Wednesday, April 05, 2006

Malthus Redux

Ebola virus best way to kill billions and save world: ecologist
A respected Texas scientist says the best way to kill 90 per cent of the people on the planet and save the world is the Ebola virus

Respected by who? Captain Paul Watson of Sea Shepperd probably......Save the Seals kill off the humans is the subtext of the Vegan moralist ideology.

Which begs the question of these species chauvinists....do they think we will destroy the world or is it that we will destroy ourselves and the World will repair itself as it has with other historical extinctions of species.....while we are certainly doing massive damage to the planet and its life forms, we are doing so with the constant possibility of wiping ourselves out thank you very much.....which is the crisis of the decadence of capitalism.

This ideology that the solution to the capitalist crisis of the environment is that we are expendable for the good of the planet is the very ethos of Protestantism gone wild....it's Gnosticism not science.


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Mr. Turkey To You

Once upon a time Benjamin Franklin suggested that the official bird for the United States should be the Turkey. He was prescient in his arguement for this North American native.

Every Thanksgiving the President of the US pardons a turkey from the ceremonial fate that turkeys suffer for the founding of that nation.

President Bush holds a platter at Baghdad airport on Thanksgiving. The turkey had been primped to adorn the buffet line, while the 600 soldiers were served from steam trays

Now if this turkey had been around the tables may have been turned.

Even on old Ben...
Benjamin Franklin Tries to Electrocute a Turkey

Scientists Discover New Dinosaur in Utah

New Dinosaur Resembles Large Turkey


By BROCK VERGAKIS
The Associated Press
Tuesday, April 4, 2006; 11:07 PM

SALT LAKE CITY -- Fossils discovered in southern Utah are from a new species of birdlike dinosaur that resembled a 7-foot-tall brightly colored turkey and could run up to 25 mph, scientists said Tuesday.



Giant dinosaur raptor unveiled
Fossils found in 2001 in national monument

What's 7 feet tall, 13 feet long, armed with sickle-like claws and covered with feathers? Hagryphus giganteus, the new raptor dinosaur

Benjamin Franklin's Letter Comparing the Eagle and the Turkey

"For my own part I wish the Bald Eagle had not been chosen the Representative of our Country. He is a Bird of bad moral Character. He does not get his Living honestly. You may have seen him perched on some dead Tree near the River, where, too lazy to fish for himself, he watches the Labour of the Fishing Hawk; and when that diligent Bird has at length taken a Fish, and is bearing it to his Nest for the Support of his Mate and young Ones, the Bald Eagle pursues him and takes it from him.

"With all this Injustice, he is never in good Case but like those among Men who live by Sharping & Robbing he is generally poor and often very lousy. Besides he is a rank Coward: The little King Bird not bigger than a Sparrow attacks him boldly and drives him out of the District. He is therefore by no means a proper Emblem for the brave and honest Cincinnati of America who have driven all the King birds from our Country . . .

"I am on this account not displeased that the Figure is not known as a Bald Eagle, but looks more like a Turkey. For the Truth the Turkey is in Comparison a much more respectable Bird, and withal a true original Native of America . . . He is besides, though a little vain & silly, a Bird of Courage, and would not hesitate to attack a Grenadier of the British Guards who should presume to invade his Farm Yard with a red Coat on."



More On Dinosaurs


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A Real Chicken Hawk

In a preverse form of poetic justice the Chicken Hawk advocates of spying on American citizens have attempted to use Child Porn as the basis for expanding their spying operations. They have of course gotten cooperation from most search engines except Google.

Now the chickens have come to roost. Or in this case Chicken Hawks.

Those who call the Republican War administration Chicken Hawks now have good reason to revert to the original meaning of the term.


Homeland security official faces sex-related charges

The deputy press secretary for the United States Department of Homeland Security was arrested for using the internet to seduce what he thought was a teenage girl, authorities said.


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The Privatization of Torture

The War in Iraq has been called the new face of war in the 21st Century by no less than President Bush.

And what is this new war? It is war by private armies the so called 'contractors', private companies like Halliburton, and now the contracting out and privatization of torture.

Of course when the Market State privatizes war completely we will be in the era of decadence that saw the fall of all great Empires that relied upon mercenary armies, from Carthage to Rome.

AI accuses CIA of using private planes for rendition flights

04/05/2006

In a report issued on Wednesday, Amnesty exposed what it described as a covert operation involving front companies and private aircraft operators to preserve the secrecy of so-called rendition flights.
Son San Joan airport in Majorca
And of course these private planes have been landing at small regional airports in Canada.

Earlier this year, media reports said that American planes believed to be contracted to the CIA made 74 flights to Canada between September 2001 and November 2005, according to documents released to Canadian Press through freedom of information.But Amnesty's Canadian office said that requests to the Liberal government for a review of the allegations met with no response. Amnesty's secretary general, Alex Neve, sent a letter to Stockwell Day, the minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, calling for an investigation by the Tory government.The human rights organization also called for safeguards ensuring that Canadian airports are not used to transfer suspects to countries where they may be held without protection of international law. More flights linked to CIA

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War Is No Place For A Free Press

In the battle for news accuracy War creates the conditions of censorship and self censorship which has led to the failure of the media to report accurately from their positions as embedded cheerleaders...... this is the latest in the efforts of the War Department to control the Press.....which has resulted in this......


Editor's note: All media organizations reporting on the conflict in Afghanistan while embedded with the Canadian Forces are signatories of Rules for Embedded Media. The Toronto Star has been ordered by the military to refrain from illustrating by graphic the precise area where last week's firefight took place. The army in Kandahar invoked the rules, believing any illustration would put lives at risk.Was Canadian soldier slain by friendly fire?


More on Afghanistan


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Same Sex Marriage No Debate

What was missing from the Throne Speech?

Why there was no reference to Same Sex Marriage and its pending demise under the Tories.

But don't worry King Stephen is still straight.


Stephen and Laureen Harper share a kiss in the rotunda after the Throne Speech was read yesterday.


While there was no mention of abolishing the much-maligned gun registry or holding a free vote in Parliament on same-sex marriage, Justice Minister Vic Toews confirmed they both remain on the government's agenda.Harper's 'clear and focused agenda'

Anyone studying the dynamics of Harper's past election strategy would know that he's developing a formula for handling persistent problems: confront them head on, admit their intractability and then move on. Harper did this in the opening days of the election campaign last December with the same-sex marriage controversy. He said he was against same-sex marriage up front, so his critics didn't say it first. Then it never came up again. HARPER'S OTHER FIVE PRIORITIES


And it still hasn't come up yet.......Which means it was never a priority for Harper merely an issue he could use to get Social Conservative votes.....ever the opportunitst....So Link Byfield and his ilk will have to settle for pictures of Harper kissing his wife, while they cool their heels over his Free Vote on Marriage....And the longer the Tories wait the more entrenched it becomes....clever.....then Harper can say he tried...and when they lose the vote in the house.....we all move on over what has become a non-issue......


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So Long And Thanks For All The Fish


King Ralph has announced his departure, but before the candidates line up at the trough for his job Ralphie boy is still stalling when he will go. End of the year he says, will let you know in the fall, have a good summer. It's going to be a slow de-Klein



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Tuesday, April 04, 2006

Reform Party of Alberta


So what will it take to get Presto Manning to run for Premier of Alberta? Already the old Presto Reform Party backroom boys, Ezra Levant and Farron Ellis are spinning their wheels. They are claiming it will take a new party to replace the Tired Old Tories. Word for word they sound like they met and wrote the same speech for the press.

But an opposition sweep of the polls after Klein isn't likely, said Lethbridge College political scientist Faron Ellis."Every time the Alberta government has changed hands, it's been a new party, not the established opposition, that's done it," Ellis said.

Manning could pursue the Tory leadership. But there is another scenario that is even more intriguing: Manning starting a new party, from scratch, and running not to replace Klein alone, but the entire rotting Tory carcass, 35 years in power. Think about it: Why should Manning seek the Tory leadership? To preside over a tired, ideologically leftist caucus that would resent him as an interloper? To have to defend an arrogant party whose entitlement mentality surpasses even that of the federal Liberals? Why not do what Albertans love to do -- and what Manning himself talked about in 2004 -- start a new party? Manning's already done that twice, and Albertans supported him both times.
King Ralph is dead Ezra Levant Special to the National Post


Eternal optimists they are ignoring the political reality that the only reason the PC's remain in power is that they are fiscal liberals whose power basis fiscally and politically is Calgary and Edmontons ruling classes and who appeal to the rural rump ,the old Socreds,with right wing rhetoric, rhetoric only. When push comes to shove they are push overs as King Ralph has shown time and again.


Dismissing the strong left wing opposition in Alberta as if it doesn't exist, as if the NDP and Liberals are has beens, who just so happened to have won more seats in the 2004 provincial election than predicted.

Dismissing this provinces left wing populist history these Revisionists are now claiming that it will take a NEW right wing party to replace the declining Tories.


Well gee guys there is the Alberta Alliance that is to the right of the PC's and has a sitting member. Even Mr. Right Wing Link Byfield supports them.

Except as usual with Presto's ego a whole new party made out of whole clothe will have to be created.

Please do. It will split the right wing vote and allow the opposition you dismiss to come up the middle.

Don't believe me, read the comments on the idea of Presto as Premier here and here

Also see my previous post: Return of the Socreds




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Conservative Broadcasting Corporation



Why is Ezra Levant being used as a commentator on Alberta politics on Don Newmans Politics show on CBC Newsworld. The man is an idiot and does not have the inside dope on the Ralph regime. Why not use the Edmonton Journals Legislative reporter Graham Thompson.

Also in the past two weeks as the Ralph circus was shown on Newmans show, as well as covered by the Duff on CTV, why were Rod Love, Peter Elzinga and other party hacks allowed on both programs as well as Question Period.

They had nothing criticial to say. Zip nada, all was right with the world and Ralph was the greatest. Sheesh talk about ass kissing. That is not political commentary, insight or even news. At least CTV used their own Klein Biographer Don Martin.

So when reporting on news from Alberta for political comments the CBC is sucking up to the right wing rump of the right wing with Levant. Who is NOT a journalist, but a PR flack for the right in the tradition of the Gobbels school.

Welcome to the new remade Conservative Broadcasting Corporation.




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JK Galbraith Speaks Truth To Power



Taming Predatory Capitalism

JAMES K. GALBRAITH

The truths are that egalitarian growth is efficient, that speculation must be regulated, that crime starts at the top and that peace is the primary public good. These truths are poison to predators and are the reason predators have fostered and subsidized an entire cynical intellectual movement devoted to "free" markets made up of a class of professor-courtiers now everywhere in view.



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