It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Thursday, August 17, 2006
Shatner Roast
Canadian comedian and self-promoter; William Shatner will be subject to a Roast on Comedy Central, but this incident won't make it on the show. Come on you didn't think his portrayl of James T. Kirk was serious drama did you.
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More Terrorism Propaganda
Convinently released as the Bush regime pushes the panic button over international terrorism.
This falls on the heels of the Cheney comments made after Lieberman loss and the UK terrorist panic.
Some folks are saying the UK panic appears to have been a deliberate and calculated plan by the US and UK authorities.
It's the politics of fear in an election year.
UK terror plot vindicates Bush
London Fog: Doubts Hang Over Terror Plot
The politics of the latest terror scare
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terrorism, poliics, US, UK, London, Lieberman, Cheney, Bush, election, Republicans, terror-plot, politicsoffear, 9/11, tapes
Nuclear Threat In the Middle East
Nope its not Iran, it's Israel. With the help of their German pals.
Israel enhancing nuke-capable submarines
German engineers the past few weeks have been in Israel working to improve three advanced, nuclear capable attack submarines it provided the Jewish state last year, security sources tell the Galil Report.
Many here have estimated the vessels can be used both as a strategic, second-strike nuclear deterrent or for conventional use during any large-scale confrontation.
Military officials say the submarines are not needed for Israel's current campaign in Lebanon. The officials said Israel recently has discussed with foreign governments travel and refueling routes so the submarines can reach the Persian Gulf – within firing distance of Iran.
The submarines usually patrol in the Indian Ocean. But the Galil Report has learned one is currently stationed in the Mediterranean off the coast of Haifa and another off the coast of Lebanon. Both submarines are being serviced. The Galil Report was not provided with the location of the third submarine.
Macho Kinsella
Ouch That Hurts
The Iranian View
Making Iran Nervous
American Sabre Rattling Blogger
US and Iran Allies
The Real Nuclear Threat In The Middle East
Clintons War
Nuclear Paradox
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Israel, Germany, Iran, Middle-East
Dolphins Say Scientist A Dim Wit
A scientist in South Africa is claiming Dolphins are dumber than goldfish.
An examination of cetacean brain structure with a novel hypothesis correlating thermogenesis to the evolution of a big brain
Paul R. Manger
Biological Reviews, Volume 81, Issue 02, May 2006, pp 293-338
Of course he is from a country that once said the same thing about blacks.
I guess you could call this species profiling.
Was his research published in Science or Nature? Nope it was published in the obscure journal; "Biological Reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society".
Which warns its authors that; "articles are aimed at non-specialist biologists". In other words 'generalists'.
"Conclusions about the nature and magnitude of dolphin intelligence have not yet been reached. There are many different species of dolphin (see the cetacea article for a full list) and generalisations can be easily misapplied; cognitive differences between dolphin species may be as marked as differences between humans and the great apes."
Most researchers agree that bottle-nose dolphins exhibit a level of intelligence greater than that of a dog and even comparabole to that of some primates--but NOT humans.
"Intelligence" is a term with many definitions and interpretations. It's difficult enough to measure in humans let alone other animals. Large brains are traditionally associated with greater intelligence, and the brain of the adult bottlenose dolphin is about 25% heavier than the average adult human brain. Generally though, larger mammals tend to have larger brains, and so a more accurate estimate of brain power comes from the ratio of brain size to body size - the "encephalisation quotient" (EQ). While river dolphins have an EQ of 1.5, some dolphins have EQs that are more than double those of our closest relatives: gorillas have 1.76, chimpanzees 2.48, bottlenose dolphins 5.6. The bottlenose's EQ is surpassed only by a human's, which measures 7.4 (Australopithecines - hominids that lived around 4m years ago - fall within the dolphin range: 3.25-4.72). But we don't know enough about the workings of the brain to be sure of what these anatomical measurements truly represent. Today, most scientists share the view that it is behaviour, not structure, that must be the measure of intelligence within a species.Guardian Unlimited | Life | Deep thinkers
A Comparison of Primate and Dolphin Intelligence as a Metaphor
Kenneth W. LeVasseur - Dolphin Intelligence & Captivity
Proof of whale and dolphin intelligenceFind blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
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Trial By Media
The alleged killer of child beauty queen JonBonet Ramsey has been arrested in Thailand, home of the sex tourist industry. Liberal Catnip has published; The Resume of Suspected JonBenet Killer: John Mark Karr
This is a clear case of trial by media, which found the Ramsey family, father, mother and brother quilty. The media replaced the police and the courts in this case and publicly vilified the family whom they judged quilty.
Of course apologies will not be forthcoming by those who profited from the families loss.
The subtext of the media's slur campaign was it's moralistic revulsion towards JonBenet's mother who had made her into a teeny tiny beauty queen. A clone of her mother, who had also been a beauty queen.
The hypocrisy of America, it promotes the expolitation of girls and women through beauty pagents, and then turns around and is morally repulsed by those who participate. They equate child beauty queen's with child exploitation, yet they accept and promote these pagents.
The real child abuser and exploiter who murdered JonBenet was always dismissed as a fantasy until now. The irony is that while the media 's morality play was that of outrage over the exploitation of JonBenet as a child beauty queen, in death she was exploited by them even more.
JonBenet Ramsey murder case, an investigative analysis
The first images of JonBenet Ramsey that were broadcast to the world showed a pretty little girl in heavy make-up and flamboyant costumes parading across a stage. At the time, the media described her as "a painted baby, a sexualized toddler beauty queen."
From the day in 1996 when JonBenet was found dead in the basement of her home in Boulder Colorado, the Boulder police and a large proportion of the world's media believed that her parents, John and Patsy Ramsey, were responsible for her death.
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JonBenet, Ramsey, Colorado, child-beauty-queen, beauty-pagents, kidnapping, child-exploitation, media, crime, murder,
Who is Fighting AIDS
This item is locked, however amongst all the AIDS conference news this is the only story critical of the Bill and Bill show in TO. However to his credit Stephen Lewis on the other hand has been focusing on AIDS victims and activists, in particular the Grandmothers from Africa.
American singer Alicia Keys (centre) and UN AIDS envoy Stephen Lewis (right) join grandmothers from around the world affected by AIDS at an event raising awareness about the disease at the International AIDS conference in Toronto, Sunday. (CP / Stuart Nimmo)
Also See
AIDS
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harper, AIDS, Toronto, AIDSconference, Gates, women, sex, sexuality, STDs, Toronto, Canada,
Clinton, Lewis, UN, grandmothers, AIDSactivists,
Moon Landing Never Happened
Well now it turns out that NASA is reporting that the 13 hours of video tapes of the first moon landing is missing!!!
The original tapes though were sent from Nasa to the National Archives in 1970, and the tapes has disappeared since. Maybe they are buried with Richard Nixon, who also lost important tapes.
Well it was the sixties after all. "Wow man that was some good shit, now we gotta put these tapes somewhere really safe, man"
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NASA, space, Nixon, Moon, Moon-landing, Apollo11, Armstrong, conspiracy, first-man-on-the-moon, moon-landing-never-happened, moon-landing, video
Wednesday, August 16, 2006
Khadr -Canada's Shame
The Unending Torture of Omar Khadr
He was a child of jihad, a teenage soldier in bin Laden's army. Captured on the battlefield when he was only fifteen, he has been held at Guantanamo Bay for the past four years -- subjected to unspeakable abuse sanctioned by the president himself
Because in Canada the State would try him as a young offender...so they have abandoned him to the U.S. Gov't in no rush to bring Khadr to Canada
Its all part of the U.S. Canada security pact. The same pact that saw Canadian Mahar Arar, repatriated by the CIA to Syria to face imprisonment and torture.
The fact remains he is being imprisoned and tortured in violation of International and Canadian laws, with no proof he is a terrorist.
The silence of the Canadian state is shameful.
His is another face that should be made into a poster and placed by the NDP/BQ opposition on their side of the house to face the government.
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Corporate Welfare Bums
File this under Liberal, Tory same old story. Along with subsidies and tax cuts Canadian workers fund the corporate sector with our hard earned tax dollars to the tune of $20 billion. This is just a portion of the Corporate Welfare big business gets. And why would they pay us back, when they fail to reinvest their tax cuts in their own businesses in the first place. Captialists say they hate state regulations but they do love the states handouts.
Following the winter election, the new Conservative Industry Minister, Maxime Bernier, quietly cut off Pratt & Whitney -- the biggest TPC deadbeat -- from the subsidy trough. Furthermore, he helped to discredit the program by making TPC repayments records public. Despite assurances made by the Liberal government that TPC loans were generally in good standing, the data revealed the opposite. A group of 42 recipient companies had yet to submit any reimbursements whatsoever, repayment records for 88 others totaled a paltry $149-million, and another 78 companies had repaid a total of $7.4-million but refused to make their exact repayments known to the public. The data confirmed what critics of Ottawa's corporate welfare program have been stating for years: These programs are a sinkhole for tax dollars.TPC was established to replace the old Defence Industries Productivity Program (DIPP), a corporate welfare plan that paid out $2.15-billion in grants and contributions to businesses over a 20-year period. DIPP was also cancelled by the Liberals because fewer than one in four dollars was repaid to the government. TECHNOLOGY PARTNERSHIPS CANADA A SUBSIDY SINKHOLE
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Canada, government, corporate-welfare, TPC, corporations, tax-cuts, R&D, DIPP, economics, capitalism, taxes, susidies
Whales Were Not Always Vegans
By Elli Leadbeater |
Palaeontologists have discovered a bizarre whale fossil in Australia with a set of fearsome teeth.
The specimen has surprised scientists because it belongs to the group known as baleen whales.
Modern day baleen whales are all placid, plankton eaters, but the new fossil shows the group were not always the ocean's gentle giants.
Also See:
Whales
Dinosaurs
Vegans
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Whales, fossils, prehistoric-whale, bellanwhale, vegans, carnivores, carnivore-whales, whaleteeth,
Harpers P3 Scandal
Of course the many cases of the failure of P3s was never on their agenda. And apparently neither was actually talking to anybody, it seems that their draft report came from pro-privatization websites.
They took a vacation in England with their wives. Nice job if you can get it......now what was that about transparency, accountability....sounds like the same old pork to me.
And like the Liberals its business as usual with our reinventing Government Harpocrites who are pushing privatization and Public Private Partnerships.
And thanks to these guys greed and stupidity this backroom P3 plan may never have been publicly revealed. Instead their report would be issued justifying the governments move to privatize goverment buildings, as if it was factual.
Apologies over advisers' trip an 'embarrassment'
When two-high ranking federal advisers left for London in June, the stated purpose was to learn about British experiments in public-private partnerships. In particular, the trip by Public Works advisers David Rotor and Douglas Tipple was marred by a series of cancelled meetings, forcing Canadian diplomats and senior officials to send six letters of apology to their British counterparts.
Mr. Rotor and Mr. Tipple arrived in London with good credentials, having been hired to overhaul Ottawa's procurement and real-estate businesses through a head-hunting firm that was paid $230,000 for its services.
And while their salaries are confidential, they are each paid more than $100,000 a year, in line with salaries in the private sector.
Upon their return to Canada, Mr. Rotor and Mr. Tipple prepared a 10-page document under the heading "U.K. Trip Notes — June 2006," which has started circulating throughout the government.
The 4,500-word document provides a summary of the information gathered overseas by the two special advisers. About 1,800 words of the document – or 40 per cent of the total trip report – consists of direct and edited excerpts from outside reports available at two British websites: www.amaresearch.co.uk and www.adamsmith.org.
However, there is no indication in the report that some of the material comes directly from either website.
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P3, privatization, public-private-partenerships, Canada, London, UK, Rotor, Tipple, Harper, Government, scandal, Ottawa
A Footnote
economists were taken aback by the glitch, reported by Bloomberg News yesterday and which first surfaced as a footnote in Statscan's June price inflation, released July 21.
An opps hidden as a footnote. This is like polling, now the inflation rate will have to be stated as "give or take a tenth of a percent".
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The Mulroney Legacy
The reason that Canada cannot produce or distribute generic AIDS drugs falls directly in the lap of the Conservative government. The government of Brian Mulroney that is. It was his government that passed legislation allowing the big Pharmaceutical oligopolies to hold exclusive patents for twenty years, which puts a strangle hold on generic drug manufacturers.
The Mulroney legacy of free-trade denies a free market.
The Mulroney government brought in three pro-big pharma laws. In 1987, Bill C-22 was enacted which weakened the government's ability to use licensing arrangements to allow the public greater access to cheaper, Canadian-made generic drugs. In 1993, Bill C-91 was passed, allowing the big pharmaceutical companies, largely based in the U.S., to extend their brand name patent protection from 17 to 20 years. Also, in 1993, amendments were made to the Patent Medicines Regulations Act, giving Health Canada more tools for rejecting generic drug approval besides simply allegations of patent infringement.Big Pharma's Healthcare FixFrom a public policy perspective, the most important and relevant question regarding the pharmaceutical patent regime is whether or not it is serving the interests of Canadians.
Nearly 20 years after the introduction of Bill C-22, which gave brand-name drug companies longer periods of market monopoly, and more than 10 years after the introduction of the Patented Medicines (Notice of Compliance) Regulations of Canada’s Patent Act, it is evident that the shift in Canada’s pharmaceutical policy in favour of brand-name drug companies has been a failure in virtually every measurable outcome.
It is clear that nearly 20-years of concessions to the multi-national brand-name pharmaceutical industry by the Government of Canada has not served the interests of Canadians
Also See
AIDS
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AIDS, Canada, drugs, big-pharma, generic, generic-drugs, AIDSdrugs,
Makhno The Mini Series
A new TV series in Russia to be released this year is about the Ukrainian Anarchist/ libertarian-communist; Nestor Makhno.
The Nine Lives of Nestor Makhno
12 part series; filming in 2005; to be released: late 2006. Directed by Mukola (Nikolai) Kaptan. Ukraine & Russia. To be broadcast internationally on RTVi (Russian cable/satellite channel)
Also see:
Anarchism and Authority
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Makhno, Ukraine, Anarchism, anarchist, Russian-Revolution, TV, mini-series, Russia, liberrtarian-communist, libertarian, left-libertarian, libertarian-socialism
American Exceptionalism
I left this comment at 1337hax0r blog about the latest WTO ruling in favour of Canada's soft wood indutstry.
The Americans, regardless of party in power, only obey laws they have made.It’s called American exceptionalism; we obey the laws/agreements we have signed except if we don’t want too.
Let me count the ways; the Geneva Convention, the International Court of Justice, the ICC, the law of the sea, etc. etc. ad nauseaum.
As I said both the conservatives and the liberals in the U.S. adhere to American Exceptionalism, see the lastest Slate article about the softwood dispute;
The Outsourcing of American Law
Who needs federal judges when you have Canadians?
The streets of Washington, D.C., and Seattle may have been controlled last spring and fall by a new breed of antiglobalization progressives, but the old-fashioned, conservative anti-internationalists continue to hold sway among American policymakers. Although the United States has accepted the North American Free Trade Agreement and participation in the World Trade Organization, it has spurned important multilateral regimes relating to arms control, the environment, war crimes, human rights, and other emerging global issues.
This brand of anti-internationalism runs deep in the American political tradition, as any casual student of history knows, and its persistence is to be expected. More surprising is the respectability that the movement is winning among academics and policy analysts. During the Cold War, it was too closely identified with crude conspiracy theories and the isolationist legacy of the Versailles Treaty to attract serious support among policy elites. That has now changed: anti-internationalism claims a growing intellectual following. This group of academics -- many of whom are highly credentialed and attached to prestigious institutions or conservative Washington think tanks -- has developed a coherent blueprint for defending American institutions against the alleged encroachment of international ones. This school does not oppose international engagement per se and thus cannot be classified simply as isolationist. Rather, it holds that the United States can pick and choose the international conventions and laws that serve its purpose and reject those that do not. Call it international law ? la carte. Foreign Affairs - The New Sovereigntists: American Exceptionalism ...
The picture of America as a shining city on a hill, standing virtually outside of history, still retains a powerful cultural appeal, but in this era of globization, powered by American corporate might, this positive impression increasingly has it's mirror oppositie, fueled by a wide perception that if there is an American exceptionalism, it definitely has a darker side as well. Especially in the era of the Bush Adminstration's Pre-emptive Strike Doctrine, and the sorting out of the aftermath if the Iraq War, scholars will inevitably consider the question of an American exceptionalism a useful entryway into larger problems of United States and world history. At the moment, concludes, Sean Wilentz, "the whole matter would seem to be more important as a myth that needs analysis than as a fixed historical reality requiring some global explanatory theory." american exceptionalism
Mr Bush's own family embodies the shift away from Euro-centrism. His grandfather was a senator from Connecticut, an internationalist and a scion of Brown Brothers Harriman, bluest of blue-blooded Wall Street investment banks. His father epitomised the transatlantic generation. Despite his Yale education, he himself is most at home on his Texas ranch. Looked at this way, the Bush administration's policies are not only responses to specific problems, or to demands made by interest groups. They reflect a certain way of looking at America and the world. They embody American exceptionalism. A nation apart | Economist.com
Americans have long embraced a notion of superiority, claims Howard Zinn. Governor Winthrop of the Massachusetts Bay Colony described establishing “a city on a hill,” to serve the world as a beacon of liberty. So far, so good. But driving this sense of destiny, says Zinn, was an assumption of divine agency—“an association between what the government does and what God approves of.” And too frequently, continues Zinn, Americans have invoked God to expand “into someone else’s territory, occupying and dealing harshly with people who resist occupation.” Zinn offers numerous examples of how the American government has used “divine ordination” and rationales of spreading civilization and freedom to justify its most dastardly actions: the extermination of Native Americans and takeover of their land; the annexation of Texas and war with Mexico; war against the Philippines; U.S. involvement in coups in Latin America; bloody efforts to expand U.S. influence in the Middle East, Africa and Asia. The battle against Communism, often bolstered by arguments of America’s divine mission in the world, was merely a convenient excuse to maintain U.S. economic and military interests in key regions. Today, says Zinn, we have a president, who more than any before him, claims a special relationship with God. Zinn worries about an administration that deploys Christian zealotry to justify a war against terrorism, a war that in reality seems more about establishing a new beachhead in the oil-rich Middle East. He also sees great danger in Bush’s doctrines of unilateralism and pre-emptive war, which mark a great leap away from international standards of morality.MIT World » : The Myth of American Exceptionalism
Also See: Softwood
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Spot the Contradiction
Tories consider lowering age of criminal responsibly
ST. JOHN'S — Children under the age of 12 who have had brushes with the law should be dealt with under the Youth Criminal Justice Act, Canada's justice minister said yesterday. Toews says courts can handle kids as young as 10
“Toward a More Effective Justice System”
Speech for the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada
And finally, we introduced legislative proposals that would raise the age at which youth can consent to sexual activity from 14 to 16 years.
There is no consent when you get raped in jail.
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sex, sexuality, youth-sex, sexual-consent
Tuesday, August 15, 2006
Not MacArthurs Republican Party
The Republican Party policy committee paper anticipating a North Korean test put it this way: "Essentially, the United States must demand that the PRC [People's Republic of China] make a choice: either help out or face the possibility of other nuclear neighbors." The implication was that Washington would tolerate or even encourage a Japan armed with nuclear weapons. Why Japan will never go nuclear
How quickly they forget....it was Republican candidate for President, General Douglas MacArthur who instituted the democratic constitution of Japan which included the clause that Japan would never be a nuclear power nor have a standing army which it could use against its enemies. He was a REAL conservative not an authoritarian neo-con warmonger like the Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld gang.
Foremost of its provisions is that which, abolishing war as a sovereign right of the nation, forever renounces the threat or use of force as a means for settling disputes with any other nation and forbids in future the authorization of any army, navy, air force or other war potential or assumption of rights of belligerency by the state. By this undertaking and commitment Japan surrenders rights inherent in her own sovereignty and renders her future security and very survival subject to the good faith and justice of the peace loving peoples of the world. By it does a nation, recognizing the futility of war as an arbiter of international issues, chart a new course oriented to faith in the justice, tolerance and understanding of mankind.General MacArthur's announcement of a new Constitution for Japan
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Intolerant Blogging Tories
The bigots at the Blogging Tories are trying to justify the unjustifiable, defending the indefensible, and being their usual intolerant selves, in support of King Stephens political-homophobia.
I thought of commenting on these stupid remarks but thought better of it, let them speak for themselves they do it so well....hoisting themselves on their own petards so to speak....
International AIDS Conference
OK, so the International AIDS Conference is being held in Toronto. Apparently, Stephen Harper wasn't in attendance. Of course, the Libs and the NDP jumped right on the chance to bash our PM for his absence. My question is SO THE F*** WHAT? Do the NDP and Liberal leaders go to world conferences for other diseases: breast cancer? lung cancer? colon cancer? heart disease?
Get over it already!
P.M. Stephen Harper is not showing up at the AID's conference. Period. Deal with it.Surely all the time and effort spent weeping and lamenting over this turn of events could be put to better use. But of course we know the real reason behind the furor - political capital.Certain advocacy groups seem to be trying to send out a message via sympathetic MSM that our PM does not care because he is no...
Pediatric Shakespeare Scholars for Global Peace ......Stephen Harper hates you too.Yesterday in front of cheering crowds, Dr. Mark Wainberg, co-chair of the international AIDS conference currently underway in Toronto, lambasted Stephen Harper for not attending. The implication was that Harper doesn't care about the disease or its victims.For those of you who want to get a jump start on your protest organization and start making your "Harper hat...
There's a big AIDS conference going on in Toronto, Gian Gomeshi produced a little spoken word piece with appropriately haunting brit-pop background. Like you, I love spoken word pieces and Gian/Xian makes them rhyme, which to me, is much classier. Later in the day, the CBC asked its audience: should the Prime Minister not be at the AIDS conference? The issue is so important that he needs to be there to call attention to it. In a funny way, the fuss does the job of creating media buzz, giving the conference all it would get from his appearance in the first place. Besides, I doubt Bill Clinton and Bill Gates need any help in boosting an event's profile.
Also See
AIDS
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harper, AIDS, Arctic, bloggingtories, blogs, rightwing, bigots, intolerance, homophobia, Toronto, AIDSconference
Cheeky Headline
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Quebec, PQ, byelection, Boisclair, politics, Canada
Fighting The Good Fight
Sometimes blogging is not all its cracked up to be. It is a hobby, a way of expressing oneself, of communicating with others in our alienated isolation in front of our computer screens. And then shit happens like this....which brings it all back home that every day is a struggle to live life to the fullest.
Good luck Doc and Marriane.....
Dawg's Blawg
Goodbye for a while
Dear friends and/or sparring partners,I shall be taking my leave from the blogosphere for a period, and may return only sporadically for the foreseeable future. My dear partner Marianne has just been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, which is not one of the better ones to have. Every moment with her has become infinitely precious, while the world outside now seems both monstrous and trivial at once.
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Loan Sharks
A B.C. court has finally charged a pay-day loan company for usury, charging interest over and above that allowed in Canada. In other words loan sharking.
Shark Attack
Senate Defends Working Poor-Challenges Loan Sharks
Loan Sharks by any other name
CathiefromCanada comments that this is due to banks failing to serve the poor. Good point. Of course the banks get away with gouging us legally, not only by paying us low interest but loading us with service charges. Perhaps it is time to nationalize the banks, or replace them with credit unions that are unionized and serve the poor.
Also See:
BANKS
PROUDHON
Hands In Your Pocket
Bank Theft
Greedy Banks
Credit Card Fraud
Tory Bankers
Service Charges
Money Money Money
Banks Cheer For Conservative Majority
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cANADA, LOANS, PAYDAYLOANS, BANKS, ECONOMICS, POVERTY,banking, ATM, Interac, Visa, Mastercard, Service-charges, Credit, Unions, Cassie, du, Populaire, ATB, Alberta, Canada, banking, finances
Right Wing Wet Dream
Bell Globemedia bidding $1.4B for TV hockey rights
The Globe and Mail is reporting that Bell Globemedia, owners of CTV and TSN, are looking at offering $140million per year over a 10 year period to gain exclusive Canadian broadcast rights to NHL games. This would include Saturday night games effectively ending CBC's long running Hockey Night in Canada which they have aired since 1952. CBC's contract with the NHL expires after the 2007-08 season.
TV's Hockey Wars
Hockey telecasts remain one of very few money makers for the CBC, especially in the play-offs. It's believed the CBC rakes in more than $30 million a year in profit from Hockey broadcasts. Without that money, the CBC would be faced with a huge hole in its revenue.
Having already stolen sportscaster and Olympic commentator Brian Williams, now BellGlobal is trying to get its hands on Hockey Night in Canada. Creating a private sector monopoly to dominate the media market place leaving CBC to re-run Mr. Dressup. This is NOT competition, it is monopolization. CBC has historically facilitated competition in the radio/TV market place, like our national railway, post office and airline, they created and serviced markets that private capitalism would not take the risk on.
Also See:
MediaFind blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
CBC, BellGlobalMedia, NHL, HockeyNightInCanada, TV, sports, monopoly, media, Canada
Japan Moves into Canadian Beer Market
Like Japanese car manufacturers, Sapporo beer has figured out that if it can buy into the Canadian market it is the backdoor into the U.S.
Sleeman Breweries Ltd. sees new potential for its premium beer labels after a planned $400-million acquisition by Japan's Sapporo Breweries Ltd. On the international market, he said Sapporo is also looking to Sleeman's brands for expansion outside Canada. Sleeman's earnings have been hurt by stiff competition in Canada by makers of non-premium "buck-a-beer" brands.
This now means that the three biggest beer makers in Canada are foreign owned. Molsons/Coors (US) Labatts/Interbrew (Belgium) Sleemans/Sapporo (Japan). While demanding brand loyalty capitalists like Sleeman feel no need to reciprocate with loyalty to the country they operate in. Lets drink a toast to globalization.
New owner retaining all Sleeman operations and its CEO
Sleeman shares spurt to record high
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beer, Canada, US, Japan, Sapporo, Sleemans
Alcan Proves Marx Right
Alcan Inc. said yesterday it will boost its annual global primary aluminum production by more than 4 per cent through a $1.8 billion modernization of its smelter in northern British Columbia.In its news release, the company said it plans to use "the latest evolution of smelting technology within the AP35 series," and said production costs would be in lowest quartile for the industry.While not immediately available for comment, CAW Local 2301 has previously described the expected expansion as a good news/bad news story."The good news is that bringing in new technology is a positive move to insure longevity in jobs for the future," the union said in a July bulletin on its website. "On the other hand, new technology brings with it a less labour-intensive process," which will hurt jobs, the union noted.
Machinery and surplus labour. Recapitulation of the doctrine of surplus value generally
The tendency of capital is, of course, to link up absolute with relative surplus value; hence greatest stretching of the working day with greatest number of simultaneous working days, together with reduction of necessary labour time to the minimum, on one side, and of the number of necessary workers to the minimum, on the other. This contradictory requirement, whose development will show itself in different forms as overproduction, over-population etc., asserts itself in the form of a process in which the contradictory aspects follow closely upon each other in time. A necessary consequence of them is the greatest possible diversification of the use value of labour—or of the branches of production—so that the production of capital constantly and necessarily creates, on one side, the development of the intensity of the productive power of labour, on the other side, the unlimited diversity of the branches of labour, i.e. thus the most universal wealth, in form and content, of production, bringing all sides of nature under its domination.Also See:
Work
Marx
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