Friday, February 24, 2006

Coal=Cancer


Ya gotta love King Ralph here he is saying that Alberta will Cure Cancer. Cure Cancer. Let me repeat that folks Cure Cancer.

I know people refer to the current oil boom as the Alberta Miracle but this is taking that miracle business a little to literally.

And then King Ralph goes and says in the same breath that we are going to expand our extraction of Coal and make sure we export it and use it more.

Ahem Coal causes cancer, it's from the sulpher dioxide byproduct of incomplete combustion.

Oh yeah he said clean coal. But there is no clean coal being used in Alberta or anywhere in Canada or North America for that fact.

Melchin told the audience that his province is eager to develop clean coal technology and it's working with Texas on a zero-emission coal-fired plant, which is expected to start generating electricity in the United States by 2012.Melchin pushes clean coal in Ontario

Aha this must be the wink, wink, secret new energy source George Bush has been talking about. Bush: Energy technology breakthroughs imminent

So I guess we are going to cure cancer in Alberta with clean coal. And that would be a miracle.

This is clearly Klein's swan song his legacy sitting of the Alberta Legislature.Praise Klein and maybe he will quit Which must be why he has these goofy notions of Curing Cancer and Creating Clean Coal. Yep it really is time this goofus retired.

Half of Albertans want Klein to retire soon; a party poll was reported saying 30 per cent of members cite his departure as key to renewal




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Wishful Thinking


The headline reads;

Alta. backs away from privatized health-care system

Throne speech focuses on cutting wait times, slashing cancer rate

EDMONTON -- The Alberta government signalled Wednesday that it's backing away from any plans to privatize health care


But the photo attached tells the real story.






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TANSTAAFV

TANSTAAFV-There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Vote.

Same Sex Marriage and Missile Defense, two issues that will now face the Canadian parliment as Free Votes. Be still my beating heart. Parliment will now have the Conservatives allow its MPs free votes,though how it intends to force the other parties not to whip their votes well thats a horse of a different colour. And the difference between a Whipped vote and Free Vote is......nada, nothing, zippo.

In the past sitting of the Parilment the Conservatives voted en block on issues, no significant variance amongst them. Ok one or two voted for SSM and then Stronach crossed the floor, because of the shunning that such Free Voters got from the rest of the party apparatchiks. But on Bil C-48 they voted as one,it was a budget bill after all, which is why Stronach left . On other less contentious and media watched issues everyone on that side of the house in the Official Opposition voted as the one. See
How'd They Vote?"

So then what is this sacred cow the Conservatives have embraced this oh holy of holies the Free Vote? It is the last vestige of the Refrom Party that dwells in the Conservative Party, sort of like the vestigious reptilian portion of our brain. Once upon a time it was about the Reform Party doing politics differently, being a Party that allowed its MP's to vote on behalf of their constituents following their consulting with their constiuents. The last MP to do so was Chuck Cadman, who remained the last Reformer standing on principles. The rest moved to political pragmatism and expediency to gain power. Chuck's constinuency has elected an NDP member to replace him, not a Conservative!

In todays Conservative autarchy the Free Vote is, as the Bard said, much 'ado about nothing.'



With apologies to
Robert Heinlein who wrote : TANSTAAFL (There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch) One way or other, what you get, you pay for.


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Thursday, February 23, 2006

This Wasn't An Election Promise

Tories to re-open missile defence debate So now that the Harpocrites are going to ressurect this dead issue, will it be long before we are sending troops to Iraq? Hey they wanted to do that to, despite their protests to the contrary during the election. Now where did I put that Conservative election campaign policy guide the Blue Book. Oh yeah here it is, hmmm let's see.....Nope not here. Unlike the Red Book where Liberals broke promises, the Conservatives are keeping promises they didn't make.

OTTAWA (CP) - Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor says he's willing to reopen the controversial debate on ballistic missile defence if the United States extends another invitation.

However, the minority Conservative government would eventually put the question before the Commons and since all three opposition parties have opposed the idea in the past, the concept is likely dead before it starts.

"It would really, ultimately, be up to a vote in Parliament," the minister told reporters Thursday.

His comments came as a former Pentagon official was in Toronto urging Canada to spurn missile defence and instead lead an international charge against space weapons.

Phil Coyle, an assistant secretary of defence and senior weapons tester at the U.S. Department of Defence from 1994 to 2001, said missile defence is seductive but unworkable.

"All you get is a scarecrow defence."

And to think some Blogging Tories pooh-poohed me when I predicted this because Derek Burney one of Harpers key post election advisors has been outspoken in his promotion of BMD/US Canadian joint Missle Defense.


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Teachers Win Right To Free Speech

The 'democratic' state reveals its true authoritarian nature when it comes to mediating labour struggles. It is ALWAYS on the side of the employer. Now the B.C. Teachers union has won a landmark Free Speech case. The howls will arise on the right, you know those folks who are currently eating everything Danish, and defending the right to publish stupid cartoons. They will complain about activist judges, blah, blah. But the point here is that when the State is your employer you have to watch out for them gagging your right to free speech as has occurred in right wing Alberta. In B.C. this case is a victory for workers against the State. B.C. teachers can talk shop with parents, government disappointed
VICTORIA (CP) -- B.C. teachers are legally entitled to talk shop with parents despite a court challenge by their employer. The Supreme Court of Canada refused Thursday to hear an appeal of an earlier B.C. Court of Appeal ruling that allowed teachers to talk to parents about their concerns during parent-teacher interviews.




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Third Way MIA

King Ralphs mauch touted 'Third Way' in Medicare reform is still MIA. It wasn't in his TV Inofmercial the other night and yesterday it was absent, MIA in fact, from the Throne Speech.

“This session, government will take steps to improve access, sustainability, choice, innovation and efficiency in Alberta’s health-care system,” said the speech.Despite its references to offering choice and innovation in health care, it provided no details of Klein’s proposed “third way,” which could open the door to private health insurers and for-profit hospitals offering services now covered by medicare.


Guess after all this time, all those focus groups, all the studies, all the reviews, after Bill 11 , after King Ralphs Grand Tour touting his reforms, this new bill has yet to be written!

Klein conceded yesterday the legislation has yet to be drafted, but he still hopes to push ahead after some form of consultation with Albertans."Hopefully it will be done this spring, but I am waiting to see what the legislation will look like."


You would think these guys would have it prepared. But of course not. In Alberta everyone knows the real legislation is done in cabinet, by decree. Where the government doesn't have to face the discomfort of democarcy and Question Period. And of course mass disapproval and the disapproval of the masses.



Keep Medicare Public
What is the Third Way?



February 23:
Vigil in Support of Public Medicare
12:15 pm
Front steps of the Alberta Legislature building


Vigils on the steps of the Leg will be every Monday evening at 7:15 pm and Wednesday afternoon at 12:15 pm while the Legislature is in session.

Copyright © 2006 Friends of Medicare.



This is what the rest of Canada is going to have to get used to soon, with the Harperites now in power in Ottawa, Alberta.

Here is the Alberta version of Accountable Government.


When answering a question on health care from New Democratic Party Leader Brian Mason, Klein said he’s been inundated with requests for more money from Alberta’s regional health authorities.
How much money are they asking for? Well....
KLEIN: “Without going through the whole list, the total is $100.6 billion — $100.6 billion this year alone — and they (New Democrats) have no solution other than to spend, spend, and spend more.”
$100.6 billion? That’s 10 times the size of the entire health budget!
Klein repeated the $100.6 billion figure five more times — a figure he puzzlingly used to browbeat and berate the New Democrats, as if they want to spend $100 billion more on health care.
Oops — he later dropped the figure to $10.6 billion.
Double oops — after Question Period he dropped the figure yet again to $1.6 billion.
Klein said he made a mistake. He did the math himself on what the health authorities are requesting and came up with the wrong number — twice.


Wow that sounds just like an anwser those guys in Ottawa that just got turfed used to give in QP.. Will Klein Share Chretiens Fate?






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Ouch



Klein needs vision where his money and mouth are
Globe and Mail, Canada - 1 hour ago
By DEBORAH YEDLIN. CALGARY -- Ralph Klein is looking more and more like the second coming of another Alberta premier -- Don Getty.

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Harpers Broken Promises: Accountability


Democracy Watch has issued a press release documenting five, count em five, broken promises by Temp PM Harpocrite on Accountability. And after they gave the Conservatives the thumbs up as having the best policy during the election. Well that was then this is now. Remember that the Harpocrite failed to pledge he would keep his promises when asked during the French language debate. Now we know why. It wasn't that his french was that poor.


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The Soviet Union Capitalism's Bulwark

As Herr Doctor Marx pointed out over a hundred years ago, capitalism relies on, no, demands a huge army of the unemployed in order to discipline the working class. As industrialization expanded it transformed the countryside and its citizens into city dwelling proletarians.

Abounding in the ghettos of Europe were the poor, the victims of the loss of the commons through enclosures, those who had suffered from the privatization of the land. In order to deal with the mass unemployment England and other European countries expanded their dominance over the Atlantic in search of new lands to ship thier poor too.

This is the real story of Mayflower, not a glorious history of dissidents looking for a new land, but the export of the poor and criminalized to the new world. North America as penal colony, as we know Australia was used. See my review of the Many Headed Hydra for more on this.


In that same context the Soviet Union and its annexed colonies in Eastern Europeand Communist China played a similar form of buffer for European and Asia-Pacific capitalism.

By creating isolationist economic and political autarchies surplus labour was kept out of the global market. And while these countries produced goods, they imported more than they exported, and they did not export their prison populations.

This was exposed with the unification of Germany. The East German basket case economy nestled next to the Booming West Germany. All that fell apart with unification as East Germany has become one large Free Enterprize Zone, a European Malaquidora in competion with Germany and other EU countries.


And in the Third World, these countries allowed for the booming economies of the G8 by keeping their workers and poor contained in soverign nation states, who imported goods and exported captial. Often as hot money.


Today none of these buffers exist any longer. And the move of the mulititude, as Hardt and Negri call it, the unemployed, the mass of labour now threatens the working class in the advanced industrial countries not as immigrant or emigre labour but through the use of outsourcing. Outsourcing is the harsh discipline of capitalism it plays the same role as unemployment does, and the source of it is the old Soviet Union and other developing countries who are now shipping their poor out around the world looking for work, while importing work into their own nation states.

Here is an interesting take on this;

The Global Labor Threat

By Thomas Palley*

TomPaine
September 29, 2005

If the United States were to add two billion low-wage workers, you'd expect that wages would fall across the board, right? Well, there is a famous theorem in international economics - the Stolper-Samuelson theorem - that says when a rich capital-abundant country (such as the United States) trades with a poor labor-abundant country (such as China), wages in the rich country fall and profits go up. The theorem's economic logic is simple. Free trade is tantamount to a massive increase in the rich country's labor supply, since the products made by poor country workers can now be imported. Additionally, demand for workers in the rich country falls as rich country firms abandon labor-intensive production to the poor country. The net result is an effective increase in labor supply and a decrease in labor demand in the rich country, and wages fall.

The relevance of the Stolper-Samuelson theorem is clear. For the last two decades, US policy makers, from both major political parties, have worked assiduously to create a global market place in which goods and capital are free to move. Over the same period, two and a half billion people in China, India, Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union have discarded economic isolationism and joined the global economy. Now, these two tectonic shifts are coming together in the form of a "super-sized" Stolper-Samuelson effect, and they stand to have depressing consequences for American workers.

Much attention has been devoted to the adverse impacts of the US trade deficit, particularly with China. And the US government has been rightly criticized for failing to apply adequate pressure to get China to remedy its unfair and illegal trading practices. However, no one in Washington is talking about the deeper question of what happens to wages when two billion people from low-wage countries join the global labor market.

Such an event is unprecedented in history. In the past, countries joined the international economy through a slow evolutionary process. Initially, they would export a few goods in which they specialized and had natural competitive advantage. Thereafter, countries would gradually deepen their involvement in international trade. The process was one of gradual integration, and production was largely immobile across countries.

Globalization has changed this by accelerating the process of international integration. It has also made capital, technology and methods of production mobile, marking a watershed with the past. The new order is exemplified by China's recent experiences. In fewer than two decades, China has become a global manufacturing powerhouse through massive foreign direct investment and technology transfer. The impact of this transformation on the US economy is seen in the trade deficit, the loss of manufacturing jobs and downward pressure on wages. Whereas classical free trade connected goods markets across countries, globalization creates a global labor market and moves jobs. Previously trade arbitraged goods prices, now it also arbitrages wages through job shifting.

With the emergence of China, India and Eastern Europe, the dam of Socialism that held back two billion workers has been removed. If two swimming pools are joined, the water level will eventually equalize. That is what is happening with globalization. Manufacturing has already been placed in competition across countries, with dire consequences for manufacturing workers. The internet promises to do the same for previously un-tradable services, and higher-paid knowledge workers will start feeling similar effects. Not since the industrial revolution has there been a transformation of this magnitude, and that revolution took one hundred and fifty years to complete.




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Alberta's Boom = Ontario's Bust

I found this interesting post I thought I would share.

It explains why the U.S. will pay more attention to us in the declining years of the Bush administration. Not because of the friendlier relations promised by the newly elected Harper regime in Ottawa, but because of Alberta Crude. Bush made that clear in his State of the Union address on America's need for energy security.


We have here what many are calling a perfect economic storm, with demand, price, and political instability in the Middle East - our low-cost competitor - all lining up to produce a gusher of energy revenues. A decade ago our biggest customer, the U.S., didn't take Alberta seriously as a major source of oil. Now, George W. Bush is on a crusade to wean America off its addiction to foreign oil from "unstable" sources. "It creates a national security issue when we're held hostage for energy by foreign nations that may not like us," he warned. In fact, Alberta and its bottomless oilsands seem like the perfect solution to Washington's search for energy security.
Securing the future Edmonton Sun, Canada - 22 Feb 2006 By PAUL STANWAY


And thanks to Canada's Petro-Dollar economy the Alberta Boom means a Bust for Ontario. Which will put the Harper in tough tight spot. Inceasing unemployment in Ontario, a freeze or decline in Federal civil service jobs, will adversely affect his ability to win a Majority government. Ironically thanks to the success of Alberta which is his parties largest base.

And the loss of the manufacturing base in Ontario is what drove Buzz Hargrove mad during the election. He could see this coming. Watch him and the CLC go into concession bargaining mode as their industrial based unions decline in membership by attrition.

What will keep Buzz out of politics is his and CAW's need to organize the exapanding Japanese car manufacturing base, and the secondary car parts manufacturing sector like Stronach's Magna which are non-union.

Sid Ryans backing off from CUPE's wildcat strike over the pension issue is an indication of the economic weakness that even the public service unions now face in manufacturing based Ontario. Concession averts strikePension reform will pass, but government promises reviewUnion claims victory even though legislation unchanged

And Harpers promises benefit the financial and investor sector in Canada far more than they do working Canadians and their families. And they do little for non-working, unemployed or retired Canadians. Which will be largely in Ontario.



The Psychology of the Canadian Petro-dollar
Gary Dorsch

Editor, Global Money Trends magazine

Mr Dorsch worked on the trading floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange for nine years as the chief Financial Futures Analyst for three clearing firms, Oppenheimer Rouse Futures Inc, GH Miller and Company, and a commodity fund at the LNS Financial Group.

After the price of US light crude oil jumped above the psychological $40 per barrel level in 2004, global investors began to take a harder look at the underground oil deposits around northeastern Alberta, Canada that hold about 1.6 trillion barrels of oil, the largest lode of hydrocarbons on Earth. Soon after, Canada's "Loonie" was anointed as the heir of the British pound, and bestowed the coveted position as the world's Petro-currency. And over the past 12-months, US crude oil futures have traded in the same direction as Canada's Petro-dollar about 74% of the time.

Long regarded as a "commodity currency" the demand for the Loonie is increasingly linked to the direction of energy, gold and base metal shares. Nearly half of the market capitalization of the benchmark Toronto Stock Exchange index is linked to the energy and materials sectors. Canadian exports, led by the energy sector, surged to a record $C41.3 billion in December 2005, up 3.9% from November, despite a Canadian dollar that is gyrating at highest level since the early 1990's.

Canada's trade surplus with the United States hit a record $C11.6 billion in December, as energy exports jumped 11.2% to a record high of $C9.3 billion, led by a surge in natural gas shipments. Total exports advanced to a record high of $C423.6 billion in 2005, compared with $C408.9 billion in 2004. Imports also hit a record high, rising 8.8% to $C413.8 billion. Canadian exports rose even as the Loonie climbed from an average 77 US-cents in 2004 to 83 US-cents in 2005.

Geologists estimate that anywhere from 175 to 330 billion barrels of the molasses-like crude in Canada's oil sands region are recoverable. Saudi Arabia, by contrast, possesses 262 billion barrels of proven reserves. Over the next decade, nearly two dozen companies from Canada, the United States, France and China are planning an estimated $100 billion in oil sands projects, and few countries can match growth on that scale. Longer term, there's only really one rival and that's Saudi Arabia.

Current production in the Oil Sands region is about one million barrels a day, about half of which goes to the US by pipeline. Production is forecast to rise to 2 million barrels a day by 2010 and possibly 3.9 million a day by 2015. The Saudis can pump oil at a cost of $2 to $3 a barrel, but converting the molasses-like sands of Alberta into useable crude requires substantial manpower, technology and energy. After adding capital costs, shipping and depreciation, sands producers need per-barrel global prices above the $C18-to-$23 level.

The USA guzzles more than 21 million barrels a day, about 62% of which is imported. Daily US demand is projected to climb to 23 million barrels by 2010, while domestic production falls. So the US is looking to its friendly neighbor to the north to help satisfy its thirst for oil, and reduce its reliance on the Persian Gulf oil kingdoms, unstable Nigeria, and Hugo Chavez of Venezuela. Crude oil prices command a high premium due to the instability of the countries that produce it.

However, Canada is a safe haven and reliable supplier of energy for its southern neighbor. The United States imported 2.3 million barrels per day of crude and refined products from Canada last year, a million barrels more per day than from Riyadh, exceeding imports from the Saudis every year since 1999. Canada is America's single biggest supplier of foreign oil, providing 17% of all US oil imports.

But cash rich Beijing is also eyeing direct investments in Canadian oil sands projects, and might want to ship increasing amounts of oil to China in the future at the expense of United States. Former Canadian natural resources minister John McCallum foresaw China taking as much as 400,000 bpd, or 25% of the oil currently being shipped to America.

But total trade volume between Canada and China is only $30 billion compared with $500 billion between Canada and the United States. And much to the dismay of Beijing, Canada's newly elected Conservative leader Stephen Harper is expected to pursue much closer ties with the US, in contrast to former Liberal leader Martin, who played the China energy card in trade disputes with the US.

Exports of commodities account for roughly 13.5% of Canada's C$1.1 trillion economy, the world's eighth largest. Nearly 34% of Canada's exports are energy-related, and metals are roughly 15 percent. For better or worse, the psychology of the foreign currency market is fixated on the price of crude oil, gold, and base metals when setting the price of the Canadian dollar, against the Japanese yen and US dollar, and by default the Chinese yuan. As a result, the Canadian dollar is expected to remain strong for a long time, wrecking havoc on manufacturers in Ontario.

A sizeable economic gap is developing between resource-rich provinces in Alberta, British Columbia, and Newfoundland, riding the wave created by the resource boom, versus central Canada's manufacturing base, in Ontario, Quebec, and New Brunswick. Manufacturers are getting hammered by a flood of cheap Chinese imports, made cheaper by a strong Loonie. British Columbian exports of lumber could also drop from a US housing slowdown. However, Canada as a whole is expected to grow 3% in 2006, just a bit stronger than the 2.9% pace in 2005.

For Canada's manufacturing sector, more than half of which is located in Ontario. January was a brutal month, with an estimated 41,600 factory jobs lost, the biggest one-month drop in 15 years. Ontario saw 33,000 manufacturing jobs disappear last month, taking the province's total cuts to 93,000 since the end of 2002, just before the Loonie began its 37% appreciation against the US dollar.

Canada's factory sector employs 2.13 million people, and started cutting about 145,000 payroll positions over the past 12 months. But the government employed 42,800 more people in January, including temporary staff hired for Canada's Jan. 23rd federal election, and natural resource companies hired another 12,300 workers.

Ironically, the US dollar has tumbled from about 1.40 Canadian dollars to just below 1.15 Canadian dollars while interest rate differentials have moved decidedly in the US dollar's favor by 350 basis points. In this rare situation, the enormous flow of foreign capital into Canada's resource-rich capital markets has overpowered the influence of short-term interest differentials between the two currencies.

Four quarter-point rate hikes by the Bank of Canada to 3.50% over the past six months went un-opposed by the Bank of Japan, providing additional incentives for Japanese "carry traders" to bid the Petro-dollar 23.8% higher to as high as 104-yen last year. Canadian and Detroit car manufacturers are feeling the heat from a weaker yen, while others succumb to a weaker Chinese yuan. Canada's economy is in danger of losing more of its manufacturing base, while transitioning to a service sector economy, which accounts for two-thirds of output.

In addition to a booming resource sector, the Loonie was the only currency among the big-7 industrialized economies to enjoy both trade and budget surpluses. In 2000, there was a budget surplus of more than 2% of GDP, rising to 4% by 2001. Since then, annual budget surpluses have been shrinking and almost disappeared in fiscal 2005, leaving less money to pay down the $C500 billion federal debt.

There was a potential for a $13.4 billion surplus in fiscal 2006, but the newly elected conservative government promised to use up most of the projected surpluses for tax cuts and different spending priorities. PM Harper aims cut to dividend taxes, offer accelerated capital-tax elimination for businesses, corporate tax rate reductions by 2010, and allow Canadian investors to defer capital gains tax so long as they are replacing one taxable asset with another. And that's the icing on the cake for happy investors in the Toronto Stock Exchange and the Canadian "Petro-dollar."







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