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)
Sunday, January 21, 2007
Little Mosque Bombs
the ratings for Little Mosque on the Prairie have dropped from 2.1 million viewers for the first episosde down to 1.2 million for episode 2.
And CBC has six more shows in the can...it can only decline further, it just is not funny.
It now has the same amount of viewers as Corner Gas, which is also about Saskatchewan and actually made in Saskatchewan, unlike LMOTP, which is made in a Toronto back lot.
The producers continue to show a lack of prairie understanding, for instance making goat curry jokes when everyone out here knows that we favour lamb curry, being that lamb is plentiful out West. Including the hallal lamb that I get from my local butchershop.
And last time I checked the Prairies included Alberta.
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A Sad Story
Courtesy Big Blue Wave....
Friday, January 12, 2007
New Blog: Stop the Greens!
In my search for blogs to add to Opinions Canada, I happened upon this one, Stop the Greens!, a blog devoted to trashing the Green Party of Canada.I'm not really for or against the Greens. I figure they will split the vote on the left anyway. I'm just bemused by the concept of a blog devoted exclusively to making another party look bad.
I just thought I'd offer that up to the blogging community. Maybe someone will find it useful or interesting.
UPDATE: Looks like Alex is giving up. He says he's not getting enough support.
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TANSTAAFL Except in Alberta
-TANSTAAFL - except in Alberta....
The King has left the building.....
Here is a lesson in Ralphonomics, gone but not forgotten. Business as usual in the Kingdom of Alberta.
Alberta government departments spent nearly $1 million on catering and coffee service in the year ending March, 2006, according to the “blue book” which records grants, supplies and services.
Betting is big business in Alberta, it funds the province and is in turn funded by taxpayers. In last springs budget Horse-racing in Alberta got a $45 million horse racing subsidy
It is after all the sport of Kings and Ralph considered it one of his favorite sports, being the gambler he was.
The heads of Horse Racing Alberta make more money than the premier - and they're being paid with taxpayer's dollars, claim the Alberta Liberals.
And this is really rich....literally....now imagine if the Federal Liberals or Conservatives did this, why the outrage in Ottawa. Oh yeah, there they have an opposition that can bring down the government, here we have a One Party State.
20-year oversight
Alberta Grits demand action after finding Tories haven't filed financial reports since '87
Alberta Grits are demanding an overhaul of the province's election finances disclosure law after Elections Alberta revealed the Tories haven't filed required financial reports for nearly two decades.The situation involves a secret "foundation fund" the party was allowed to keep after the financial disclosure law was passed in 1978, provided it filed annual reports on transfers from it.
Deputy Electoral Officer Bill Sage told the Sun he failed to notice that the statements stopped coming.
"I was responsible for it. I was the director of financial operations at the time. It was something that escaped me and I didn't realize it until just recently."
Yeah it was supposed to happen twenty years ago....I wonder whose son this guy is that he can blythely say he was responsbile for the oversight , after he was told by the reporter looking into this, and forget to tender his resignation.....wait sorry this is Alberta not Ottawa.
Finally the ultimate lobbyist gets the ultimate lobbyist job, move over Rod Love here comes Ralph.....Ralph hooks up with 'straight-talkers'Too late though comes this announcement after the horse has left the barn....
Less than a week after leaving provincial politics, former Alberta premier Ralph Klein has joined a top law firm to advise clients on business opportunities in the booming province.
Stelmach promises registry for lobbyists
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Friday, January 19, 2007
Blowing in the Wind
TransAlta gets 25-year wind power purchase deal
Canada's top publicly-traded electricity generator, said on Friday it has been awarded a 25-year power purchase agreement to provide 75-megawatts of wind power to New Brunswick Power Distribution and Customer Service Corp. With the addition of Kent Hills, TransAlta will operate approximately 260 megawatts of wind-generated power in Canada. TransAlta said it has tripled its wind business since acquiring Vision Quest Windelectric in 2002.
No need for folks to pity poor Jim Dinning for not getting coronated as CEO of Alberta he still has TransAlta to play with.
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Free Speech Works
Anti-Israel motion defeated by Ontario teachers union local
CBC Toronto
Union rejects boycott of Israel
However do notice the influence of the Lobby on the CBC headline versus the Globe and Mail headline which actually says what the motion was about.
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Corporate America Greener Than Harper
The whole focus of the Harpocrites attack on Kyoto, even under the new Environment Minister, has been on how useless carbon credit trading is......
Ten major US corporations, including industry giants General Electric, DuPont and Alcoa, have joined forces with leading environmental groups to call for a slash in carbon-dioxide emissions of 10-to-30 per cent over the next 15 years. The New York Times says introduction of the group is aimed at bolstering the recent impetus for Congressional action on emissions controls and creation of a market “in which allowances to emit carbon dioxide could be traded in a way that achieves the greatest reduction at the lowest cost.”
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Star Wars The Next Installment
This will provoke another round of debate on the need for Ballistic Missle Defense and Canada's involvement with the infamous and ineffectual US Missle Defense System. Of course the Chinese took a page from North Korea when they saw how effective the U.S. was in countering it's nuclear tests.
Chinese missile destroys satellite
Telegraph.co.uk -
By Toby Harnden and Alex Massie in Washington. The prospect of "Star Wars" between China and the West loomed last night after Beijing used a ballistic missile to destroy a satellite in space.
The U.S. has a policy of weaponizing space, and now China is obviously joining the club. We need to end the weaponization of space, period.
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Leahy Damns US Government Over Arar
Which is a stronger statement than the Harpocrite government has ever made about Arar. Oh yeah he is still waiting for that Official apology from the New Government of Canada.
Gonzales was grilled relentlessly on Thursday by Senate judiciary committee chairman Patrick Leahy. Leahy said that when Arar — a citizen of both Canada and Syria travelling on a Canadian passport — was detained in 2002, American authorities knew he would be tortured if they deported him to Syria.
"We knew damn well if he went to Canada he wouldn't be tortured," said Leahy, a Democrat from Vermont. "He'd be held and he'd be investigated.
"We also knew damn well if he went to Syria, he'd be tortured. And it's beneath the dignity of this country — a country that has always been a beacon of human rights — to send somebody to another country to be tortured.
"You know and I know that has happened a number of times in the past five years by this country. It is a black mark on us."
And Arar still cannot get into the United States despite the weak tea protest by Harper, Day and MacKay. In fact he is still on the No Fly List, which the Government continues to collaborate on. Canada mum on giving US no-fly names
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No Profit In Ending Cancer
This hits it on the head. Why can't capitalism find a cure for the ultimate disease of capitalism; cancer. There is no profit in ending the disease.
Cancerous tumours can be shrunk without radiation by administering a drug already used safely in humans for decades, says a doctor whose research is creating a major buzz in medical circles. But because the drug cannot be patented, pharmaceutical companies won't be eager to fund clinical trials to bring it to market, leaving its future in question.
The drug is called dichloroacetate, or DCA.
Michelakis, working with several researchers in Edmonton and Ottawa, discovered how DCA can reverse the hallmark weapon of cancer's plague: The sudden ability of abnormal cells to multiply indefinitely, unchecked.
DCA restores a specific function of mitochondria -- the mini power engines that drive cellular activity.
Mitochondria normally cause unhealthy cells to die off, but that function is suppressed in cancer patients.
"In more than 50 years, no one's been able to figure out how to fix mitochondria in cancer patients," said University of Calgary oncology professor Dr. Randy Johnston, who's been studying cancer for 25 years.
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Israel Lobby Opposes Free Speech
OSSTF's Toronto district approves debate request by 2 teachers
A decision approving a request by two Toronto high school teachers to have a union debate on whether to condemn Israel's treatment of Palestinians has come under fire by human rights groups. It was approved by the Toronto district of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation, and is being opposed by B'nai Brith and the Jewish Defence League.
B'nai Brith is part of the Israel lobby, which regularly calls for the Canadian State to censor or arrest those who oppose the State of Israel. Pressure like this led to the successfull lobbying effort to censor the play about Rachel Corre.
B'nai Brith and the Jewish Defence League had described an earlier motion as propaganda and said it could easily morph into racism. The teachers' union shot back that the lobby groups were engaging in what amounted to a bullying campaign aimed at stifling free speech.
And the Jewish Defense League is not a human rights group but a known terrorist organization. Kettle, pot, black.
Once again any legitimate criticism or debate about the State of Israel and its aparthied program in the occupied territories is deliberately mislabeled Anti-Semitism.
Those who live in glass houses.....
Four Jewish youths who were arrested in Paris are suspected of a racially motivated crime against a truck driver originally from Mauritius. The incident occurred on Sunday in the Marais district, a major Jewish hub of Paris. According to a French police source the youths belong to the Jewish Defense League.
Eight Palestinians abducted; no international outrage.
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