Thursday, August 10, 2006

Verbena for Ambrose

A tiny plant may mean the extinction of Rona Ambrose as Environment Minister.

Why, because the plant grows in Klein country, and that means it will be sacrificed for the good of the oil industry.

Klein dismissed a call by the Pembina Institute for a moratorium on oilsands development until a comprehensive plan is developed. ‘‘The Pembina Institute should keep their noses out of anyone’s business, especially businesses that want to take risks,’’ Klein said Thursday.

Of course this is the same province that refuses to protect the endangered Grizzly Bear population allowing for hunting of the last of North America's great bears. And if they allow for hunting of the last of the North American Grizzlies why would they care for a tiny little flower.

The groups picked the least significant plant to test the government's commitment to protecting endangered species, said Devon Page, a lawyer with the Sierra Legal Defence Fund.

"Never mind polar bears and grizzly bears and caribou," he said. "What does it say about protection of species under the act if they won't protect the least significant? I think it tells you what will happen: no species will get protected."

Page says Alberta is the only province that doesn't have legislation to protect endangered species. Environment minister asked to save Alberta plants facing extinction



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The New Imperialist


Imperialism is the highest form of capitalism. Lenin

China apparently has embraced Lenins axiom as only they could as a State Capitalist Autarky. Now sitting at the international table of imperialism; the WTO, China today is colonizing Africa as its resource base, just as the old European Imperialist Powers did in the past two centruries.

The death of the so called Super Powers conflict with the end of the Cold War has in the era of globalization led to what Kautsky called Ultra Imperialism. And China is ruthlessly applying the logic of Imperialism in Africa. Far more so than even the old Imperialists ever did.

Its rapacious need for resources,oil, gas, and ivory, which has increased the poaching of Elephants, makes Africa, poor Africa, the new colony of Imperialist China. The result is the same old same old, China's new Fordist economy relies upon underdeveloped Africa.

Africa will remain underdeveloped and a battlefield of Imperialism until some country on the contient develops its own Fordist economy.

Chinese goods flood SADC, there maybe benefits

More than 93 percent of these imports were manufactured goods. By comparison, regional exports to China, which also saw a dramatic increase from 1.3 billion US Dollars to over 8.2 billion US Dollars were dominated by raw material.

What Do the Chinese Want?

This article is about one part of the Chinese plan for economic independence, not interdependence, in a global economy in which China, itself, has become, perhaps, the driving engine of demand for commodities. A place formerly held, and for a very long time, by the United States, and still held by the United States in the minds of many investment advice-giving financial analysts. The part of the Chinese plan for economic independence I wish to discuss can be called the gathering and control of the natural resources necessary for a modern industrial economy.

The Chinese do not believe that the end result of their, strictly supervised by the government and intentionally limited, foray into a mixed planned and market driven economy should be that anyone with money can buy, and has the right to buy, anything they want. They believe that a great nation must first and foremost control sufficient natural resources and energy to be independent of the needs or desires of any other nation. They have entered into the global marketplace only to fulfill that purpose. This is the basis of what I call the ‘gold war’ that has supplanted the earlier unsuccessful cold war waged by the late Soviet Union. The Chinese have realized, as the Russians never did, that if a nation hopes to be powerful and respected it must first be economically self sufficient and bring first to its own people the superior benefits it claims for its political system as a global role model.

China’s scramble for Africa finds a welcome in Kenya

China Makes Trade Links With Africa

PanAfrica: China-Africa Trade Up 72 Percent

China’s empire-builders sweep up African riches


Also See

China




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Zionism is Anti-Semitism

Karl Kautsky the leader of the German Social Democratic party wrote this work before and after WWI. His criticism of Zionism and its impact on the Middle East is relevant today as the Zionist State continues its war against its neighbours. Courtesy of the Marxist Internet Archive.

Are the Jews a Race? now appears for the first time in English. The first German edition appeared in 1914, under the title Rasse and Judentum; the second edition, in 1921, already included a number of important additions and improvements, particularly the new chapter entitled Zionism After the War; for the present English version, the author has revised and brought up to date the second German edition, in the light of recent developments in Palestine.



Zionism Before the War

Wherever the Jew – we mean the Eastern European Jew, still far from assimilation – may come, he is regarded as a foreigner among foreigners. He is nowhere certain even to be tolerated. The reactionary American workers, who keep out the Chinese and Japanese, who keep Negro workers out of their organisations, are equally opposed to Jewish immigration. The beginnings of such an attitude are already apparent. The Jew is secure against oppression only in a state in which he lives not as a foreigner, in a state – therefore – of his own nationality. Only in a real Jewish state will the emancipation of Judaism be possible.

This is the guiding thought of Zionism. Even among the circles of Western European Judaism, this idea has in recent years been replacing the idea of assimilation, of equality of rights within the existing states, which had until recently been dominant among the Jews. Zionism is coming more and more in conflict with this thought, for as assimilation progresses, the national Jewry loses in strength. It is therefore necessary to segregate Jews as sharply as possible from non-Jews.

Zionism meets anti-Semitism halfway in this effort, as well as in the fact that its goal is the removal of all Jews from the existing states.

The agreement between Zionism and anti-Semitism on these points is so strong, that there have even been Zionists who expected much gracious assistance in the realisation of their objects from the head of the Orthodox Russian nation, from the fountain-head of anti-Semitism all over the world, from the Czar of Russia.


Zionism After the War

Zionism is not a progressive movement, but a reactionary movement. Zionism aims not at following the line of necessary evolution, but of putting a spoke in the wheel of progress.

Zionism denies the right of self-determination of nations, instead of which it proclaims the doctrine of historical rights, which is breaking down everywhere today, even where it is supported by the greatest powers.

There is hardly any possibility that the Jews in Palestine will become more numerous than the Arabs. But every attempt made by the advancing Jewry in that country to displace the Arabs cannot fail to arouse the fighting spirit of the latter, in which opposition to the Jews the Arabs of Palestine will be more and more assured of the support of the entire Arab population of Asia Minor, in whose eyes the Jews appear as foreign rulers or as allies of the English oppressor.

It is a delusion to imagine that the Jews arriving from Europe and America will ever succeed in convincing the Arabs that Jewish rule in this country will ever redound to the advantage of the Arabs themselves.

In the early days of Zionism, people were blind to this difficulty. Little more attention was paid to the Arabs than was paid to the Indians in North America. Only occasionally is it remembered that Palestine is already an occupied country. It is then simply assumed that its former inhabitants will be pushed aside in order to make room for the incoming Jews. Ballod, for instance, discusses as follows the question of what is to be done in the way of claiming all of Palestine for Jewish colonisation:

“In the case of a mass colonisation, mere individual purchases of land from the Arab proprietors of large holdings would not be sufficient; on the other hand, in order that real-estate prices may not rise to fabulous heights, a Jewish chartered company must be given the right to expropriate land in return for adequate compensation.” [9] Ballod also says that the petty peasants, the fellahs, will not provide much trouble. In his opinion, they would “gladly leave Palestine if they should be offered opportunities elsewhere, for instance in Northern Syria or Babylonia, if the latter is to be reawakened to life by large-scale engineering operations, to obtain better conditions”. But who is to offer them these “better conditions”?

But the fact now is that England has won the war, and the Arabs have become as burdensome to England as they, once were to the Turks. The Zionists now present the reverse side of the medal and extol the Jewish colonists in Palestine as England’s allies against the Arab aspirations for independence.

In spite of all these changes, one condition remains permanent: the dependence of Jewish colonisation on the victorious European great powers, and the opposition of the colonists to the Arabs. Both are necessary results of the given economic and political conditions, and each of the two factors gives strength to the other in rapid alternation. Here we find the profoundest cause for the untenability of Zionism. Jewish colonisation in Palestine must collapse as soon as the Anglo-French hegemony over Asia Minor (including Egypt) collapses, and this is merely a question of time, perhaps of the very near future.

Also See:

Israel

Lebanon

Zionism

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Wednesday, August 09, 2006

Warning Warning


Blogger will be down for maintenancefor 45 minutes starting at 4pm (Pacific Time).

Yeah right 45 minutes, give or take a few hours. Well at least they warned us this time.

And I get to use my nifty Robbie the Robot graphic.




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Woods Lot

Woods Lot is an iconclastic blog well worth the read, covering topics in the true tradition of surrealism. A drink at the well of the exotic, esoteric and post modern. Not for the static conservative thinker, ain't that a contradiction in terms.

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Horus Set



Strange 'twin' new worlds found
Perhaps they could be called Horus and Set. Since Egyptian Dieties were stellar in nature.

The Egyptian Heaven and Hell by E. A. Wallis Budge [1905] A journey through the night side of the Ancient Egyptian cosmos.

Vol. I: The Book of the Am-Tuat
Vol II: The Book of Gates
Vol III: The Egyptian Heaven and Hell

The Book of Gates is an Ancient Egyptian cosmological treatise describing the architecture and inhabitants of the Tuat, the underworld which the boat of the Sun God, Ra, traverses during the night hours. This is the second volume of the three volume Budge series which deals with the books of the Underworld, the Egyptian Heaven and Hell. It also includes a short summary of the Book of Am-Tuat, the longer version of which comprises the first volume.


The Terrible Twins Horus and Set were originally expressions of the primal duality, the two aspects of Heaven, the day-sky and night-sky. As the Egyptian mythology was elaborated towards its final chaotic state, their symbolism drifted away from these absolute poles into the middle ground, first becoming solar, and finally taking on a variety of solar/martial and zodiacal characteristics. Yet their final form can still be expressed in a concise symbology, that of the astrological signs of Aries and Scorpio. Taken whole, their symbolism is that of the primal duality manifesting in its male aspects.

Math is Fun On a material world basis, Fractions are located between one and zero. For Ancient Egyptians, fractions had a religious origin from the myth of Horus and Seth. Seth tore out one of Horus' falcon eyes and cut it into pieces-pieces which thereafter symbolized certain fractions. Africans went on to develop a complex method of factorization. To show how conflict has occurred by mixing the spiritual with the worldly, European Renaissance scientist, along with their followers of Set (Satan), destroyed the sacred science by introducing the Evil Number, Zero, in arithmetic to take the first place of Number One. References: Diop, Civilization p276; Seleem, Egyptian Book of Life p12.

Horus-Set

The two Egyptian deities Set and Horus are two sides of the same coin. Horus is the external manifestation of the spirit of being while Set is the hidden god of the internal, representing Energy and Force. In the IInd Dynasty, when the Two Lands were unified, Khasekhemwy ruled in the names of both Horus and Set, trying to find a peaceful solution to the eventual Osirian takeover. Thus both symbols of Kingship, Horus and Set, became part of the attributes of the King. Set then became the strength or power of the King, as Horus became the vision or sight of the King.''

Contendings of Horus and Seth
This is written on Papyrus Chester Beatty I in Thebes during the New Kingdom and the reign of Ramses V. Its´purpose is entertainment rather than religious instruction, and it is written in a humorous way. Most likely it goes further back as its´content builds upon earlier tales of the deities involved .
The tale is long with many incidents and what follows here is a much shortened version.

Osiris, Isis, Horus, and Set
While Osiris subdued the world by gentleness and persuasion, by song and flute (which he invented) his son Horus from first to last was a warrior. Born to be the avenger of his father, he is said to have assumed the shape of a human-headed lion to gain advantage over Set. In this form he is the Sphinx -- Har-em-chu -- which is verily his image. He is also represented standing on a boat of serpentine form, with spear in hand, killing the serpent. His constant warfare with Set covers many facts, cosmical, spiritual and historical. In one aspect it is the struggle with the lower, personal nature and symbolizes the trials of adeptship; the fact that his triumphs are but temporary shows that his adeptship has to be regained in each new birth. The magnet was called the "bone of Horus" and iron, "the bone of Typhon," the latter being the rough Titanic power which opposes its force to the divine magnetic spirit trying to harmonize everything in nature. The dual nature of Horus is referred to in Chapter XVII of the Book of the Dead in these words: "It is Horus when he riseth up with a double head, whereof one beareth right and truth and the other wickedness" (Set). In Chapter CLXXVII he is "the blue-eyed" and "the red-eyed Horus," -- Set was always depicted red. In Chapter XXIX B, Horus is the Universal Ego; the deceased says: "My heart is with me, and it shall never come to pass that it shall be carried away.... I am Horus, the dweller in hearts, who is within the dweller in the body." In Chapter LXXVIII, The Chapter of Making the Transformation into the Divine Hawk, the deceased says: "And behold, when as yet Isis had not given birth to Horus, I had germinated, and had flourished, and I had become aged. (pre-existence) ... And I had risen up like the divine hawk, and Horus made for me a spiritual body (sahu) containing his own soul.... I, even I, am Horus, who dwelleth in the divine Khu (luminous form). I have gained power over his crown, I have gained power over his radiance, and I have travelled over the remote, illimitable parts of heaven... Horus is both the divine food and the sacrifice.... The gods labor for him, and they toil for him for millions of years." In later times the Pharaohs, by way of asserting (rightfully or otherwise) their divine nature, assumed the title "The Golden Horus," for according to Chapter LXXXIII of the Book of the Dead, Horus was one of those Illuminated Beings "who emitted light from his divine body," and "who never lie down in death."



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Iraq and Blogs Killed Lieberman


The victory of Ned Lamont over Joseph I. Lieberman, a three-term senator and former vice presidential candidate, was a vivid demonstration of how the Iraq war is buffeting American politics and of the deep hostility toward President Bush among Democrats. It also suggested there are stiff anti-status-quo winds blowing across the political landscape as the fall elections approach. Mr. Lamont's victory marked the first time that liberal political blogs, after playing an increasingly noisy role in Democratic politics, have been associated with a major winning campaign, suggesting a moment of arrival for this new force in political combat. And the outcome will also undoubtedly prod other Democrats who supported the war - albeit with less gusto than Mr. Lieberman - to step farther away from the increasingly unpopular conflict.News Analysis: A referendum on Iraq policy


True, true, but it was also Lieberman's unfailing support for Bush and Bush's war that really did him in. Lieberman Praises Bush, Chides Kerry

Of course he promises to be a spoiler, since he is a spoilsport. Lieberman concedes to Lamont, vows to run in November

Of course the other Democrat Senator that is a Chicken Hawk is Hillary, and this does not bode well for her non-Presidential run in 08. Democrats' fury at war may sink Hillary Clinton

Which leaves the race open for the reborn, remade, Al Gore. It's ok Al, time to come in from the wilderness. Joe Lieberman Loss Equals President Al Gore?

So fellow bloggers let it not be said that we have little real influence in the world that is beyond this screen. Just ask Joe. The Unmaking of a Senator: How Bloggers Staged an Upset


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Tuesday, August 08, 2006

War is Rape

Testimony Tells of Rape, Killings in Iraq
Military investigators give details of a US soldier's admission. They say troops planned the assault while playing cards and drinking.

Just another example of rape as a function of War. Regardless of the army involved. Remember the Marines slogan; a rifle is for fighting, my gun is for fun. After all what's a little rape after mass slaughter, he said sarcastically; 'I got my kills ... I just love my job'


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We Are Hezbollah Redux

Marchers message wasn't 'Peace'
08-08-06, 7:11 am @ Canadianna
This demonstration took place in Britain over the weekend. Police estimate over 20,000 people attended (organizers put the number at 100,000.) Apparently, they're "ALL HIZBULLAH" now. One wonders if those holding those signs understand the nature of the cause they're endorsing.

Not anti-war, but pro-Hezbollah
07-08-06, 6:52 am @ Daimnation!
A columnist for Vancouver's Georgia Straight savages the Canadian peace movement for supporting a genocidal terrorist organization: Things started at a July 18 demonstration in Montreal, when a small group of young Lebanese showed up with a sign that read...

Gee you would think these bloggers would have read my comments on this. Guess not. Dummies.

Also See:

Israel

Lebanon



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World AIDS Conference sans Harper

The present Prime Minister of Canada, Stephen Harper, has not accepted an invitation to appear at the Toronto conference, disappointing its organizers.Dr. Helene D. Gayle, the president of the International AIDS Society, an independent professional group that is chief organizer of the meeting told the New York Times, "AIDS conferences can sometimes be hard on politicians."

Yep that must be it, or else its a simple case of Harper Homophobia. Because it can't be for any religious or moral reason since the majority of cases of AIDS in the world affect heterosexuals.



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