Saturday, April 29, 2006

Softwood Baseball Bat


Well the Harpocrites have given the American protectionists a big stick with which to beat us with.

US lumber producers may use softwood deal money to sue Canada

A stick bought and paid for by us with illegal tarrifs,ouch.

But the pain doesn't stop there.....

The agreement includes a cap on Canada's share of the U.S. lumber market and a sliding tax triggered when the North American price falls below $355 US for a thousand board feet. UBS Investment Research analyst Jaret Anderson said "the fact Canadian producers will pay a larger export tax in a weak lumber market may be problematic for Canadian producers."Good in good times, but . . .

ouch, ouch, ohh stop the pain.

But at least the Harpocrites made this guy happy.....which was all that mattered to them......U.S. Ambassador David Wilkins yesterday called the softwood lumber deal the proof that Canada matters in Washington, and the precursor of a new era of co-operation between the two countries.US hails new era after deal

That's just adding insult to injury. Stop already. Oh the pain, the pain.


More criticism of the Softwood Sellout


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Friday, April 28, 2006

The Green Goddess


Absinthe, the word conjours up artistic dwarves, Can-Can, Degas, Ravachol, the tinny piano stylings of Erik Satie.

And now the Green Goddess ,or Green Fairy, as the drink was known has returned.

Over the past couple of years it has reappeared at clubs and amongst the student crowd. It has been mostly the name combined with overproof alcohol.

The only real Absinthe available for some time in Europe that actually contained wormwood, the active ingrident, came from the
Czech Republic

Banned as a psuedo-narcotic, it is actually a sporific against narcotics and an antidote to the poision of the blowfish (used to create le Zombie). The hysteria around Absinthe causing madness and addiction is not unlike the establishments hysteria around drungs period.

Just Say No to Drugs hysteria didn't begin with the Reagan Era but earlier at the turn of last century around Absinthe, and of course then spread to Marijuana, morphine and opiates and cocaine. All mythologised as leading to either madness, or social debauchery, or gasp, the white slave trade, or all of the above. It was a moral crusade, the politics of social control, and had nothing to do with whether any of these drugs actually did the damage the anti-drug propagandists used as their excuse to ban them. Such was also the case with LSD.



Return of the Green Fairy: absinthe is back after chemist clones drink banned in 1915

By the turn of the century - the "Belle Epoque", when Paris was the artistic and literary centre of the world - the smell and taste of absinthe pervaded France but especially the bohemian world of artists and writers in Parisian cafés and dance halls such as Le Rat Mort and Le Chat Noir.

David Nathan-Maister is a British-based trader in antique and new absinthes and absinthe memorabilia, who runs the best absinthe site on the internet - the Virtual Absinthe Museum (www.oxygenee.com). He says that absinthe was the victim of a manipulation. "There never was anything dangerous about absinthe, so long as it was made properly and drunk sensibly," he said.

By the end of the 19th century, the French wine industry had recovered from the phylloxera infestation and wanted its market back.

An unholy alliance formed between the wine lobby, the temperance lobby and conservative politicians who associated absinthe with avant-garde bohemianism. There are now several makers of reasonably authentic absinthe, in France, Spain and Switzerland. However, David Nathan-Maister believes that Ted Breaux's "Jade" absinthes are the only ones to get close to the taste of the pre-1915 original.


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To make absinthe, take an ounce of Wormwood, specifically Artemsia Absinthium (there are many forms of Wormwood so you need to use the Absinithium specifically) herb add it too two bottles of Pernod, soak for a week to ten days, strain, take the herbal residue and cook up as a tea, let tea sit for five days, mix the two extracts together, and let sit for a week to ten days. The longer it cures the stronger it gets. This is my personal recipe (c) Here are some others.

Most use sugar and vodka, or a combination of macicated herbs, using Pernod avoids the complication of using other herbs, as the wormwood is actually the missing ingrident from Pernod.


Absinthe is still illegal in the United States, so again most so called absinthe drinks are not, they are falvoured overproof alcohol.

Noxious Weed Information:
Artemisia absinthium L.

This plant is listed by the U.S. federal government or a state. Common names are from state and federal lists. Click on a place name to get a complete noxious weed list for that location.

Colorado:
absinth wormwood
B list (noxious weeds)
North Dakota:
absinth wormwood
Noxious weed
Washington:
absinth wormwood
Class C noxious weed




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Battle of Alberta



Will there be a battle of Alberta?

With both the Flames and Oilers tied with their respective opponents, after last nights games, who knows?

It's edge of your seat NHL hockey.

Yikes this actually makes the playoffs exciting.

For Albertans.
Klein slip shows split allegiance: Oilers vs Flames

Rock-solid Roloson gives Oilers confidence

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Told Ya

Nice to be right about the Harprocrite.... Harper's staff behind media ban, sources say



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Boom Boom


It looks like David Dodge head of the Bank of Canada is stuck back in the eighties when thanks to constant high interest rates the Canadian economy flatened out. Now with the Loonie replacing the pound as the Petro Dollar our economy is booming, and once again Dodge is planning to raise interests rates. Which would be counter-productive.

David Dodge sounds alarm about inflation

The Bank of Canada issued its semi-annual report and solidified expectations another rate hike is pending, despite having raised rates six times since September.

The Canadian dollar closed at 89.04 cents, up from Wednesday's close of 88.61 cents -- the highest since November, 1991, and continuing a surge that started earlier in the week. Mr. Dodge's comments yesterday clearly exposed his fear that inflationary pressure, which has been negligible for more than two years, is no longer as benign as once thought.

"Given these divergent signals from the Bank of Canada and the Fed, look for the Canadian dollar to strengthen in the near term, trading decisively through 90 U.S. cents," said Craig Alexander, deputy chief economist at Toronto-Dominion Bank.

Indeed, Peter Frank, a Chicago-based currency strategist for ABN Amro, wrote yesterday that the loonie would break through 95 cents by the end of this year, the strongest since May, 1977.

And Bank of Montreal economist Sal Guatieri sees the loonie at 92 cents by next year, assuming that commodities prices soften somewhat. If they strengthen, he sees the Canadian dollar moving up to 95 or even 96 cents -- a level not seen for nearly 30 years.

But a growing number of economists say the Bank of Canada should stop raising rates before that happens. Earlier this week, CIBC World Markets warned that the central bank risks overshooting by raising rates when there are few signs of inflationary pressure.

Yesterday, TD Bank added its voice, saying the central bank should hold off on further increases because there is no evidence higher energy prices are causing other prices to rise significantly.




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Blogging Iraq

A great news aggregator blog on Iraq is Today in Iraq. And no there are no planted Pentagon stories.


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In Defense of Migration

Two thoughtful articles on migration and the current white whing wascist hysteria in the U.S. about 'illegal aliens' appear on the Thomas Paine's Corner blog. Well worth the read.

Your Huddled Masses are my Wretched Refuse:

African-Americans, Economic Well-Being, and Immigration



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Bank Charges


Here is a good news story for banking customers for once; CIBC to refund $27M to clients who were overcharged

However one has to ask why we pay service charges period.

Especially when this happens;
Citing more than 1,000 mistakes a day in preauthorized bank debits across Canada, a coalition of consumers' groups is calling on Ottawa for consumer protection legislation on electronic payments.

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Ashamed of Being A Tory

This nutbar is ashamed of being a blogging Tory....except he has also been a Liberal and a Green blogger.

Of course the Blogging Tories have never heard of him as he is not on their roll.Which is a shame since he tries so hard to be one of them.


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No Rae Days For Liberals



This is why Bob Rae will not be elected Leader of the Federal Liberals; "Former Ontario NDP premier".

This appelation will follow him where ever he goes, and in any stories about him.

Despite being the Chretienite/Demarais/Power Corporation candidate . Barely out of the gate and he got La Presse's editorial endorsement, the voice of the Power Corp and his inlaws.

But not all the criticism will be from the right, nope there is a good left hook out there with elder NDP statesman Ed Broadbent's latest column in the Globe and Mail.
Mr. Rae and the Grits deserve each other

And not to be outdone Ontario MPP Peter Kormos gets in a couple of shots;
"He began his political career as a Liberal and Bob Rae is going to finish it as a Liberal. And, as far as I'm concerned, there was no hiatus in the interim. He was the best Liberal premier this province ever had."

Bob has baggage alright but not just his past as Premier of Ontario. He has more recent baggage, that of screwing post secondary students.

Student-loans Catch-22 lurks

In 1994, Manning introduced a motion in Parliament calling for the creation of an “income contingent loan repayment system”. Manning claimed that this would reduce costs for taxpayers and ensure postsecondary institutions generated enough funding to maintain quality. He made no mention of the potential impact on tuition.

Just over 10 years later, Rae submitted a report to the Ontario government on postsecondary education that also called for an income-contingent student-loan-repayment plan. He suggested that this could come in the form of payroll deductions.

“In the Canadian context, such a system will take time to establish because of the need for federal- provincial consensus,” Rae wrote in his report. He added that governments would also “necessarily involve the future of tuition tax credits, and other tax expenditures”.

Payne said that Ontario students have opposed Rae’s proposal for that province. “I think that myself and students across the country are concerned about Bob Rae potentially becoming the leader of the Liberal party,” Payne said.




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