Arctic Meltdown

Arctic could be ice-free in summer in 15 years: scientists
Scientists now say that in as little as 15 years, the Arctic could be ice free in the summer. They say the last time that happened was more than a million years ago. Barber says he's most concerned about multi-year ice. He says the loss of this type of ice can affect the habitat of species, such as ring seals. He says the melting is happening too fast for them to adapt.

Hey but there is always a silver lining even to global warming, capitalism knows how to adapt even if seals don't.

But Simon Prinsenberg, who's with the Bedford Institute of Oceanography in Halifax, says less ice could be positive for northern economies. "A lot of people think that with less ice we might see more fisheries up there and since there's less ice it's also easier to get up there," he says.

But considering who is in charge of the government now don't expect any real solutions to this crisis. Cause it might hurt our car and gas/oil industries.

International study on Arctic climate change produces startling findings
Louis Fortier, a researcher with Universite Laval in Quebec City who led the project, agreed the focus in Canada and internationally needs to be on coping with the reality of global warming and minimizing the damage. ‘‘If we wanted to really change things to avoid the bulk of the impacts of climate change, we would have to totally change our way of life tomorrow,’’ Fortier said.‘‘We’d have to stop using our cars and reduce (greenhouse gas) emissions by 60 to 80 per cent, which would obviously create major problems.’’

Yep problems that our new Minister of the Environment already is in denial over it. And she is completely objective about Kyoto too.

Canada's new environment minister says no to trading emissions
Ambrose, an Edmonton MP, did policy work for the Alberta government on the Kyoto issue before she ran for office.

And who does she meet with first to discuss the environment, why the Alberta Environment Minister who screwed up when the CN dumped their toxic load into Wabumun last summer. I feel better already. Oh yes and as usual with the Harper regime, it was another secret meeting.

Rona sees greener Alberta
The pair were less clear on whether the province and country are capable of meeting the commitments the Liberals made in signing the Kyoto accord.

Actually with the winter or lack of it we have had it's going to be a browner Alberta not a greener one. Grass fire near Alberta town Grass fires in February in Alberta? Scary.

Rona? Hmm isn't there a hardware company by that name?

See

2005 Record Heat Wave

Told Ya So

More Thaw

Ecology=Equality

Hot Air Over Climate Change--Business as Usual

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Arctic
climate change
global warming
Rona Ambrose
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New Meaning for Nanny State

Asper nanny stole $150K So the Aspers like many rich folks have a nanny. Usually they are indentured servants, slaves by any other name, who are not immigrants but brought here to work in the homes of the rich and wealthy. Nannies are the private version of day care. The difference is wealth. The Wealthy have always availed themselves of servants to take care of their children. So much for the conservative ideal of parents taking care of their children. For the rich its too much bother, they are much to busy.

Nannies face deporation if they take any other job and once their term as an employee of the family is over they are sent back home. In this case as with the vast majority of nannies in Canada they come from the Phillipines.

National Day of Protest: Stop the Unjust Deportation of Filipino Live-in Caregivers!

It is the largest labour market of women in the world, and all countries that import nannies do so as indentured servants. And the Phillipines government benefits from their exploitation abroad, by taxing them on the wages they make.

And when you consider the work that they are expected to do, which is wait hand and foot upon their masters this 'theft' is a small price to pay compared to what nannies are paid. Below minimum wage, since they are not covered by labour standards in Canada, in fact they are singled out for not being covered by minimum wage standards.

She tended to daily needs including taking the children to school and grocery shopping, defence lawyer Mike Cook said yesterday. "She was basically running the household," he said.

According to the affidavit, the nanny admitted to forging and cashing the cheques and said she sent some of the money to the Philippines to pay for her brother's medical expenses.

Considering the horror stories told by nannies about their employers this only makes the news because of the Family involved. The real story is the impovershment and exploitation that nannies face in Canada and around the world.

Filipino nannies in Canada: prisoners of legislated poverty

This is the model of child care that the Tories support and will support with their baby bonus benefit. It will be just enough to pay for the nannies of the wealthy, saving them the expense and the economic hardship.

Trust gut about nanny: expert
"Nannies are a great alternative to day care and they really do benefit the family. The bond with the children is phenomenal."



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Leaks

US slams 'prisoner abuse' leak And all the Americans can worry about is who leaked the story. Sort of like who leaked the story about Ambassador Wilson's wife being a CIA agent which has been swept under the rug. Which is what they would have liked happen to the Abu Ghraib story. Cheney Mishap Takes Focus Off CIA Leak


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Red Menace In Canada

So where do our Blogging Tories and Conservative activists on the right go to rest, recuperate and get their fix of political strategizing? Why to the U.S. of course, because as we all know the Right Wing brain is in the U.S.

Check out these right wing Canadian bloggers who went to the CPAC . No not the TV channel, the Conservative Political Action Conference.

No they did not go to a Libertarian conference, though they probably should have, then they would have had a rude awakening,.

Actually CPAC is the Republican PAC. They got autographs from Karl Rove and Ann Coulter...bestill my beating heart...lucky for them Dick Cheney didn't invite them quail hunting.

Now the RightWhingnuts in Canada like to dis the Left in this country for being Anti-American but the one thing the Left here does not do is go south of the Border to go to Political Action conferences held by the Democrats. The Democrats are far too rightwing for us.

And very few of the left work on Democratic campaigns as compared to our pals on the right who flock south like snow birds seeking out Republican campaigns to cut their teeth on.

So if their rhetoric sounds imported it is. And they accuse us and all Canadians of being Anti-American, they say it not because they are defending our friends south of the border, poor babies can't defend themselves from Canadian sarcasm and ridicule, but because they are defending their imported Republican politics.
Scratch away at their contentialist veneer and you will find not Tory Blue but Republican Red. It gives new meaning to the Red Meance.

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Ottawa, Alberta

Welcome to the world of Alberta politics on the national stage. As I wrote here this is the era of Cone of Silence politics when it comes to our paranoid secretive PM. Once a backroom boy always a backroom boy.

Wed, February 15, 2006

PM mum on meeting

Details of visit with Quebec premier under wraps

OTTAWA -- Prime Minister Stephen Harper's staff are treating his first meeting with a provincial premier like a state secret -- even keeping the location under tight wraps.

Harper will meet today with Quebec Premier Jean Charest at noon and his aides have advised that no pictures of the meeting will be allowed.

The traditional public comments usually made by heads of government after they meet in Ottawa have also been cancelled.

An official in the PMO told Sun Media that in an effort to bring a tone of seriousness to his discussions, Harper will not make himself available to the media unless he has something to announce.

An official in the PMO told Sun Media that in an effort to bring a tone of seriousness to his discussions, Harper will not make himself available to the media unless he has something to announce.

The official pointed out that there's no need for a picture of the duo since there will be no announcements made after Charest and Harper's tete-a-tete.

"This prime minister will take the mic and say something when he has something to say, something to announce, something concrete," said the official.

"Not everything is a photo-op."

Opps then I wonder how that official can explain this......

The two leaders met behind closed doors Wednesday (CP photo)

And then it gets better..... our new PM has nothing to say because.......

"He's a person who listens a lot," Charest told a news conference.

And he can hold private meetings without public knowledge of what was said 'cause well this guy did........

William Stairs, Harper's director of communications, defended the meeting. He argued that other PMs, notably Chretien, have held private meetings with premiers.

Oh dear now the PMO is using the Liberals, those morally bankrupt Liberals, who had no right to govern, especially the "Friendly Dictator" as an excuse to do the same.......Its not power that corrupts in Ottawa it's the PMO....

Why has Stephen Harper stayed out of sight?

Setting up shop 'a formidable task,' aide says of PM's lack of public action

GLORIA GALLOWAY

OTTAWA -- Stephen Harper will re-enter the public realm this afternoon to offer a few patriotic words about Flag Day before returning to the prime ministerial bunker and his preferred task of shaping government.

In more than a week since his controversial cabinet took the oath of office, Mr. Harper has made few forays into the world of cameras and digital recorders.

Harper gives new meaning to being a back-door man.

Mr. Harper, who attended a Flag Day ceremony on Parliament Hill yesterday, ducked out a back door to avoid questions from the media. Before his exit, a television reporter asked him about Mr. Martin's comments on Mr. Emerson. "You know my answer," Mr. Harper said. "Mr. Emerson will make a great contribution."

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Conduct Unbecoming

I think these two headlines say a lot about the Bush Regime. Disgusting behavior says it all. They show a regime that denies, covers up and then apologizes for behavior unbecoming......It only took Dick three days before he admitted he pulled the trigger. And Abu Gharib just won't go away. Just like Osama bin Laden won't go away.


'I'm the guy who pulled the trigger,' Cheney says
CTV.ca - 4 hours ago

Abu Ghraib Photos Show `Disgusting' Conduct, US Says
Bloomberg - 7 hours ago



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Is This Anyway to Treat a Beer?

What would Sir Alexander Keith Say?

Beer ad front man faces porn charges
London Free Press -
By CP. TORONTO -- The plug has been pulled on a beer advertising campaign featuring an over-the-top Scotsman after police laid child pornography charges against a Toronto commercial actor. Robert Norman Smith ..

As the Keiths TV ad says Is this anyway to treat a beer?



Alexander Keith's - Beer Funeral Commercial
If you're going to drink the pride of Nova Scotia be sure you do it with reverence and respect - lest you feel the ire of this surly kilt-clad Keith's-lover.



I don't think he would have got busted if he was just a Keiths-Lover......

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Blogger Problems

So I tried to post a comment on another blogger/blogspot.com blog and it waaaaassss soooooo sloooooowwwww. Then I tried to post here with a clever comment on the story in question and this is what I got.

Blogger Problem

This server is currently experiencing a problem. An engineer has been notified and will investigate.

Status code: 1-500-11

So we can assume that Blogger is again having problems today like it has for the past week. Well at least the 'engineer' has been notified......I feel so much better knowing that.

Oh yeah and I still get this stupid announcement every time I load a story into blogger

There were errors. (Details ...)

and of course when I go to republish my whole blog it tells me it has failed and wait ten minutes and try again. Where is that damn engineer?

Oh and this is happening fairly regularly too.....

Could not connect to Blogger.com. Saving and publishing may fail. Test connection now.

I think that this engineer guy/gal is just a myth or perhaps Google is outsourcing the work to China.


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Standard Western Racism

Not satisfied with insulting Canadian Muslims with its thinly veiled racism by republishing the Muhammed cartoons, see my comments here and here, now the Western Standard in the same issue has struck another low blow by insulting the wife of the Premier, with an anti-aboriginal racist slur.

It is well known that in Alberta Conservative circles that gay bashing, bashing natives and bashing East Indians is a popular past time. But this goes too far, the unnamed source clearly is a disgruntled insider who is tired of Kleins failure to exit the throne.

And so it is also a sexist slur, claiming that its all Colleens fault. Wow two count em two slurs in one article by an unamed source. The night of long knives is out for our dear Fuerher Herr Klein.

The comments were part of a column in the Western Standard magazine by writer Ric Dolphin. He suggested Colleen Klein wields too much influence over Premier Ralph Klein and his office.

Them there are fighting words Ezra

He then goes on to quote an unnamed source who said, "Once she [Colleen] stops being the premier's wife, she goes back to being just another Indian."

Klein's wife is Métis.

Comments on Klein's wife spark new controversy for Western ...
CBC News, Canada - 55 minutes ago
Aboriginals upset with Western Standard column CBC Calgary
Premier Klein's wife, Colleen, said to be devastated by magazine ... Canada.com
Alberta mag accused of racial slur against Klein's wife Edmonton Journal
Calgary Sun - all 10 related »

And it gets better because Ric Dolphin is no stranger to right wing controversial yellow journalism he was a reporter for the Alberta Report and their doppleganger the B.C. Report.

And this is far more the Report style of journalism than it is the Edmonton Journal or Calgary Herald that have both employed Ric in the past. They would not accept an 'unnamed' source for any such racist quote, but that is standard Report style journalism.

And it is Ric Dolphin wearing his outraged reactionary hat of the Alberta Report(er) that impunes Colleen with his sexist slur saying she has too much power over Ralph. This is that woman hating, sexist patriarchical slur that the Alberta Report specialized in. You know women who advance in society are not 'Real Women'. Even if they stand by their man. Nope this is that old adage that the woman is the power behind the throne, and that makes Ralph a whimp in the eyes of the butch right wing.

The Western Standard as I said before is a plagarized publication, a rehashed Alberta Report, complete with some of its old staff, and with a palagarized name, taking off on the popular American right wing paper the Weekly Standard.

And of course once again it is mindless right wing drivel that can insult thousands of Muslims and the Premier of Alberta and hence thousands of Tories in Alberta in one fell swoop. Yep that Ezra sure does spread the B.S. around.

Let's see whose up next to be smeared by this pathetic excuse for a newsmagazine, one that makes the news more than it reports it. Just like Alberta Report.


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Canada's Real Prime Minister

Is this guy. Really. And you thought you voted for some new Conservative party. Ha! Just look at who got the position of Canadian Ambassador to the U.S. Wilson to be next ambassador to the U.S.

Wilson to be US ambassador, CTV reports Globe and Mail

From Wednesday's Globe and Mail

Ottawa — Canada's next ambassador to the United States will be Mulroney-era finance minister Michael Wilson, The Globe and Mail has learned.

Mr. Wilson is expected to be appointed toward the end of this week or early next week, pending the agreement of the U.S. government, which is normally a formality.

The appointment is the latest example of former prime minister Brian Mulroney's influence on Stephen Harper's new Conservative government. Derek Burney, a former chief of staff to Mr. Mulroney who also served as ambassador to the U.S from 1989 to 1993, is head of Mr. Harper's transition team and was also rumoured to be in line for the job.

Mr. Wilson, 68, takes over from outgoing ambassador Frank McKenna, who tendered his resignation immediately after Mr. Harper won the Jan. 23 election.

Other members of Mr. Mulroney's inner circle who are close to Mr. Harper include senators Hugh Segal and Marjory LeBreton, both of whom have acted as advisers to the new Prime Minister.

Mr. Wilson was Mr. Mulroney's finance minister and is best known as the man who introduced the much-maligned goods and services tax in 1990. Besides finance, Mr. Wilson also served as minister of industry, science and technology and of international trade.

A tip o the blog to Dissonance and Disrespect for this.

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