More Bad News For Bush

What General Petraeus did not tell Congress.

The U.S. mission in Iraq is a "nightmare with no end in sight" because of political misjudgments after the fall of Saddam Hussein that continue today, a former chief of U.S.-led forces said Friday.

SEE

• Truth A Casualty of War
• Casualties Of War
• Q and A on Iraq

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Inspector-General, USA, Iraq, insurgency, Pretaerus, Crocker, GAO, Senator Warner, Senator Hagel, surge, Baghdad,

Rogues Gallery

Canadian Ambassadors to the U.S. to decide Canada's mission in Afghanistan.

Former Liberal deputy prime minister John Manley will head the group, which includes:

• Derek Burney, Canada's former ambassador to Washington and former chief of staff to Brian Mulroney
• Respected broadcaster Pamela Wallin, who was Canadian consul general in New York
• Former Progressive Conservative cabinet minister Jake Epp
• Paul Tellier, former Clerk of the Privy Council and former president and CEO of Canadian National Railway and Bombardier

• 
  

Talk about an old boys club. Shades of the old Mulroney government.

Manley is a hawk as is Burney, who was brought in by Harper to be his transition guy in the first six months of his government.

Epp was seen as a potential Evangelical Christian candidate for Alliance/Conservative Party leadership!

Jake Epp's distinguished white-haired image flashes onto the evangelical political radar screen. At 61 (the same age as your humble scribe) he is seen as a bridge between the past and present, the Alliance and the Conservatives, the evangelical world and the rest of the body politic.

Epp and Manley are political pals.

The election of the Ontario Liberal Party in 2003 delayed action on the Epp report. The government of Dalton McGuinty appointed Epp to the Ontario Power Generation Review headed by John Manley to examine the future role of Ontario Power Generation (OPG)

As are Wallin and Manley;

In 2001, Wallin, along with then-Foreign Affairs Minister John Manley, was one of the organizers of the "Canada Loves New York" rally for Canadians to show their support after the September 11, 2001 attacks (Manley ran in the New York City Marathon in 2001, a contributing factor to organize the rally). In 2003, Wallin and Senator Jerry Grafstein were honored by the Canadian Society of New York for their ongoing commitment to strengthening the ties between Canada and the United States.

Chain Saw Tellier was responsible for gutting jobs at CN and Bombadier, and in leading the privatization of CN when he was appointed by Mulroney.

And while there are token Liberals on this committee lets not forget the NDP adage; Liberal Tory Same Old Story.

There is a Conservative specter haunting Canada and it is the ghost of Brian Mulroney.

We will now take wagers, will they recommend we stay till 2011, 2014, 2020, or 2050?

Manley remains tight lipped!

Who are the panel members and what have they said about Afghanistan?

John Manley

Lawyer with McCarthy Tétrault firm in Toronto. MP for Ottawa South 1988-2004. Cabinet minister 1993-2003 (Industry, Foreign Affairs, deputy prime minister with special responsibility for national security, then Finance). Ran for Liberal leadership in 2003, but withdrew and endorsed Paul Martin.

"Whenever we asked Afghans what they thought ISAF [the International Security Assistance Force] or Canada should do, they did not hesitate to say we must stay. Without the presence of the international forces, chaos would surely ensue. ... We often seek to define Canada's role in the world. Well, for whatever reason, we have one in Afghanistan. Let's not abandon it too easily. But let's use our hard-earned influence to make sure the job is done."

- October, 2007, issue of Policy Options.

Derek Burney

Chairman of Global CanWest Communications. Former diplomat (ambassador to Korea, Japan and the United States). Chief of staff to Prime Minister Brian Mulroney 1987-93. Headed Mr. Harper's transition team in 2006.

"Until very recently, Canadians were essentially unaware of the reasons for our involvement in Afghanistan. The initial decision was taken in the immediate wake of 9/11, ostensibly as a commitment against global terrorism. But, when Canada accepted, almost by stealth, a much larger, more risky role more than a year ago to take charge of the multinational force in the volatile Kandahar region, there was little explanation, debate, or leadership at the time. Some suspected that it was meant primarily to help temper U.S. criticism of our decision not to engage in Iraq. Whatever the rationale, a leadership gap became more apparent. Not surprisingly, polls confirmed some confusion and growing apprehension about what we are doing in Afghanistan and why. Canadians may be proud of the role we used to play as blue-bereted peacekeepers but they seemed less certain and less proud of the more dangerous role we are taking on as peacemakers and nation builders."

- April 11, 2006, Arthur Kroeger College Awards Dinner, Ottawa.

Paul Tellier

Director of Alcan Inc. and BCE Inc. Trained as a lawyer. Joined federal civil service in the 1970s and rose to become Clerk of the Privy Council, the country's top civil servant, 1985-1991 under Mr. Mulroney. He left in 1992 when Mr. Mulroney appointed him president and CEO of CN Rail. In 2003, he took a three-year posting as president and CEO of Bombardier.

"Many Americans don't know that Canadian soldiers are fighting the war in Afghanistan, and are paying a dear price, some with their lives. Americans have a lot to learn about Canada, but the reverse is true as well."

- Sept. 28, 2006, keynote address at the second Annual CN Forum on Canada-U.S. Relations, Michigan State University.

Jake Epp

Chairman of the board of Ontario Power Generation and chairman of Health Partners International, a non-profit group providing medical aid in Afghanistan. The former school history teacher from Steinbach, Man., was a Conservative MP from 1972-1993. Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development in the short-lived Joe Clark government in 1979 and Health and Energy Minister under Mr. Mulroney.

"Most Afghan doctors don't have medicine at all and when they do, it is often low quality and perhaps not what the bottle indicates. When an Afghan hospital received an impressive shipment of assorted medicines from HPIC, a doctor commented to our staff that now he had medicine that actually works."

- Nov. 14, 2006, at Beyond Our Borders signing ceremony in Toronto.

Pamela Wallin

Chancellor of the University of Guelph. Former TV journalist (co-host of Canada AM, CTV Ottawa bureau chief, co-host of CBC Prime Time News, host of Pamela Wallin Live). Consul-General in New York 2002-2006.

"From the U.S. perspective, the inability of the UN to act left the U.S. with no option but to protect itself from the future possibilities of another terrorist attack, aided and abetted by a rogue government in Iraq. And agree or not, for Americans the reality is that this war began on September 11. It's part of a continuum that runs through to the routing of the Taliban from Afghanistan, and moves forward to the war in Iraq - just another step along the path to remove terrorist threats around the globe."

- April 28, 2003, to a joint meeting of The Empire Club of Canada and The Canadian Club of Toronto.

See:

Dog Bites Man

No Time Lines For Afghanistan Exit

Harper On Executive Power

Stephen Mulroney

Stephen Mulroney Brian Harper

Canada's Real Prime Minister

Not Your Daddies Conservative Party, well...

Mulroney's Ghost

Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
Canada, government, Conservatives, Harper, Mulroney, Prime Minister
Jake Epp, Pamela Wallin, John Manley, Paul Tellier, Derek Burney, Afghanistan

Jacques DeMolay Thou Art Avenged

King Phillip of France ordered the arrest of the Templars and their leader Jacques DeMolay on Friday, October 13, 1307. The day lives on in infamy as the origin of 'unlucky' Friday the 13th.

The leader of the order, Jacques de Molay, was one of those who confessed to heresy, but later recanted.

He was burned at the stake in Paris in 1314, the same year that the Pope dissolved the order.

Jacques de Molay (est. 1244–5/1249–50 – 18 March 1314), a minor Burgundian noble, served as the 23rd and officially last Grand Master of the Knights Templar.

"It is just that, in so terrible a day, and in the last moments of my life, I should discover all the iniquity of falsehood, and make the truth triumph. I declare, then, in the face of heaven and earth, and acknowledge, though to my eternal shame, that I have committed the greatest crimes but it has been the acknowledging of those which have been so foully charged on the order. I attest - and truth obliges me to attest - that it is innocent! I made the contrary declaration only to suspend the excessive pains of torture, and to mollify those who made me endure them. I know the punishments which have been inflicted on all the knights who had the courage to revoke a similar confession; but the dreadful spectacle which is presented to me is not able to make me confirm one lie by another. The life offered me on such infamous terms I abandon without regret."

Reports say they were slowly roasted over a hot, smokeless fire prolonging their agony as their flesh slowly cooked and blackened. Jacques DeMolay insisted that his hands were not to be bound so that he could pray in his final moments and before he died he cursed both Philip and Pope Clement, summoning both of them to appear before God, the supreme judge, before the year was out. His last words were, "Let evil swiftly befall those who have wrongly condemned us - God will avenge us." Guy of Advernge is reported to have added, "I shall follow the way of my master as a martyr you have killed him. You have done and know not. God willing, on this day, I shall die in the Order like him."

The chilling irony of the conclusion of this story is that Jacques DeMolay's final words did, in fact, come true. Pope Clement V died only a month later on April 20th (he is suspected of having cancer of the bowel) and Philip IV was killed while on a hunting trip on November 29th 1314. True to the claim both men did indeed die within the year of Jacques DeMolay's own death.

Legend has it that during the days of the French Revolution, nearly 500 years after de Molay's death, an anonymous man from the crowd jumped onto the guillotine just as Louis XVI had been decapitated, dipped his hand in the king's blood, and cried: 'Jacques de Molay, tu es vengé!'

And with that the world changed forever as the myth of grandest conspiracy to free humanity from autocracy and church tyranny began and would influence European thought and politics for the last 700 years. The glorious myth of the a Knights Templar, you will of course remember them from the popular novel and movie; The DaVinci Code.

There’s considerable evidence to suggest Templars were forewarned of King Philip’s plans. Twenty Templar ships left France just days before Black Friday, according to Sinclair — some bound for Portugal and others for the Western Isles.

“Many historians believe that the vast treasure most certainly headed for Rosslyn — not directly, but it most certainly headed for Roslin” — a small town south of Edinburgh, Scotland, Sinclair said.

Rosslyn Chapel, a 15th century church designed by Knights Templar William Sinclair, may be where the Holy Grail and other treasures and documents were once stored — and perhaps still are, according to Sinclair.

His ancestors began building the chapel in 1446, just a year after a fire nearly devastated nearby Roslin Castle. Several caskets of documents and other treasures were allegedly spared from the fire, and those treasures may be buried in the crypt 40 feet below Rosslyn Chapel’s foundation, Sinclair said.

The magnificently-designed chapel took approximately 40 years to complete and the Sinclairs spent massive amounts of money during the process. Its location, which is remarkably close to another church, is more than a bit suspicious, according to Sinclair.

Why build a chapel so close to a church, he asked. There’s no reason, unless ….

“Rosslyn Chapel was not built as a place of worship. It was built as a repository for secrets,” Sinclair said. Evidence that the chapel is actually a reconstruction of the Temple of Herod only fuels the mystery.

“All the pillars are laid out to a precise plan according to ancient history,” according to Sinclair, and “the ritual references carved into the stone have been created as a clue for the individual who will one day unlock the mysteries of Rosslyn.”

Along with Friday the 13 the myth of the curse of the number 23, which was popularized by Robert Anton Wilson, was related to the Templars.

Jacques de Molay (est. 1244–5/1249–50 – 18 March 1314^[), a minor Burgundian noble, served as the 23rd and officially last Grand Master of the Knights Templar.

Today that vengeance comes in the form of a Papal apology long lost now rediscovered.

Vatican Publishes Knights Templar Papers

Knights Templar win heresy reprieve after 700 years

It is interesting to note that while the Papacy redeemed the Templars 700 years ago after having first capitulated to King Phillip Le Bel's (the Fair) initial trumped up charges, the first historic case of McCarthyism, they lost the paper work. Ah bureaucracy, eh.

The new book, published by the Vatican's Secret Archive later this month, will reveal many of the centuries-old mysteries of the secretive group. Entitled Processus contra Templarios, the book is based on a scrap of parchment discovered in 2001 by Professor Barbara Frale while looking through the Vatican's secret collection.

Known as the Chinon parchment, the document records the heresy hearings of the Templars before Pope Clement V and is understood to provide a full exoneration of the knights and their rituals and ceremonies.

Sodomy, blasphemy and witchcraft were among the crimes for which the warrior-monks of the Order of the Knights Templar were burnt at the stake. But almost 700 years after the pope dissolved their order, on October 25 the Vatican's Secret Archives are due to publish a book which promises to redeem their reputation - at least in the eyes of the church. "Among the charges brought against the Templars was that they had been 'seduced' by Islam and followed [the mediaeval heresy] Catharism - two incompatible elements," Franco Cardini a historian scheduled to take part at the book's presentation told Turin-based daily La Stampa. "Then again the lawyers representing the king of France did not need to build a coherent case," said Cardini, referring to the trials against the French Templars ordered in 1307 by King Philip IV, also known as Philip the Fair. "All that they were interested in was that the trials would appear credible before public opinion," Cardini added. With their power and wealth shrouded behind secretive rituals, the Templars had been the subject of many rumours, and Philip, who was heavily indebted to the order and needed money to finance his war with the English, relished the opportunity for a crackdown. Following the trials in France during which scores of confessions - many of them extracted through torture - of heresies committed by Templars were presented, Pope Clement V instructed Christian monarchs in Europe to arrest all Templars and seize their assets. Clement finally dissolved the order in 1312, but the myths surrounding the Templars have lived on, most recently in Dan Brown's best selling novel The Da Vinci Code and the Hollywood blockbuster based on it. The Vatican's book, Processus contra Templarios, or the Trial against the Templars, would appear to clear up at least one matter: that the Church could find no proof of the Templars' alleged heresies. It also suggests Clement, himself a Frenchman, was, as described on the Secret Archives' website, the victim of a "blackmail mechanism" put in place by Philip. The book is based on a parchment, the Act of Chinon, dated 1308 and discovered in 2001 in the Secret Archives, where it had been mislaid for centuries. In the Act of Chinon, Clement absolves the Templar leaders, while concluding that the order's initiation ceremony involving the "spitting on the cross", "denying Jesus" and the kissing of the lower back, navel and mouth of a fellow-Templar did not constitute serious blasphemy. The pontiff appears to have accepted the Templars' explanation that the initiation rite was supposed to simulate their humiliation at the hands of the Muslim Saracens - a throwback to the order's foundation following the first crusade to liberate the Holy Land. Still, with what the Vatican website describes as an "ambiguous compromise," Clement in 1312 "unable to oppose himself to the will" of Philip effectively ended all Templar activity.

The irony is that while the Templars were charged with the crime of Catharism, a Gnostic heresy, they had evolved from the first crusade the Church launched which was not against Islam but against the Cathars. It was an unpopular crusade, with little support in France or Spain, but it lead to the creation of the inquisition. Over 200,000 were killed.

There case is eerily reminiscent of the current state of emergency powers being used by the U.S. as it conducts its so called war on terror in the Middle East today.

The Templar Myth has been kept alive as part of the Protestant Reformation by the two branches of Freemasons (English Grand Lodge and the European Oriental Lodges) in their long standing battle with the Papacy.

The Templars' initiation ritual has been widely copied, most notably by the Freemasons, who have a title called "Order of the Knights Templar.


William T. Holcomb, 95, of Hendersonville died Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2007, at Beystone Health and Rehabilitation.

He was a native of Colorado Springs, Colo., the son of the late Trafford G. and Mattie L. Holcomb. He lived in Hendersonville since 1984. He married the late Irene Smith of Sterling County in 1933.

He was employed by Chevron for 36 years and worked in a number of states, with most of his career in refining and production of asphalt products. For a number of years he was refinery manager in Baltimore and later became the manager of manufacturing in the eastern United States and Canada.

He was active in the Masonic organization. He was a past master in Maryland, a member of Kedron Lodge in Hendersonville, Oasis Shrine Temple, and a member of the Hendersonville Shrine Club. In 1977, when living in Arizona, he was invested with the DeMolay Legion of Honor. He was a member of the First Presbyterian Church in Hendersonville.

The fact is that the Order of the Poor Knights of Jerusalem were the first independent military order and co-fraternity that allowed those excommunicated to join. Thus King Phillip could accuse them of harbouring Cathars.

They were independent of the Church per se answerable to their Grand Master only, and under Papal dispensation. Their oath of poverty was to hold all lands, and vassals as common property of the order. They owned farms, had their own towns, and had thousands of people in their employ. They also owned ships and thus were in competition with the Italians for shipping from Europe to the Holy Lands.

They created the first banking operation seen in Europe, by use of a traveling script that allowed Christians traveling to the holy lands to deposit their monies and valuables in a Templar Church in their home country and able to retrieve their value in any Templar Church along the way or finally in the Holy Lands for a service fee, since interest was seen as usury.

There lands and churches were the source of capital Phillip needed for his bankrupt regime. In London the City of London, its banking and economic capital, was founded upon the Templars London Temple.

Some of the Templars' lands in London were later rented to lawyers, which led to the names of Temple Bar gate and Temple Tube station.

The Templars were the historical beginning of the decline of feudalism and the rise of capitalism in Europe. They were the model for primitive accumulation of capital, armed mercenaries and mercantile bankers. The end of the crusades opened Europe up to international trade and within one hundred years, the beginning of the first stock exchange based on the shipping lanes used during the crusades.

See my paper:

LOOKING BACKWARDS
The Fraternal Origins of Working Class Organizations In the Transition from Feudalism to Capitalism



SEE:

RAW RIP

1666 The Creation Of The World

Masonic Hall T.O.

Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
Jacques DeMolay, Knights Templar,Freemasons, Crusades, secret societies, conspiracy theories,

Headline Says It All

And just as he was going up a wee bit in the polls the National Post ran this screaming full banner headline on their front page today;

STELMACH BLINKS FIRST
Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach has indicated he may be willing to give in to intense oil-industry pressure

Which then resulted in this:

Premier Stelmach quoted as saying he won't trounce royalty deals

Stelmach reconsidering royalty issue: report

Alberta leader wants calm Stelmach: formal royalty, tax talks ‘over,’ but ministers meet privately with investors

And while Eddies PR flack; former Calgary Herald Columnist (and scab), Tom Olson admits he wasn't at the 'private' business affair he attempts to do some damage control;

Alberta premier has not decided on royalties: aide

Alberta's premier has not ruled out any recommendations from his royalty review panel, which has urged the province to boost its take from the oil industry by C$2 billion ($2.1 billion), or 20 percent, a year, his spokesman said on Friday.

"No final decisions have been made," Tom Olsen, a spokesman for Premier Ed Stelmach, told Reuters. "The premier is committed to meeting the objective of the report. The suggestion of (panel chairman Bill) Hunter is that there was room to move on royalties. The status quo is not an option."

No royalty decision yet

Premier Ed Stelmach's office insists he has not made any final decisions on royalties, after a newspaper report today suggested he's backing away from at least one of the royalty review panel's contentious proposals.

Stelmach said a private speech Thursday to about 100 executives organized by the Harvard Business School Club in Calgary that he will "not trounce existing agreements," the National Post reported, citing sources in attendance at the event.

The government-commissioned review on energy royalties urged Stelmach against "grandfathering" - imposing new rules on higher royalties on projects that have already begun under the current royalty system.

"I can't dispute the quote," said Tom Olsen, the premier's press secretary.

Olsen said he wasn't at the speech.

David Heyman, another premier's aide who was there, said he couldn't recall any exact quotes, and no government staff recorded or took notes as Stelmach spoke.

Stelmach's remarks came to an audience member's question. "Here's what I do remember: It was a long answer. It took several minutes," Heyman said.

The aide noted that Stelmach's speaking style doesn't include "short, sharp sentences," so it might be difficult to draw conclusions based on one part of a lengthy comment.

You see he can't really think on his feet, he rambles, he is indecisive, he goes with the wind.

While the government continues to back pedal and lower expectations on the royalty issue despite it giving Ed a boost in the polls. Its the politics of lowered expectations.

No decision expected for another two weeks

With energy companies warning high royalties will trigger cutbacks and job losses, and public opinion overwhelmingly in favour of higher royalties, this is almost universally deemed the pivotal decision of Stelmach's leadership.

Energy Minister Mel Knight refused to comment on the progress of his department's study of the royalty review.

"We're working very hard to reach a balance," Knight said outside cabinet Tuesday.

Stelmach and many ministers have largely abandoned talk of Albertans' "fair share" of resource revenues -- they've instead adopted the buzzword "balance," referring to a decision that considers both the public's ownership of resources and industry's multibillion-dollar investments.

The two weeks is when Ed will do his Ralph Klein imitation and do a fireside chat on TV.

Stelmach may call late fall vote

Pass new royalty law before any hint of election: NDP

And of course the first family of the right in Alberta, the Byfield's once again have one of their scions defend Big Oil and tell us how good we have it here, hinting at the doom and gloom of the recession of the eighties if we dare ask for our 'fair share';

Fairness And Envy: Human Factors That Fuel The Royalty Debate
Nickle's Energy Group, Canada - 9 Oct 2007
By Mike Byfield

As I have said before Ed is preparing to sell us out to the oil interests.

Don't Let Big Oil Set Our Royalty Rates make sure Ed hears from you

SEE:

Ohhh Pulllleeeaasse

Alberta Needs A Chavez

Albertans Are Simpletons Says Government

Royalty Is NOT A Tax

Fearless Prediction Confirmed

Morons

More Shills For Big Oil

Stelmach Sells Out

King Ralph Shills For Big Oil

Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
royalties, oil, profits,
Bill Hunter, Alberta Royalty Review,
Alberta Cabinet, CAPP, Ed Stelmach,
Big Oil,oil royalties, PC, Calgary, Party of Calgary, politics, NEP, Conservatives, Fort McMurray, One Party State,

It's Not Who Won, But Who Lost

While the Canadian blogosphere right and left are posting on Al Gore and the UN IPCC winning the Nobel Peace Prize they seem to forgot who else was in the running. An Inuit woman from the Canadian Arctic.

An environmental activist may be the first Canadian to win the Nobel Peace Prize since former Prime Minister Lester Pearson in 1957.

Sheila Watt-Cloutier, an Inuit activist, has been nominated jointly with former U.S. Vice-President Al Gore, the author of the book and narrator of the Oscar-winning documentary "An Inconvenient Truth."

She lost which is a great shame since hers was an authentic voice for the reality of climate change unlike the winners.

Canadian Sheila Watt-Cloutier, an Iqaluit-based environmental activist, was also nominated for this year's prize and had been considered one of the favourites to win. Her work has focused on the effects of global warming on northern communities.

"She has done so much work representing the interests of her people, the people in the north," Drexhage said.

Many conservation organizations are rooting for Ms. Watt-Cloutier, who they say has done more than anyone to create international awareness of the special plight that global warming has inflicted on people living in the Arctic.

She also has a remarkable personal story, of travelling in a dogsled around Northern Quebec, where she was born, to travelling the world speaking out about climate change. She's frequently said that she's gone from the ice age to the space age in one generation.

Earthjustice, a U.S.-based environmental group that has worked with Ms. Watt-Cloutier, praised her “for bringing the story of the Inuit people to the world stage, demonstrating that global warming is an issue of human rights as well as of the environment.”

Sheila Watt-Cloutier, arriving in Iqaluit on Thursday, said the awareness of climate change being raised by her nomination is the best prize she could have.

How Canadian.

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Canada, Sheila Watt-Cloutier, Nobel, Nobel Peace Prize, Environment, UN IPCC, Al Gore,

Western Standard RIP

As I predicted here Ezra Levant's version of Alberta Report has followed in its footsteps.

To my deep regret, the Western Standard has decided to stop publishing our print edition.

Financial pressures force publisher of Calgary-based conservative magazine to discontinue its hard-copy format

This appears when you try and subscribe

We are temporarily unavailable.

And the last 'print' edition posted on the web site is September 17!

Buzzwords - September 17, 2007 by Western Standard

All other copy updates for the past month is posted on their website, which you can access for free.

To read this article, you need to be a registered user.

Registration is free and confidental.

Note: If you experience difficulties after you have registered or logged in, please enable cookies on your browser.

Which sort of defeats the purpose of subscribing.

The only active online page freely available is their Shotgun Blog.

My how the mighty have fallen. The ruthless nature of capitalism once again defeats its most stalwart advocates on the right in Canada. Perhaps if they had a business plan instead of just doctrinal faith that their minority opinion was valuable. Or at least had the business smarts to make it a charity like the Fraser Institute.

And the whining is only starting.

Jonathan Kay on Ezra Levant and the demise of the Western Standard

One of the Last Conservative Print Magazines in Canada Goes out of business

When magazines die

The Battle of the Standard

I wonder if anyone bothered to tell CBC and Don Newman, that his 'voice of Alberta' no longer is publishing.

Ezra Levant is a loser. He lost his job as communications mouthpiece for Canadian Alliance Leader Stockwell Day. He lost his seat to Harper. He now has lost his magazine.


Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
Alberta Report, Don Newman, media bias, Ezra Levant, CBC politics, right wing politics, Alberta, Canada, Western Standard

Horse and Carriage

America has capital, Mexico has labour. They go together like a horse and carriage. Mexican President Calderon sounds just like Herr Doctor Professor Marx.

“It’s impossible to stop that by decree. It’s impossible to try to stop that with a fence. Why? Because the capital in America needs Mexican workers. And Mexican workers need opportunities of jobs. Capital and labor are like right shoe and left shoe, and one needs the other,” he said, in an interview with Diane Sawyer on “Good Morning America.”

Calderon told Sawyer that some of his own relatives live and work in the United States— "some of them in the vegetable fields, others in restaurants and others in construction," he said.

Immigration to America is a "natural phenomenon," Calderon said, because Mexico has a large, young labor force that is needed by U.S. businesses, a sentiment that some politicians and business leaders across the country agree with.

SEE:

Farmer John's Robot

Thanks Lou and Tom

Farmer John Exploits Mexican Workers

Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
migrant workers, Marx, immigrants, temporary workers, farm workers, California labour, labor, employment, slavery,
US, illegals, aliens, migration, migrants, immigration, Latin America, automation, Mexico, latinos, robots

Happy Birthday Uncle Al

Amongst Thelemites, Aleister Crowley is affectionately called Uncle Al. Being a play on his name and the holy book he wrote; Liber AL (vel Legis).

Today,October 12 , is his birthday.

He tempered his spirituality/philosophy with a sense of humour, a quality absent amongst true believers. As well as adopting the moniker 'the Great Beast', something his fundamentalist mother called him, he also said;

"I am a Hell of a Holy Guru"



Edward Alexander Crowley 1875-1947


SEE:

Today in History

Sunday In Hell

New Age Libertarian Manifesto

Libertarianism

Conspiracy Theory of the Week

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666, Aleister Crowley, Crowley, Sign of silence, God, AA,
Magick, OTO, Thelema,
Wickedest Man in the world, The great beast,

The War On Atheism

Here is a biased survey on Atheism and Morality conducted by Reginald Bibby of the University of Lethbridge.

A new Canadian survey has found that believers are more likely than atheists to place a higher value on love, patience and friendship, in findings the researcher says could be a warning that Canadians need a religious basis to retain civility in society.

About the only claim that holds any 'value' is this one;

In the survey findings, there was only a five percentage-point difference between how theists and atheists valued honesty. But of all the categories, honesty is the value that is least connected to broad emotions such as love and compassion. In other words, someone can be honest and brutal.

I stand by that, being a Saggitarian and an ENTJ, I am often brutally honest.

The assertion made by the article that 'atheists' are less compassionate and moral than Christians misses the point. Those Canadians he interviewed are not necessarily atheists, per se, rather they are Canadians who do not profess a belief in God or organized religion. That is an unbelief, while atheism, and its derivatives; Marxism and Anarchism are counter beliefs, and in all cases rely upon classical liberalism as the basis of morality.

But in the realm of forgiveness, which is a core value of many major religions, particularly Christianity, the difference - 32 percentage points - is stark.

"That's a pretty explicit value within a large number of religious communities," said Prof. Bibby.

"Look at the culture as a whole and ask yourself: to what extent do we value forgiveness against themes like zero-tolerance? We don't talk very much about what we're going to do for people who fall through the cracks. So I think forgiveness is pretty foreign to a lot of people if they're not involved in religious groups."

Heck even Satanism has a moral code. Though it is not one of forgiveness. It is modeled on Ayn Rands morality.

In a consumer capitalist culture based on the values of ; I'm Ok Your Ok, the Me Generation and I Got Mine Jack 'unbelief' in God reflects a consumer choice. And the morality of the individual is then shaped by the society they exist in. In the era of Enron, Chainsaw Jack Welch, and other criminal capitalist enterprises, where Business Schools are having to 'teach' morality to budding business types, it is no surprise to find that Bibby's findings are what they are. Which is actually what Bibby is saying , despite the National Posts spin on the survey, that 'godless' capitalism has no values.

After all seeing that the culture is one of consumer capitalism, then this is more a condemnation of that then atheism or its political and philosophical offshoots.

But there is a war on Atheism currently in vogue amongst the Christian Right, and this just gives ammunition to the side which has conducted wars, pogroms and mass genocide, and continues with oppression, exploitation and mindless discrimination to excuse themselves as being 'good' people, with 'values'.

He said people who are believers are encouraged ­- whether by a desire to please God, or because of a fear of God - to adopt these values

To please or to fear the ultimate cosmic boss, to accept 'his' values, is not as humanistic as it appears. It is the morality of the slave. And thus is reflected in the social schizophrenia that creates the need for God, Priests, Bosses, Cops, Social Workers, etc, the whole kit and caboodle of authority ( a hold over of aristocracy within capitalism).

While Christians on the right claim that we need less human rights and more folks taking responsibility for their actions, they always seem to lovingly accept them folks who break the social or moral code, if they accept Jesus into their hearts.

The enlightened individual sees morality as a social construction; one of mutual agreement and sees no difference between human rights and responsibilities. Thus with the rise of Freemasonry and its child The Rights Of Man a new 'godless' revolutionary morality evolved and created secular society; Liberty, Equality,Fraternity.

Immoral Capitalism has truncated Liberty from Equality and Fraternity. That is the ultimate truth in Bibby's survey.

Only one word more concerning the desire to teach the world what it ought to be. For such a purpose philosophy at least always comes too late. Philosophy, as the thought of the world, does not appear until reality has completed its formative process, and made itself ready.

History thus corroborates the teaching of the conception that only in the maturity of reality does the ideal appear as counterpart to the real, apprehends the real world in its substance, and shapes it into an intellectual kingdom.

When philosophy paints its grey in grey, one form of life has become old, and by means of grey it cannot be rejuvenated, but only known. The owl of Minerva, takes its flight only when the shades of night are gathering.

Hegel, Philosophy of Right (1820), "Preface"

SEE:

Islamicists and Evangelical Christians

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Alberta Reds

And it ain't just our necks. Take that conservative revisionists, you know who you are. Southern Alberta was the origin of union organizing in Alberta and Western Canada at the beginning of last century laying the foundation for Western Canadian Industrial Unionism.

Alberta Labour History Institute Visits Southern Alberta Foundation of the Union Movement in Western Canada

Edmonton: A provincial labour history group, the Alberta Labour History Institute (ALHI) will be in Medicine Hat for three days this week to promote labour history as key aspect of the industrial development of the Medicine Hat area.

ALHI will be in the Medicine Hat area from Wednesday to Friday, October 10-12 to conduct Oral History interviews with labour leaders and community activists. In addition, they will participate in activities organized by the Medicine Hat Clay Industries Historical Society, including a noon luncheon for former clay industry employees at the Museum on Thursday, and a presentation to students at the Eagle Butte School in Dunmore on Friday.

The visit to South-Eastern Alberta is the first stage in a series of community visits across the province as part of a five-year project leading up to the centennial of the Alberta Federation of Labour in 2012.

Entitled ‘Project 2012’, the mission will gather stories about work and working people to ensure that labour and its long history in each area of the Province is preserved for students, academic researchers, historians and others. Videotaped interviews will be conducted with local workers, and pictures, materials, and other artifacts will be collected to add to the story.

This material will be posted on the ALHI website at www.labourhistory.ca which was constructed two years ago as part of Alberta’s Centenary. An education project with Aspen Foundation is being developed for integration into the Alberta Social Studies curriculum for Grades 1 to 12.

ALHI President Dave Werlin says these trips are dedicated to highlighting the profile of workers and their organizations throughout Alberta.

“This is why this volunteer labour history institute was started about 10 years ago by trade unionists, community activists, librarians, archivists and historians,” said Werlin, “We realized that someone had to take the initiative to preserve and publicize the story of Alberta’s working people, otherwise it would be lost forever - a critical but untold part of Alberta’s history.”

“People in Alberta may remember some of the strikes that took place in the Medicine Hat area years ago. What many don’t know, however, is that 100 years ago, this whole area was the hotbed of union organization in Western Canada. Really, this is where it all started.”

“Medicine Hat must be of particular interest to anyone engaged in labour history because it was one of the first fully industrialized centres in this Province. Manufacturers and government policy makers seized upon the natural resources and other advantages this area had to offer for industrial development, and it was no surprise that workers’ organizations quickly followed.”

It was in Lethbridge, another Southern Alberta city, that the Alberta Federation of Labour was formed, when about 25 railway workers, meatpackers, construction tradesmen, public workers, coal miners and farmers met in 1912 to form an organization through which they could work for political and social reform. This is why ALHI decided to start its community visits in this part of the province.

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SEE:

Alberta Labour History Institute Web Launch

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