While pundits of the right claim the governments downfall is due to its attack on the democratic reform of public financing of political parties they overlook the fact the Harpocrites declared class war in their fiscal update.
Canada's largest federal union is planning to join a national campaign for public servants to support a coalition government and topple the minority Conservative government.
The Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) is joining a number of groups, including the Canadian Labour Congress, to back a Liberal and NDP coalition after accusing the Conservatives of failing to provide enough stimulus to kick-start a weakening economy.
The decision comes after the government of Stephen Harper backed down on a plan to take away the unions' right to strike when it introduces legislation to limit public servants wage increases to 6.8% over four years.
PSAC president John Gordon rejected suggestions such a campaign violates the bureaucracy's non-parti
Mr. Gordon said the union was willing to restrain wages and do its bit for the economy when it agreed to the government's 6.8% deal, but was incensed when Finance Minister Jim Flaherty's economic statement offered no stimulus package for the economy and then heaped "another slap" on federal workers by taking away the right to strike and collective bargaining, rolling back wages of workers whose contracts were already settled.
SEE:
Wage Controls
tags
Harper, Conservatives, deficit, Government, politics, Flaherty, Budget, PSAC, politics,Canada, Surplus, Economy, stike, wage controls,
Tuesday, December 02, 2008
Ancient Ukraine
The Trypillian culture of neolithic people in the Ukraine gives further evidence for Maria Gimbutas theory of a matriarchical culture in the region of the Ukraine, Lithuania, and the Southern Blatics. It is important to note that the Trypillian design work on pottery is similar to that of the Celtic Bell Beaker peoples of Central Europe. Which became part of the later Celtic design of the trifoil. These were the early proto-communist societies that Marx and Engels refered to.Mysteries of Ancient Ukraine: the Remarkable Trypilian Culture 5400-2700 BC Opens at ROM
Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) presents Mysteries of Ancient Ukraine: the Remarkable Trypilian Culture (5400 – 2700 BC), the world’s first large scale exhibition uncovering the secrets of this ancient society which existed in present day Ukraine 7,000 – 5,000 years ago. The mystery of this compelling and sophisticated culture, known for creating the largest settlements anywhere in the world at the time, only to inexplicably disappear, is illuminated through some 300 artifacts, many never before seen in North America. The exhibition is on display in the Museum’s 3rd floor Centre Block from Saturday, November 29, 2008 to Sunday, March 22, 2009.
Background: In 1896, during the great age of archaeological discoveries that unearthed Troy, Mycenae, Knossos and the many civilizations of Mesopotamia, archaeologist Vikenty Khvoika, a pioneer of Ukrainian archaeology, unearthed the remains of a prehistoric people near the village of Trypillia, and which means “three fields” in Ukrainian. This society is thought to have flourished in the forest-steppe region of present-day Ukraine, an area approximately 50,000 square kilometres from the upper Dniester River on the west to the mid-Dnipro River on the east. In addition to intriguing religious and cosmological beliefs, the Trypilians achieved a great degree of sophistication – not only were they expert farmers, herders and craftsmen, they excelled in pottery making, evident in the technical and artistic excellence of each piece on display. Equally compelling, the Trypilian culture may best be known for building two-storey houses and its giant settlements, burned to the ground every 60 to 80 years by the Trypilians themselves, prior to moving to a new location. Approximately 2,000 Trypilian sites have been found.
“In the century since their discovery, archaeologists have learned that the Trypilians were even more extraordinary than Khvoika imagined," explains exhibition curator, Dr. Krzysztof Ciuk of the ROM’s World Cultures Department. "It is uncertain why this culture disappeared. Trypilians may have been replaced by Indo-European peoples who expanded both east and west at this period or, perhaps, as the climate became drier and the forest-steppe gave way to steppe, the culture’s ecological equilibrium was stressed and a way of life was adopted to mirror their more technologically advanced neighbours.”
A sampling of artifacts, including one of Khvoika’s earthenware jars, dating to 3500 BC, its surface rich with incised curvilinear ornamentation, is on display. To place the Trypilian culture in context, The Neolithic Revolution examines the development of human societies in Europe from the end of the last Ice Age to the arrival of Copper Age cultures, including Trypilian. Other Neolithic cultures, such as the Halaf, from what is now known as northern Syria and south-eastern Turkey, and the Vinca from what is now known as modern Serbia, are juxtaposed, their artistic legacies having much in common. Here, visitors can study the earthenware portrait of a pensive male face, created by the Vinca approximately 7,500 years ago, and which bears striking similarity to the ‘realistic’ portraits of Trypillia.
Spirituality and Artistic Expression highlights various puzzling pieces of ceramic art made by the Trypilians - specifically anthropomorphic figurines (ranging from stylized to quasi-realistic) and containers decorated in various ways (incised, monochromatic, polychromatic). Found in many Neolithic cultures, the female figurines on display, with exaggerated feminine features, are believed by some scholars to represent a ‘great mother goddess’. Other ceramic objects, such as footed platforms, and enigmatic, hollow “binocular” pieces, attest to the spiritual and ritual life of the Trypilians.
When Prehistory Becomes History
As we were first learning about the ancient Trypillians during the early 20th century, the first evidence was also emerging that the Trypillians who lived on Ukrainian soil were related to the Sumerians of Mesopotamia.Anatoly Kyfishyn made the first solid connection between the two cultures when he deciphered pictograms on the so-called Stone Tomb in the south of Ukraine. These pictograms, chiseled into the walls of this unique artifact dating from 12,000 to 3,000 BC were samples of the early Sumerian writing. Ceramics created by the ancient Trypillians also bore Sumerian script, leaving no doubt that Sumerian writing originated with the Trypillyan civilization. The pictograms on the Stone Tomb clarify the origin of inscriptions made during the 12th to third millennium BC. So Sumerian writing, the first writing in the history of mankind, is a product of the development of a human civilization that for many thousands of years thrived in Europe and the Middle East.As soon as similarities between the two forms of writing became known, previous contradictions were explained.First, it became clear who brought a developed culture to the land between the Tigris and Euphrates. Second, scholars managed to discover traces of mass migration from Trypillia (also known as Koukoutenya) to the Middle East. The migration to Mesopotamia was probably due to climatic changes and demographic factors such as overpopulation, as the ancient technology of land cultivation and cattle-breeding required favorable climatic conditions and huge expanses of land. Finally, it was determined that the large Sumerian cities, including Ur, Uruk and Djamjet-Nasra were reflection of the huge Trypillian agrocities. Pre-Sumerians brought city-states and social structures characteristic of Trypillians to Mesopotamia. This structure, void of social, ethnic and tribal antagonisms, explains the extraordinary stability of both Sumerian and Trypillyan societies over long periods of time.Today, scholars are trying to explain the disappearance of the Trypillian civilization after 3,000 years.It is intriguing to think that the Trypillians may have been our ancestors. One hypothesis holds that the civilization dispersed after climate changes saw the mild, wet climate give way to drier weather at the beginning of the third millennium BC. The theory is that Trypillians scattered in different directions: to Ukraine's Polissya, the Carpathian region, the Middle East, Greece, Italy and even the British Isles. Ukrainian and foreign sources alike cite this theory.Ukrainians can feel a connection with the self-sufficient nation (or nations) that have lived on this land over time. It's easy to see similarities between traditional Ukrainian patterns and shapes on ancient Trypillian artifacts. Though perhaps a simple coincidence, it is no less enjoyable for modern residents of Ukraine, and contributes to their interest in genealogy.There is public interest in continued research of the Trypillian civilization and in establishing museums and cultural heritage parks. They want Ukrainian officials and the EU to draw attention to the necessity of this pre-historic research, making the Trypillian civilization a better known aspect of mankind's history.Historians remind us that history didn't begin with the Trypillians. A pre-Trypillian period could be as exciting. Hopefully, our future will broaden our knowledge about our mysterious and remote past.
Mysterious Neolithic People Made Optical Art
Discovery News ^ September 22, 2008 Rossella Lorenzi
Running until the end of October at the Palazzo della Cancelleria in the Vatican, the exhibition, "Cucuteni-Trypillia: A Great Civilization of Old Europe," introduces a mysterious Neolithic people who are now believed to have forged Europe's first civilization...Archaeologists have named them "Cucuteni-Trypillians" after the villages of Cucuteni, near Lasi, Romania and Trypillia, near Kiev, Ukraine, where the first discoveries of this ancient civilization were made more than 100 years ago.The excavated treasures -- fired clay statuettes and op art-like pottery dating from 5000 to 3000 B.C. -- immediately posed a riddle to archaeologists... "Despite recent extensive excavations, no cemetery has ever been found," Lacramioara Stratulat, director of the Moldova National Museum Complex of Iasi, told reporters at a news conference recently at the Vatican.Before their culture mysteriously faded, the Cucuteni-Trypillians had organized into large settlements. Predating the Sumerians and Egyptian settlements, these were basically proto-cities with buildings often arranged in concentric circles... in what is now Romania, Ukraine and Moldova.
The Trypilska Kultura - The Spiritual Birthplace of Ukraine?
History of jewellery in Ukraine
Trypillian Civilization 5400 - 2750 BC Study-Tour Overview
SEE:
Pyramid in Ukraine
The Monument Builders
Another Dirty Little Secret
Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
Ukraine, Trypollian, Trypolian, neolithic, Indo-Europeans, matriarchy, prehistory, Proto-Indo-Europeans, archaeology, Kiev,
Shaman Was A Woman
We usually associate shamans and shamanism with men, due to the fact that modern shamans are male. However that was not always so. And in fact this evidence validates the thesis that earlier humans lived in a matriarchical or mother right society.
The skeleton of a 12,000 year-old Natufian Shaman has been discovered in northern Israel by archaeologists at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The burial is described as being accompanied by "exceptional" grave offerings - including 50 complete tortoise shells, the pelvis of a leopard and a human foot. The shaman burial is thought to be one of the earliest known from the archaeological record and the only shaman grave in the whole region. Dr. Leore Grosman of the Institute of Archaeology at the Hebrew University, who is heading the excavation at the Natufian site of Hilazon Tachtit in the western Galilee, says that the elaborate and invested interment rituals and method used to construct and seal the grave suggest that this woman had a very high standing within the community.
According to Dr. Grosman, the burial of the woman is unlike any burial found in the Natufian or the preceding Paleolithic periods. "Clearly a great amount of time and energy was invested in the preparation, arrangement, and sealing of the grave." This was coupled with the special treatment of the buried body.
Shamans are universally recorded cross-culturally in hunter-gatherer groups and small-scale agricultural societies. Nevertheless, they have rarely been documented in the archaeological record and none have been reported from the Paleolithic of Southwest Asia.
The Natufians existed in the Mediterranean region of the Levant 15,000 to 11,500 years ago. Dr. Grosman suggests this grave could point to ideological shifts that took place due to the transition to agriculture in the region at that time.
SEE:
Another Prehistoric Woman
Another Dirty Little Secret
Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
neolithic, Israel, archaeology, shaman, paleollithic, woman, matriarchy, ancient, agrarian, culture, civilisation
The skeleton of a 12,000 year-old Natufian Shaman has been discovered in northern Israel by archaeologists at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The burial is described as being accompanied by "exceptional" grave offerings - including 50 complete tortoise shells, the pelvis of a leopard and a human foot. The shaman burial is thought to be one of the earliest known from the archaeological record and the only shaman grave in the whole region. Dr. Leore Grosman of the Institute of Archaeology at the Hebrew University, who is heading the excavation at the Natufian site of Hilazon Tachtit in the western Galilee, says that the elaborate and invested interment rituals and method used to construct and seal the grave suggest that this woman had a very high standing within the community.
According to Dr. Grosman, the burial of the woman is unlike any burial found in the Natufian or the preceding Paleolithic periods. "Clearly a great amount of time and energy was invested in the preparation, arrangement, and sealing of the grave." This was coupled with the special treatment of the buried body.
Shamans are universally recorded cross-culturally in hunter-gatherer groups and small-scale agricultural societies. Nevertheless, they have rarely been documented in the archaeological record and none have been reported from the Paleolithic of Southwest Asia.
The Natufians existed in the Mediterranean region of the Levant 15,000 to 11,500 years ago. Dr. Grosman suggests this grave could point to ideological shifts that took place due to the transition to agriculture in the region at that time.
SEE:
Another Prehistoric Woman
Another Dirty Little Secret
Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
neolithic, Israel, archaeology, shaman, paleollithic, woman, matriarchy, ancient, agrarian, culture, civilisation
Cryptozoology Comes Of Age
Long dismissed as the domain of Ufology and conspiracy theories, cryptozoology has come of age and become a legitimate science thanks to the discovery of various new animal speices previously unknown to science.
If you've read Scott Weidensaul's excellent book The Ghost With Trembling Wings (2002), you'll recall the story of Louise Emmons and the giant Peruvian rodent she discovered. But before I get to that, let me say that The Ghost With Trembling Wings isn't about ghosts at all, but about the search for cryptic or supposedly extinct species. Think thylacines, British big cats, Ivory-billed woodpeckers, Cone-billed tanagers, the resurrection of the aurochs, Night parrots, Richard Meinertzhagen and the Indian forest owlet. It begins with Weidensaul's search for Semper's warbler Leucopeza semperi, an enigmatic parulid endemic to St. Lucia, discovered in 1870 and last seen alive in 1969 (although with a trickle of post-1969 sightings, some reliable and some not so reliable). If you're interested in the hunt for cryptic species and zoological field work and its history, it is mandatory that you obtain and read this inexpensive book.
Louise Emmons is a highly distinguished, experienced mammalogist who has worked on bats, tree shrews, cats big and small, and rodents, and is also the foremost expert on the mammals of the Neotropical rainforests (she wrote the only field guide to Neotropical rainforest mammals: Emmons 1999a). On 15th June 1997, while on an expedition to the northern Vilcabamba range of Cusco, Peru, she was walking along a forest track when, lying dead on the track in front of her, she discovered a big dead rodent. Pale grey, but handsomely patterned with a white nose and lips, and with a white blaze running along the top of its head, it was over 30 cm in head and body length, and with a tail over 20 cm long. Its broad feet, prominent and curved claws, large hallux, and palms and soles covered in small tubercles indicated that it was a tree-climbing species. A large bite wound on the neck indicated that it had recently been killed by a predator, probably a Long-tailed weasel Mustela frenata.
And it was entirely new: no one had ever recorded anything like it before. In her description of the new species, Emmons (1999b) named it Cuscomys ashaninka (meaning 'mouse from Cusco, of the Ashaninka people') and showed that it was a member of Abrocomidae. This is an entirely South American group previously known only from Abrocoma Waterhouse 1837, members of which are sometimes called rat chinchillas, chinchilla rats or chinchilliones, and from the Miocene fossil Protabrocoma Kraglievich 1927. Abrocoma is known from eight species (A. bennetti, A. boliviensis, A. cinerea, A. vaccarum, A. uspallata, A. budini, A. famatina and A. schistacea), among which A. boliviensis was only recognised in 1990 and A. uspallata in 2002 (Glanz & Anderson 1990, Braun & Mares 1996, 2002). Incidentally A. bennetti has 17 pairs of ribs - more than any other rodent. Abrocoma produces midden piles, and Pleistocene rodent middens from Chile have been identified by DNA analysis as having been produced by Abrocoma (Kuch et al. 2002).
And speaking of unkown species here is a possible explanation for the Ogopogo.
Could unknown Okanagan creature be baby Ogopogo?
Kent Spencer, Canwest News ServicePublished: Monday, November 10, 2008
VANCOUVER - A TV documentary crew has added to the mystery surrounding Ogopogo by finding an unknown biological specimen in the depths of Okanagan Lake.
"I told a radio station tongue-in-cheek I thought it was the baby Ogopogo," monster-watcher Bill Steciuk of Kelowna said Monday after the History Channel completed a nine-day shoot.
"It was all curled up. The features were really hard to see. You could see a little head tucked in and a straight tail with no fins.
"It's a huge mystery. We have no idea what it is," said Steciuk, who helped organize the shooting locations.
The unidentified specimen has been shipped to the University of Guelph in Ontario for DNA tests, but Ogopogo buffs will have to wait until February to find out more, when the Monster Quest program weighs in on the legendary mega-serpent.
Ogopogo, first sighted in the 1870s, is reputed to be 12 metres long with multiple humps and a small head.
The History Channel, which had a bigger budget than previous expeditions, mounted a thermal infrared imaging camera on a helicopter for the first time. It picked up an unidentified shadow on the lake, while sonar spotted something over three metres long moving in the water.
"That's pretty big for a fish," said Steciuk.
But divers made the most interesting find in an underwater cave on the west side of Rattlesnake Island.
"I couldn't recognize it," said Steciuk. "Nor could anyone else. Maybe a new species has been found."
See
Sea Serpent
Die Vurm
Strange Sea Creatures
Chupacabra A Shunka Warakin
Cryptozology Part 1
Cryptozoology Part 2
They Walk Among Us
Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
Monsters, Lake monsters, myths, legends,cryptozoology, rare, animals, biology, fish, living fossil, strange animals,
If you've read Scott Weidensaul's excellent book The Ghost With Trembling Wings (2002), you'll recall the story of Louise Emmons and the giant Peruvian rodent she discovered. But before I get to that, let me say that The Ghost With Trembling Wings isn't about ghosts at all, but about the search for cryptic or supposedly extinct species. Think thylacines, British big cats, Ivory-billed woodpeckers, Cone-billed tanagers, the resurrection of the aurochs, Night parrots, Richard Meinertzhagen and the Indian forest owlet. It begins with Weidensaul's search for Semper's warbler Leucopeza semperi, an enigmatic parulid endemic to St. Lucia, discovered in 1870 and last seen alive in 1969 (although with a trickle of post-1969 sightings, some reliable and some not so reliable). If you're interested in the hunt for cryptic species and zoological field work and its history, it is mandatory that you obtain and read this inexpensive book.
Louise Emmons is a highly distinguished, experienced mammalogist who has worked on bats, tree shrews, cats big and small, and rodents, and is also the foremost expert on the mammals of the Neotropical rainforests (she wrote the only field guide to Neotropical rainforest mammals: Emmons 1999a). On 15th June 1997, while on an expedition to the northern Vilcabamba range of Cusco, Peru, she was walking along a forest track when, lying dead on the track in front of her, she discovered a big dead rodent. Pale grey, but handsomely patterned with a white nose and lips, and with a white blaze running along the top of its head, it was over 30 cm in head and body length, and with a tail over 20 cm long. Its broad feet, prominent and curved claws, large hallux, and palms and soles covered in small tubercles indicated that it was a tree-climbing species. A large bite wound on the neck indicated that it had recently been killed by a predator, probably a Long-tailed weasel Mustela frenata.
And it was entirely new: no one had ever recorded anything like it before. In her description of the new species, Emmons (1999b) named it Cuscomys ashaninka (meaning 'mouse from Cusco, of the Ashaninka people') and showed that it was a member of Abrocomidae. This is an entirely South American group previously known only from Abrocoma Waterhouse 1837, members of which are sometimes called rat chinchillas, chinchilla rats or chinchilliones, and from the Miocene fossil Protabrocoma Kraglievich 1927. Abrocoma is known from eight species (A. bennetti, A. boliviensis, A. cinerea, A. vaccarum, A. uspallata, A. budini, A. famatina and A. schistacea), among which A. boliviensis was only recognised in 1990 and A. uspallata in 2002 (Glanz & Anderson 1990, Braun & Mares 1996, 2002). Incidentally A. bennetti has 17 pairs of ribs - more than any other rodent. Abrocoma produces midden piles, and Pleistocene rodent middens from Chile have been identified by DNA analysis as having been produced by Abrocoma (Kuch et al. 2002).
And speaking of unkown species here is a possible explanation for the Ogopogo.
Could unknown Okanagan creature be baby Ogopogo?
Kent Spencer, Canwest News ServicePublished: Monday, November 10, 2008
VANCOUVER - A TV documentary crew has added to the mystery surrounding Ogopogo by finding an unknown biological specimen in the depths of Okanagan Lake.
"I told a radio station tongue-in-cheek I thought it was the baby Ogopogo," monster-watcher Bill Steciuk of Kelowna said Monday after the History Channel completed a nine-day shoot.
"It was all curled up. The features were really hard to see. You could see a little head tucked in and a straight tail with no fins.
"It's a huge mystery. We have no idea what it is," said Steciuk, who helped organize the shooting locations.
The unidentified specimen has been shipped to the University of Guelph in Ontario for DNA tests, but Ogopogo buffs will have to wait until February to find out more, when the Monster Quest program weighs in on the legendary mega-serpent.
Ogopogo, first sighted in the 1870s, is reputed to be 12 metres long with multiple humps and a small head.
The History Channel, which had a bigger budget than previous expeditions, mounted a thermal infrared imaging camera on a helicopter for the first time. It picked up an unidentified shadow on the lake, while sonar spotted something over three metres long moving in the water.
"That's pretty big for a fish," said Steciuk.
But divers made the most interesting find in an underwater cave on the west side of Rattlesnake Island.
"I couldn't recognize it," said Steciuk. "Nor could anyone else. Maybe a new species has been found."
See
Sea Serpent
Die Vurm
Strange Sea Creatures
Chupacabra A Shunka Warakin
Cryptozology Part 1
Cryptozoology Part 2
They Walk Among Us
Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
Monsters, Lake monsters, myths, legends,cryptozoology, rare, animals, biology, fish, living fossil, strange animals,
Cloning Extinct Species
In the news last week was the proposition that scientists might be able to clone the now extinct Mammoth.
Do we really need to bring back the mammoth?
Scientists map DNA of prehistoric animalCNN - 19 Nov 2008"This really is the first time that we have been able to study an extinct animal in the same detail as the ones living in our own time," said Stephan ...
Scientists reconstruct genome of extinct woolly mammoth Business Mirror
Regenerating a Mammoth for $10 Million New York Times
Successful Cloning Process With 16-year-old Frozen TissueeFluxMedia - 5 Nov 2008Still, the same nuclear transfer techniques could be used on extinct species. The study notes that "techniques could be used to 'resurrect' animals or ...
A first-time research to make cloning possible from a dead cell MyNews.in
Cloned Mice Obtained Using Frozen Tissue Technique could be used ... Drug Topics Magazine
'Scientists a step closer to Jurassic Park' Hindu
No need to clone them to bring back a prehistoric createure we have them living among us. Here is a living dinosaur that needs saving.
Sturgeons in China may be among last survivors of 130-million-year-old species
08:48 AM CST on Saturday, November 29, 2008
Craig Simons / Cox News Service
SHANGHAI, China – It's hard to hold a living dinosaur in a concrete pool.
Yet the dozens of Chinese sturgeons swimming lazy circles at the Yangtze Estuarine Nature Reserve in Shanghai may be among the last survivors of a 130-million-year-old species, one of the oldest surviving animals in the world.
As recently as the 1970s, thousands of Chinese sturgeons – a flat-headed fish that can live for 40 years and grow as long as a minivan – spawned each year in the Yangtze, the world's third-longest waterway. Adults typically spent more than a decade in the Pacific Ocean before swimming thousands of miles up the Yangtze to breed.
Today, a combination of dams, over-fishing and heavy boat traffic has pushed the species to the brink of extinction. Last year, scientists documented only six adult sturgeons in their last known remaining spawning ground.
The sturgeons' plight underscores the high environmental costs of China's economic development. China has grown about 10 percent annually since the late 1970s.
But a lack of environmental controls has led to widespread pollution and habitat loss.
From its headwaters on the Tibetan Plateau to where it pours into the East China Sea just north of Shanghai, the Yangtze was once one of the world's richest ecosystems. Elephants, tigers and alligators roamed its banks. Cranes and other birds fed in wide marshes in its flood plains.
At the beginning of the 20th century the Chinese sturgeon was among the oldest living animal species in the world. Its spawning grounds stretched into Sichuan province, 2,000 miles from the sea.
Through the 1970s, fishermen prized sturgeons for their size and caught hundreds annually.
Beijing listed Chinese sturgeons as endangered in 1988 and banned killing them, but many continued to be injured by fishing nets strung along the riverbank.
Traffic in the Yangtze also became a problem because sturgeons swim near the surface, colliding with boats.
Hydroelectric dams have been the biggest challenge to the Chinese sturgeons' survival. The Gezhouba Dam was built across the Yangtze River in 1981 to test techniques later used in the Three Gorges Dam.
All of the sturgeons' traditional breeding grounds lie upstream of the Gezhouba Dam. But some sturgeons made do with a habitat just east of its massive sluice gates.
"There has been so much manmade damage to the river that I sometimes can't see how the Chinese sturgeon can recover," said Wei Qiwei, a biologist at the Yangtze River Fisheries Research Institute.
The Chinese sturgeon could go the way of the original New Zealand Penquin.
The discovery of a previously unknown and now extinct New Zealand penguin could be just one of many breakthroughs as scientists probe the secrets of ancient DNA.
A study led by Otago University researchers set out to look at changes in the yellow-eyed penguin population after humans settled in New Zealand.
But DNA analysis of old bones discovered evidence of a completely new penguin species, now dubbed the Waitaha the Maori word for Canterbury penguin.
The study found the yellow-eyed penguin was a recent immigrant to New Zealand, arriving just 500 years ago.
"This sort of discovery is going to become more and more common as people look at ancient DNA," said Otago University zoologist Dr Phil Seddon.
The yellow-eyed penguin filled a niche after the Waitaha became extinct following the arrival of Polynesian settlers between 1300 and 1500 AD.
SEE:
SOS
Nessie?
Jurassic Park
Capitalism Threatens Coelacanth
Prehistoric Happy Feet
March Of The Penquins to Extinction
tags
rare, penquin,, china, marine biology, fish, living fossil, endangered species, species,, mammoth,, cloning,, Jurrasic Park, extinction,, sturgeon
Do we really need to bring back the mammoth?
Scientists map DNA of prehistoric animalCNN - 19 Nov 2008"This really is the first time that we have been able to study an extinct animal in the same detail as the ones living in our own time," said Stephan ...
Scientists reconstruct genome of extinct woolly mammoth Business Mirror
Regenerating a Mammoth for $10 Million New York Times
Successful Cloning Process With 16-year-old Frozen TissueeFluxMedia - 5 Nov 2008Still, the same nuclear transfer techniques could be used on extinct species. The study notes that "techniques could be used to 'resurrect' animals or ...
A first-time research to make cloning possible from a dead cell MyNews.in
Cloned Mice Obtained Using Frozen Tissue Technique could be used ... Drug Topics Magazine
'Scientists a step closer to Jurassic Park' Hindu
No need to clone them to bring back a prehistoric createure we have them living among us. Here is a living dinosaur that needs saving.
Sturgeons in China may be among last survivors of 130-million-year-old species
08:48 AM CST on Saturday, November 29, 2008
Craig Simons / Cox News Service
SHANGHAI, China – It's hard to hold a living dinosaur in a concrete pool.
Yet the dozens of Chinese sturgeons swimming lazy circles at the Yangtze Estuarine Nature Reserve in Shanghai may be among the last survivors of a 130-million-year-old species, one of the oldest surviving animals in the world.
As recently as the 1970s, thousands of Chinese sturgeons – a flat-headed fish that can live for 40 years and grow as long as a minivan – spawned each year in the Yangtze, the world's third-longest waterway. Adults typically spent more than a decade in the Pacific Ocean before swimming thousands of miles up the Yangtze to breed.
Today, a combination of dams, over-fishing and heavy boat traffic has pushed the species to the brink of extinction. Last year, scientists documented only six adult sturgeons in their last known remaining spawning ground.
The sturgeons' plight underscores the high environmental costs of China's economic development. China has grown about 10 percent annually since the late 1970s.
But a lack of environmental controls has led to widespread pollution and habitat loss.
From its headwaters on the Tibetan Plateau to where it pours into the East China Sea just north of Shanghai, the Yangtze was once one of the world's richest ecosystems. Elephants, tigers and alligators roamed its banks. Cranes and other birds fed in wide marshes in its flood plains.
At the beginning of the 20th century the Chinese sturgeon was among the oldest living animal species in the world. Its spawning grounds stretched into Sichuan province, 2,000 miles from the sea.
Through the 1970s, fishermen prized sturgeons for their size and caught hundreds annually.
Beijing listed Chinese sturgeons as endangered in 1988 and banned killing them, but many continued to be injured by fishing nets strung along the riverbank.
Traffic in the Yangtze also became a problem because sturgeons swim near the surface, colliding with boats.
Hydroelectric dams have been the biggest challenge to the Chinese sturgeons' survival. The Gezhouba Dam was built across the Yangtze River in 1981 to test techniques later used in the Three Gorges Dam.
All of the sturgeons' traditional breeding grounds lie upstream of the Gezhouba Dam. But some sturgeons made do with a habitat just east of its massive sluice gates.
"There has been so much manmade damage to the river that I sometimes can't see how the Chinese sturgeon can recover," said Wei Qiwei, a biologist at the Yangtze River Fisheries Research Institute.
The Chinese sturgeon could go the way of the original New Zealand Penquin.
The discovery of a previously unknown and now extinct New Zealand penguin could be just one of many breakthroughs as scientists probe the secrets of ancient DNA.
A study led by Otago University researchers set out to look at changes in the yellow-eyed penguin population after humans settled in New Zealand.
But DNA analysis of old bones discovered evidence of a completely new penguin species, now dubbed the Waitaha the Maori word for Canterbury penguin.
The study found the yellow-eyed penguin was a recent immigrant to New Zealand, arriving just 500 years ago.
"This sort of discovery is going to become more and more common as people look at ancient DNA," said Otago University zoologist Dr Phil Seddon.
The yellow-eyed penguin filled a niche after the Waitaha became extinct following the arrival of Polynesian settlers between 1300 and 1500 AD.
SEE:
SOS
Nessie?
Jurassic Park
Capitalism Threatens Coelacanth
Prehistoric Happy Feet
March Of The Penquins to Extinction
tags
rare, penquin,, china, marine biology, fish, living fossil, endangered species, species,, mammoth,, cloning,, Jurrasic Park, extinction,, sturgeon
Monday, December 01, 2008
Worth Reading After Mubai
Found this excellent post, long but worth the read. Especially in light of this weeks fascist attack in Mubai, which revealed an incompetant and ineffective security state in India. And again the focus was a centre of world capital, a business centre, the countries capital, and home of the Indian bourgoise, a major centre of tourism, just like New York was. And Mubai like the Twin Towers has been a repeated target of fascists.
This article was published after 9/11.
THE SHOCK OF RECOGNITION: Looking at Hamerquist’s ‘Fascism and Anti-Fascism’ by J. Sakai
Fascism is rapidly becoming a large political problem for anti-authoritarians, but perhaps moving up so close to pass us that it’s in our blind spot. Fascism is too familiar to us, in one sense. We’ve heard so much about the Nazis, the Holocaust and World War II, it seems like we must already know about fascism. And Nazi-era fascism is like all around us still, ever-present because Western capitalism has never given fascism up. As many have noticed, eurofascism even crushed has had a pervasive presence not only in politics, armies and intelligence agencies, but in the arts, pop culture, in fashion and films, on sexuality. For years thousands of youth in America and Europe have been fighting out the question of fascism in bars and the music scene, as a persistent fascist element in the skinhead subculture has been squashed and driven out by anti-racist youth–but come back and spread like an oil slick in the subterranean watertable. It feels so familiar to us now even though we haven’t actually understood it.
While the scholarly debates about “classic” 1920-30s eurofascism only increase–and journalists like Martin Lee in his best-selling book, The Beast Reawakens, have sounded the alarm about eurofascism’s renewed popularity –existing radical theory on fascism is a dusty relic that’s anything but radical. And it’s euro-centric as hell. Some still say fascism is just extreme white racism. For years many have even argued that no one who wasn’t white could even be a fascist. That it was a unique idea that only could lodge in the brains of one race! Others repeat the disastrous 1920s European belief that fascism was just “a tool of the ruling class”, violent thugs in comic opera uniforms doing repression for their capitalist masters. Often, both views overlap, being held simultaneously. So we ‘know’ fascism but really we don’t know it yet. Once reclothed, not spouting old fascist European political philosophy (but the same program and the class politics in other cultural forms—such as cooked-up religious ideology), fascism walks right by us and we don’t recognize it at first.
As fascism is becoming a global trend, it’s surprising how little attention it has gotten in our revolutionary studies. Into this unusual vacuum steps Don Hamerquist’s Fascism and Anti-Fascism.(2) This is an original theoretical paper that has in its background not only study but fighting fascists and racists on the streets.
In this discussion of Hamerquist’s paper we underline three main points about fascism:- That it is arising not from simple poverty or economic depression, but from the spreading zone of today’s protracted capitalist crisis beyond either reform or normal repression;
- That as fascism is moving from margin to populist mainstream, it still has a defined class character as an ‘extraordinary’ revolutionary movement of men from the lower middle classes and the declassed;
- That the critical turning point now for fascism is not just in Europe. With the failure of State socialism and national liberation parties in the capitalist periphery, in the Third World, the far right including fascism is grasping at the leadership of mass anti-colonialism.
Fascism has shown that it can gather mass support. In many nations the far right, including fascism, has become a popular oppositional force to the new globalized imperialism. In many countries the far right has replaced the left as the main political opposition. It doesn’t get more critical than this. This stands the old leftist notion about fascism on its head. It isn’t just about some other country. Without a serious revolutionary analysis of fascism we can’t understand, locate or combat it right here. And if you don’t think that’s a serious problem, you’ve got your back turned to what’s incoming.
The modern islamic rightists, who began in 1927-28 with the founding of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, took religious ideological form but were started as a political movement against British neo-colonial domination. They were backed not by workers or peasants but by the middle-class bazaar merchants and traders. The core of the islamic rightists from the beginning were not theologians but young men who had middle-class educations as scientists and technicians (like today’s Mohammad Atta who supposedly led the 911 attacks), and who used assassinations and trade boycotts. One trend within this broader islamist political movement developed fascist politics and a definite fascist class agenda. The fact that everything is explained in religious ideological terms doesn’t change the fact that their program and class strategy fit fascism perfectly. Perhaps that’s the real “fundamentalism” that they have.(5)
Throughout the Muslim world, from Saudi Arabia to Egypt to Turkey to Pakistan, Western imperialism has helped maintain militarized neo-colonial regimes that have looted and deadended society. They have destroyed local subsistance economies of self-production for use in favor of globalized export-import economies. The number of the declassed, those without any regular relationship to economic production and distribution, keeps growing. The lower-middle classes keep losing their small plots of land, their small market businesses, their toehold in the educated professions. These are men who are threatened with the loss of everything that defined them, including the ability of patriarchs to own households of women and children.
This is the class basis of today’s pan-islamic fascism, which demands a complete reversal of fortune. Revolutions where today’s Muslim elites shall be in the prisons or the gutter and the warriors of fascism shall be the new class ruling over the palaces, mosques and markets. They are more than national in scope just as all revolutionary movements have been. Because they are in a fluid war of undergrounds and exile, striking from abroad, of retreating from savage military repression in one nation to concentrate on breakthroughs in another nation. And to them, the world citadel of globalization in New York was not an innocent civilian target but a fortress of an amoral enemy.
The key thing about them isn’t that they’re following some old book. It’s that they’re fighting for State power just like everyone else in the capitalist sinkhole. They upfront want to rule, to not work but get affluent and powerful as special classes alongside the bourgeoisie, to hold everyone else underfoot by raw police power. Whether it’s christianity or islam or whatever they claim to be following, these are definitely political movements.
SEE:
terror state/state terror
The Spectacle of War on Terror
The War Against The Metropolis
War and the Market State
World On Fire-Who Sells The Matches
India Is Now A Capitalist State
Hinduism Is Fascism
Unemployment Breeds Terrorism
Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
India, Mubai, fascism, anti-fascism, terrorism, Al-Qaeda, Spectacle, Debord, Situationist, War, Bush, 9/11, Iraq, Afghanistan, Terrorism,
Middle East, globalization, terrorism, unemployment, underemployment, Iran, Iraq, Palestine, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, US, America, Empire, capitalism, Oil, Imperialism, gangs, warfare, market-states, armed struggle, national liberation movements
This article was published after 9/11.
THE SHOCK OF RECOGNITION: Looking at Hamerquist’s ‘Fascism and Anti-Fascism’ by J. Sakai
Fascism is rapidly becoming a large political problem for anti-authoritarians, but perhaps moving up so close to pass us that it’s in our blind spot. Fascism is too familiar to us, in one sense. We’ve heard so much about the Nazis, the Holocaust and World War II, it seems like we must already know about fascism. And Nazi-era fascism is like all around us still, ever-present because Western capitalism has never given fascism up. As many have noticed, eurofascism even crushed has had a pervasive presence not only in politics, armies and intelligence agencies, but in the arts, pop culture, in fashion and films, on sexuality. For years thousands of youth in America and Europe have been fighting out the question of fascism in bars and the music scene, as a persistent fascist element in the skinhead subculture has been squashed and driven out by anti-racist youth–but come back and spread like an oil slick in the subterranean watertable. It feels so familiar to us now even though we haven’t actually understood it.
While the scholarly debates about “classic” 1920-30s eurofascism only increase–and journalists like Martin Lee in his best-selling book, The Beast Reawakens, have sounded the alarm about eurofascism’s renewed popularity –existing radical theory on fascism is a dusty relic that’s anything but radical. And it’s euro-centric as hell. Some still say fascism is just extreme white racism. For years many have even argued that no one who wasn’t white could even be a fascist. That it was a unique idea that only could lodge in the brains of one race! Others repeat the disastrous 1920s European belief that fascism was just “a tool of the ruling class”, violent thugs in comic opera uniforms doing repression for their capitalist masters. Often, both views overlap, being held simultaneously. So we ‘know’ fascism but really we don’t know it yet. Once reclothed, not spouting old fascist European political philosophy (but the same program and the class politics in other cultural forms—such as cooked-up religious ideology), fascism walks right by us and we don’t recognize it at first.
As fascism is becoming a global trend, it’s surprising how little attention it has gotten in our revolutionary studies. Into this unusual vacuum steps Don Hamerquist’s Fascism and Anti-Fascism.(2) This is an original theoretical paper that has in its background not only study but fighting fascists and racists on the streets.
In this discussion of Hamerquist’s paper we underline three main points about fascism:- That it is arising not from simple poverty or economic depression, but from the spreading zone of today’s protracted capitalist crisis beyond either reform or normal repression;
- That as fascism is moving from margin to populist mainstream, it still has a defined class character as an ‘extraordinary’ revolutionary movement of men from the lower middle classes and the declassed;
- That the critical turning point now for fascism is not just in Europe. With the failure of State socialism and national liberation parties in the capitalist periphery, in the Third World, the far right including fascism is grasping at the leadership of mass anti-colonialism.
Fascism has shown that it can gather mass support. In many nations the far right, including fascism, has become a popular oppositional force to the new globalized imperialism. In many countries the far right has replaced the left as the main political opposition. It doesn’t get more critical than this. This stands the old leftist notion about fascism on its head. It isn’t just about some other country. Without a serious revolutionary analysis of fascism we can’t understand, locate or combat it right here. And if you don’t think that’s a serious problem, you’ve got your back turned to what’s incoming.
The modern islamic rightists, who began in 1927-28 with the founding of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, took religious ideological form but were started as a political movement against British neo-colonial domination. They were backed not by workers or peasants but by the middle-class bazaar merchants and traders. The core of the islamic rightists from the beginning were not theologians but young men who had middle-class educations as scientists and technicians (like today’s Mohammad Atta who supposedly led the 911 attacks), and who used assassinations and trade boycotts. One trend within this broader islamist political movement developed fascist politics and a definite fascist class agenda. The fact that everything is explained in religious ideological terms doesn’t change the fact that their program and class strategy fit fascism perfectly. Perhaps that’s the real “fundamentalism” that they have.(5)
Throughout the Muslim world, from Saudi Arabia to Egypt to Turkey to Pakistan, Western imperialism has helped maintain militarized neo-colonial regimes that have looted and deadended society. They have destroyed local subsistance economies of self-production for use in favor of globalized export-import economies. The number of the declassed, those without any regular relationship to economic production and distribution, keeps growing. The lower-middle classes keep losing their small plots of land, their small market businesses, their toehold in the educated professions. These are men who are threatened with the loss of everything that defined them, including the ability of patriarchs to own households of women and children.
This is the class basis of today’s pan-islamic fascism, which demands a complete reversal of fortune. Revolutions where today’s Muslim elites shall be in the prisons or the gutter and the warriors of fascism shall be the new class ruling over the palaces, mosques and markets. They are more than national in scope just as all revolutionary movements have been. Because they are in a fluid war of undergrounds and exile, striking from abroad, of retreating from savage military repression in one nation to concentrate on breakthroughs in another nation. And to them, the world citadel of globalization in New York was not an innocent civilian target but a fortress of an amoral enemy.
The key thing about them isn’t that they’re following some old book. It’s that they’re fighting for State power just like everyone else in the capitalist sinkhole. They upfront want to rule, to not work but get affluent and powerful as special classes alongside the bourgeoisie, to hold everyone else underfoot by raw police power. Whether it’s christianity or islam or whatever they claim to be following, these are definitely political movements.
SEE:
terror state/state terror
The Spectacle of War on Terror
The War Against The Metropolis
War and the Market State
World On Fire-Who Sells The Matches
India Is Now A Capitalist State
Hinduism Is Fascism
Unemployment Breeds Terrorism
Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
India, Mubai, fascism, anti-fascism, terrorism, Al-Qaeda, Spectacle, Debord, Situationist, War, Bush, 9/11, Iraq, Afghanistan, Terrorism,
Middle East, globalization, terrorism, unemployment, underemployment, Iran, Iraq, Palestine, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, US, America, Empire, capitalism, Oil, Imperialism, gangs, warfare, market-states, armed struggle, national liberation movements
Birthday Boy
Hey its my birthday so here is another version of the Beatles birthday song I have been sending to my facebook friends for their birthdays. It uses scenes from one of my favorite movies of the silent era; Metropolis.
And here are my previous posts about my birthday. for your erudition and enlightenment.
B-Day
Today In History
Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
Eugene Plawiuk, December 1, December 1, 1954,12/01/54,born today, today in history, Sagittarius, horse in Chinese Astrology
And here are my previous posts about my birthday. for your erudition and enlightenment.
B-Day
Today In History
Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
Eugene Plawiuk, December 1, December 1, 1954,12/01/54,born today, today in history, Sagittarius, horse in Chinese Astrology
Shades of Grenwal Tory Dirty Tricks
Hey remember the last time there was a minority government and the Harpocrites secretly recorded a meeting. At the time the minoritiy government was the Paul Martin Liberals, and the taping was done by Tory MP Gurmeet Grewal who claimed he was being bribed to cross the floor. Well the Harpocrites are at it again releasing secret illegal tape recordings in hopes to shore up their minority government during this crisis of confidence. A Law and Order government secretly and illegally taping the opposition the hypocrisy is only matched by their desperation.
The Tories also unveiled a surreptitiously recorded tape of a New Democratic Party caucus meeting, alleging it showed a long-existing cabal with the Bloc Québécois to defeat the government — and there were rumours that as a last resort, Mr. Harper might seek to prorogue Parliament, ending the session to avoid defeat in the Commons
The Prime Minister's Office released a secretly taped recording of a conference call of the NDP caucus in which Leader Jack Layton refers to having "locked in" the support of the Bloc early.
Mr. Harper's aides argued it showed a pre-existing NDP-Bloc agreement to look for an excuse to defeat the Tories that had nothing to do with last week's economic statement.
In the recording, Mr. Layton is heard telling his MPs they have plans to cope if the Bloc goes "offside" during the coalition.
"I actually believe they're the least of our problems, but in case I'm wrong, let's just say we have strategies. This whole thing would not have happened if the moves hadn't have been made with the Bloc to lock them in early, because you couldn't put three people together in one, in three hours. The first part was done a long time ago, I won't go into details …," Mr. Layton said.
Mr. Mulcair insisted that while the two parties have spoken about co-operation on issues like employment insurance, the first NDP-Bloc talks about a coalition took place only after elements of the government's economic update were revealed last week.
He said the party mistakenly sent the conference-call number to a Conservative MP, who dialled in and recorded the meeting. He said the NDP plans to raise the action as a violation of parliamentary ethics and will consider pressing charges.
Mr. Mulcair said the Tories "illegally" recorded a private meeting, and called it "scandalous."
"It shows the desperation of the Conservatives," he said.
Mulcair added that the NDP were also pursuing legal action against the Tories for listening in and broadcasting a private discussion.
"We're already in contact with senior lawyers in that regard," he said.
And the reason to release this tape despite the possibility of facing legal charges let alone jeopradizing their declining public support?
There were also rumours that Mr. Harper might prorogue Parliament, ending the current session so he cannot be defeated in the Commons — although some said that was a last-resort option that would look desperate.
They know full well that the majority of Canadians, heck the majority of Albertans, did not vote for them.Hence the desperation to stay in power at any cost. So of course the Harpocrites are feigning outrage about a pending coalition government made up of the opposition parties, not because it is an undemocratic power grab as they spent the weekend messaging to the media, but rather because they have used the tactic in the past and know that it can be done.
Only a day earlier, Mr. Harper's chief of staff Guy Giorno sent out an e-mail that included talking points, scripts for Tory partisans to use on radio phone-in shows and a template for letters to newspaper editors. Party faithful were encouraged to "use every single tool and medium at our disposal" to spread the word that opposition parties are trying to usurp the government in a crass bid to protect their political "entitlements."
Text of PMO e-mail to Tory MPs on key talking points
Note to all Conservative members of Parliament:
As you are aware, the Opposition parties are currently discussing a plan to topple our government and replace it with a Liberal-NDP-Bloc coalition.
While we believe such an arrangement would be an affront to the democratic will of Canadians when they afforded us a strengthened mandate on October 14th, we must nonetheless take this threat very seriously.
The Conservative party asked its members to make "emergency" donations to help prevent the NDP and Liberals from forming a coalition government, the latest step undertaken by Tory officials to rally supporters. Irving Gerstein, the Conservative Fund Canada's chairman, sent an e-mail appeal to supporters over the weekend, asking them to "protect Canada's future and protect Canada's democracy from being hijacked by politicians who care about nothing more than power and entitlements."The message asks recipients to make a donation of "$200 or $100 -- whatever you can afford" and states "time is of the essence."
"The Liberals are holding secret negotiations with the socialist NDP and separatist Bloc Quebecois to overturn the wishes of Canadian voters and take power," Mr. Gerstein wrote. "They want to take power and impose on Canadians a prime minister without a personal mandate, a Liberal-NDP coalition not one voter has ever endorsed and have it all backstopped by the separatist Bloc Quebecois who simply want to destroy the country."
Conservative MP Pierre Poilievre said the tape proves the NDP has been plotting to usurp results of the election. "The mask has been lifted off -- the separatists and the NDP have been having these backroom talks for months," he said. "Their goal is to reverse the election results and seize power. Now their scheme is exposed ... it's incumbent upon the Liberal Party to ... no longer participate in the secret discussions."
Poilievre said he doesn't know who made the tape and declined to comment on its ethical implications.
But roll back the tape to September 2004, just a little more than two months after Canadians elected a minority Liberal government. Then-opposition leader Harper appeared at a news conference with Bloc leader Gilles Duceppe -- you know, the guy who wants to destroy the country -- and NDP leader Jack Layton to announce that the three of them had conspired -- sorry, agreed -- on a list of demands that would give them a larger role in governing.
"The agreement that we are announcing today will profoundly alter the operation of the House of Commons in ways that opposition parties have been demanding for years," Harper told reporters.
The three opposition leaders also wrote to then governor-general Adrienne Clarkson urging her to "consider all of your options before exercising your constitutional authority" in the event the Martin government lost a confidence vote.
The opposition leaders said the letter was an attempt to head off any attempt by Martin to hold a snap election in the hope of coming back with a majority.
"I would not want the prime minister to think that he could simply fail in the House of Commons as a route to another general election. That's not the way our system works," Harper said.
SEE:
Flaherty's Fiscal Failure
NDP the New Reform Party
tags
Canada, Flaherty, politics, Conservatives,illegal taping, opposition coalition, Grewal, economy, government, Conservatives, Harper, recession, NDP, Liberals, BQ, politics, , federal election, minoirity government Jack Layton,
The Tories also unveiled a surreptitiously recorded tape of a New Democratic Party caucus meeting, alleging it showed a long-existing cabal with the Bloc Québécois to defeat the government — and there were rumours that as a last resort, Mr. Harper might seek to prorogue Parliament, ending the session to avoid defeat in the Commons
The Prime Minister's Office released a secretly taped recording of a conference call of the NDP caucus in which Leader Jack Layton refers to having "locked in" the support of the Bloc early.
Mr. Harper's aides argued it showed a pre-existing NDP-Bloc agreement to look for an excuse to defeat the Tories that had nothing to do with last week's economic statement.
In the recording, Mr. Layton is heard telling his MPs they have plans to cope if the Bloc goes "offside" during the coalition.
"I actually believe they're the least of our problems, but in case I'm wrong, let's just say we have strategies. This whole thing would not have happened if the moves hadn't have been made with the Bloc to lock them in early, because you couldn't put three people together in one, in three hours. The first part was done a long time ago, I won't go into details …," Mr. Layton said.
Mr. Mulcair insisted that while the two parties have spoken about co-operation on issues like employment insurance, the first NDP-Bloc talks about a coalition took place only after elements of the government's economic update were revealed last week.
He said the party mistakenly sent the conference-call number to a Conservative MP, who dialled in and recorded the meeting. He said the NDP plans to raise the action as a violation of parliamentary ethics and will consider pressing charges.
Mr. Mulcair said the Tories "illegally" recorded a private meeting, and called it "scandalous."
"It shows the desperation of the Conservatives," he said.
Mulcair added that the NDP were also pursuing legal action against the Tories for listening in and broadcasting a private discussion.
"We're already in contact with senior lawyers in that regard," he said.
And the reason to release this tape despite the possibility of facing legal charges let alone jeopradizing their declining public support?
There were also rumours that Mr. Harper might prorogue Parliament, ending the current session so he cannot be defeated in the Commons — although some said that was a last-resort option that would look desperate.
They know full well that the majority of Canadians, heck the majority of Albertans, did not vote for them.Hence the desperation to stay in power at any cost. So of course the Harpocrites are feigning outrage about a pending coalition government made up of the opposition parties, not because it is an undemocratic power grab as they spent the weekend messaging to the media, but rather because they have used the tactic in the past and know that it can be done.
Only a day earlier, Mr. Harper's chief of staff Guy Giorno sent out an e-mail that included talking points, scripts for Tory partisans to use on radio phone-in shows and a template for letters to newspaper editors. Party faithful were encouraged to "use every single tool and medium at our disposal" to spread the word that opposition parties are trying to usurp the government in a crass bid to protect their political "entitlements."
Text of PMO e-mail to Tory MPs on key talking points
Note to all Conservative members of Parliament:
As you are aware, the Opposition parties are currently discussing a plan to topple our government and replace it with a Liberal-NDP-Bloc coalition.
While we believe such an arrangement would be an affront to the democratic will of Canadians when they afforded us a strengthened mandate on October 14th, we must nonetheless take this threat very seriously.
The Conservative party asked its members to make "emergency" donations to help prevent the NDP and Liberals from forming a coalition government, the latest step undertaken by Tory officials to rally supporters. Irving Gerstein, the Conservative Fund Canada's chairman, sent an e-mail appeal to supporters over the weekend, asking them to "protect Canada's future and protect Canada's democracy from being hijacked by politicians who care about nothing more than power and entitlements."The message asks recipients to make a donation of "$200 or $100 -- whatever you can afford" and states "time is of the essence."
"The Liberals are holding secret negotiations with the socialist NDP and separatist Bloc Quebecois to overturn the wishes of Canadian voters and take power," Mr. Gerstein wrote. "They want to take power and impose on Canadians a prime minister without a personal mandate, a Liberal-NDP coalition not one voter has ever endorsed and have it all backstopped by the separatist Bloc Quebecois who simply want to destroy the country."
Conservative MP Pierre Poilievre said the tape proves the NDP has been plotting to usurp results of the election. "The mask has been lifted off -- the separatists and the NDP have been having these backroom talks for months," he said. "Their goal is to reverse the election results and seize power. Now their scheme is exposed ... it's incumbent upon the Liberal Party to ... no longer participate in the secret discussions."
Poilievre said he doesn't know who made the tape and declined to comment on its ethical implications.
But roll back the tape to September 2004, just a little more than two months after Canadians elected a minority Liberal government. Then-opposition leader Harper appeared at a news conference with Bloc leader Gilles Duceppe -- you know, the guy who wants to destroy the country -- and NDP leader Jack Layton to announce that the three of them had conspired -- sorry, agreed -- on a list of demands that would give them a larger role in governing.
"The agreement that we are announcing today will profoundly alter the operation of the House of Commons in ways that opposition parties have been demanding for years," Harper told reporters.
The three opposition leaders also wrote to then governor-general Adrienne Clarkson urging her to "consider all of your options before exercising your constitutional authority" in the event the Martin government lost a confidence vote.
The opposition leaders said the letter was an attempt to head off any attempt by Martin to hold a snap election in the hope of coming back with a majority.
"I would not want the prime minister to think that he could simply fail in the House of Commons as a route to another general election. That's not the way our system works," Harper said.
SEE:
Flaherty's Fiscal Failure
NDP the New Reform Party
tags
Canada, Flaherty, politics, Conservatives,illegal taping, opposition coalition, Grewal, economy, government, Conservatives, Harper, recession, NDP, Liberals, BQ, politics, , federal election, minoirity government Jack Layton,
Alberta Loses Billions
Poor fiscal management is the heritage of the Tired Old Tories....as in Heritage Trust Fund lossing billions in investment interest and the Alberta Treasury Branches (the Socred Bank)losing billions in the toxic paper loans. Anywhere else heads would roll. Howerver in the province of the one party state those in charge just keep on keeping on, including rewarding themselves for bad management decisions.And the Alberta Treasury Branch brass - who showered themselves with hefty bonuses last year - are getting their ducks for an "additional provision" to cover the toxic asset-backed commercial paper they lost Albertans' money on.
ATB Financial has made an additional $55.5-million provision for potential losses on its holdings of asset-backed commercial paper, bringing its total provisions for possible ABCP losses to $308.6 million.ATB's net income for the quarter ended Sept. 30 fell to $5.7 million, the financial services company said Friday in its latest quarterly report. That's down from $8.5 million in the year earlier period when ATB took a $77.6-million provision for potential losses for its holdings of asset-backed commercial paper. ATB's $1.14-billion principal investment in ABCP will be converted to longer-term notes that reach maturity in six to nine years. ATB will revalue the restructured ABCP investment upon closing. "Times are getting tougher, even in resilient economies such as Alberta's, and interest rate conditions and uncertainty in the marketplace continue to impact our business. But our continued growth and positive results mean Albertans can be confident in ATB," said Dave Mowat, ATB's President and CEO.
Knowing full well that Alberta taxpayers will bail you out.
SEE:
Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:$100 oil, Alberta, tarsands, oilsands, Canada, peak oil, royalties, oil, profits, Province, Bill Hunter, Alberta Royalty Review,Alberta Cabinet, CAPP, Ed Stelmach,Big Oil,oil royalties,
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Flaherty's Fiscal Failure
Finance Minister Jim Flaherty told reporters that the Harpocrite neo-con austerity plan aka the fiscal update was not 'written on a napkin, we have planned it for months'.
Oh dear that means all these cuts, the attack on democratic public funding of political parties, the plan to freeze public sector workers wages and take away their right to strike, and the plan to sell off crown assests and privatize infrastructure spending was all planned months ago. Then why didn't they make that known to the public during the election? Because of course it was couched as 'balancing the budget' and 'we won't run a deficit'.
When the fiscal update was released it was anything but....rather it was another example of Harpers political agenda being foisted on Canadians by a minority government intent on neo-con social engineering at any cost. Until that cost was deemed politically too expensive. Then Harper blinked. At least when it came to public financing of political parties.
Government reverses itself on political funding decision
As far as freezing wages, removing the right to strike and privatization that is still on the agenda.
The Harpocrites have no fiscal plan, they have their same old tired neo-con agenda; reduce government. In particular reduce programs that they and their right wing base are opposed to as we saw with their announcement of arts cuts and before that their attack in their first term on womens programs and legal aid programs.
The biggest wasrte of government funding has been Harpers war in Afghanistan, but reducing our involvement and reducing military spending is not on their agenda.Instead they are increasing spending on the military and refusing to withdraw our troops any earlier than 2011.
With unemployment increasing and predicted to get worse,due to the collapse of the manufacturing sector in Ontario, especially with the auto industry, again the Haprocrites failed to come up with a stimulus plan.
Instead the cynical might be forgiven for thinking the this Law and Order government has only one real infrastructure plan given their propensity to imitate the U.S. Increased incarceration means building more prisons, to house the unemployed forced into a life of crime.
Harper is following in the footeps of another Conservative PM from Calgary; R.B. Bennett. He failed to deal with the economic crisis of the Great Depression. Flaherty's fiscal update shows that the Harpocrite government is failing Canadians just as Bennett did.
SEE:
Neo-Con Industrial Strategy.
Too Little Too Late
WSJ Criticizes Contracting Out
Mayor Of Kabul Says Get Out
Economics 101
Common Sense
Neo-Cons Have No New Ideas
Here Come the Seventies
Auto Solution II
Wage Controls
Arts Vote Cost Jaffer His Job
C.D. Howe Canada's Grand Poobah
Calgary Herald Remembers R.B. Bennett
tags
Canada, Flaherty, politics, Conservatives,consumer spending, tax-credit, Stelmach, economy, government, Conservatives, Harper, recession, Conference Board of Canada, consumer confidence, Economy, Finance Minister, CPP, net debt, pension, debt, P3's, public-private-partnerships
Oh dear that means all these cuts, the attack on democratic public funding of political parties, the plan to freeze public sector workers wages and take away their right to strike, and the plan to sell off crown assests and privatize infrastructure spending was all planned months ago. Then why didn't they make that known to the public during the election? Because of course it was couched as 'balancing the budget' and 'we won't run a deficit'.
When the fiscal update was released it was anything but....rather it was another example of Harpers political agenda being foisted on Canadians by a minority government intent on neo-con social engineering at any cost. Until that cost was deemed politically too expensive. Then Harper blinked. At least when it came to public financing of political parties.
Government reverses itself on political funding decision
As far as freezing wages, removing the right to strike and privatization that is still on the agenda.
The Harpocrites have no fiscal plan, they have their same old tired neo-con agenda; reduce government. In particular reduce programs that they and their right wing base are opposed to as we saw with their announcement of arts cuts and before that their attack in their first term on womens programs and legal aid programs.
The biggest wasrte of government funding has been Harpers war in Afghanistan, but reducing our involvement and reducing military spending is not on their agenda.Instead they are increasing spending on the military and refusing to withdraw our troops any earlier than 2011.
With unemployment increasing and predicted to get worse,due to the collapse of the manufacturing sector in Ontario, especially with the auto industry, again the Haprocrites failed to come up with a stimulus plan.
Instead the cynical might be forgiven for thinking the this Law and Order government has only one real infrastructure plan given their propensity to imitate the U.S. Increased incarceration means building more prisons, to house the unemployed forced into a life of crime.
Harper is following in the footeps of another Conservative PM from Calgary; R.B. Bennett. He failed to deal with the economic crisis of the Great Depression. Flaherty's fiscal update shows that the Harpocrite government is failing Canadians just as Bennett did.
SEE:
Neo-Con Industrial Strategy.
Too Little Too Late
WSJ Criticizes Contracting Out
Mayor Of Kabul Says Get Out
Economics 101
Common Sense
Neo-Cons Have No New Ideas
Here Come the Seventies
Auto Solution II
Wage Controls
Arts Vote Cost Jaffer His Job
C.D. Howe Canada's Grand Poobah
Calgary Herald Remembers R.B. Bennett
tags
Canada, Flaherty, politics, Conservatives,consumer spending, tax-credit, Stelmach, economy, government, Conservatives, Harper, recession, Conference Board of Canada, consumer confidence, Economy, Finance Minister, CPP, net debt, pension, debt, P3's, public-private-partnerships
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