Same Old Conservatives

Trudeau speaking about Mulroney, but it could equally apply to Harper.

With his sudden conversion to supporting "Quebec is a Nation,......within a united Canada"

That is why they are once again making common cause with the nationalists to demand special status for Quebec. That bunch of snivellers should simply have been sent packing and been told to stop having tantrums like spoiled adolescents. But our current political leaders lack courage. By rushing to the rescue of the unhappy losers, they hope to gain votes in Quebec; in reality, they are only flaunting their political stupidity and their ignorance of the demographic data regarding nationalism. It would be difficult to imagine a more total bungle.

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Stelmach Dooms Tory

Farmer Ed steps into a political cow pie. He is going to show up in the big T.O. and announce the joys of rapacious capitalism in Alberta. Yep the hick from the sticks is showing up in the middle of the Ontario Provincial Election. Just the kinda help John Tory needs from his fellow Conservative.

Premier Ed Stelmach will travel to Toronto later this month to tout Alberta's contribution to the Canadian economy.

"I'll also leave a message about what we're doing with respect to the work we're doing on the environment," Stelmach said Wednesday.

The premier said he will attempt to drive home the message that Alberta's boom is Canada's boom, a theme he has told national audiences before.

Stelmach will spend Sept. 24 and 25 in the city and deliver a lunch-hour speech to the Empire Club on the 25th.

Bet this engagement gets postponed till a later date. Wagering may begin now.

Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach is being criticized from within his own ranks for agreeing to make a speech in Toronto during the Ontario election campaign.

A senior cabinet minister, who did not want to be identified, says there's no way the premier should make the Sept. 25 speech to the Empire Club, especially if it bashes Ontario.

"This is a mistake," said the minister as he left a three-day caucus planning session. "He shouldn't have agreed to deliver this speech."

But a Stelmach spokesman says the premier never hesitated to accept the speech when the invitation was extended by the Empire Club.

The Alberta Advantage will be John Tory's disadvantage.

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A Bee C

Alberta
Beekeepers
get no
Compensation.

Despite his recent capitulation to public protests, Farmer Ed Stelmach still has not heard the buzzing of Alberta apiarists.

Canada's largest commercial apiary industry, gets no attention from the farmers in the Stelmach government, cause they all raise beef.

Bee Keepers across North America are facing a crisis no different from BSE yet the response in oil rich Alberta to the case of the disappearing Bee's is indifference.

Billions were given to the commercial agribusiness interests and large scale processing houses, the secondary and tertiary business, and spare change given to beef farmers after the discovery of one dead BSE infected cow. During this crisis of Alberta's disappearing bee's nary a word from agribusiness interests or the government.

Drops in honey production, combined with low prices, could financially sting beekeepers.

"It's going to be a real struggle for some operations across the province," Kevin Nixon, central director of the Alberta Beekeepers Association.

"Another year of low production combined with lower prices ... could really damage things within the industry."

Lee Townsend of Stony Plain said he thinks he will get about 81 kilograms of honey for each of his 1,600 hives compared with his normal yearly harvest of 122 kilograms per hive. About 30 per cent of his bees died this year.

"It was just one of those years when everybody was hit with high losses ... . You could talk to anyone in the province right now and they would say the same thing," Townsend said.

A mysterious bee epidemic in the United States is alarming commercial beekeepers in Canada, but the government isn’t moving fast enough to provide money and support for research and surveillance programs, says the Alberta Beekeepers Association.

Although the border was closed between the US and Canadian bee industries in 1987, it is impossible to halt all bee migration between the countries. According to Kevin Nixon, Central Director of the Alberta Beekeepers Association, “any pest or disease that affects bees in the U.S. is usually seen here four or five years later.”

Nixon is worried that colony collapse disorder, or CCD, could prove devastating for Alberta’s $350 pollination industry if it moves north. CCD is a disorder which has killed between 50-90% of some bee colonies in 24 US states.

The Alberta Beekeepers Association has given Alberta Agriculture and Food a list of demands that includes the hiring of an additional provincial apiculturist and numerous full-time bee inspectors. Nixon would also like to see more funding for research programs.

“The cattle and grain farmers are getting allotted large amounts of money here in the province. It’s extremely frustrating to see this money being given to other commodities. The government doesn’t seem to understand the importance of what’s going on in the US.”

In Ontario the government has already addressed this issue, with compensation. The federal government gave a stingy supplement to Ontario Bee Keepers and once again nothing for Alberta beekeepers. Consider how many billions were given for BSE.

Beekeepers Eligible for Compensation

Ontario Beekeepers can now apply for compensation for lost hives over the winter.

As many as 22 thousand hives are thought to have been wiped out over the winter -- but no one really knows why.

The province has earmarked 2.4 million dollars for direct compensation.

The Ontario Beekeepers Association is also getting some money.

They'll get 600 thousand dollars that will go toward research and Ontario honey promotions.

Danny Walker, president of the Ontario Beekeepers Association, also applauded Dombrowsky's response.

"They're the first government I know of that stepped up and put up money for farmers," Walker said.

But beekeepers were asking for $6 million to help them recover, he said. They're now waiting on Ottawa to ante up the difference.

The federal government chipped in nearly $137,000 this spring for research to determine what has been killing bees.

Stephen Page, spokesman for Agriculture Canada, replied in an e-mail bees and beekeeping are a provincial responsibility, but the federal government is working closely with the Canadian Honey Council and provincial apiarists to monitor threats to the health of Canada's managed bee colonies.

Added to the low price of honey and the imports of Chinese and Argentinian honey marketed as Canadian honey, the return for the producer is less than the cost of production. "The price of honey is the biggest problem we face," Vichos states.

If the current situation continues, Vichos sees "a real demise in the industry. We’ve been able to struggle through and get our numbers up, but you can’t go on like this year after year.

You can only do this for so long and then you have to walk away.

"Had this been the poultry or dairy or any other agricultural industry, all hell would have broken loose," says Vichos. "People don’t understand the importance of the industry, which isn’t due to honey or wax, but pollination. This problem has brought a bit of light and people have started to see. For every dollar that honey produces, there’s hundreds of dollars in pollination that the bees have accomplished."

"It’s not enough money and it’s not a small problem," says Jeff Benson, a beekeeper supplier in Metcalfe. "The government has to realize that pollination is the most important aspect of this, and that without pollination, there’s not going to be any crops."

And its not like this was not known about for years though it became news months ago alarms were raised two years ago.

DISAPPEARING DISEASE 1. EFFECTS OF CERTAIN PROTEIN SOURCES GIVEN TO HONEY BEE COLONIES IN FLORIDA USA.

Source: American-Bee-Journal. 1982; 122 (3): 189-191.
Publication Year: 1982

Abstract: A commercial beekeeper's report of disappearing disease stimulated an investigation utilizing the diseased colonies. The effects on population growth and honey storage, of giving 1 comb of pollen, of feeding Fumidil-B and of feeding soybean flour with yeast and soybean flour alone were observed in an experiment involving 36 colonies of bees. Addition of 1 comb of pollen led to a significant gain in bees and the production of more honey. Fumidil-B had no effect. Feeding of expeller processed soybean flour, from a supply 3 or 4 yr old, especially without yeast, hindered population growth. Inadequate amounts of natural pollen along with feeding an inferior pollen substitute were 2 causes of this beekeeper's losses.
Update Code: 1983

DISAPPEARING DISEASE 1. EFFECTS OF CERTAIN PROTEIN SOURCES GIVEN TO HONEY BEE COLONIES IN FLORIDA USA", the next study, demonstrates:

1. That shortage of pollen can cause dwindling.

2. Fumigillan did not help, so we can assume that nosema was not a prime contributor to decline.

3. Old soy flour, fed alone, made matters worse.

4. Bad pollen supplement was worse than nothing

5. Adding yeast helped

6. Feeding combs of pollen had a good effect

This study raises questions that are not answered, but seems to indicate that old soy flour can be worse than nothing. Nothing is learned here about fresh soy flour, and we are not told the age of the yeast or pollen.

Why it is happening is another question.

Agriculture Department scientists are mobilizing to fight the puzzling and potentially catastrophic collapse of the nation’s honey bee colonies.

Citing a “perfect storm for beekeepers,” alarmed officials admitted Friday that they don’t know why bees are dying in large numbers in more than 22 states. But pushed by Congress and farmers alike, the scientists will be devoting new resources to protecting the diligent pollinators

Virus Implicated In Colony Collapse Disorder In Bees

The issue is the of the impact of industrialization on this ancient form of farming.

Huge monocrop farming systems and specialisations, and the spread of suburbia across natural habitat, are removing natural diversity. Bees have been lumped together in the millions, in a factory farm type environment not so unlike that of our chickens and other livestock animals. Many of these bees are transported across several states to perform pollinations in orchards and farms around the country. Today they are in contact with substances they shouldn’t have to deal with - pesticides, herbicides, antibiotics, and pollen from genetically modified crops. Researchers are scrambling to find answers, and as the spring season is upon us, time is running out.

By 1994, an estimated 98 percent of the wild, free-range honeybees in the United States were gone. The number of managed colonies—those maintained by beekeepers—dropped by half.

The honeybees may have been especially vulnerable to the varroa epidemic. When the honeybee genome was sequenced a few years ago, researchers discovered fewer immune-system genes than you'd find in other insects. This despite the fact that the honeybee lives in tenementlike conditions, anywhere between 15,000 and 30,000 of them crammed into a hive the size of a filing cabinet. To make matters worse, a weakened hive often becomes the target of honey-raiders from healthier colonies, which only helps the parasites to spread.

It's possible that if the American honeybees had been left to their own devices, they would have died off in epic numbers and then evolved natural defenses against varroa (like more effective grooming), as they did in Asia. But crops had to be pollinated and no one had the time to sit around and wait.

Beekeepers opted to keep their colonies on life support with selective breeding, and by sprinkling them with medicine and insecticides aimed at the invading mites. This was no longer a hobby for amateurs. The only honeybees left—i.e., the ones that started disappearing in October—had become the cows of the insect world: virtually extinct in the wild, hopped up on antibiotics, and more likely to reproduce via artificial insemination than by their own recognizance.

The cause of colony collapse disorder is unknown, although poor nutrition, mites, diseases and pesticides have all been suspect. There is also concern that some genetically modified crops may be producing pollen or nectar that is problematic for the bees, says Mr. Brandi.

"Lesser known is the fact that some pesticides can also kill or deform immature bees, adversely affect queen and drone viability or may cause bees to lose their memory, which prevents them from flying back to their hive," he says.

It’s frightening to note as well that research in Britain indicates that birds near mobile phone base stations or towers don’t breed well. The sparrows have disappeared completely from cities at least four years ago in England as mobile phones grew in popularity. A recent article in The Independent suggests that both birds and bees are impacted negatively by phone waves.

Wild bees and flowers both declining, survey finds

But we do know that the honey bee population in Alberta, and across Canada, is integrated with the U.S. where it became apparent last fall that there was a problem. And they too are addressing it, unlike Alberta's farmers government.

Wild bee abundance and diversity in agroecosystems in southern Alberta

Bees are important pollinators for agroecosystems. Due to a decline in the availability of honey bees, many growers are now looking to wild bees to pollinate their crops. However due to land clearance and intense agricultural practices, potential wild bee habitat is disappearing. To quantify these effects, we assessed wild bee abundance and diversity in canola fields adjacent to either tilled fields or semi-natural pastureland in southern Alberta, Canada. Habitats were assessed within 800m immediately surrounding fields and their impact on bee diversity and abundance was determined.
How Honey Bee Genomics explains the Demise of the Bees.

And while commercial Apiaries are suffering so will secondary and tertiary industries, since Alberta produces high quality commercial and export grade honey, and byproducts.

The intoxicating nectar is mead, an archaic drink made by fermenting honey with yeast and water. The elixir was reputedly the booze of choice for Zeus and other Olympians.

The drink fell out of favour in most of Europe more than 500 years ago. But today in North America, mead is enjoying a renaissance. In Canada, almost two dozen meaderies have opened in the past decade, and connoisseurs are quaffing the ancient libation.

Not all mead makers have their own beehives, though.

Alley Kat Brewing in Edmonton became Alberta's first commercial mead maker when it introduced a spiced variety last Christmas, using honey supplied by local beekeepers. The sparkling mead sold out in liquor stores within days, says Alley Kat owner Neil Herbst.

Honeybees play a role in pollinating a number of Canadian fruits, vegetables and crops, particularly cucumbers, melons, blueberries and cranberries and canola, according to the Canadian Honey Council.

A 1998 study by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada estimated the value of the bees to pollination at $732 million, a value the council now says has climbed to more than $1 billion.

There are about 10,000 beekeepers in Canada, operating a total of 600,000 honeybee colonies, according to the CHC.

Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba produce about 80 per cent of Canada's 154 million kilograms of honey annually.

Bees: More than just sweet

Besides honey, they play key role in food production

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P3 Myth Busting

Dismissing an independent study on P3's the Alberta Government says it has studied P3's and gives them the big thumbs up.

A landmark study of private-public partnerships around the globe concludes they don’t save taxpayers money, undermine democracy and hurt small business – even as Alberta is making P3s a key component of its long-term plans.

But the Alberta government’s public relations department says it’s confident its projects won’t follow that trend and called the study “a nice academic exercise.”

The study, released by the Federation of Canadian Municipalities – the group that represents most communities across Canada – looked at schools, hospitals, road systems, subways systems and waterworks.

It found no cost savings amongst any of the studied projects. Further, when overruns, changes to long-term contracts and shifting public priorities were considered, many cost more money than their publicly funded equivalent.

A key reason was borrowing powers, said researcher Pierre Hamel. All of the projects, whether public or private, were funded with long-term borrowing.

“Promoters of P3s typically answer that by saying that although the borrowing cost is higher, they’re much more efficient. But in fact they simply limit their upfront costs by paying staff less money. And they put that back into their profit margin, not into savings to the public.”

Hamel concluded most P3s end up costing about the same as the public equivalent.

But there are downsides: a lack of political accountability if a project goes awry, because the responsibility has been downloaded to a private company; ironclad contracts that cost a fortune to get out of if public priorities change; and project development plans so complex – and privately guarded by the companies – that future contracts can often only be bid on by the initial P3 operator.

“The biggest company cannot borrow at a cheaper rate than the smallest municipality,” he said.

“Promoters of P3s typically answer that by saying that although the borrowing cost is higher, they’re much more efficient. But in fact they simply limit their upfront costs by paying staff less money. And they put that back into their profit margin, not into savings to the public.”

Hamel concluded most P3s end up costing about the same as the public equivalent.

But there are downsides: a lack of political accountability if a project goes awry, because the responsibility has been downloaded to a private company; ironclad contracts that cost a fortune to get out of if public priorities change; and project development plans so complex – and privately guarded by the companies – that future contracts can often only be bid on by the initial P3 operator.

Alberta has its own research on P3s that supports them, said Jerry Bellikka, with Alberta Infrastructure and Transportation.

“That’s his clear opinion. We’ve been very clear on all of them that when we look at it, we do a complete business case analysis of every project, and in every example where we have gone to P3s we are confident that we are achieving major cost savings for the taxpayer.”

FCM RELEASES NEW REPORT ON PUBLIC-PRIVATE PARTNERSHIPS

OTTAWA, Aug. 31 – Can public-private partnerships (P3s) meet the infrastructure needs of cities and communities?

:: Report

:: Backgrounder

This question has assumed growing importance, with Canada facing a more than $60-billion municipal infrastructure deficit and the federal government increasingly favouring P3s for infrastructure projects.

A new report by Professor Pierre J. Hamel of Montreal’s INRS-Urbanization looks at specific examples of municipal P3s to determine how, and how well, these projects work. The new report, Public-Private Partnerships and Municipalities: Beyond Principles, a Brief Overview of Practices, presents his findings.

Ok let's see the Stelmach government studies. Opp's it appears we can't. It seems it's all anecdotal.

After all the Alberta Tories tried to build a hospital with a P3 back in 2004 and it failed.

In August, the Calgary Regional Health Authority – normally known for spearheading privatization - cancelled Calgary’s planned P3 hospital and replaced it with plans to build the hospital publicly.

And that is the last time anything was posted on Alberta Infrastructures P3 page.
Because 2004 was when Alberta Infrastructure started issuing P3 projects, like the Calgary Court House . Which like Calgary's hospital was another costly mistake.

The Calgary Courthouse P3 boondoggle in 2004 had cost overruns of 67% caused by private partners.

Since then they have been hell bent on doing P3's for three years. I would love to see their more recent study. But it is not posted on their website.

It appears there is no government study, unlike the one done by the FCM, rather it seems the Minister of Education simply read some briefs through partisan glasses.

March 14, 2007 Alberta Hansard

Private/Public Partnerships

The Speaker: The hon. member.

Mr. Chase: Thank you. Obviously, the minister is dealing with a 25-watt bulb. My last question is to the Minister of Education. Why is the minister suggesting that we saddle Alberta taxpayers with a 30-year debt to not only build P3 schools but maintain and operate them privately when we have the money to build them publicly and transparently now? Debt or no debt, Mr. Minister?

Mr. Liepert: Well, Mr. Speaker, first of all, as we discussed earlier, we need schools where kids live. Despite what this hon. member says, we do not have $7 billion laying around to spend on schools. There have been a number of P3 and alternative financing projects around the world that have been successful, and there have been a few that have been unsuccessful. The research I did was that every time a P3 was unsuccessful, it was commenced by a Liberal or a socialist government.

Aha! Of course! The FCM once had Jack Layton as its President, so of course it's nothing but a socialist, Liberal front.




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John Tory Sees Flying Spaghetti Monster

This is scary. Ontario Conservative Leader John Tory thinks that a creation myth is equivalent to the scientific theory of evolution.

The Conservatives have pledged to give private religious schools $400 million if they opt into the public system, teach the provincial curriculum, hire accredited teachers and administer tests, Tory said. The funding would not prohibit Christian schools from teaching creationism on top of the existing provincial curriculum, he added.

"It's still called the theory of evolution. They teach evolution in the Ontario curriculum, but they also could teach the fact to the children that there are other theories that people have out there that are part of some Christian beliefs."

He has confused empirical theory with metaphysics.

This is of course understandable since the word physics appears in the latter. Which has nothing to do with science but refers to the physical world.

Given John Tory's belief that creationism is equivalent to evolution I would hope his new curriculum would include the creation theory of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

The Flying Spaghetti Monster created the universe, Earth and its creatures after drinking heavily from heaven's beer volcano.

SEE:

Creationism Is Not Science

Islamicists and Evangelical Christians

The War Against Secular Society

Dinos and World Systems Theory

Missing Link Missing Funding

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Free Speech?

Hmm, I have heard this argument before.

The Conservatives are defending themselves against allegations they broke election spending rules by arguing it's all a matter of freedom of speech.

From the NCC which used to be run by our current PM.

This, says NCC president Stephen Harper, is a gag on free speech. But it’s not the amount of the limit that troubles him. “I object not simply to the limits. I object to the entire scheme of regulation," he says. "Our view is fundamentally that communicating a political view to fellow citizens is a right; it is not a privilege granted by the government.”

The NCC argues that “In a democracy all citizens should have the opportunity to freely express opinions and to criticize or praise politicians.”

Sounds pretty good, but if you recall that what the law restricts is paid advertising in excess of $150,000, what they’re really talking about is freedom of speech for those few who can afford to spend huge sums on election advertising.

When are national election TV ads not national election TV ads? When you tack on the MP's name at the end of the ad.

A Conservative advertising initiative designed to allow Tory candidates to claim expenses for TV commercials produced for the party’s national campaign in the 2006 election was a potential fraud that subverted spending limits under the Canada Elections Act, the Liberal party says.

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Silence is Acquiescence

So the Americans want Uranium producing countries to accept nuclear waste as the country of origin.

Canada has also been asked to join a U.S.-led nuclear partnership that could eventually see big uranium exporters - like Canada and Australia - be asked to dispose of spent nuclear waste.

Sources have told The Age discussions are under way that could see Australia and Canada made part of the powerful Washington-led Global Nuclear Energy Partnership on a "parallel" track, without having to assume full membership of the organisation.

The Bush Administration has made it plain to the Howard Government informally that it would like Australia to be part of the GNEP — which is an alliance designed to restrict the number of countries enriching uranium to current players, such as the US, Britain, France and Russia.

GNEP members operate on a "leasing" concept whereby nuclear fuel is produced and exported and members ship back nuclear waste.

The initiative came to light in Canada in May 2006 when Prime Minister John Howard of Australia -- like Canada, rich in uranium -- visited Ottawa and voiced interest in the U.S. proposal, but also concerns about its effect on the mining and natural-gas industries.

And what does Harper say? Nada. Nothing. Zip.

Harper silent on nuclear energy initiative

And while Harper is silent on this crucial issue being discussed at the APEC meeting, Australia isn't.

Australia 'will never' accept nuclear waste

Of course it just so happens that his government is planning to open up a nuclear waste site in Northern Ontario. So will it be accepting American and other countries nuclear waste as well? Inquiring minds want to know.

Canada is poised to join an elite club of “advanced nuclear nations” that — led by U.S. President George W. Bush — plans to promote nuclear energy as a key solution to global warming and to control the international movement of enriched uranium and radioactive waste, CanWest News Service has learned.

Silence is acquiescence.

Remarks by President Bush and Prime Minister Howard of Australia

We also agreed on joint statements regarding climate change and energy, a joint nuclear energy action plan which involves cooperation on civil nuclear energy, including R&D, skills and technical training, and regulatory issues. Australia intends to participate in the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, and there will be great benefits in terms of access to nuclear technology and nonproliferation. And the United States will support Australian membership in the Generation IV International Forum, which involves R&D to develop safer and better nuclear reactors.

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He Has A Point

And everyone thought Putin was just saber rattling.

Mr Putin, in announcing the resumption of round-the-clock flights by long-range bombers with a nuclear capability, pointed out that other nations – in other words, the US – had continued their missions since the end of the Cold War.

Defense News reports"A U.S. Air Force B-52 bomber mistakenly loaded with five nuclear warheads flew from Minot Air Force Base, N.D, to Barksdale Air Force Base, La., on Aug. 30, resulting in an Air Force-wide investigation, according to three officers who asked not to be identified because they were not authorized to discuss the incident.

The B-52 was loaded with Advanced Cruise Missiles, part of a Defense Department effort to decommission 400 of the ACMs. But the nuclear warheads should have been removed at Minot before being transported to Barksdale, the officers said. The missiles were mounted onto the pylons of the bomber’s wings.

Of course they are more of a danger to American civilian populations than to the Russians. Not because of a possible nuclear explosion but from a leak of toxic plutonium. Forget anthrax scares, this is scarier because it will never be announced.

At no time was there a risk for a nuclear detonation, even if the B-52 crashed on its way to Barksdale, said Steve Fetter, a former Defense Department official who worked on nuclear weapons policy in 1993-94. A crash could ignite the high explosives associated with the warhead, and possibly cause a leak of the plutonium, but the warheads’ elaborate safeguards would prevent a nuclear detonation from occurring, he said. In 1966, a bomber collided with an aerial tanker and exploded over Palomares, Spain. Four nukes fell to earth and were recovered. Studies on the effects of the nuclear accident on the people of Palomares were limited, but the United States eventually settled some 500 claims by residents whose health was adversely affected. Because the accident happened in a foreign country, it received far more publicity than did the dozen or so similar crashes that occurred within U.S. borders. As a security measure, U.S. authorities do not announce nuclear weapons accidents, and some American citizens may have unknowingly been exposed to radiation that resulted from aircraft crashes and emergency bomb jettisons.

At least 4,000 people died as a result of nuclear projects during the Cold War, and 36,500 became ill with radiation-related diseases, the Rocky Mountain News reported Friday.

The News said it collected the numbers by records from federal projects involving uranium, including the building and testing of bombs, and did not include people who had never filed claims or whose claims were rejected. People who mined uranium, built bombs and who inhaled dust from bomb tests – whether they were workers or nearby residents – were included in the tally.

The nation built 70,000 atomic bombs, beginning in 1945. Some of the uranium used in the bombs dropped on Japan came from Uravan, Colo. About 15,000 workers were employed 15 miles west of Denver at Rocky Flats, making plutonium triggers for the bombs.

Of the 36,500 who became ill, about 15,000 were involved in the manufacture of bombs. The radiation they were exposed to sometimes took years to affect them. Some of them may have ultimately died as a result of their work, but were not listed among project deaths by the government.

Hundreds of thousands of people, including soldiers, were exposed to radiation from nuclear tests.

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Cyberwar

While the Americans claim that the Chinese have hacked the Pentagon how do they know it wasn't the Russians?

Is the Chinese military responsible for recent attacks on Pentagon computers?

That's the question after numerous reports surfaced claiming that the People's Liberation Army of China hacked into a system in the office of U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates in June.

In a statement published Tuesday, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman confirmed that a system in Gates' office was hacked in June.

He declined, however, to identify the origin of the attack.

After all they crippled Estonia last spring. Though there was no evidence proving this was a state sanctioned attack.

“In information warfare, you may know your opponents, rivals, and enemies, but you do not know who is actually attacking," Evron said.

These hack-attacks may be shadows of the new cold war.

Attacks on U.S. systems have never been linked directly to state-sponsored cyberwarfare, but in 1999 Chinese hackers took down three U.S. government sites after NATO bombers mistakenly attacked the Chinese embassy in Belgrade.

The astonishing thing about last spring's alleged Russian cyberattack wasn't the crippling effect it had on Estonian's government and the lives of its citizens but the lack of serious reaction elsewhere. The European Union raised but one scolding finger, NATO sent a few experts to the Baltic nation, and the US protested mildly and briefly — then President Bush welcomed Putin to the Bush family compound in Kennebunkport, Maine. In fact, as the world witnessed the trial run of a new mode of warfare, pundits at The New York Times and other publications dismissed the digital assault on the tiny nation as much ado about nothing.

Nevertheless, despite such outcry about these attacks, Beijing and those responsible in the PLA can sleep easy. What reprisals will seriously affect them? Earlier this year, Russia launched a major cyber-attack on Estonia, taking down the Baltic state's government, banking and press websites. Estonia is a Nato country and a cyber-attack is a hostile act yet no sanctions were taken and the Kremlin used this successful defiance to escalate its rhetoric and actions even further. As far as Titan Rain, it will probably soon descend to a "Team America" moment of "we will be very angry with you ... and we will write you a letter, telling you how angry we are."

The Russian bear is back with a vengeance. But seen from Moscow, the Kremlin is simply reacting to a series of provocations by the United States and Nato as the Western alliance creeps towards Russian borders, threatening the security of the state.

The "new Cold War" has its origins in a speech made by Mr Putin last February at a security conference in Munich, in front of an audience of Western defence ministers and parliamentarians, in which he listed Moscow's grievances and accused the Bush administration of trying to establish a "unipolar" world.

"One single centre of power. One single centre of force. One single centre of decision-making. This is the world of one master, one sovereign," the President complained.

In May, Mr Putin fired off another volley against American unilateralism, obliquely comparing US policies to those of the Third Reich in a speech commemorating the 62nd anniversary of the fall of Nazi Germany.

In the same speech, he attacked Estonia, a new European Union member, for relocating a monument to the Red Army, which he said was "sowing discord and new distrust between states and people". When Estonian government websites fell victim to an unprecedented cyber attack, Nato was called in as the finger of suspicion fell on the Kremlin.

Ironically the hack attack could have been launched in the U.S. itself and re-routed through China.

Web-Hosting Terrorists

Most Americans will be surprised to learn that many Islamist hacker sites are hosted right here in the U.S.

Consider it an unmistakable and very much intended irony that these cyberjihadists are using our own domestic Internet resources against us.

Under Executive Order 13224, companies are forbidden to provide services to organizations known to support terrorism.

Technology industry leaders have also been doing their part to raise threat awareness, but greater cooperation between government and industry would go far in closing these sites down.

In some cases, sites have been shut down in the U.S. only to reappear in highly Internet-savvy countries such as Malaysia.

As one of the 9/11 terrorist planning locations, Malaysia has hosted a number of jihadist sites after authorities acted to terminate them in the U.S.

To its credit, that nation has not been deaf, dumb and blind to the problem -- quite the contrary.

In May 2006, Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi announced the creation of a program called the International Multilateral Partnership Against Cyber-Terrorism, or IMPACT, to help countries work globally to fight cyberterrorists.

In one notable case, an especially worrisome jihadist hacker site first registered in Florida was shut down, but the organization behind it reconstituted operations in Badawi's country.

The Malaysian authorities took action to shut the site down. Unfortunately, it has appeared again where it originated: Tampa, Fla.

The site has grown from a membership list of only about 300 to more than 122,000 over the past few years. Skill levels are improving and technical information-sharing is taking place.

Some in the intelligence field -- and many on its fringes -- have argued that the U.S. needs to keep these jihadist sites up in order to monitor and understand their activities. True, some of this surveillance is necessary, but this is a wholly misguided attitude.

SEE:

Israel Hacker Heaven

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CBC's Anti-Alberta Bias

Once again Don Newman interviews Ezra Levant on his Politics Show when it comes to Alberta Politics. And once again Ezra asserts that Albertans are 'genetically' disposed against Liberals, which is the flip side of his assertion, and those of other right wing historical revisionists in this One Party State, that Albertans are genetically disposed to vote Tory.

Levant also deliberately refuses to make any reference to the NDP in this province which happens to have four sitting MLA's , and has been a force in provincial and federal politics since the founding of the CCF in Calgary.

I am getting a little tired of the Don and Ezra show, which is an attempt to belittle Albertans as right wing red neck's when this province has a history being red, and it ain't just our necks.

I am asking fellow progressive bloggers from Alberta to email the CBC and protest about Don Newman only using Ezra has his 'voice of Alberta'. There are a wealth of other commentators available who are not so partisan and biased. And if we have to have comments from the right, then how about some fair and balanced perspective with someone from the left.

Contact Politics

By Mail:
Politics
P.O. Box 3220,
Station "C",
Ottawa, Ontario
K1Y 1E4

By Phone:
Comments: 613-288-6985
Fax: 613-288-6975

Or don_newman@cbc.ca

The CBC’s Office of the Ombudsman deals with complaints about information programming.

If your complaint involves Sports, Arts, Entertainment or Children’s programming, or if you have comments to make or questions to ask about CBC programming in general, please visit the CBC Contact page at www.cbc.ca/contact.

Complaints should be in writing. Please indicate the name of the program and whether it was on CBC Radio, CBC Television, CBC Newsworld or the CBC web site. Please
be specific. If you feel a program or report was unfair or biased, for example, please indicate how it was unfair or biased. When we receive your complaint we will ask the relevant programmers to respond. If you are not satisfied with the response you receive, you can contact the Office of the Ombudsman again to request an independent review.

Please include:
Name, address and telephone number.

Here is how you can reach us:

E-mail:
ombudsman@cbc.ca

Mail:
Vince Carlin
Ombudsman
CBC
P.O. Box 500, Station A
Toronto, Ontario M5W 1E6
Fax: 416/205-2825
Tel.: 416/205-2978

For complaints about Radio-Canada programs, please click on www.radio-canada/ombudsman.

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