Conservative Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Michael Chong's resignation over the Quebecois Nation motion.

That's two days in a row. The silence is deafening.

Why so quiet guys. Why no support for Chongs decision to stand up for Canada. What no nasty denunciations of the guy for standing up to Harper. Why no comment on how he was sidelined in this whole debate by the PM?

No comment on how Harper promised free votes on all issues except money bills, and then applied a three line whip on this motion.

No comment period. How unlike you. A wee bit embarassed are we. You should be.

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Quebec

Blogging Tories



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Timmies Takes Bite Out of Taxpayers

Tim Hortons for troops less pricey than reported Sure it was first reported that you and me, the Canadian taxpayer were in hock to Timmies for a cool $4 million for setting up their franchise in Kandahar for our troops.

Now the good news. We are only paying $1.4 million for this P3.

And while we pay $80,000 a month for the Timmies operation, the gross profit for the Tim Hortons is five-thousand dollars a day.

But they did wave the franchise fee of $450,000. Gosh thats like well one third of what it's costing you an me to set up the franchise. And the fee waiver will probably be a tax write off. Mighty generous of them considering they are pulling in $150,000 a month. Can you say war profiteering.

You don't have to rrrrrroll up the rim to figure out whose the winner here.

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Timmies

Tim Hortons

P3

Afghanistan






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Bolivarian Democracy

Venezuela’s Secret Grassroots Democracy

With all international eyes on the December 3rd Venezuelan presidential elections, a totally new and revolutionary experience of Venezuelan grassroots democracy has completely slipped below international radar.

These new communal councils were being called a new form of grassroots local government, in which the residents of the local community would have the ultimate decision-making power in their neighborhood. It was said that these councils would even receive funds from the government to carry out community and public works projects that previously could only be acquired through a long and protracted struggle with the local mayor’s office.

It is not Hugo Chavez that is impacting Latin America as much as it is the Bolivarian Revolution from below. The development of constiuent assemblies of the people, a form of counter power to the bourgeois state. It is occuring in Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua, and even Mexico. Old style 18th Century parliamentary democracy is being challenged by direct assemblies of the people. It began with the Workers Party in Brazil under Lulu when provinces controled by the WP held mass constiuent assemblies to deal with developing provincial and municipal budgets.

It arose during the Argentinian melt-down, when facing fiscal catastrophe, the people assembled themselves into constiuent assemblies, as well as economic cooperatives to create a counter economy against the declining Argentinian dollar.

Chavez only took the idea and institutionalized it as part of a program for the Bolivarian revolution in Venezuela. It is now spreading along with election of left wing governments in the region. This is what real democracy looks like. It is what Murray Bookchin called Municipal Libertarianism. Local neighbourhoods create assemblies that run their areas, and set up representative councils or federations made up of the local assemblies. Thus creating a counter or dual power situation against the existing state or government. In Latin America it has been effective in countering the padrone system of local government.

Pity we don't have it in Canada, we are stuck with the old decrepit British Empire model of colonial governance; parliament. And look at what they did this week, recognize Quebec, err, Quebekers, err no make that Pure Laine Quebecois, as a people, err no as a nation, err as a.....???? Without asking the people themselves in Quebec or the ROC what we wanted. Time for a Constiuent Assembly in Canada.

See:

Left Wing Pragmatism III

Left Wing Pragmatism II

Left Wing Pragmatism

Politics is Pragmatic

Ortega

Oaxaca Mexican Revolution Continues

State Capitalism

Globalization

Latin America

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March Of The Penquins to Extinction

Not so happy news. Half the World's Penguin Species Marching Towards Extinction;'The Planet is in Denial'

"The planet is in denial," said John Collee, co-writer of "Happy Feet," which played to rave reviews as the top movie in the United States over Thanksgiving week. "Coral reefs are in terminal decline. Whales and penguins are literally starving to death as a result of krill depletion. As regards Global warming - the entire West Antarctic ice sheet is balanced on the tips of mountains and fragmenting at the edges. According to experts we have ten years to reverse the current trend before the build-up of greenhouse gases becomes irreversible. Ten Years! Is "Happy Feet" too scary? The horrible reality of our war on the environment is so dark that most people don't want to contemplate it."




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it's natures way

Penquins

Environment

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All Quiet On the BT

Cerbeus notes that the Blogging Tories have been notably silent on last nights Quebec motion, and the consequential resignation of the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs. Silent as death. Oh except for Adam Daifallah who mentions it en passant as they say in Chess.

Deafening silence over the real meaning of the motion that passed last night.

Senator Marjorie LeBreton and Transport Minister Lawrence Cannon met reporters to try to explain the government's reasoning for cabinet solidarity on the issue.

But reporters pressed LeBreton and Cannon to clear up confusion on the motion itself, asking why it refers to the Québécois even in its English version and why not Quebecers.

A reporter from the Montreal Gazette, the largest English newspaper in Quebec, wanted to know whether her readers were Québécois too.

"Does it include every resident of Quebec regardless of which boat their ancestors came over on?" she asked.

Cannon replied: "No, it doesn't. It doesn't. Let's be clear on this."

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Quebec



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Tory Losers

Liberals, Bloc win byelections, May finishes 2nd

Well this says alot about the New Government of Canada. They can't win byelections after nine months in power. Even with a right wing parachute candidate in London, handpicked by the PMO with support of paid government hacks. Of course they also didn'tdare run their unelected Senator/Cabinet Minister in Quebec. And Elizabeth May despite being a parachute candidate made a good showing. Strategic voting would have helped May win.

So will Garth Turner be the first Green MP now? Well the party has shifted to the right with its appointment of the former leader of the BC Green Party as its Deputy Leader.

The London byelection shows the NDP have the Green Party to worry about.


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Good News From NATO

NATO prepares exit strategy for Afghanistan
NATO forces could start withdrawing from Aghanistan in two years time but more reinforcements are needed now - that was the message from Alliance Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer at a summit meeting in Latvia. De Hoop Scheffer said a gradual transfer of power to local forces was possible, but first the country needed to be stabilised.

Let's see that would be in 2008. At least a year earlier than the Harpocrites committed us too. Good News indeed. good news for our troops who are in harms way, and good news for taxpayers footing the bill. And if NATO can't muster all the troops they need why there will be extra Brit and US forces available next year as they exit Iraq.

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Afghanistan






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Stelmach Up The Middle

Ted Morton is scared. He announced yesterday that he was now the moderate candidate for leadership of the provincial PC's. With major endorsements from Hancock and Oberg and now Norris, Stelmach is gaining strength in numbers. And this scares Morton.

Morton tries to lure support from leadership rivals

With Dinning grabbing the majority of the votes and Stelmach’s support growing since the ballots were counted, Morton, who sits in the right end of the political spectrum, yesterday cast a wider net looking for Conservatives of all shades to join his campaign.

“To the supporters of the other candidates ... I’d be honoured to have your support,” he said.

“My goal has always been a broad, inclusive coalition that includes all Conservatives, red Tories, blue Tories, green Tories, back into our party.”

And although he has promised to build a party based on principle, at the end of the day, he will do what the Tory majority wants him to do, he said yesterday(MON).

“A Ted Morton government will be as Conservative or as Liberal or as moderate as our party wants it to be,” he said.

“The key to keeping a conservative coalition together ... means that no one fraction is going to get everything they want all the time, including myself.”

Yes I know I said that Stelmach was out of the race earlier however I have crunched the numbers and with Norris supporters added to them he has a chance to win. Mea Culpa and a nod to Ken Chapman.

Obviously the Morton camp has done the same. With Saturdays balloting based on Proportional voting, you chose first, second and third place, Stelmachs chances are now better than they looked on the weekend.

Take a look at Greg Farries Map and you will see why.





Mortons power is in the Socred stomping grounds of Southern Alberta. While Stelmachs support is now enhanced in Edmonton, and Northern Alberta (Oberg), and even with Obergs support in Calgary, which went Dinning red.

Dinning will not win the first ballot on Saturday, the forces in the PC's are united in a campaign of anybody but Dinning.

"I think that Jim Dinning is a nice man" but he's surrounded himself with the "Calgary mafia" and "back-room boys," Norris said, explaining why he didn't hitch his star to Dinning's campaign.


Dinning shot his load last week. And his numbers will not go up. His campaign is stalled thanks to Stelmach.Some of the Oberg support may go to Morton, but it is weak. Doerksons vote will go to Morton and Stelmach. McPhersons support goes to Stelmach.Rather the numbers say that Stelmach can come up the middle and win the second ballot. Add them up yourself.

Dinning 29,470 (30.2%)
Morton 25,614 (26.2%)
Stelmach 14,967 (15.3%)
Oberg 11,638 (11.9%)
Hancock 7,595 (7.8%)
Norris 6,789 (6.9%)
Doerksen 873 (0.9%)
McPherson 744 (0.8%)

Stelmach with support from Hancock, Oberg and Norris alone has 40,989. Which is why Morton is afraid, very afraid.Not only has he gotten support from the four, fifth and sixth place candidates, he is everyones favorite second choice on the three choice ballot next weekend. Morton and Dinning supporters all will vote him as second choice. So if there is no clear winner on the first ballot, Stelmach wins.

"Seventy per cent of our party rejected the establishment status quo of Jim Dinning on Saturday night and, given the preferential ballot system we'll be using, the real race is between Ed and myself," Mr. Morton said.

Dinning is claiming it's a two way fight between him and Morton.

Dinning has ruled out Stelmach as a contender and says Morton is his only challenger."I have a high regard for Ed Stelmach. I would love to have him as a right-hand person. He cares about Alberta, he's a smart guy. But clearly, I think that this has come down to a serious two-person race with two distinctly different choices."

I thought so do. But it ain't so. Stelmach seen as man to heal party torn over leadership vote

It's Stelmach up the middle. Which would be good forAlberta. Why? Well two little words; Harry Strom.

See:

Conservative Leadership Race

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Klein Kills Homeless

Relentless sub-zero temperatures are now being blamed for contributing to the deaths of four people in Alberta who were either living on the street or didn't have appropriate permanent shelter.

Man dies trying to keep warm in camper trailer

The grandstand building on Calgary's Stampede grounds has been open since Friday night to provide a temporary emergency warming shelter for up to 300 homeless people because all of the regular shelters were full.

Not satisfied with a drunken brawl in a homeless shelter in Edmonton several years ago now King Ralph can take responsibility for further deaths of the homeless in Oil Rich Alberta.

Well where else do you lay the blame. Remember this is the guy that admited he 'had no plan' to deal with the boomtimes. He was only good at cutting funding to things like homeless shelter programs.

And when the Mayor of Calgary recently complained about not enough municipal funding from the province for progams like homeless shelters, Klein told him to stuff it.

When you are King you are responsible for your people. The bucks stop with Ralph.

Baby It's Cold Outside

See:

Drunk Holds Court

Klein Steals From The Poor And Disabled

Klein Outta Control

Killer Klein

Severely Normal Albertans Go Bye Bye

Ralph Klein

King Ralph


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Left Wing Pragmatism III

Ecuador

It's oil that gives the Left it's power in Latin America. And Ecuador has lots of it.Ecuador to seek to rejoin OPEC: Correa And Canadian Petrocompanies are major investors, though they have sullied reputations having been implicated in the destruction of Ecuadors rainforests.

Kapawi Journal; Ecuador Indians Fend Off Oil Companies With Eco Tourism

But while many ecology-friendly getaways are operated by big tour companies or foreign entrepreneurs, the Kapawi Ecolodge and Reserve is run with the participation of the Achuar, the region's dominant Indian tribe.For the Achuar people, Kapawi is becoming an increasingly important symbol of their independence as they try to resist oil companies that want to drill here. The idea, indigenous leaders say, is to demonstrate options to oil exploration.

People and Forest of Intag…the forests of western Ecuador are among the hottest of the hot spots of the world, meaning that they are among the most endangered ecosystems—down to less than 10 percent of their original extent, mostly destroyed in the past 40 years—and also contain exceptionally large numbers of plant and animal species found nowhere else in the world. The extraordinary value of the Ecuadorian western forests, including the largest remaining remnant that includes Intag, is well known to biologists around the world and often cited in the scientific literature…

Now China and India the new Asian Dragons are investing in Ecuador.Which is real Free Trade but not the kind the Americans want.

China's two largest oil companies will link up to buy assets of EnCana Corp. in Ecuador for $1.42 billion, the second time in a month that Chinese producers won a bidding contest for overseas oilfields against India.China Petrochemical Corp. and China National Petroleum Corp. ``are partners in this venture,'' Liu Weijiang, a spokesman at China National Petroleum, said in Beijing today. Oil & Natural Gas Corp.'s bid may have been rejected because EnCana wouldn't agree to a term guaranteeing that Ecuador honor the sale, an official at the Indian company said.

In capitalist terms the oil companies have nothing to fear from a stable left government in Ecuador. Or they would be pulling out. But of course being pragmatic capitalists they won't. And they will pay the price to stay and profit from Ecuador's rich oil fields. Which includes their social responsibilities to the people and rainforests of Ecuador. The price of oil: how we live and die in the Amazon

Correa may default on Ecuadors debt however that has been done before, and not by a left government but by puppets of US Imperialism. So whats the beef. Nothing. Correa keeps the Ecuador dollar on par with the U.S. and uses oil profits for social programs.

If Venezuela is the example then consumers and workers benefit as more money in their hands means more money bouying up the local economies. Something any good neo-con understands. That's why the keep calling for tax cuts; to put money in the hands of the people. Which is where Ecuadors petrodollars will go with Correa.

Hugo Chavez Gains An Ecuadoran Ally

Ecuadorans voted for populist economist and self-styled "humanist, leftist Christian" candidate Rafael Correa who promised big changes in another Latin American country ruled up to now by and for the interests of capital and against the public welfare.

Correa will face huge challenges ahead when he takes office on January 15 in a country of 13 million, over 70% of whom live in poverty and who supported a man promising to help them with the kinds of social programs Hugo Chavez instituted in Venezuela. Correa sounded a positive tone last night at his campaign headquarters as the early returns showed him to be the likely winner. He told his supporters "It won't be Rafael Correa who assumes power in January; it will be the people." He'll be Ecuador's eighth president in the last decade including three of them driven from office by mass street protests against their misrule. In Mr. Correa, Ecuadorans expect something much different, and he promised to deliver it for them.

Correa said he'll deliver a "citizens' revolution" and supports beginning it by calling for a constituent assembly to write a new constitution, a pattern similar to the one Hugo Chavez followed after his election as Venezuela's president in 1998. He called for renegotiating the country's $16 billion foreign debt and hasn't ruled out an Argentine-style default to free up money for vitally needed social programs that include 100,000 low-cost homes, doubling the $36 "poverty bonus" 1.2 million poor Ecuadorans receive each month and raising the minimum wage.

Debt Restructuring

Correa, who has taught economics at San Francisco University in Quito, said during his four months as finance minister last year that he favored restructuring the nation's $11 billion of foreign bonds. During his campaign Correa said he wouldn't rule out an Argentine-style default. Argentina stopped payments on $95 billion of bonds in late 2001, the biggest sovereign default ever, two years after Ecuador defaulted on its own debt.

Born in Guayaquil, on the Pacific coast of Ecuador, Correa studied economics in Belgium and later at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Correa was appointed finance minister in April 2005 by President Alfredo Palacio. El Comercio reported he was fired four months later for fighting with the World Bank and arranging to sell bonds to Venezuela without providing details to the president.

Ecuador's economy recovered from recession after the government defaulted on $6.5 billion of debt in 1999 and adopted the use of the dollar as its official currency in 2000. The IMF forecasts Ecuador's economy will expand 4.4 percent this year, buoyed by the rally in oil, the country's biggest export, after growing 3.9 percent in 2005.

Last night, Correa reiterated he may default on the country's debt and said Ecuador doesn't need a free trade agreement with the U.S. He also said he would maintain the dollar as Ecuador's currency, replace congress with a constituent assembly and try to ensure Ecuador, South America's fifth-largest oil producer, rejoins the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries after leaving it in 1992.

The switch to the dollar attracted investors, revived an insolvent banking system and helped reduce the inflation rate to 2.1 percent last year from 108 percent in 2000. In 2005, the economy expanded 4.7 percent, according to Standard & Poor's.

Correa's opposition comes from the United States in particular the agribusiness giant Dole Fruit company which benefits from its banana monopoly in Ecuador. This is what is meant by Free Trade, allowing American agribusinesses to maintain their colonial style monopolies in Latin Amercia. While European competitors find their African based markets undercut by companies like Dole. Dole Fruit company bought out the Chiquita Company which was part of the CIA backed United Fruit Company that maintained a monopoly in the region over the past fifty years.

Correa's opponent is the richest man in Ecuador who is the countries coffee, construction and Banana magnate. And a fruit cake.

Banana Magnate

Noboa, Ecuador's richest businessman and a proponent of free trade and foreign investment, may have scared some voters by his references to God and by falling to his knees at campaign rallies to pray for victory, said Daniel Linsker, an analyst at London- based Control Risks Group, a political risk consulting company. ``Noboa was an embarrassment,'' said Esperanza del Castillo, 61, who owns a gift store in San Antonio de Pichincha. ``Correa is an economist, he is academically capable of managing the economy and I like that.''

See

Left Wing Pragmatism II

Left Wing Pragmatism

Politics is Pragmatic

Ortega

Oaxaca Mexican Revolution Continues

State Capitalism

Globalization

Latin America

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