TANSTAAFL Except in Alberta

There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch

-TANSTAAFL - except in Alberta....

The King has left the building.....

Here is a lesson in Ralphonomics, gone but not forgotten. Business as usual in the Kingdom of Alberta.

Alberta government departments spent nearly $1 million on catering and coffee service in the year ending March, 2006, according to the “blue book” which records grants, supplies and services.

Betting is big business in Alberta, it funds the province and is in turn funded by taxpayers. In last springs budget Horse-racing in Alberta got a $45 million horse racing subsidy

It is after all the sport of Kings and Ralph considered it one of his favorite sports, being the gambler he was.

The heads of Horse Racing Alberta make more money than the premier - and they're being paid with taxpayer's dollars, claim the Alberta Liberals.

And this is really rich....literally....now imagine if the Federal Liberals or Conservatives did this, why the outrage in Ottawa. Oh yeah, there they have an opposition that can bring down the government, here we have a One Party State.

20-year oversight
Alberta Grits demand action after finding Tories haven't filed financial reports since '87
Alberta Grits are demanding an overhaul of the province's election finances disclosure law after Elections Alberta revealed the Tories haven't filed required financial reports for nearly two decades.

The situation involves a secret "foundation fund" the party was allowed to keep after the financial disclosure law was passed in 1978, provided it filed annual reports on transfers from it.

Deputy Electoral Officer Bill Sage told the Sun he failed to notice that the statements stopped coming.

"I was responsible for it. I was the director of financial operations at the time. It was something that escaped me and I didn't realize it until just recently."

Yeah it was supposed to happen twenty years ago....I wonder whose son this guy is that he can blythely say he was responsbile for the oversight , after he was told by the reporter looking into this, and forget to tender his resignation.....wait sorry this is Alberta not Ottawa.

Finally the ultimate lobbyist gets the ultimate lobbyist job, move over Rod Love here comes Ralph.....

Ralph hooks up with 'straight-talkers'
Less than a week after leaving provincial politics, former Alberta premier Ralph Klein has joined a top law firm to advise clients on business opportunities in the booming province.

Too late though comes this announcement after the horse has left the barn....

Stelmach promises registry for lobbyists





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Alberta

PC

Klein

Stelmach



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Blowing in the Wind

So is there a need for more federal corporate welfare for utility companies to go green, I think not.

TransAlta gets 25-year wind power purchase deal
Canada's top publicly-traded electricity generator, said on Friday it has been awarded a 25-year power purchase agreement to provide 75-megawatts of wind power to New Brunswick Power Distribution and Customer Service Corp. With the addition of Kent Hills, TransAlta will operate approximately 260 megawatts of wind-generated power in Canada. TransAlta said it has tripled its wind business since acquiring Vision Quest Windelectric in 2002.

No need for folks to pity poor Jim Dinning for not getting coronated as CEO of Alberta he still has TransAlta to play with.

See

Environment

Hydro



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Free Speech Works

See no need for the Israel Lobby to throw a hissy fit, free speech and debate should not be opposed with threats and name calling, because it is about a controversial issue.

Anti-Israel motion defeated by Ontario teachers union local
CBC Toronto

Union rejects boycott of Israel Globe and Mail

However do notice the influence of the Lobby on the CBC headline versus the Globe and Mail headline which actually says what the motion was about.

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Israel

Zionism


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Corporate America Greener Than Harper

The whole focus of the Harpocrites attack on Kyoto, even under the new Environment Minister, has been on how useless carbon credit trading is......

Ten major US corporations, including industry giants General Electric, DuPont and Alcoa, have joined forces with leading environmental groups to call for a slash in carbon-dioxide emissions of 10-to-30 per cent over the next 15 years. The New York Times says introduction of the group is aimed at bolstering the recent impetus for Congressional action on emissions controls and creation of a market “in which allowances to emit carbon dioxide could be traded in a way that achieves the greatest reduction at the lowest cost.”

See

Environment

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Star Wars The Next Installment

This will provoke another round of debate on the need for Ballistic Missle Defense and Canada's involvement with the infamous and ineffectual US Missle Defense System. Of course the Chinese took a page from North Korea when they saw how effective the U.S. was in countering it's nuclear tests.

Chinese missile destroys satellite
Telegraph.co.uk - 11 hours ago
By Toby Harnden and Alex Massie in Washington. The prospect of "Star Wars" between China and the West loomed last night after Beijing used a ballistic missile to destroy a satellite in space.

The U.S. has a policy of weaponizing space, and now China is obviously joining the club. We need to end the weaponization of space, period.

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BMD

North Korea

China


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Leahy Damns US Government Over Arar

U.S. 'knew damn well' Arar would be tortured: senator

Which is a stronger statement than the Harpocrite government has ever made about Arar. Oh yeah he is still waiting for that Official apology from the New Government of Canada.

Gonzales was grilled relentlessly on Thursday by Senate judiciary committee chairman Patrick Leahy. Leahy said that when Arar — a citizen of both Canada and Syria travelling on a Canadian passport — was detained in 2002, American authorities knew he would be tortured if they deported him to Syria.

"We knew damn well if he went to Canada he wouldn't be tortured," said Leahy, a Democrat from Vermont. "He'd be held and he'd be investigated.

"We also knew damn well if he went to Syria, he'd be tortured. And it's beneath the dignity of this country — a country that has always been a beacon of human rights — to send somebody to another country to be tortured.

"You know and I know that has happened a number of times in the past five years by this country. It is a black mark on us."

And Arar still cannot get into the United States despite the weak tea protest by Harper, Day and MacKay. In fact he is still on the No Fly List, which the Government continues to collaborate on. Canada mum on giving US no-fly names

Mr. Chertoff refused to comment on why Mr. Arar, a Syrian-born Canadian citizen, still cannot enter the United States or fly over its territory.

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Arar


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No Profit In Ending Cancer

This hits it on the head. Why can't capitalism find a cure for the ultimate disease of capitalism; cancer. There is no profit in ending the disease.

Cancerous tumours can be shrunk without radiation by administering a drug already used safely in humans for decades, says a doctor whose research is creating a major buzz in medical circles. But because the drug cannot be patented, pharmaceutical companies won't be eager to fund clinical trials to bring it to market, leaving its future in question.

"We've succeeded in reducing tumours with a drug shown to have little side-effects in humans. You could essentially take it as a pill," said University of Alberta researcher Evangelos Michelakis.

The drug is called dichloroacetate, or DCA.

Michelakis, working with several researchers in Edmonton and Ottawa, discovered how DCA can reverse the hallmark weapon of cancer's plague: The sudden ability of abnormal cells to multiply indefinitely, unchecked.

DCA restores a specific function of mitochondria -- the mini power engines that drive cellular activity.

Mitochondria normally cause unhealthy cells to die off, but that function is suppressed in cancer patients.

"In more than 50 years, no one's been able to figure out how to fix mitochondria in cancer patients," said University of Calgary oncology professor Dr. Randy Johnston, who's been studying cancer for 25 years.

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Israel Lobby Opposes Free Speech

Union motion to debate Israel brings 'hate into the classroom': B'nai Brith head
OSSTF's Toronto district approves debate request by 2 teachers
A decision approving a request by two Toronto high school teachers to have a union debate on whether to condemn Israel's treatment of Palestinians has come under fire by human rights groups. It was approved by the Toronto district of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation, and is being opposed by B'nai Brith and the Jewish Defence League.

B'nai Brith is part of the Israel lobby, which regularly calls for the Canadian State to censor or arrest those who oppose the State of Israel. Pressure like this led to the successfull lobbying effort to censor the play about Rachel Corre.

B'nai Brith and the Jewish Defence League had described an earlier motion as propaganda and said it could easily morph into racism. The teachers' union shot back that the lobby groups were engaging in what amounted to a bullying campaign aimed at stifling free speech.

And the Jewish Defense League is not a human rights group but a known terrorist organization. Kettle, pot, black.

Once again any legitimate criticism or debate about the State of Israel and its aparthied program in the occupied territories is deliberately mislabeled Anti-Semitism.

Those who live in glass houses.....

Four Jewish youths who were arrested in Paris are suspected of a racially motivated crime against a truck driver originally from Mauritius. The incident occurred on Sunday in the Marais district, a major Jewish hub of Paris. According to a French police source the youths belong to the Jewish Defense League.

Eight Palestinians abducted; no international outrage.

Also See:

Israel

Zionism


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Poll Trolls

Ah there is joy in big blue Blogging Tory land, an online poll has put the Harpocrites in the lead on the environment.

"Who do you think would do a better job of protect
18-01-07, 4:23 am @ Small Dead Animals

Another poll going horribly blue .......

Enviroment Poll
18-01-07, 4:22 am @ I am (also) Canadian

Online of course - Who do you think would do a better job of protecting the environment?Conservatives 3339 votes (41 %)Liberals 2246 votes (27 %)NDP 1517 votes (18 %)Other 1137 votes (14 %) Total Votes: 8239

Ahem, attention, this is an ONLINE poll which means it is about as reliable and valid as well an online poll. It gets trolled and partisans click and vote, since there is no restrictions on voting more than once. It's a Troll Poll.

Nothing more to see here, lets move on.

See:

Environment

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Education As Birth Control

It is an empirical fact that education for women is liberation, which is why patriarchal cultures discourage and or restrict it and force women to abandon it for marriage or child rearing.

Perhaps more importantly when considering the effect of sex ratio imbalances, Naz et al also found that for unmarried women, the relationship between education and fertility was negative. That is, increasing levels of education for unmarried women lowers fertility amongst that group. The potential effect of changes in sex ratios on the ‘marriage market’, fertility and employment


In this study we contrast two South Indian villages which offer women very different employment opportunities. Many women in Village I roll beedis, which are crude hand-rolled cigarettes. The structure of beedi work was designed to meet the needs of the beedi contractor, but inadvertently it has provided women with substantial autonomy. In Village II very few women work for pay. We argue that these different employment opportunities affect women's autonomy, which in turn influences important demographic outcomes. More precisely, we argue that greater autonomy will increase contraceptive use among women who want no more children. We find strong support for this hypothesis. But, because there are few competing employment opportunities in Village II, women in that Village have received substantially more education than those in Village I. This higher level of education is also associated with greater contraceptive use. Thus, overall, the level of contraceptive use does not vary greatly between villages. More generally, this study shows that fertility decline occurs, and that low fertility can exist, in very different settings.Women's Work, Autonomy, and Birth Control: Evidence From Two South Indian Villages

"Love, work and knowledge are the well-springs of our life. They should also govern it."

- Wilhelm Reich

Lack of education leads to increased single parent families, which restricts womens abilities to gain employment or further education hence autonomy. In an advanced capitalist country like America drop out rates are effected by class more than race.

It is estimated that about 2,500 students drop out of U.S. high schools every day.

Census data have revealed that about one out of every three children born in the U.S. these days is the child of an unwed mother. The data from the Barna survey also show that nearly one out of every four adults (23%) who has never been married has children living in their household. Overall, one out of every six households (17%) with children under 18 is headed by an adult who has never been married.

Black and Hispanic youth are more likely than non-Hispanic whites to drop out of high school. In 2004, 7 percent of non-Hispanic whites ages 16 to 24 were not enrolled in school and had not completed high school, compared with 12 percent of blacks and 24 percent of Hispanics. The high rate for Hispanics is in part the result of the high proportion of immigrants in this age group who never attended school in the U.S. Asian youth, with a dropout rate of 4 percent, had the lowest dropout rate among all racial and ethnic groups in 2004. Child Trends DataBank - High School Dropout Rates

Oregon is the latest state to consider action in a nationwide movement to raise graduation requirements after a speech Microsoft Corp. chairman Bill Gates gave to the nation's governors in 2005. Students were leaving high school with diplomas, Gates said, but without the skills needed to succeed in college or the workforce.
High schools raise diploma requirements

Muncie Community Schools analyzed graduation data further by gender. Broken down by sex, 63 percent of Central's black males graduated, with zero percent dropping out, compared to 67 percent of white males graduating, with a dropout rate of 8 percent.

Eighty-one percent of black females graduated, with no dropouts, compared to 83 percent of white females graduating with a 3-percent dropout rate. (Figures don't add up to 100 percent because they don't include students from the Class of 2006 who have remained in school rather than graduating or leaving.)

Poverty and race are indicators that a student is at risk to drop out, but the socioeconomic class of Muncie's black students at both Central and Southside high schools could be different from other schools across the state, Supt. Marlin Creasy said.

"Muncie has a middle class black population and that's reflected in the student body," Creasy said, adding that, more than race, poverty is the "biggest indicator" of a potential dropout. Central has no black dropouts

See:

Women

Feminism

Contraception

Birth Control


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Thank God for SSM

Canadian marriage rate plateaus: StatsCan

Thank god for Gay Marriage it meant that actual marriages in Canada last year did not just plateau but would have declined without them.

Canada gay-wedding central

And the truth finally comes out, the Christian Right Wing admits that marriage is not sacred just another contractual obligation like any other business dealing.

"Why, why is Canada issuing marriage licences to people from another country? We wouldn't issue a business licence to a company that had no intention of staying in the country." said Brian Rushfeldt, executive director of the Canadian Family Action Coalition

And more and more folks recognize that marriage is an 'institution' and has nothing to do with sex or freedom to love ....In fact the biggest decline in marriage can be attributed not to SSM but to common law relationships, which were finally recognized, after the State recognized no fault divorce and divorced itself from the Church as moral law maker.

Marriage no longer the norm for American women

More people are saying I don’t
Low marriage rate reflects changing relationships, more cohabitation

In the absence of a reasonable period of courtship in which the couple get to know each other, and conduct a protracted evaluation process, marriages are liable to be incompatible, and unstable. Early marriages are also more likely to end in divorce.

"This gradual rise in the average age at first marriage is largely due to couples cohabiting and delaying marriage

Actress Sushmita Sen doesn't believe marriage is a prerequisite to share bed with a person one loves. “For me marriage is a mutual trust between friends. Tying a knot just for the sake of it is not marriage in its true sense. If I trust someone fully, the relationship is no less than marriage,” said Sushmita. She said she had no problem with living in a relationship. “Marriage is not a must for having sex. I have no problem with living in a relationship with someone who I trust fully and giving birth to his child.”

But the good news is....

About 95% of U.S. residents have premarital sex by age 44, according to a Guttmacher Institute report published Tuesday in the January/February issue of Public Health Reports, the AP/Chicago Tribune reports (Crary, AP/Chicago Tribune, 12/19).

And in some cases it's a good thing that some institutions did not get married, Mon dieu.

“Vive la Frangleterre”: 1956 Anglo-French Marriage proposal uncovered



See

Whose Family Values?

Marx on Bigamy

Paul Goodman

Libertarianism

Five Things Feminism Has Done For Me

Gay Marriage

SSM

Same Sex Marriage


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Land claim

Well this settles it...9000-year-old artifacts found on occupied land in Caledonia, Ont. And the artifacts and remains of a village did not include a golf course, or suburban housing.

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Caledonia




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MADD Mad

I wonder what Conservative Senate House Leader and Secretary of State Marjorie LeBreton who is on the Board of MADD had to do with this. But wait she approved the Conservatives doing the same thing to Garth Turner.
Just another case of blaming the whistle blower. And the corporation and its board justify ripping off customers by turfing the founder and keep doing business as usual.

The founder of MADD Canada was voted off of two of the organization’s key committees following a public spat over the way it raises funds.

John Bates, who established Mothers Against Drunk Driving and was awarded the Order of Canada for his work with the organization, says he feels betrayed.

“I am getting old. I am nearly 80 years old and I put an awful lot of money and energy into this — and I have been there since the very beginning when it was almost expected to drink and drive,” said Bates, who believes he is being punished for speaking out about what he calls the organization’s questionable fundraising techniques.

Bates accused MADD of spending 81per cent of all money raised on fundraising and administration costs — leaving only 19 per cent to run the programs donated dollars are intended for.

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LeBreton

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War On Women-Iraq

It does not matter who did this, it was done by men against women. It was a deliberate attempt to intimidate women from being active in public life. So much for the liberation of women in Iraq. So much for Bush's surge, all it has produced is a surge of ethnic cleansing and attacks on women. Foward to the past, backwards to the future.

Scores killed in Baghdad university

The bombs were exploded as students and staff left the university [AFP] Nuri al-Maliki, the Iraqi prime minister, has said "terrorists and Saddamists" were behind the bombing at al-Mustansiriya University. At least 65 people were killed when a car and a suicide bomber exploded outside the University on Tuesday. More than 100 people were injured in the blast, mostly students and staff leaving the university. Al-Maliki said: "They [those responsible] carried out an ugly crime against humanity targeting the innocent students of Al-Mustansiriya University." An official at the university said: "The majority of those killed [in the explosion] are female students who were on their way home."

See

Unemployment Breeds Terrorism

Iraq

Feminism

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Nazanin Fateh Update

As reported here earlier last year the fate of Nazanin Fateh, who was to be hung in Iran for defending herself from rape, became a one woman cause for Canada's Miss World, who also shared Nazanin's first name. Nazanin Fateh got a new trial and while she is not going to face death she must now pay blood money.

According to Etemaad Newspaper in Iran, three out of the five judges in Nazanin's retrial have ordered that dieh "blood money" be paid to the family of the man who was killed, although the other two had recommended Nazanin's unconditional freedom.

This trial took place on January 10th, 2007 (20th of Dey 1385 in the Iranian calendar). The five judges that reviewed her case determined that the act was unintentional and was indeed a case of self-defense. As a result she was exonerated from the charge of murder, however the court also has ruled that disproportionate force was used by Nazanin while trying to defend herself and her 15-year old niece. Accordingly they have asked Nazanin to pay "dieh" retribution (blood money) to receive a pardon from the family of the deceased before she can be released from prison.

Nazanin's lawyers, Shadi Sadr and Mr. Mostafaei, intend to appeal the payment of blood money but since this may take several months, they also have requested bail so that Nazanin may be released from prison immediately. The court has set bail in the amount of 400,000,000 Rials (over US$40,000).

At this point, because Nazanin's family is very poor and unable to make payment of the bail or blood money your generosity is urgently requested to secure Nazanin Fatehi's freedom as soon as possible. The Nazanin Fatehi Trust fund has been set up. See Donations page.

See:

News Scoop: Nazanin Fateh

Feminism


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Dion's Corporate Welfare For Big Oil

The Tories hate all things Liberal. Well almost. They cut various social programs they identified as Liberal much to the detriment of Canadians.

One Liberal program they didn't cut was corporate welfare for Big Oil. But today John Baird identified that subsidy program as being current Liberal Leader Stephane Dions fault.

Which may mean that as a sop to the NDP, the Tories may very well cut the program. But no need to shed a tear for Big Oil, like Dion the Tories will offer corporate welfare in the form of tax cuts for clean energy strategies, like using nuclear power.

See:

Tar Sands

Energy

Big Oil

Corporate Welfare




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Alberta Tar Sands & US Energy Security

CBC Canada News Now is reporting that they have obtained the minutes of a secret bilateral meeting of Big Oil and both the U.S. and Canadian governments a week prior to George Bush's State of the Union Speech last year when he declared that the U.S. was addicted to Middle East oil.

It took place in Houston prior to the State of the Union speech and prior to Harper announcing Canada was poised to become an Energy Super Power.

And Big Oil and its Big Government pals all agreed that in order to decrease Amercian dependence on 'foreign oil' it needed to increase it's reliance on Alberta, the tar sands in particular. You see under NAFTA we are partners, not a foreign power. And the minutes called for a five fold increase in tar sands start up operations in the next few years.

Which puts today's announcement from the Conservatives on increasing the use of nukes in the tar sands as an alternative energy source in an interesting light. It would solve one of the expenses of start up operations.

See:

Tar Sands

Energy


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Harpers NEP

I don't expect to see as much outrage over this new NEP in Alberta,as I do over Dion's pronoucements over the weekend on how Tax Credits to Big Oil is somehow the newest threat to Alberta.

Call me sceptical, call me a lifelong Albertan, but the True Blue Tory types in Alberta will deny, deny, deny this is a new NEP. Well it is.

MONTREAL -- Prime Minister Stephen Harper is poised to pre sent a solution to the so-called fiscal imbalance between the federal government and the provinces, the French-language network of the CBC reported Monday.

The plan will be part of the next federal budget, which will be tabled toward the end of March, which is later than usual, Radio-Canada said. The TV network later reported the budget would be tabled March 20.

The proposal would exempt 50 per cent of revenues from natural resources rather than the 100 per cent previously promised to Saskatchewan, Radio-Canada said.

Under the proposed plan, Quebec would get a total of $7 billion instead of the $5.5 billion in transfers it now gets.

Saskatchewan would get only $200 million instead of the $800 million it is awaiting.

Harper would be accepting the recommendations of a report ordered by the federal government last year which suggested that half the revenues of the provinces drawn from natural resources be included in the calculation of equalization payments.

'The Conservatives campaigned hard on saying they would remove natural resources from the equation. …This is an absolute betrayal of what their election promise was.'-Saskatchewan Finance Minister Andrew Thomson

Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach said it was speculative to comment on whether Ottawa intends to alter the formulas, but Albertans were already paying their fair share into confederation.

And of course this would be fair for all of Canada, that is Ontario and Quebec, whose largest natural resource cash cow; hydro will not be touched.

See:

Harper

NEP

Equalization





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One Ship Navy

So much for Arctic Sovereignty. Heck so much for costal patrols. The Conservative government has only one ship on active duty, the HMS Ottawa, now posted in the Persian Gulf. Thanks to the Afghanistan mission our Navy is in dry dock due to funding cuts.

Well the government had to pay for its war somehow, and it's at the expense of Canadian coastal patrols.

And this might be another reason that the Conservative Government Fisheries Minister was opposed to tougher laws against deep trawler fishing, we have no Navy to enforce those laws.


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Esperanto

Esperanto an artifical language is 120 years old. Felichan Naskightagon!

Esperanto proves resilient as the movement celebrates 120 years

With the prospect of international peace looking more distant than ever, it's worth sparing a thought for the work of Doctor Ludovic Lazarus Zamenhof.

A Polish Jew from the West of the Russian Empire, Zamenhof developed the Esperanto language in the late nineteenth century.

Dreaming of peace and international understanding, he constructed a composite of Romance and Germanic languages, which he hoped would be used as a universal second tongue.

Though his vision was never truly realised, small bands of Esperantists around the world are keeping the movement alive and hoping that the new global age may give the Esperanto a second chance.

It was a cause celebre for many anarchists at the begining of the 20th Century.

Esperanto in China and among the Chinese diaspora was for long periods closely linked with anarchism.

It also appeals to those of a scientific or technocratic bent.....

Mac OS X supports a language invented in the 19th century by a Polish ophthalmologist, a language invented in the 20th century for a sci-fi movie, and a language that formed in the 10th century on a Pacific island chain.

After U.S. English, make these your second, third, and fourth preferences respectively for your Mac’s application menus, dialogs, and sorting.

Answer: The three languages are Esperanto, Klingon, and Hawaiian and can be located by opening the International system preference, selecting the Language tab, and then clicking the Edit List button. Esperanto is easy enough to find but Klingon and Hawaiian aren’t as Klingon is spelled in the Klingon language (it’s the tlhlngan Hol entry) and Hawaiian is likewise presented in its native spelling. (You’ll find it just below Hrvatski.)

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