Saturday, May 12, 2007

Worse Than Ambrose


It's hard to believe but you can go from the frying pan into the fire according to the latest poll.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper shuffled his cabinet in January, naming Baird to the environment portfolio to replace Rona Ambrose who had received disastrous reviews and criticism after tabling the government's clean air legislation in the fall. Wright said the latest poll numbers suggest Baird has made matters worse for the government.

"I think that this is seen as a greater disappointment for the simple reason that the environment has been ratcheted up so much in the last six months," he said. "It's taken on a sense of priority and a sense of mission which hasn't been reflected in what the public expected the government to do."

He said it's clear that the public is willing to go farther than the politicians on the issue, and it believes the Conservative government is delivering policies that are designed to protect industries such as the oilsands in their Alberta base.
SEE

Harpers Alberta Green Plan

Economist Trashes Made In Alberta Green Plan

Environment Minister MIA

Baird

Ambrose


Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
, , , , , , , , , ,
,
, , , , , , , , , ,

Tories Leaky Ship of State

The Conservative governments embrace of the hard right statism of Law and Order, Militarism and an autocratic PMO is okay with their base.

What has p.o. some of their more vocal and organized social conservative supporters, in Alberta and Southern Ontario, is their embracing the dillitante green liberalism of Ottawa.

Can you say R E F O R M.

Somewhere in Kingston Saturday, a small group of disaffected Conservatives will meet to discuss what would have been unfathomable in the heady days that followed the last federal election: refounding the Reform Party.

Organizers say they have room for just 30 people, but that this weekend's event is a mere prelude to a much larger meeting later this month.

“It's now or never,” the online invitation says. “This new party will never be infiltrated by Red Tories, special interest groups or Quebec again.”

In another part of the country, Link Byfield is writing columns for his Citizens Centre for Freedom and Democracy that criticize the policies of the federal Conservatives.

“Has Stephen Harper been ‘Otta-washed?'” Mr. Byfield, a strong voice for small-c conservative Alberta, wrote on April 5. He went on to decry the March budget as a “massive spending splurge two or three times the rate of inflation [that] clomps big Liberal boots into all kinds of provincial responsibilities.”

When the Conservatives were elected in January, 2006, the former Reformers were jubilant at the thought of finally having a voice in Ottawa. But after a series of centrist decisions by Mr. Harper, they are again lamenting their disenfranchisement.



Thousands of supporters of Danny Williams hold rally to attack Harper

CanWest News Service

Published: Saturday, May 12, 2007

Several thousand angry Newfoundlanders massed on the steps of their legislature yesterday to attack Prime Minister Stephen Harper over changes to the equalization formula. Rally participants -- estimated at 3,000 -- vowed to stand behind Premier Danny Williams, pictured, in his public feud with Ottawa over a decision that could cost the provincial treasury $11-billion. Judy Hurley, who was at the rally, said she felt betrayed by the Prime Minister's decision to exclude all non-renewable resource revenue from the equalization formula. "I trusted Harper. Even when people said he couldn't be trusted, I gave him a chance," she said. "I'm disgusted."





H/T to Liberal Catnip

See:

Harpers Fascism

Leo Strauss and the Calgary School

Post Modern Conservatives.

Why The Conservatives Are Not Libertarians

Liberals The New PC's

Trotsky on Harper


Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
, , , , , , , , , , , ,,
, , , , , , , , , ,
, , , ,

Ice Age Continues

Let's see how quick the flat earth society of climate change deniers are to grab onto this news item to once again claim that climate change is not the creation of capitalism.

The satellites found that the Earth's crust over Canada has not completed what scientists call the "post-glacial rebound." Now, it's clear that the ice age is still affecting the planet.

GRACE satellites have detected changes in the gravitational field over regions of Canada that can be attributed to the crust bouncing back after the melting of a glacier 20,000 years ago (Illustration: Science/ M Tamisiea)

CO2 burps from ocean to atmosphere at end of last ice age



Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
, , , ,
, ,

Dodge Defends Defined Benefit Pension Plans


And why would Bank of Canada Governor David Dodge say such nice things about Defined Benefit Pension Plans? After years of the right wing attacking these plans in favour of defined contribution plans; RRSP's. Because they are the real source of capital investment for P3's

Because they generate more capital, faster, and thus can be used for investment purposes. In other words because OMERS, Ontario Teachers Pension Fund, CPP, the new Alberta AIM fund, all of them are now major contributors to the economy as investment funds, which are creating a new form of P3; public pension partnerships.

Once these public sector pension funds were freed from state restrictions in investing they have created a trillion dollar investment market. Further this has allowed the state to benefit by not paying its share. Thus giving the government of Canada more surpluses, along with their looting of EI.

While the private sector imitated the Government in failing to invest their required amount in their defined pension funds, leading them to funding crisis much as the Alberta Government faced a decade ago with its public sector pension funds. Which it attempted to privatize (put it under self governance) but once they discovered that allowing them to invest in the market made them profitable and they paid off their debt they gave that idea up. Today a decade later they finally discover what OMERS and the Ontario Teachers Fund have been so successful doing, becoming private venture capital funds, and created the new AIM Fund.

In the private sector we have seen the same Peter Pocklington style use of workers pension funds to bail out the corporation. Pocklington purchased Gainers in Edmonton to access not only the business capital but the unionized workers pension funds to bail out his other businesses, like the Oilers, in a barely legal ponzi scheme that saw him bankrupt both and leave the city in disgrace.

When pension fund bail outs have been successful in the private sector it has been because the company was Canadian, unionized, and formerly a crown corporation like Air Canada.

Where they have failed has been in the U.S. such as in the case of Delphi, where the unionized workers pension funds are looted when the company uses their failure to invest in them as an excuse to declare bankruptcy and hand over their pension responsibilities to the U.S. government in a perverse appeal to state capitalism to bail them out.

This is the reason that both the Canadian and American governments want workers to work longer, so as to have more liquidity in the CPP in Canada and Social Security in the U.S.
Conservatives Want You To Work Longer

I am reproducing these articles because they are the most informative and because they will eventually disappear behind locked subscription walls.

And while Dodge says nice things about Defined Benefit Plans he also wants to deregulate them, including allowing employers to retain their surpluses, which shortchanges worker, something a former Liberal PM benefited from.

Making private pensions stronger

Dodge says defined-benefit plans way to go, with changes to improve them

By JULIAN BELTRAME The Canadian Press

OTTAWA— Bank of Canada governor David Dodge is calling for changes to Canada’s private pension plan system, and a swing back to defined-benefit plans, to ensure it produces the best results for employees and the economy.

Private plans have been under pressure in Canada for several years, with many company pensions running huge shortfalls because of future liabilities.

A survey of chief financial officers, released Thursday by the Conference Board of Canada, found that two-thirds believe there is still a pension crisis in Canada. But the number who feel the crisis will be long-lasting has declined to 48 per cent from 61 per cent last year, the survey of 141 corporate executives found.

In a speech Thursday at a Toronto pension summit, Dodge proposed six changes he said would give employers more incentives to offer workers the most desirable form of pension — those that pay predictable, defined benefits on retirement.

Private pensions are important both to the employee who receives them and the employer hoping to attract and retain the best available staff, he said. They are also important for the economy as a whole, he added.

"As a central banker, I know that a sound pension system is important from the perspective of economic and financial market efficiency," Dodge said.

But while he mostly praised Canada’s legal and regulatory framework governing private pensions, Dodge said there are several shortcomings that should be addressed to strengthen the system.

Those shortcomings are increasing the risks to employees and preventing the plans from functioning at maximum capacity, he said.

As a result, Dodge said employers "have been scaling back or restricting new entries into these types of plans, largely because they do not have the right incentives to maintain and operate defined-benefit plans."

Many have been converting to defined-contribution plans instead as they are usually easier to budget for.

One drawback to the current system is that when pension plans run a surplus, federal and provincial laws increasingly have given employees the right to those surpluses even though it is the employer that bears the risk of default.

He added that tax regulations perversely discourage pension managers from building a surplus above 10 per cent, even though such surpluses are desirable and useful in offsetting periods of deficits.

Dodge said many employees miss out on the opportunity to be protected by private pension plans because they work for companies that are too small to afford them.

"But risks can be mitigated by sponsors forming multi-employer plans, thus pooling risks across a number of plan sponsors," he argued.

"If structures such as large multi-employer pension plans could be created, this would help them to pool both costs and risks, making it easier for smaller employers to sponsor defined-benefit plans."

He noted that municipalities in Ontario have done exactly that in forming OMERS, the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System, so there should be away to explore that avenue for private-sector employers.

Among other concerns noted by the central banker were increasing flexibility to deal with actuarial deficits and making sure accounting rules don’t introduce unnecessary volatility to employers’ balance sheets.

"Ultimately, Canada can have a better-managed system that is good for members, good for employers, good for the economy and good for Canadian society," he said.

Bank of Canada calls for private pension plan reforms

Governor Dodge wants clarity. Suggests giving plan sponsors more flexibility to cover pension fund shortfalls

ERIC BEAUCHESNE,

CanWest News Service

Published: Friday, May 11, 2007

Bank of Canada governor David Dodge is calling for widespread reforms to deal with the country's private pension fund crisis, including the elimination of tax penalties and other rules that discourage employers from building up pension fund surpluses, as well as a greater awareness among employees of the risks and costs of enriching their retirement benefits.

"First, we should reduce the disincentives for sponsors to run actuarial surpluses in good times that will offset actuarial deficits in other periods," Dodge told a pension conference in Toronto yesterday. "More clarity regarding legal ownership of surpluses is needed, so that the sponsor that owns the risks also owns the benefits from taking those risks."

Dodge focused on measures that would make defined benefit plans - seen as superior to defined contribution plans but which employers have been abandoning as too risky - more viable.

Generally, in defined benefit plans, employers guarantee employees a pre-set level of benefits, while in defined contribution plans the employees bear the risk as the level of their benefits is based on the investment returns the plan earns.

"An effective defined benefit pension system is a tremendous asset for individuals, for employers and for our society as a whole," Dodge said. "Putting these plans on a sustainable footing involves strengthening the legal, regulatory, accounting, actuarial and economic frameworks."

Dodge suggested that defined benefit fund surpluses should belong to employers because they face the risk of having to cover any shortfall, and that existing tax penalties on fund surpluses should be eased.

"Given the significance of our pension system, policymakers in Canada need to keep working on improving its operation," Dodge told the pension conference.

His comments follow reports that the worst of the recent pension crisis has eased, thanks to healthy returns in the stock market and extra payments by employers to cover pension fund shortfalls.

Dodge suggested giving plan sponsors more flexibility to cover pension fund shortfalls, and letting smaller companies pool costs and risks to form multi-employer defined benefit pension plans.

The governor also called for greater sharing between employers and employees of the costs to pension funds from increases in longevity, and that the costs and risks of any enriching of plan benefits be made clear to both corporate shareholders and workers.

"These changes would give sponsors the appropriate degree of flexibility needed to manage risk effectively," Dodge said. "Ultimately, Canada can have a better-managed pension system that is good for members, good for employers, good for the economy and good for Canadian society."

While Dodge noted that the benefits of pension plans to workers are obvious, he said they also are good for employers and society.

FULL TEXT-Speech by Bank of Canada Governor

TORONTO, May 10 (Reuters) - The following is the prepared text of a speech by Bank of Canada Governor David Dodge to be delivered on Thursday to the Conference Board of Canada's 2007 Pensions Summit.

A Sound Pension System - Handling Risk Appropriately Good afternoon. I'm happy to be here to talk about the importance of Canada's pension system. It goes without saying that a sound system of private pensions is important from the perspective of pensioners who rely on a given plan for their retirement income. For firms, a pension plan can help to attract and retain staff, and so the business community also counts on a sound pension system. And as a central banker, I know that a sound pension system is important from the perspective of economic and financial market efficiency. Given the significance of our pension system, policy-makers in Canada need to keep working on improving its operation. Ultimately, it is crucial for all Canadians that our pension system function as well as possible. But what is it that makes a system of private pensions function well, or not? As I see it, a key to answering this question is understanding how pension plans deal with risk, in all of its many forms. So today, I want to spend some time discussing private pensions and risk, and suggest what needs to be done to make sure that those who have to bear risk also have the right incentives to deal with it in the most appropriate manner. I will focus on who is best placed to bear risk, and on how risk management can be better supported. Risks and Challenges Let me start with a fundamental question: Why do people save for their old age? Essentially, people save during their working years so they can retire at some point and not suffer a precipitous drop in income and living standards. Economists might put it somewhat less elegantly, saying that people save in order to smooth their lifetime consumption. In the absence of any kind of pension system, individuals, businesses, and society as a whole would all face a number of challenges and risks. I want to spend a few minutes talking about the challenges and risks from these three perspectives, beginning with individuals. First, individuals without a pension plan would have their personal savings as their only source of retirement income, aside from income from the publicly funded Canada Pension Plan/Quebec Pension Plan and the Old Age Security/Guaranteed Income Supplement. And so, individuals would naturally be exceedingly cautious with their investments, particularly as they approached retirement age. In short, individuals without pensions would likely be too risk-averse with their savings to generate a sufficient rate of investment return. Second, individuals can recognize that they lack the expertise to handle their investments in the most effective way, and so will try to acquire this expertise. This could come by way of an investment adviser, or by investing their savings in managed, diversified retail investment vehicles such as mutual funds. The challenge posed by this approach is that it can be costly, since individuals outside a pension plan have to purchase investment advice and ongoing funds management retail, not wholesale. Third, individuals without a pension plan face market risk in a couple of ways. Market conditions could be such that at the time of retirement, the value of their assets could be abnormally low. Or interest rates could be abnormally low at the time of retirement. In either case, the person would need to spend a much greater amount to purchase an annuity or other guaranteed stream of income compared with a period when market conditions were more favourable. The fourth point is related to the third. Sellers of annuities have to deal with the risk that those individuals who expect to live much longer than actuarial tables would suggest are the ones who buy annuities. To deal with this adverse selection problem, sellers compensate for the risk by charging significantly more for the annuity. In other words, the cost of an annuity is much greater for an individual than it is for members of a group. Both of these last two points demonstrate that without a pension system, individuals would need significantly higher levels of savings to ensure adequate funding for their retirement. And all of these points I raised demonstrate that pensions generate enormous benefits by making it much simpler for individuals to successfully save for retirement. But while the benefits of pension plans are obvious for individuals, let's not lose sight of the benefits for businesses and for society as a whole. From the perspective of business, pension plans are typically thought of as a recruitment and retention tool. But historically, pensions were also the way that good employers helped workers to save so that they could avoid penury in old age. And with a pension plan, older workers had the ability to retire, and thus did not need to keep working well beyond the point of their greatest productivity. As for society as a whole, pensions provide a couple of important benefits. First, no society wants to see large numbers of its senior citizens relying entirely on government transfers, although there is fairly universal agreement across most countries that it is desirable to have some degree of public income support for people in their old age. Beyond that, however, a well-functioning pension system is an important source of the long-term risk capital that is essential to finance growth. Mitigating Risks: Defined-Contribution Plans Most of the challenges and risks I've mentioned can be mitigated, to a greater or lesser extent, through the pooling effect that a pension plan provides. Of course, different kinds of pension plans deal with risks in different ways. First, let me briefly discuss defined-contribution plans and the way they deal with risks. A defined-contribution plan mitigates, at least partially, many of the challenges and risks I mentioned for individuals. For example, the costs of funds management and investment advice are pooled. Further, pooling helps to mitigate the risk that individuals will not have saved enough to purchase an appropriate annuity.

Most execs see a pension crisis

Fewer fear it will be long lasting

ERIC BEAUCHESNE, CanWest News Service

Published: Thursday, May 10, 2007

Nearly two-thirds of senior executives believe Canada still has a corporate pension funding crisis but a lot fewer fear it will be long-lasting, according to a survey to be released Thursday at a pension conference in Toronto.

The percentage of chief financial officers who feel the pension crisis will be long-lasting has slipped below half to 48 per cent this year from 61 per cent last year, and the proportion of senior human resource executives who see it as long-lasting has fallen to 40 per cent from 67 per cent, the survey found.

The results are being released at a Conference Board of Canada pensions summit in Toronto at which Bank of Canada governor David Dodge will give his perspective of how to manage pension risks.

"Compared to one year ago, the sense of crisis appears to be abating, but chief financial officers are still concerned about both the volatility and the current level of pension expense," said Gilles Rheaume, the board's vice-president public policy. "In an environment of labour shortages, pensions ... are considered a very valuable recruitment and retention tool." The lower level of concern likely reflects better investment returns and shrinking funding deficits, added Ian Markham, a pension specialist with Watson Wyatt, which conducted the survey of 141 employers.

However, he noted that employers are still pursuing reforms in both pension fund investment strategies and the design of pension plans.

Forty-one per cent of employers with a defined benefit plan, seen as the most attractive plan for attracting and retaining employees, indicated that they had made some reforms over the last two years or were planning to do so over the coming year.

Among private sector employers, the most common reform has been to convert to a defined contribution plan, under which the level of pension payments is determined by investment returns, from a defined benefit plan, under which an employer must make up any shortfall in a fund to cover the cost of paying an agreed upon level of benefits.

That's despite the fact that employers strongly agree that a defined benefit plan is more attractive when trying to recruit or keep employees, the report noted.

Firms jettison defined-benefit pension plans

Shift means many will work longer

May 10, 2007 04:30 AM

Traditional pensions continue to slip from workers' grasps.

A third of the 45 public companies polled in a new survey will soon have stripped benefit guarantees out of pension entitlements that new and existing employees will earn in future.

In the face of a new era of low investment returns and rising obligations, more pension providers are aiming to limit contributions to a fixed percentage of pay.

Affected employees could face having to work longer – if their health and skills allow – or deal with a lower standard of living in retirement, a senior actuary warns.

The trend that began in the early 1990s is gaining momentum, just as an Ontario commission searches for a survival and expansion plan for pension plans that have defined benefits.

Ian Markham, an adviser to the Ontario Expert Commission on Pensions, says the number of workers who have lost pensions with defined benefits for each year of service may be more than official figures recognize.

Statistics Canada estimates about 83 per cent of the two million pension-plan members in Ontario still have defined benefits.

Most of the members are in the public sector.

But the agency has a great deal of difficulty dealing with private-sector employers that will pay benefits based on service up to a certain year, but in future will make a fixed level of contributions for each dollar earned.

"How do we categorize that?" asks Markham.

Results of the new survey, by the Conference Board of Canada and Watson Wyatt Worldwide, where Markham is a consulting actuary, are to be presented today at a pensions summit in Toronto.

An early release was provided to the Toronto Star.

Key findings are that about 18 per cent of the 45 public companies polled across Canada have swung in the past two years to defined-contribution plans for future service.

Another 15 per cent said they will follow in the next year, while 5 per cent have or will get rid of defined benefits entirely.

Most said they were moving away from guaranteeing a certain benefit based on years of work and salary in order to avoid fluctuations in contribution requirements and to cut costs.

More than 60 per cent of public and private companies said they are making extra payments to eliminate funding shortfalls, which are anotther type of risk for employees if their employer fails.

Few of those employers (16 per cent) pay more into their plans than the minimum legal requirement.

Two-thirds of respondents think pension funding is in crisis, but the percentage who think it will last for many years has fallen to 48 per cent from 61 in 2006.

Many companies see the move away from defined benefits as a financial necessity, but most employers with the cheaper defined-contribution plans worry retirement benefits won't be adequate.

These lesser plans may thus make it difficult to recruit and retain top talent, or to ease out unproductive workers. The national unemployment rate is down to about 6.1 per cent, and a growing number of baby boomers will soon reach the age of retirement.

Public-sector plans are moving to increase both employee and employer contributions, while private-sector companies are increasingly shifting risk to employees.

Markham said that a 30-year-old worker five years ago might earn a pension equal to 54 per cent of pay by age 65 if he or she and an employer each contributed 5 per cent of pay to a defined-contribution pension plan.

But the outlook for returns on all forms of investment is now significantly lower because interest rates on long-term bonds are low all around the world. On the flip side, the cost of life annuities is much higher.

So, the same combined level of contributions (10 per cent of pay) might replace only 38 per cent of pay at age 65 (excluding government benefits).

To get back to a 54 per cent rate of replacement, contributions might have to rise more than 40 per cent, or the person would have to work years longer.

Markham said he doubts many employers, let alone employees, realize the impact of lower interest rates on prospects for retirement. Other research suggests most employees are ill-equipped to invest their retirement savings, and the available investment options are more costly and less well managed than defined pension plans.

The commission on pensions in Ontario, headed by labour-law expert Harry Arthurs, has until next summer to report.

A discussion paper on the Web at pensionreview.on.ca asks for suggestions about a number of questions, including how to make defined-benefit plans less costly, and surplus funds or contingency reserves less a bone of contention.

Director of research Robert Brown said at a pension conference yesterday that 20 research papers have been commissioned. Public hearings are to be held in six cities, starting in Toronto Oct. 15, the deadline for making written submissions.



See

The Importance of Savings

Your Pension Dollars At Work

P3= Public Pension Partnerships

Chinese Social Security Scandal

Social Insecurity The Phony Pension Crisis

Pension Plunder

Labour Is Capital

Pension Free China

Kids Are Commodities

Workers vs Worker

Air Canada Profits From Bankruptcy

Are Income Trusts A Ponzi Scheme

Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
, , , ,, , ,
,
, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Casablanca R Rated

For smoking. There goes the classics, like the full smoking Casablanca.

Smoking is now associated on the “Silver Screen” right up there with violence, language, nudity and drug abuse in ranking criteria. The MPAA brass are quoted saying “ There is a broad awareness of smoking as a unique public health concern due to nicotine’s highly addictive nature and no parent want their child to take up the habit.”

Apparently studies prove depictions of smoking in the movies have made children more likely to try cigarettes. The Attorneys General in 32 States have publicly called on the MPAA to put “R” ratings on movies containing scenes involving smoking.


The irony is that Casablanca is an anti-fascist movie, and of course anti-smoking laws are the moralist equivalent of fascism, since they are appeals to a prohibitionist state.

Meanwhile, we also learn about Rick’s life before he came to
Casablanca.
He grew up during the Prohibition years, when
selling alcohol was illegal in America. Powerful gangsters ruled
New York at this time, bringing alcohol in from outside the country
and supplying it to clubs. The young Rick is given a job by one of
these gangsters, Solly Horowitz. Solly likes Rick and makes him
manager of the Tootsie-Wootsie, a gambling and drinking club.
But trouble breaks out between rival gangsters. Rick’s boss is
killed. Rick has to get away fast. He and Sam, his pianist from the
Tootsie-Wootsie, escape to Europe.

However, if we look beyond the nostalgia and the sentimental theme of lost love and redemption, we see that Casablanca actually presents a complex and intricate political and social commentary on the early days of World War II. The product of a decade when studios were routinely producing “a movie a week,” Casablanca surpasses its humble origins as “just another Warner Brothers’ picture” by exploiting wartime patriotism and the traditional “American values” of freedom, liberty, and equality to shape audiences’ perception of the war. In the most basic sense, Casablanca was an anti-fascist propaganda vehicle which was designed to support U.S. participation in the Allied Forces’ struggle for global justice and democracy at a time when most Americans believed that U.S. foreign policy should have promoted isolationism and neutrality.

With the coming of the Second World War, for which the civil war was a rehearsal, things changed. In the 1943 Ealing Studio tributes to the army in the Western Desert, Nine Men, and to the firefighters of the London blitz, The Bells Go Down, heroic figures are identified as veterans of the International Brigades.

That same year in Hollywood, Paramount filmed Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls, the greatest novel about the war, and Warner Brothers allowed Rick Blaine in Casablanca to include on his CV his services to the Loyalist cause.


Richard "Rick" Blaine - Played by Humphrey Bogart The owner of Rick's Café Americain and the film's protagonist. When we first meet Rick, he is a jaded bar owner in Casablanca who wears a dour expression as he drinks and plays chess alone. He constantly proclaims his freedom from all bonds, be they political or personal. After Ilsa enters the picture, he undergoes a considerable change. In a flashback, we see Rick in Paris. He is in love with Ilsa and visibly happy, and he is devastated when she doesn't show up at the train station. Rick never turns back into the lighthearted lover he was in Paris, but he does overcome his cynicism and apathy to become a self-sacrificing idealist, committed to helping the Allied cause in World War II.

Rick Blaine is a worldly American who has a hidden past. He was on the losing side during the Spanish Civil War. He moved to Paris before WW II and was a gun runner smuggling guns into Ethiopia. General Strasser, (the representative of the Vichy Government of France), heard the rumors and came to question Rick. Rick tells him that he is an alcoholic and doesn’t know a thing about the visas. He says he does not belong to either side of the combatants in WW II because he has had enough of wars and he is ’neutral’.


The capitaine tells Rick that while many exit visits are sold at Café Americain he knows that Rick has never sold them and that is why he is permitted to stay open. Rick replies that he thought it was because he lets him win at roulette. The capitaine tells Rick that Victor Lazlo, a famous resistance leader from Czechoslovakia who has escaped three times from the Nazis, will be arriving shortly but that he will not be permitted to leave Casablanca. Rick suggests a 20,000-franc bet on whether Lazlo will get out of Casablanca, but the capitaine agrees only to a 10,000-franc bet, stating that he is "only a poor corrupt official." The capitaine also tells Rick that Lazlo is travelling with a very beautiful woman and tells Rick that he suspects that "under that cynical shell" Rick is a sentimentalist as he is familiar with Rick's having supplied guns to Ethiopia when that country was invaded by Italy in 1935 and with his fighting the Loyalist government the next year in the Spanish Civil War.
I guess I take inspiration from this heroic failure, in the battle against the anti-smoking statists.

Heroic failure describes a person or group failing to accomplish their goal, but somehow gaining the moral upper hand or becoming ennobled in the attempt.

The film Casablanca mentions two heroic failures to develop the Humphrey Bogart character Rick Blaine.

"Oh, laugh if you will, but I happen to know your record. Let me point out just two items. In 1935 you ran guns to Ethiopia. In 1936, you fought in Spain on the Loyalist side.[1]

The first reference is to the Second Italo-Abyssinian War. In September 1935 Italy invaded Ethiopia. Ethiopia lost, but opponents of colonialism and fascism supported their cause. The second reference describes the Spanish Civil War in which rebels led by Francisco Franco gained control of the country. "The Loyalist side" refers to supporters of the losing republic. Thus Rick has fought for the causes of freedom and democracy and earned an admirable (although losing) record.


And so inspired by the great classic of anti-fascism and anti-prohibition we say here's looking at ya kid.

We have much to learn from the characters of Casablanca: in the final scene the airport is dark, the drone of the airplane fills the air and fearless, they venture out into the fog. Into the unexpected.


http://www.filmsite.org/posters/casa7.jpg
http://bogart-tribute.net/images/casablanca/casablanca48.jpg
http://bogart-tribute.net/images/casablanca/casablanca35.jpg
The image “http://bogartfilms.warnerbros.com/img/clips.smoking.jpg” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.
http://bogart-tribute.net/images/casablanca/casablanca28.jpg
http://blogs.citypages.com/pscholtes/images/Casablanca%20Bogie%20Oak%20Street.jpg
http://bogart-tribute.net/images/casablanca/casablanca27.jpg
http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c237/kazsyrps/CasablancaA.jpg
http://bogart-tribute.net/images/casablanca/casablanca30.jpg
http://beyondrivalry.blogspirit.com/images/medium_casablanca.jpg
http://bogart-tribute.net/images/casablanca/casablanca6.jpg
http://www.casalinx.com/images/photos/019_strasser_airport.jpg
http://www.filmreference.com/images/sjff_01_img0091.jpg
The image “http://bogart-tribute.net/images/casablanca/casablanca13.jpg” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.
http://bogart-tribute.net/images/casablanca/casablanca39.jpg


See:

Rememberance or Revisionism

Kenney is A Funny Guy

Christy Moore - Viva La Quince Brigada

Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
, , , ,
, , , , ,,,,
, ,
, , , , , ,
, , , ,






Friday, May 11, 2007

Small Right Wing Rallies

Conservative and Liberal MP's gather on the hill for the annual Anti Choice Rally for Forced Motherhood.
A small contingent of MPs is willing to see and be seen at an anti-abortion rally

Over the course of the hour-long lunchtime rally, several of O'Brien's former caucus colleagues dropped by to show their solidarity and address the crowd. Among them were Paul Szabo and Paul Steckle, the latter of whom co-chairs the Parliamentary Pro-Life Caucus with Conservative MP Maurice Vellacott - himself in attendance as well. Indeed, there was considerably better representation from the Conservative caucus: Jeff Watson, Mark Warawa, Myron Thompson, James Lunney, David Anderson, Dean Del Mastro, Rod Bruinooge and Pierre Lemieux all joined Vellacott. Liberal Tom Wappell and Conservative Andrew Scheer sent their regrets - one was stuck in committee, the other serving as deputy speaker. As for the Bloc Quebecois and the NDP, they unsurprisingly gave it a miss altogether.

In his speech, Vellacott claimed the annual gathering is consistently among the largest crowds to hit the Hill but is still ignored by the press - a sentiment echoed by O'Brien. "Whatever the media might say," he assured the crowd, "there's never a rally to match this one."

Media reports and police estimates put the number at somewhere between two and three thousand, including several large contingents of students from local Catholic high schools


While other Pro-Life Conservatives gather to praise war making.

Detainee issue overshadowing military heroics: PM

About 1,000 people, including soldiers and families of the military sporting red, joined the weekly Red Friday Rally in a symbolic show of support for the military. Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor and Gen. Rick Hillier also attended the rally.

But neither of these small rallies amount to 'mass demonstrations' as occurred on the hill and across Canada when the U.S. invaded Iraq.

They are simply special interest lobbying by the Conservatives to their base. And a small base it is. One that has to be trucked in. Talk about a rent a crowd.

Unfortunately for our military they are forced to attend. Come to think of it the same could be said for the Catholic school kids.



SEE

Hillier

Afghanistan

Autocrat


Abortion



Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
, , , , , , , , , ,

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,, , , , , , , , , , ,
, , , , , , , , , , ,

Deja Voodoo Economics

Gee it was earlier this week that I reported on this.Except that Stats Can report was more blue sky messaging, the glass half full rather than the glass half empty.

In that case you had to read between the lines, this is more honest reporting. No blue skying this, tax changes have only benefited the rich.


Rich get richer, poor get poorer, study finds

Updated Fri. May. 11 2007 8:55 AM ET

Canadian Press

OTTAWA -- A new study says the gap between rich and poor is widening in Canada, appearing to confirm that the rich do indeed get richer while the poor get poorer.

Statistics Canada found that inequality in after-tax family incomes has increased over the past 15 years.

The study says that while the tax-transfer system changed in many ways throughout the 1990s, it reduced income inequality by as much in 2004 as it did in 1989.

The study found that incomes among the top 10 per cent of earning families rose by 22 per cent between 1989 and 2004, while at the same time incomes fell 11 per cent among the poorest families.


SEE:

Canada's Wealthy, Still

Productivity

Taxes

Wealth


Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
, , , ,
, , , , , , , ,
, , ,
, , , , , , , ,

Clear Language Or Clean Water

Which would you prefer clean tap water or clear language signs warning you that the water is dangerous to drink. This is the Tories action plan for cleaning up the toxic water on Canada's reserves, improve the signage.

Chief David General of Six Nations in Ontario said he is aware that people in his community drink their tap water even though it is not safe and that some people get sick as a result.

General said many people do not even notice the signs that warn them not to drink tap water.

Health Canada says a drinking water advisory is a way to advise members of the public in a specific community that they should use an alternative source of drinking water.

It says it is a measure designed to protect public health from waterborne contaminants that could be present in drinking water.

In March 2006, Indian and Northern Affairs Minister Jim Prentice launched a plan of action to address drinking water problems in First Nation communities.

General said many aboriginal communities would rather have a new water plant instead of a new communications strategy.


Like wait times, aboriginal peoples are still waiting for clean water.

H/T to Red Jenny.

Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
, , , , , , , , , , , ,

Taking Their Toys And Leaving

Twice in one week the Terrible Tory Tots have disrupted parliamentary committees with their childish behavior.

Tories storm out of meeting on sharing energy with U.S.

Amid heated charges of a coverup, Tory MPs on Thursday abruptly shut down parliamentary hearings on a controversial plan to further integrate Canada and the U.S.

The firestorm erupted within minutes of testimony by University of Alberta professor Gordon Laxer that Canadians will be left “to freeze in the dark” if the government forges ahead with plans to integrate energy supplies across North America.

He was testifying on behalf of the Alberta-based Parkland Institute about concerns about the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP), a 2005 accord by the U.S., Canada and Mexico to streamline economic and security rules across the continent. The deal, which calls North American “energy security” a priority, commits Canada to ensuring American energy supplies even though Canada itself — unlike most industrialized nations — has no national plan or reserves to protect its own supplies, he argued.

At that point, Tory MP Leon Benoit, chair of the Commons Standing Committee on International Trade which was holding the SPP hearings, ordered Laxer to halt his testimony, saying it was not relevant.

Opposition MPs called for, and won, a vote to overrule Benoit’s ruling.

Benoit then threw down his pen, declaring, “This meeting is adjourned,” and stormed out, followed by three of the panel’s four Conservative members.

Language committee cancellation frustrates MPs

The Conservatives' sudden cancellation of Tuesday's meeting of the Commons official languages committee when it was set to hear from officials who ran the Court Challenges Program is the latest sign of disrespect toward linguistic minorities, opposition MPs said Tuesday.


"The fact the Conservative members did not show up and the meeting was cancelled two minutes before 9 o'clock proves to me the order did not come from the chair (Conservative MP Guy Lauzon) or the members of the committee but from higher up," said Liberal official languages critic Raymonde Folco, who lay the blame with Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

When not wanting to hear they put their fingers in their ears and go nyah, nyah.....


Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:

, , , , , , , , , , ,, ,,,

Best Kept Secret In The UK

As if we didn't know......Brown to launch succession bid But wait it gets better; UK's Brown vows to give power to the people Which should mean once elected he will not serve. Of course as Heir Apparent that ain't too likely. Unless he loses the General Election. Which given his personality could be very likely.

Britain's leader-in-waiting Gordon Brown pledged on Friday to put "citizens in control" and end personality-driven politics if he was elected to take over from his charismatic predecessor Tony Blair.

Launching his campaign to become leader of the ruling Labour party, Brown said his government would be a servant of the state, not handing down edicts from on high. It would listen to voters and not be afraid to admit mistakes and change course.

"I do not believe politics is about celebrity," finance minister Brown said. "I have never believed that presentation can be a substitute for policy.

That's because he has no personality and what he lacks in charisma he makes up for with policy.


Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
, , , , , , , , , , ,