Ted Morton Calgary Seperatist

Not satisfied with promoting Alberta Seperatism with his Firewall Alberta letter, PC leadership candidate, the Reform Republican, Ted Morton is now embracing the politics of two solitudes. If elected Alberta will have two capitals. One in Calgary and one in Edmonton.

"The future of Alberta in the coming decades is northern Alberta and Edmonton is the capital of northern Alberta,"
Morton told reporters yesterday at his Kingsway Avenue campaign office.

After all as wise Ted knows Redmonton is different from Houston North as night and day. And the logical conclusion of his seperatist politics is not only Firewall Alberta but Firewall Calgary.

Or as cheeky Edmonton Journal city hall columnist Scott McKeen opines;

Edmonton's to-do list, if Ted Morton becomes Alberta's next premier and the rebel south storms the legislature.

- Establish firewall around Edmonton. Like, a real firewall. Circle the barbecues, people.

- Ask Ottawa to declare Edmonton a nation, too

If all else fails: Run for your lives.

Or we could just try to relax. Because no matter what you hear this week, Ted Morton is not the devil. He is not Dick Cheney's evil twin. His election, if it happens, won't signal the coming of the apocalypse.

A Morton victory will, however, be a kind of prophecy realized.

The Klein Tories always had a southern, country bias. Morton's election will only clarify the Tory party's neocon, rural bent.

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Ted Morton

Alberta Seperatism

Conservative Leadership Race


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NDP Gain On Liberals

In the Quebec byelection. While it was a given the BQ would hold onto the riding, what is interesting is that the Liberals fell behind the NDP in votes.

As James Bow points out;Liberal support dropped from 8.65% to 5.6%, putting them behind the NDP, whose support dropped more marginally from 7.74% to 7%.

The NDP are making gains in Quebec, slow and sure and the motion that passed this week had been reaffirmed at the NDP convention in the fall. So now Quebec has a federalist social democratic option to the BQ.

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Quebec

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Same Sex Marriage and Violence Against Women

December 6 is the day that will live in infamy in Canada the day that Mark Lepine hunted down and killed 14 women engineering students at L'Ecole polytechnique in Montreal.

It is a day that the Harpocrite government should have brought forward their plans to get rid of the gun registry which was created because of this incident. It is a day that men and women across Canada pledge to end violence against women.

So instead of honouring this day, because of course it would embarass them over their plans to neuter the gun registry, they bring forward their controversial motion to end Same Sex Marriage. A cheap attempt to sideline the issue of the day. Double the infamy. We should be outraged, the Tories have NO Shame.

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Violence Against Women

Same Sex Marriage

SSM

Gun Registry


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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.

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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

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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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