Stelmach Sells Out

PM slammed for including oil revenues in calculating equalization payments

But not by the Alberta Government. The silence from Alberta is deafening over Ottawas grab of natural resource revenues under the new Equalization/Fiscal Imbalance plan.Expect no protests from Alberta over the Conservatives New NEP.

They gave some cake to Ed Stelmach and the Provincial Tories to eat. And while this NEP affects the new oil rich provinces of Saskatchewan and Newfoundland, Alberta says I'm ok, I got Mine Jack.....

The premier noted that the equalization formula matters little to wealthy Alberta -- a marked shift in tone from his predecessor Ralph Klein, who said the inclusion of resource revenues was his "line in the sand," and that it amounted to a raid on Alberta's oil wealth.

Stelmach's tone Monday was closer to that of Finance Minister Lyle Oberg, after a week that saw the pair appear to take different sides on the issue. Oberg's side won out, as Ottawa agreed with his protests against giving Alberta $170 less per person than other provinces got in the Canada Health Transfer and Canada Social Transfer.

Ottawa will give Alberta its equal share on the CST immediately, but will not boost its grants through the health fund until a decade-long federal health accord ends in 2014.

Ralphie boy all is forgiven come back quick the Party needs you to fight Ottawa......nope can't count on that. We will have to rely on "Socialist" Saskatchewan to defend against the Harpocrites new NEP.

However, Calvert pointed out that the budget also imposes a cap on equalization payments which renders the choice of formulas moot in Saskatchewan's case. Regardless of which formula is used, the province will get only $226 million this year, not the $800 million Calvert had hoped for, and it's slated to get nothing next year as the province's fiscal capacity improves.

Calvert pointed to a fundraising brochure sent out under Harper's name prior to the last election, which stated that a Conservative government would ensure provinces get to keep "100 per cent of your oil and gas revenues. No small print. No excuses. No caps."

"That's the promise that has been betrayed," said Calvert, pointing to the cover of the brochure, which cites a Gaelic proverb: "There is no greater fraud than a promise not kept."

Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
Stelmach, Alberta, tarsands, oilsands, Canada, equalization, royalties, oil, profits,

Tax Cut Fetish

Conservatives have a fetish for tax cuts. It's their solution for everything. And now it is apparently a solution for a provincial deficit. The province's debt for the 2007-2008 budget is $122 billion and Quebec is warning of a possible deficit of almost $1 billion for next year's budget

Wait a minute, I thought the whole neo-conservative revolution in Canada occurred in response to the debt and deficit hysteria in the mid nineties.

You remember when the Ralph Revolution began in Alberta and spread across Canada. What Ralph began Mike Harris spread around.

As did Federal Finance minister Paul Martin who slashed transfer payments to the provinces to deal with the federal deficit. The Progressive Conservatives under Charest and the Reform Party under Manning cried for more, more, more government spending cuts to solve the deficit crisis.

Well now in Quebec the fiscal balance payments to make up for those past cuts are not going to be used to pay down the provincial deficit but to give Quebecers a tax cut. What nonsense. Extra federal funds will be used to cut Quebec taxes, Charest says

It is a cheap election ploy just as the Conservative budget was this week. One to get Charest reelected.

"Everyone in the country is concluding that what the prime minister was doing in the budget yesterday was trying to win himself an election. Where does he need to win seats? He needs to win seats in Central Canada, Ontario and Quebec," Calvert said in an interview.

The irony here is that the real fiscal conservatives are the PQ who are the only party saying they will use the funds to pay down the deficit.

Yoiks!

Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
Canada, budget, politics, Conservatives, Harper, Liberals, Dion, NDP, Harper, PQ, BQ, ADQ, Quebec, election, election2007

Victory sort of

Ontario to Hike Minimum Wage to $10.25 in two years. But only if they get re-elected. Typical Liberal response to a NDP demand.

Mind you the MPP's gave themselves a 25% wage increase which did not take two years to kick in.

So I guess all the sturm and drang about a $10 minimum wage being a job destroyer was so much hot air.

See;

Minimum Wage

Living Wage


Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
Ontario, NDP, Liberals, MPP, salaries, jobs, minimum wage, MPP salary increase, Sorbara, $10, living wage

Weak Opposition

The Opposition messaging against the Conservative Budget makes me wonder where their spin doctors are. Perhaps vacationing on spring break, being the young turks they are. Let us review today's Opposition response as was officially presented in the house and during QP.

Liberals: I would have given out more money. To everyone. But youse guys have a shotgun approach with this budget.

BQ: Yes you have addressed the Fiscal Imbalance, but it is not enough, we could get more if Quebec was a nation.

NDP: This budget was created at the boardroom table not the kitchen table.

The Liberals and NDP messaging is a mess. The Conservative budget gave no big corporate tax breaks, and actually closed tax loopholes on offshore tax havens used by the rich. But they did bring in their Tax Credit for Low Income earners. Something the Liberals and NDP advocated for.

Sure they did not bring in a $10 federal minimum wage which the Federal NDP are calling for (because the Ontario NDP are calling for it in the upcoming provincial election campaign). An increase in the Federal Minimum wage is a red herring because it affects so few workers and is not even a living wage program nor a Guaranteed Annual Income, which the NDP should be advocating for.

What the problem here is that this is a Liberal budget, it is a scattergun just like they have used, and it is aimed at gaining support for the government, just like they have always done. And so it does benefit working families in Canada which was it's purpose. With its targeted tax cuts and give aways it is already causing a caucus fracture in the Liberals.

The NDP though have made their opposition to the budget a matter of closing the prosperity gap between the working class and the rich elite. Therefore it behooves them to offer an alternative budget. And their pals at the Centre for Policy Alternatives have already given them a blueprint, even before the budget came down yesterday.

Along with their child care plan, their pharmacare plan, their green plan, and other announcements they have made, all they needed was the CCPA blueprint and a plan for a Guaranteed Annual Income and they could have created an alternative budget to build an election campaign around.


Instead they went for misleading sound bites accusing the government of giving big business tax breaks that did not occur.

They even quote Lenin to make it look like they have a radical alternative, which is so much smoke and mirrors. Of course Jack may now opt for a goatee along with the mustache to show how left he is.

“For every one step forward, Conservatives take two steps back,” says Layton


Obviously Brad Lavigne is still the caucus brain trust behind this dogs breakfast. Perhaps they should have sent Brad off for a much needed spring break and come up with their own Alternative Budget. Then they would have had some credibility in opposing this budget that is all things to all people.


SEE:

• Tories Red Budget

• Bleeding Heart Tories

Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
NDP, Conservatives, BQ, Liberals, Layton, Dion, Harper, Canada, politics, Duceppe, Dion, budget, Flaherty, Lenin,

Socialist Canada

Here is another example that regardless of the party in power as the Government compared to our American neighbours we sure are the socialists they claim us to be.

Yep our Conservative Government is funding mandatory vaccinations for HPV in Canada.

While of course our Americans flip their lids over this when suggested by their own governments. Why aren't more girls getting the HPV vaccine

It makes them as koo-koo as mandatory Fluoridation, Maine health officials rally for fluoridation, which they know leads to communism.

The controversy has been satirized in feature films. Stanley Kubrick's 1964 film Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb satirized an urban legend with a character declaring water fluoridation to be a communist conspiracy.

There are many who fight to get fluoride banned from drinking water and to warn us of the dangers of this element, including Robert Carton, a scientist who spent 20 years working for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and who has stated fluoridation is a fraud. He was convinced that fluoridation presented an "unacceptable risk to public health."

And of course Americans don't have that other socialist milestone; universal medicare, so parents will have to pay to have their daughters vaccinated against a preventable disease; HPV.

 The Federation of Medical Women of Canada
commends the federal government for making $300 million over the next three
years available to the provinces and territories to support the launch of a
national program for GARDASIL(TM), the approved vaccine for HPV-related
diseases such as cervical cancer and genital warts. The Federation is now
challenging provincial governments to follow through and rapidly make the HPV
vaccination universally available.
"With this new budget, the federal government is showing true leadership
with respect to women's health," said Dr. Gail Beck, President of the
Federation of Medical Women of Canada. "Last fall, we urged the federal
government to fund new vaccines, including GARDASIL(TM), which we believe is
the biggest medical breakthrough in women's health in many years. On
International Women's Day we reiterated our message of having the cost of this
vaccine covered and today the federal government has come through. We are now
looking to the provincial governments to help bring an end to cervical cancer
in Canada."

 In July 2006, GARDASIL(TM) was approved by Health Canada and in January
2007 the National Advisory Committee on Immunization (NACI) recommended that
all Canadian girls and women aged nine to 26 be routinely vaccinated with
GARDASIL(TM) to help protect them against cervical cancer, among other
HPV-related diseases.

Thats why Republicanadians of the right will never get anywhere in Canada.

The budget appears to be playing well with social conservatives, with David Quist of the Institute for Marriage and the Family telling Macleans.ca that "the elimination of the marriage penalty is a good start." Quist did not take issue with funding for HPV vaccinations, criticized by some religious groups in the United States for encouraging promiscuity. But he did express regret over the decision to transfer child care funding to the provinces, saying that he would "rather see more money get into the hands of parents so they can make those choices," or failing that into the hands of businesses rather than government.

H/T To Deep Red Tory


Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
HPV, Canada, health, healthcare, Women, cancer, Flaherty, Budget, Conservatives, government, medicare, vaccination,

Conservatives Want You To Work Longer

In the U.S. they talk about increasing the age to obtain Social Security and they plan to privatize it. It is classic neo-conservatism

In Canada we have bleeding heart Conservatives, who adopt a social democratic approach, by upping some Old Age funding, allowing for income splitting, increasing the age limit for RRSP's , all the social spending in the current budget.

And while Paul Martin mused about changing the age limits for CPP and OAS, the Conservatives have actually changed the nature of the senior workforce demographic without doing that.

Pensions: Moves aimed at letting employees work longer

In one of the new measures, the government said it will begin allowing employers to pay a partial pension to an employee while that same worker is also contributing to the pension plan. This will make it easier for retired individuals to return to the work force part time. "Many older Canadians want to continue working and saving," the budget document states. "As Canada's population ages, it will be important to allow them to do so."

Of course it pays off since the major change here is to allow retired workers to work part time and pay into a supplemental joint pension RRSP with their employer. Which means more taxes for the state. And more workers for Macdonald's.

Keeping older employees in the workforce longer is a critical challenge for businesses as they struggle with a growing labour shortage, Canada's top central banker said Thursday.

Bank of Canada Governor David Dodge said companies need to become more flexible to keep staff past the standard retirement age of 65.

"The real challenge for us is to find ways that we can use people more flexibly -- whether that's numbers of hours per week, number of weeks per year -- as they get older," Dodge said following a speech to Calgary's Chamber of Commerce.

Keeping older employers in the workforce also requires removing "any barriers to their continued participation," such as more flexible work schedules.

And he said conventional pension schemes should be redesigned to meet the needs of those who stay on past 65.

SEE:

• Tories Red Budget

• Bleeding Heart Tories

Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
pensions, seniors, Canada, work, workers, retirement, Flaherty, Conservatives, government, RRSP

Canadian Values

Remember this from the Conservatives platform during the election?

Well here is an example of another broken promise by the Harper government.

They forgot the GST cut in the budget. Country must wait for GST cut

The Conservatives have finally admitted that a cut in the GST is not 'real tax relief' after all.

"Budget 2007 will strengthen the federation by restoring much-needed fiscal balance," said Minister Flaherty. "And Canadians come out ahead through real tax relief that benefits working families."

I guess 5% is not a Canadian value after all.

Since Flaherty said his budget was all about Canadian values.

" Canada is a powerful idea. We are a modern nation that stands up for Canadian values in this world.

There are values and beliefs that unite us. Make us proud. That embody what it means to be Canadian.

To achieve a better Canada, we must invest based on those values and beliefs.

First of all, we help the vulnerable—and aspire to help one another.

Secondly, we take pride in the spectacular beauty of our country, and aspire to preserve it.

Third, we cherish the universality of our health care system, and aspire to strengthen it.

Fourth, we are a caring people, and aspire to support people who need our help.

This budget makes our values and beliefs stronger."

SEE:

• Tories Red Budget

• Bleeding Heart Tories

• Broken Promises

Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
Harper, Canada, Conservatives, Flaherty, Budget, GST, politics

Paleontologist Versus Paleo-Conservatives

I found this interesting post on Marie Stopes the mother of the British and Canadian birth control/planned parenthood movements.

Shh don't tell the Conservatives this is on the governments Natural Resources site or it might disappear.

Of course being a paleontologist she would be well steeled for dealing with controversy from the religious right. In todays world her profession as a paleontologist would give her a leg up on confronting the paleo-conservatives.

Past lives: Chronicles of Canadian Paleontology

Marie Stopes: paleobotanist at St. John

It is not often that the Geological Survey of Canada considers it necessary to hire a foreign expert to adjudicate a local paleontological matter. In 1911 Marie Stopes was brought in as a hired gun to check the paleobotanical work of Sir William Dawson in St. John, New Brunswick

Marie Stopes, in a romantic pose looking like the Lady of Shalott, aged 30, about the time she worked on the Fern Ledges fossils. (From Ruth Hall's book - Passionate Crusader: The Life of Marie Stopes.)

In 1940, a Mr. J.F. Coates, M.P. from New South Wales gave a speech in the Australian Parliament that included this statement: "The Empire today has three enemies -- all from Munich. One is Hitler, the other Goebbels, and the third that doctor of German philosophy and science -- Dr. Marie Stopes. The greatest of these is Marie Stopes". Why such enmity? Her German doctorate was in the field of paleobotany -- not usually a field that provokes vitriolic hate. But Stopes was also the author of the first sex manuals, Married Love and Wise Parenthood, and an active promoter of birth control who established Britain's first family planning clinics in 1921. The Marie Stopes International now provides reproductive health services in over thirty countries and, in 1999, she came first in the Guardian's "Women of the Millennium" poll.

But our interest here is not primarily with Marie Stopes, the birth control promoter; it is with Marie Stopes, the paleobotanist, who in 1911 was hired by the Geological Survey of Canada to settle a vexing controversy about the age of plant fossils at "Fern Ledges" near St. John, New Brunswick. With a Ph.D from Munich and a D.Sc. from London, this 30-year-old lecturer in botany at the University of Manchester, and the author of Ancient Plants, was well qualified for this task.

Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
Canada, Marie Stopes, birth control, paleobotanist, paleontology, fossils,

Israel Hacker Heaven

Israel a Hotbed of Internet Attacks, Report Says

Because Israel is a hotbed of corporate malfeasance, spying and corruption.

24 December 2001

Fox News, beginning mid-December, reported a four-part series on alleged Israeli spying on the US telecommunication systems through firms which provide telephone billing and assist FBI wiretaps. Recently the series was withdrawn by Fox News without explanation. The series has been recovered from private archives for publication here.

It is also the source for software tied to the American corporate, military and intelligence establishment.

For the past five years, there have been growing fears that somehow, outsiders have been able to penetrate into the confidential computer files of government agencies, business entities such as banks and defense contractors and individuals.

Some of this appeared to be an attempt to obtain highly classified information that could be of use to others and in other instances, attempts to get into the personal, and corporate, bank accounts of individuals and corporations.

This is a brief study of some of the salient aspects of this problem of computer theft and espionage and we will start with the discovery of massive computer penetration in Israel. We will then consider further penetrations of American business and intelligence computer systems by agents of a foreign government as opposed to confidence men and then conclude with the use of the same methods to commit frauds on the gullible in the United States and elsewhere.

Some of the first public notice of this problem surfaced first in Israel in 2004 when Israeli law enforcement cyber crime experts discovered that what is known as a Trojan Horse (illicit spyware planted on an unsuspecting computer) had been inserted into about 60 major Israeli businesses. Isreali law enforcement subsequently indicted various members of three of Israel’s largest private investigative agencies on charges of criminal fraud. These spyware plants were in various commercial areas such as : Israeli military contracting, telephone systems, cable television, finance, automobile and cigarette importing, journalism and high technology. These intrusive spyware plants were nearly identical with ones developed by the American NSA and widely used inside the United States to glean political, economic and counter-intelligence information from a huge number of American businesses and agencies. Israeli investigators believed that there was illicit cooperation between the American agency and a counterpart in Israel.

These Trojan horses that penetrated the Israeli computers came packaged inside a compact disc or were sent as an e-mail message that appeared to be from an institution or a person that the victims thought they knew very well. Once the program was installed, it functioned every time the victim’s computer system was in use, logging keystrokes or collecting sensitive documents and passwords before transmitting the information elsewhere.

This clandestine theft of valuable commercial, military and political secrets is certainly not limited to Israel and many important agencies and individuals have become increasingly concerned about what is called “phishing” in which both con men and foreign (and domestic) intelligence agencies can locate, capture and use valuable personal, political and financial information. In September of 2005, the Anti-Phishing Working Group, an ad hoc group of corporate and law enforcement groups that track identity theft and other online crimes, said it had received more than 13,000 unique reports of phishing schemes in that month alone, up from nearly 7,000 in the month of October, 2004..

In late 2005, a new form of phishing, called “spear-phishing” emerged.

.So-called spear-phishing is a highly concentrated and far more effectove version of phishing. That's because those behind the schemes bait their hooks for specific victims instead of casting a broad, ill-defined net across cyberspace hoping to catch throngs of unknown victims.

Spear-phishing, say security specialists, is much harder to detect than phishing. Bogus e-mail messages and Web sites not only look like near perfect replicas of communiqués from e-commerce companies like eBay or its PayPal service, banks or even a victim's employer, but are also targeted at people known to have an established relationship with the sender being mimicked. American banks such as Chase and Bank of America are among those whose names are faked and also the online auction house of Ebay and the international money transfer firm of PayPal receive considerable attention from the international conmen and credit thieves. These thieves are not necessarily gangs operating for financial gain but also include theft of trade secrets, private corporate banking and highly sensitive military and political information.

Court remands top Israeli execs in industrial espionage affair
The Tel Aviv Magistrate's Court Monday remanded several people from some of Israel's leading commercial companies and private investigators suspected of commissioning and carrying out industrial espionage against their competitors, which was carried out by planting Trojan horse software in their competitors' computers.

Others said the combination of Israel's high-tech culture, fine-tuned in secretive military units, and a penchant for independent thinking made the scandal inevitable. Some of the world's top computer security companies, including Check Point Software Technologies Ltd., are Israeli.
The list of clients implicated in the affair reads like a Who's Who of Israeli blue chips: Amdocs Ltd., a business-software maker that trades on the New York Stock Exchange; the Cellcom phone carrier and three subsidiaries of the Bezeq phone monopoly, a long-distance carrier, cell phone provider and satellite TV firm.

At least one veteran fraud investigator in Israel said he wasn't shocked by revelations of widespread spear-phishing and the corporate espionage scandal last spring. "This case is not unconventional," said Boaz Guttman, a lawyer and former head of the cybercrimes unit for the Israeli national police. "Most of the crimes are not reported. The police here and in the United States only know about 5 percent of the cases. Hackers don't take a break, not one minute.

"Everybody is spying against everybody in Israel," added Mr. Guttman, who said he was representing one of the suspects in the Trojan horse investigation but was not authorized to reveal his client's identity. "You cannot be surprised by this because this is the way of life for companies today."

The Chalabi files recovered by U.S. intelligence and law enforcement provided enough information for the FBI to begin a criminal investigation of a Baghdad-Jerusalem-Washington syndicate that is profiteering from America's misguided invasion and occupation of Iraq. The investigation led to shadowy Israeli-owned firms registered in Delaware and Panama that were fraudulently obtaining contracts and sub-contracts to provide everything from cellular phones and VIP security to the interrogation of Iraqi prisoners using seconded members of Israel's feared Unit 1391 "special techniques" interrogation center. Not only were these firms operating in Iraq with the concurrence of the neo-cons in the Pentagon but some U.S. government officials were personally benefiting from the contracts.


The Economic Espionage law authorizes the FBI to act against foreign intelligence gathering agencies toiling on US soil with the aim of garnering proprietary economic information. During the Congressional hearings that preceded the law, the FBI estimated that no less that 23 governments, including the Israeli, French, Japanese, German, British, Swiss, Swedish, and Russian, were busy doing exactly that. Louis Freeh, the former director of the FBI, put it succinctly: "Economic Espionage is the greatest threat to our national security since the Cold War."



Joining scandal-hit NETeller and Torex Retail, Israeli mobile software group Adamind became the latest firm on the junior market to stand accused of nefarious behaviour. The revelation last Monday that it was being investigated by the Financial Services Authority on suspicion of insider dealing caused some critics again to question the efficacy of Aim's regulatory system, which is often blamed for letting inferior companies loose on investors.

Quick: What do Hamas terrorists have in common with Martha Stewart? No, we're not talking about their public-approval ratings. Rather, both may have drawn unwanted scrutiny in part because of the same piece of software.

The data-mining algorithms of ClearForest, based in New York City, are at work within both Israeli security agencies and NASDAQ. Israel uses them to drill for hidden connections among suspected terrorists: say, a pattern of phone calls shortly before each of several suicide bombings. NASDAQ uses the same software to detect block trades of stock quietly placed just before the release of company news — including sales by relatives of ImClone's founder, Sam Waksal, who this fall pleaded guilty to insider-trading charges, and his friend Martha Stewart, who remains under investigation (and has denied any wrongdoing).

Both NASDAQ and Israel's security services are sprawling organizations, bombarded daily with terabytes of information, any bit of which may prevent a catastrophe, whether measured in lives or in retirement savings lost to fraud. And these days, data-mining software, combined with technologies that connect disparate computer systems and databases, is making it possible for everyone from police departments to clothing merchants to global manufacturers to search through ever expanding data warehouses and draw valuable connections that would otherwise be lost to human eyes.

Israeli Citizenship has been linked to U.S. trading scandals and accusations of money laundering against Michael Zwebner. Mr. Zwebner is a good pal of PM Ehud Olmert and the disgraced rapist; Israeli President Moshe Katsav


Dear Jerusalem Post,
In searching for any mention of a Michael Zwebner and his company's business dealings (Universal Communications Systems Inc.) in Israel I came across a series of articles by a person of that name writing on commodities or metals for the 'Jerusalem Post' as late as 1997.They then seem to have come to a halt,for whatever reason,as a search of his name on your internet sight will show.

I was most surprised that mention of his most recent project,an 'AirWater machine', supposedly to provide water for the Israeli military, did not appear in your reputable newspaper.Also no mention was made of a demonstration that supposedly took place at the 'AQUA Israel 2004' exhibition.Nor was there any mention of his company's meeting with Israeli President Moshe Katzov, who was quite flattering of Mr.Zwebner's product, according to a BUSINESS WIRE PR put out by Mr.Zwebner's company, located in Florida and incorporated in Nevada,I believe.

Another of Mr.Zwebner's BUSINESSWIRE press releases further claims the U.S.army in Iraq has made 'an order to supply and ship a number of AirWater machines to the Gulf for immediate delivery to the US Army/Coalition Forces.'Another article from Australia interviewing Mr.Zwebner claimed the order was completed and the AirWater machines of the company are now operating in Iraq.

There are some posting messages on www.ragingbull.com's 'ucsy',or Universal Communication System Inc., message board that are less than flattering.Some people believe the sole purpose of the press releases has been what is termed a 'pump and dump' of a penny stock. Further another website that is a host of consumer complaints hints that President Moshe Katzov actually received remuneration for helping Mr.Zwebner tout or promote this stock whose shares were then dumped on U.S. or other investors as it was touted in fraudulent prs by the company.

http://www.fundstreet.org/...
December 13, 2005

Cerberus-Gabriel hedge fund buys stake in Leumi Bank
Israel is on its way to privatization. The banking sector is amongst the first ones to take a step in this direction. Bank Leumi was in the market recently and attracted bids from several players. Bidder names include strategic investors like Lev Leviev, IDB and Bill Davidson and also financial contenders like UBS, Deutsche Bank and Citibank. However the winner was an American Hedge fund, Cerberus-Gabriel.

Cerberus-Gabriel has purchased 9.9% of the shares of the bank. The purchase of this stake was for approximately $500 million. The fund also has the option of buying an additional 10.01% in the bank. This will bring the total shares quantum to 20% and is roughly valued at $1 billion. This option of additional purchase has to be utilized with in the next one and a half years.

Ehud Olmert, Finance Minister of Israel, is reportedly quite satisfied with the outcome. He feels that this is a positive development and will help the over all Israeli economy. He is amongst the top promoters of privatization move. In his statement he also mentioned that the purchase will ensure healthy competition between the banks and will definitely contribute a lot to the local market.

Another person quite happy with the development is Yaron Zelekha, the treasury's accountant-general, who led the tender. He sees it as fulfillment of the promise made to the people of Israel about privatization of the entire banking system in 2005.

Isreali Citizenship is good for avoiding prosecution in the U.S. as well.

The fugitive former chief executive of leading voice-mail-software maker Comverse Technology (CMVT) has been captured in Africa after a two-month international manhunt, U.S. officials announced Wednesday.

Details of the arrest of Jacob "Kobi" Alexander in the Republic of Namibia were not immediately available. But in a statement, U.S. Attorney Roslynn Mauskopf credited local officials in the southwest African nation for assisting the FBI in the capture.

Mauskopf said she would seek Alexander's swift extradition to face charges in federal court in Brooklyn. A call to his defense attorney in New York was not immediately returned.

The manhunt began in late July shortly before authorities unsealed a criminal complaint accusing Alexander and two other former top executives of secretly manipulating stock options for personal profit.

Before he disappeared, Alexander, 54, an Israeli citizen and a permanent U.S. resident, allegedly transferred $57 million to Israel, fueling speculation he may have fled there.

Two other defendants, former finance chief David Kreinberg and former senior general counsel William Sorin, surrendered in August and were released on $1 million bond each.

The complaint unsealed in federal court accuses the three men of making stock options more lucrative by backdating their exercise price to a low point in the stock's value. Usually, a stock option's exercise price coincides with the market value at the time of a grant, to give the recipient an incentive to drive the price higher.

Today fighting corruption and scandal in Israel is the political fallout as a result of the failed Lebanese war last summer.

Zamir served on the Supreme Court from 1994 until 2001, during which he was on the panel that considered the Ganot case. Since his retirement (Supreme Court justices take mandatory retirement at the age of 70) he has spoken out with growing harshness against corruption in Israeli public life and in particular against political appointments in the civil service. In recent years he has been chairman of the Jerusalem Center for Ethics, and two months ago he submitted to the Knesset the report of a public committee he headed following an episode in which an MK cast a double vote in a Knesset motion. The committee recommended adding new rules of ethics and toughening the sanctions that the Knesset can impose on its members.

Zamir is convinced that if Israel does not take urgent steps, it is liable to deteriorate within a few years to the place now occupied by some countries in Africa and Latin America. "We have to shout and say, 'Listen, we are sick,'" he warns. "Corruption really is a kind of chronic disease, which can be terminal." He goes to his study and returns with surveys showing that the Israeli public believes that the government is corrupt. "If the public thinks, even mistakenly, that the entire government is corrupt, that is a self-fulfilling prophecy. It leads naturally, and almost necessarily, to the loss of trust in the regime. And then what can replace it: the strong, clean leader. We know from the world's experience that the strong leader, even if he is at first clean, quickly becomes very dirty." Zamir quotes with unconcealed emotion what "the country's No. 1 security person," former chief of staff Moshe Ya'alon, told Ari Shavit in an interview in Haaretz, that corruption is more dangerous than the Iranian threat. "I agree with that. The security threat - missiles from Lebanon and Syria, or an Iranian nuclear threat - is viewed as concrete. We understand it, and we know the damage it will do. So people can become fearful and demand action, and these issues occupy a very high place on the public agenda. When it comes to corruption, though - in part because it operates in the dark and you don?t see it - people are not sufficiently aware of the danger. The result is that there is great indifference among the public, which was given expression, for example, in the last Knesset elections. Like cancer, you don't see corruption at its inception, you don't feel it spreading; you feel it at a certain stage, when it breaks out, and then in very many cases, it's already too late."

And it's revealing that the corruption is just business as usual thanks to the politics of privatization conducted by Olmert. Chickens, home, roost.



Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
Israel, hackers, internet, virus, phishing, spam, hacking, computers, security,

Anna Nicole Smith and Barbara Amiel

So what do Anna Nicole Smith and Barbara Amiel, Mrs. Lord Black, have in common?

Besides being notorious media self promoters? Black's wife blasts media as trial adjourned

The strain of Conrad Black's racketeering trial has taken its toll on the fallen newspaper mogul's wife, Barbara Amiel-Black, who unleashed a foul-mouthed tirade at the media yesterday in which she called a Canadian journalist a "slut". "As the doors closed, suddenly, out of nowhere, Barbara Amiel said -- in a very cut-glass, rather aggressive voice -- 'You slut!'," said British journalist Joanna Walters, who was in the elevator with some other journalists.

Both of them married wealthy older men.

There's a term for morbid sexual fascination with the elderly. It's called gerontophilia.

In Canada, it's also called Barbara Amielia.

One must admire the skills of a woman who is her own ruthless invention. Despite penning an article for Chatelaine magazine entitled "Why Women Marry Up,'' Amiel never needed to sleep-up, or wedlock well, to gain either social or professional altitude, although beguiling the right men did bring riches and opportunity. And maybe Amiel really did look upon the troll-like Lord Weidenfeld, her primary patron-swain in England whilst a single female, as a hottie. Women are weird that way, hormonally responsive to the potency of power, the way men get tumescent on porn.

What kind of person would want “love” from someone who wants them only for their money?

It would be a lot cheaper and productive to dump the “friend” and spend the money on a good therapist.

There is not a law against being stupid. When a 60-year-old lottery winner suddenly gets an 18-year-old lover, the lover is not with them for their looks.

Three has been too much media coverage of Anna Nicole. She did not earn her wealth or make the world a better place. Her big accomplishment was inheriting money.

See:

Ben Stein's Truth

Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
Anna Nicole Smith, Conrad Black, Lord Black, Barbara Amiel, crime, fraud, Canada, Chicago, Hollinger