Friday, November 02, 2007

Poitique Vert RIP

As Cliff pointed out in the comments to my post No Comments on Politique Vert it appears that they are no more. The ultimate No Comment Policy.

http://politiquevert.wordpress.com/

WordPress.com

The authors have deleted this blog. The content is no longer available.

Of course this might be temporary as was the case recently with a couple of Blogging Tories. See:

Making Lemonade Aid

Another BT Bites The Dust


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The Return of Capital Punishment

The Harpocrites have decided that it is okay for another state to murder Canadian citizens as long as that state is a so called democratic one.


The Conservative government's announcement that it will no longer stand up for Canadians who face the death penalty in the United States is drawing fire from the opposition. The Tories officially announced a change in Canada's foreign policy when it comes to Canadians on death row. "We will not actively pursue bringing back to Canada murderers who have been tried in a democratic country that supports the rule of law," Day told the House of Commons on Thursday.


Though as arch conservative Pat Buchanan reminded us last night on Dan Abrams show on MSNBC , discussing the use of waterboarding as torture, "the United States is NOT a democracy IT IS A Republic."

This is the same Republic that kidnapped Mehar Arar and sent him to Syria to be tortured and is still illegally holding a Canadian citizen at Gitmo.

And there are those in the United States who will be impacted by Canada's failure to support our own citizens whose right to life is threatened by state sanctioned murder.

Feingold Statement on the Severe Injustices of Capital Punishment

So much for Canada's international reputation as a defender of Human Rights. Once again tarnished by the Orwellian logic of the Harpocrites. They have of course used this logic to attack Canadian values and government programs, claiming them to be aberrations; simply the result of the previous Liberal governments, whether it is over the issues like the Middle East, Kyoto or Peacekeeping.

They are now imposing their Conservative values in reshaping the policies of the Canadian state through executive edict. This is just another example of their anti-democratic agenda, an agenda that uses the power of the PMO and cabinet to avoid parliament.


SEE:

Say No To Capital Punishment

Pro-Life Pro-Death

Free Kadhar

More Foreign Affairs Incompetency


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Flaherty's Smoke and Mirrors



More evidence of the Harpocrites Tax Unfairness. Business got the biggest tax cut while you and I got crumbs.

And even though many in booming Alberta are better off now than they were a decade ago, the taxation on working families earning median incomes; $40-$60,000, are paying for the tax cuts to business.

Simply put it is our taxes paying for Flaherty's corporate welfare while the Conservatives fail to invest the remainder of our money in much needed social programs.


Economists say the personal income tax relief in the Harper government's Tuesday mini-budget is paltry and does little to improve incentives to work, save and invest in a country already suffering from weak productivity growth.

The overall tax breaks that Finance Minister Jim Flaherty doled out this week will ramp up to $14.7-billion annually within five years, but less than 11 per cent of that went toward personal income tax rate cuts. Only about $1.5-billion is directed at lowering personal income tax rates, in this case cutting the lowest bracket rate to 15 per cent from 15.5 per cent.

Global Insight (Canada) chief economist Dale Orr calculates that the personal tax burden on Canadians keeps rising despite the Conservatives' fall mini-budget.

"This puts the small magnitude of that [mini-budget] relief into perspective," he says.

As a result of the relief Mr. Flaherty offered, personal income taxes collected by Ottawa as a share of all personal income fall to 9.8 per cent this fiscal year from 10.11 per cent. But then they rise to 10.12 per cent and soar to 10.94 per cent by 2012-13, only slightly less than where they would have been without the mini-budget.

The marginal effective tax rate on personal income - the tax paid on the next dollar of income someone earns - remains extremely high for most earners in Canada.

Typical marginal effective tax rates for families with children climb above 50 per cent for incomes in the $20,000 to $30,000 range and exceed 60 per cent for those earning $30,000 to $40,000, according to calculations by C.D. Howe Institute research director Finn Poschmann.

For most families, the rate doesn't drop below 50 per cent until incomes hit $45,000.

Edmonton's economic boom is making the rich richer, but most households are barely better off than in 1981, says the Edmonton Social Planning Council.

In making the comparison today, the council reached back to the peak year of the last big oil boom, rather than to the leaner intervening years.

It makes sense to compare "apples-to-apples" boom years, council researcher John Kolkman said as the non-profit agency called for more than $1 billion in tax breaks and increased spending for low-income Albertans.

Using Statistics Canada figures, Kolkman said the median earnings level - the point where half of income earners make more and half earn less - stood at slightly more than $32,000 in 1981, and only $300 above that in 2005. He adjusted 1981 earnings to equate them to the dollar's 2005 buying power.

Even so, in inflation-adjusted terms an increasing proportion of Edmonton-area families are making $100,000 or more, the Statistics Canada numbers show. Back in 1981, about 27 per cent of families were making at least that amount, in 2005 dollars. As of 2005, more than 30 per cent were in that earnings range.

About 55 per cent of families in 1981 were earning between $40,000 and $100,000 in inflation-adjusted 2005 dollars. The middle-income range accounted for just 43 per cent of families by 2005.

About 18 per cent of families earned less than $40,000 in 1981, using the same inflation-adjusted dollars. Families in that lower-income range peaked at about 38 per cent in 1995. As of 2005, they accounted for 27 per cent.

"A greater percentage of families are doing better," Kolkman said. Even so, he said some families that were once middle income have since lost ground.



SEE:

Tax Cuts For All

Tax Cuts For The Rich Burden You and Me

Tax Fairness For The Rich


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Income Trusts; Predatory Capitalism


Predatory capitalism comes to the oil patch through this Income Trust merger. Another consequence of the Harpocrites Halloween surprise last year. And clearly farmer Ed's Royalty compromise has not impacted these guys.
Merger creates oil patch giant
Canada's newest energy powerhouse, forged yesterday by the proposed merger of Penn West Energy Trust and Canetic Resources Trust, is poised to challenge the oil patch's biggest players as it seeks even more aggressive expansion through acquisitions and new projects.

The new entity will be comfortably the country's largest oil and gas trust, with market value of around $15-billion and production of more than 200,000 barrels of oil equivalent a day. It will have the size to compete with some of the oil patch's biggest names, said executives of both companies.

The new company will not only be a leader in Canadian conventional light oil production, but its larger size will make it easier to access debt markets to fund significant developments in unconventional gas, enhanced oil recovery and even Alberta's oil sands, a region in which major projects have been the preserve of only the largest and most well-financed firms.

In addition, the company - which will operate under the Penn West banner for now, but may be rebranded in the future - is now buttressed against any potential foreign takeover and positioned to expand aggressively by taking over other trusts in Canada as well as assets in the U.S., said Penn West chief executive officer Bill Andrew. Last year's federal decision to make income trusts pay corporate tax from 2011 is perceived as having left such firms as more susceptible to domestic or foreign buyouts.

The friendly $3.6-billion cash and paper deal, which came together in a series of confidential meetings held in motels outside of Calgary over a three-week period, was facilitated in part by Calgary-based lawyer John Brussa, one of the original architects of Canada's income tax structure.

Income Trusts generate vast pools of capital which they can use to buy up other companies while retaining their ability to pay out dividends to coupon cutters.Income Trusts began in the oil patch in Alberta before becoming popular across Canada.

They are a product of the Alberta stock exchange lack of regulation and the Klein governments deregulation revolution. They avoid paying taxes thus allowing for higher returns to investors. They are a tax avoidance scheme for owners. And they still will generate value for their owners despite Flaherty's tax scheme which only comes into effect in 2011.

That will impact the coupon cutters far more than the companies real owners, the Class A shareholders and company investment managers. And by then the majority of Flaherty's corporate tax cuts will be in place enabling this trust to transform itself into a corporation again if it is a fiscal advantage.

In practical life we find not only competition, monopoly and the antagonism between them, but also the synthesis of the two, which is not a formula, but a movement. Monopoly produces competition, competition produces monopoly. Monopolists are made from competition; competitors become monopolists. If the monopolists restrict their mutual competition by means of partial associations, competition increases among the workers; and the more the mass of the proletarians grows as against the monopolists of one nation, the more desperate competition becomes between the monopolists of different nations. The synthesis is of such a character that monopoly can only maintain itself by continually entering into the struggle of competition.

Karl Marx
The Poverty of Philosophy
Chapter Two: The Metaphysics of Political Economy


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The Carbuncle of Class War


This has been a well known fact for years Marx suffered from boils. Now some dweeb is explaining his theories of alienation experienced by the working class under capitalism as the result of his condition.

Karl Marx suffered from a skin disease that can cause severe psychological effects such as self-loathing and alienation, according to a British dermatologist.

The father of communism’s life and attitudes were shaped by hidradenitis suppurativa, said Sam Shuster in the British Journal of Dermatology. One of its symptoms is alienation – a concept that Marx, a martyr to boils and carbuncles, put into words as he wrote Das Kapital.

“In addition to reducing his ability to work, which contributed to his depressing poverty, hidradenitis greatly reduced his self-esteem. This explains his self-loathing and alienation, a response reflected by the alienation Marx developed in his writing.”
This is reductum ad absurdum that results from a shallow attempt to deconstruct Marx. And it isn't even new. It is pop psychology of the right, an attempt to dismiss ideas by dissing the man. Not unlike Aileen Kelly's attack on Bakunin.

The fact is that Marx's poverty exasperated his disease. If anything his suffering poverty, like that of his fellow European working class immigrants to England, placed him within the class. And his skin condition had nothing to do with his revolutionary ideas, he had evolved those long before his skin condition became a problem.

Karl Marx did his best writing on deadline.

Commissioned by the Communist League in mid-1847 to write a "profession of faith," Marx and Engels procrastinated, traveled, experimented with form and might never have written the manifesto of the Communist Party if not for a sternly worded letter from the league ordering them to deliver the document by February 1, 1848.

A few all-nighters later, Marx produced a stirring document that by now has been read by tens of millions of people. Far fewer realize that regular deadline commentary provided Marx with the closest thing he ever had to actual employment. From 1852 to 1862 he was a regular London correspondent for the New York Tribune. All told, Marx contributed almost 500 columns to the Tribune (about a quarter of which were actually written by Engels). Marx's newspaper writing takes up nearly seven volumes of the fifty-volume Collected Works of Marx and Engels--more than Capital and indeed more than any of Marx's works published in book form.

The Tribune was in some ways a logical place for Marx's journalism. The paper was founded in 1841 by Horace Greeley as a crusading organ of progressive causes with a pronounced American and Christian flavor; one contemporary writer described the paper's political stance as "Anti-Slavery, Anti-War, Anti-Rum, Anti-Tobacco, Anti-Seduction, Anti-Grogshops, Anti-Brothels, Anti-Gambling Houses." During Marx's tenure as a correspondent, the Tribune was the largest newspaper in the world, reaching more than 200,000 readers.

At the same time, there was probably no publication in the world that would have been a perfect fit for Marx's cantankerous prose and personality. Even when Marx wrote in English, his strident Germanic tone dominated. His analysis was so unsparingly radical that at times the Tribune felt the need to distance itself from its fulminating London correspondent; introducing one of his 1853 essays, for example, the editors wrote, "Mr. Marx has very decided opinions of his own, with some of which we are far from agreeing," but then conceded that "those who do not read his letters neglect one of the most instructive sources of information on the greatest questions of current European politics."


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Time For A Made In Canada Auto Industry

Here is a perfect example of Branch plant economics. Despite the auto pact,there is now a disconnect between our national auto industry and it's American owners.

Time to create a made in Canada auto industry. But not one that means co-opting workers through unionization without the right to strike.

Domestic auto sales up in Canada

Detroit's Big Three automakers did something in October they haven't been able to do in 10 long years - they outsold their overseas rivals in Canada by a wide margin.

Chrysler axes 1100 jobs at Brampton plant

By John mccrank TORONTO (Reuters) - Chrysler is cutting around 1100 jobs at its Brampton, Ontario, assembly plant as part of wider layoffs planned by the automaker, the head of the Canadian Auto Workers union said on Thursday.

Brampton's muscle-car party is over

Two years ago this month, Canadian Auto Workers union President Buzz Hargrove joined other car industry big shots on a stage at Chrysler LLC's Brampton assembly plant northwest of Toronto to celebrate what was then the hottest car on the road and one of Chrysler's most popular products ever: The beefy Chrysler 300.

This week, he took a call from Chrysler brass informing him that sales of the 300 and its two sister cars built at Brampton -- the Dodge Charger and the Magnum wagon -- had slipped enough in North America to warrant a major cutback in production. The unbridled optimism in 2005 among the CAW and Chrysler executives that the car would stand the test of time has now hit a cold wall of realism suggesting it may not. And in a flash, Brampton's muscle car party is over.

Blaming a slowing U.S. market, Chrysler announced yesterday it will discontinue the Magnum and cut the third shift at Brampton in February, putting 1,100 factory workers on layoff. It's part of a wider and deeper cutback effort under new owners Cerberus Capital Management that will see the automaker dump four models and cut an additional 10,000 hourly, 1,000 salaried and 1,000 contract jobs as it aims to steer the company back to profitability. Chrysler lost US$2-billion in the first quarter this year before splitting from Mercedes-Benz maker Daimler AG.

Chrysler bows to price pressure

Chrysler Canada is boosting cash incentives on its vehicles to address consumer concerns that they're paying more for cars and trucks here than in the United States -- the biggest automaker to date to adjust prices to the rising Canadian dollar.


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Thursday, November 01, 2007

Flaherty Saves Oil Patch


See the sky is not falling. Instead the boys in the Petro Towers in Calgary are hearing the sounds of pennies from heaven falling into their laps.

Oilsands stocks rallied yesterday on a US$4.15 jump in crude prices and optimism that Ottawa's surprise corporate tax cut could rescue producers from Alberta's oil and gas royalty increases.

Oilsands companies with long-term oilsands plans will be among the biggest beneficiaries of corporate tax changes proposed by Jim Flaherty, the Federal Finance Minister, on Tuesday, Andrew Potter, oil-and-gas analyst at UBS Securities Canada Inc., said in a research note.

The three most influential movers on the TSX were oilsands companies. EnCana Inc. jumped $2.96 to close at $66.10, Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. rose $3.46 to close at $78.56, and Suncor Energy Inc. was up $3.79 to close at $103.45. Crude prices jumped as high as US$94.74 a barrel, a record price when not adjusting for inflation, on a report showing that inventories in the United States are at a two-year low. Crude for December delivery closed at US$94.53, up US$4.15.

As the old adage goes what the government taketh away the government gives to them that has.

Personal income taxes are being positively impacted in two ways -- by cutting the lowest rate by a half-percentage point, and by raising the "basic personal amount" that someone can earn without paying any tax.

The two measures together will produce an average saving of about $275 a year for most working Canadians.

Better than nothing, but still less that the price of a Tim's coffee per day.

BIG BUSINESS WINS

Big corporations, on the other hand, are in for significant tax reductions over the next five years as the federal rate drops to 15% from more than 22% today.

By 2012, the total cost to the treasury of giving corporations such a break is expected to be just over $14 billion, or almost 50% more than all of Flaherty's tax cuts for individual Canadian taxpayers over the very same period of time.


SEE:

Tax Cuts For The Rich Burden You and Me

Tax Fairness For The Rich


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Harper the Mad Dog


‘‘We will choose our time when we will decide to put this government down -- it will not be tomorrow,’’ Dion said to reporters.

Oops I think he meant 'bring down the government', unless he is ticked off about what they have done to poor Kyoto, his pet cause...Or maybe he actually meant it, perhaps he thinks the government is a Mad Dog....but then why let it suffer if that's the case.

Asks the Toronto Star Liberaltorial;

At what point does Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion take a stand and say: "No More! It is time to change this government"?

That's a question well worth asking after Dion and his Liberal MPs abstained yesterday from voting in the House of Commons on the minority Conservative government's tax-slashing mini-budget. And it is one worth considering in light of Dion's earlier willingness to give tacit approval to the Conservative throne speech and other measures, such as a get-tough-on-crime agenda and a weak environmental plan, while at the same time the Liberals insist they oppose much of what Prime Minister Stephen Harper proposes to do.

Is there a line across which Harper cannot go without the Liberals bringing down this government?

Nope apparently not.


The Liberals are a party in defeat and disintegration. Not even in the dark days of Trudeau as opposition leader or the days of exile under Chretien has the Natural Ruling Party been a house as badly divided as it is today. They smell defeat at every turn. They dread an election. And so they will prop up the Harper government and take their lumps.

Waiting, waiting, for an issue on which to take a stand. And what issue will that be they have retreated on Afghanistan, Kyoto, Childcare, Income Trusts. They have no principles left on which to take that valiant last stand. Each time the Harpocrites toss an issue out the Liberals will lead the charge of the light brigade.

And even if they did find 'the' issue to defeat the government, Dion will find himself alone then in the field of battle, as the party continues it's internal night of the long knives.

The Liberals have no platform, no agenda, no policies that the Harpocrites cannot steal and use against them and they have the cash to do it.

Finance watchers say it's likely Ottawa is sitting on more surplus cash than it's admitting and, if the economy stays hot, it will be able to offer more goodies, including a tax cut in a spring budget expected to set the stage for the next federal election.

TheLiberals elected a leader while failing to conclude Party Renewal leaving them to abandon the ship of state for the life boats. And now the various factions paddle in different directions.

Which of course is good for Jack Layton and the NDP who are now the Official Opposition.


The image “http://www.ndp.ca/xfer/html/2007-10-12/LiberalWarningHeader-en.gif” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.



SEE:

Liberals Favorite Tax Cut


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Martha, Henry, and Ed

Common sense from the common folks. And one thing you don't do is threaten Albertans with "we will get up and leave", cause you will get told "git up and go", "we can do it ourselves". It's an Alberta attitude of self reliance that the right wing likes to lay claim to, except when the shoe is on the other foot.

More Albertans support Premier Ed Stelmach's royalties strategy than do not, but his plan has fallen short of many people's expectations and may have created a "lose-lose" situation for the rookie Tory leader, a new poll indicates.

As the debate simmers, the online poll conducted by Leger Marketing shows most Albertans -- 61 per cent -- believe the oil and gas industry overinflated the negative consequences that higher royalties would have on the sector.

"The program fell short for many Albertans," Tremblay said.

The poll indicates many Albertans are skeptical of industry warnings, with six in 10 respondents agreeing the oil and gas industry overinflated the negative fallout from higher royalties. And just 38 per cent of people polled believe the new royalty regime will create job losses in Alberta, while 46 per cent do not.

As for the threat that the oilpatch will withdraw investment, about one-third agreed, but slightly more than half didn't buy it -- although the numbers show more Calgarians remain concerned than people in other areas of the province.

Only 28 per cent of Albertans agreed Stelmach's decision will have a negative effect on them or their families, either through work or through investments, while 52 per cent disagreed.

However, only 37 per cent of the people surveyed said Stelmach's decision will have a positive effect on them or their family through improved government spending on programs or infrastrastructure, while 39 per cent do not.

The poll of 804 Albertans, fielded from Friday to this Monday, has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.



Also see Enlightened Savage for his take on this poll.

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Return Of The Work Camps II

An excellent article from the Guardian on Fort McMurray reminds us that homelessness is not just an urban issue for Calgary and Edmonton but a way of life for construction workers, the folks who did not protest at the Leg last week. Work Camps have returned to Alberta, not unlike the old Relief Camps for unemployed workers during the dirty Thirties or the internment camps of WWI which built the Banff and Jasper national parks. The difference is of course these camps are full of volunteer wage slaves.

For many, purpose-built work camps provide the best solution, and are often the only option for the blue-collar workers needed to build the sites. The work camps are small towns in their own right - Suncor's Borealis camp, the largest such facility in North America, sleeps 7,500, as does CNRL's Horizon camp - but with few of a small town's compensations. The only plus is a negligible commute. It's a short walk from Syncrude's Mildred Lake camp to the refinery. The long, low trailers are surrounded by barbed wire and sandwiched between, on one side, belching silver towers and pipes, and on the other a highway and seas of mined-out sand. Inside the trailers, men in dressing gowns wander down interminable, hospital-bare hallways; the rooms are cells, maybe 7ft by 14ft, furnished with a small single bed. Men - it is usually men, though there are some women, in separate facilities - can spend anything from a few days to years living in these rooms. A Somali cab driver who worked as a security guard at one of the camps told me they all developed coughs. "And their faces started to look like they were made of rubber."


H/T to Galloping Beaver


SEE:

The Other Alberta Boom

Padrone Me Is This Alberta

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Vue Covers My CBC Campaign

Got an email from a reporter from Vue Weekly last week and did a phone interview with him about my Hey CBC Ezra Does Not Speak For Me campaign. Let a thousand flowers bloom as they say.

And in this week's edition they published this;

CAMPAIGN LAUNCHED AGAINST CBC RIGHT-WING 'FLACK'

MURRAY SINCLAIR / murray@vueweekly.com


Recall campaigns, in use in some US states, British Columbia and once in Alberta, are usually aimed at removing politicians from office between elections.
But one local activist has started a similar type of campaign online to get rid of a conservative pundit from a CBC Newsworld show.

Eugene Plawiuk told Vue it’s “extremely disrespectful” that Ezra Levant is used as Alberta’s representative by veteran broadcaster Don Newman for a cross-Canada regional panel on his afternoon Politics show.

“There’s a constant use of Ezra, as if he knows anything,” charged Plawiuk, a self-described “unabashed left-winger.”
“He doesn’t deserve to be on as a pundit from Alberta. It makes us look like right-wing nut bars.”

Levant, who has been a lawyer, columnist and an activist in conservative groups and parties, made the news recently when he stopped publishing his Western Standard magazine in favour of an online format.

Plawiuk said that Levant, who didn’t return repeated interview requests for this story, wrongfully believes that Albertans are “genetically” disposed against Liberals and for the Conservatives.

“Levant also deliberately refuses to make any reference to the NDP in this province, which happens to have four sitting MLAs, and has been a force in provincial and federal politics since the founding of the CCF in Calgary,” Plawiuk’s website charges.

In a past entry, he charged that the “Conservative Broadcasting Corporation,” when “reporting on news from Alberta for political comments ... is sucking up to the right wing rump of the right wing with Levant.

He “is not a journalist, but a public-relations flack for the right,” Plawiuk added.

In September, Plawiuk wrote to CBC ombudsman Vince Carlin that he’s “tired of the right-wing bias shown by Ezra Levant,” who he says does not reflect the reality of politics in Alberta.

“Get someone else to comment on Alberta politics, or at least balance him out with someone who is not part of the extreme right.”

Carlin replied that he forwarded Plawiuk’s concerns to the producer of Politics, but the activist answered back that nobody on the show was listening to him, as Levant kept on appearing as a talking head.

CBC spokesman Jeff Keay didn’t respond directly to Plawiuk’s campaign, but said generally “Don [Newman] has a broad range of people on the show.”

Jim Thompson of the Friends of Canadian Broadcasting said his group hasn’t done any content analysis to determine whether the CBC is providing a diversity of voices. He said Alberta MPs, who are all Conservative, would likely say the CBC is left-wing, but he wouldn’t comment on whether the CBC was using Levant to battle this perspective.

Plawiuk said he “wouldn’t be as ticked” if Levant was appearing on a non-public network that wasn’t supported by tax dollars, an arrangement he noted the conservative pundit dislikes despite appearing regularly on the CBC.

The activist started his anti-Levant campaign in late October by sending out emails on the listservs of the NDP and other progressive groups, while his blog is linked to several other leftist and non-ideological websites.

He doesn’t know how many in cyberspace have heeded his request to email the CBC and ask for Levant’s removal as Newman’s only Alberta voice, but a number of people have told him they’ve done so, including one who created an online logo stating “Hey CBC, Ezra Levant does not speak for me!” for use in the campaign.

The activist denied that he’s advocating censorship, and said his campaign speaks to a bigger issue that goes beyond cyberspace.

Alberta is changing politically, said Plawiuk, citing the thousands of newcomers coming into the province, the decline of the Reform movement and the departure of conservative standard-bearer Ralph Klein from the premier’s chair.
“Nobody talks about the Ralph revolution anymore,” he said. “They talk about the Ralph failure.”

Plawiuk suggested in one email to the CBC that “there are other more ‘expert’ folks you could use, or at least to give balance and have on along with Ezra,” citing as examples local blogger Ken Chapman and the Parkland Institute’s Ricardo Acuña.

The activist told Vue that Edmonton Journal legislature reporter Graham Thompson or someone from the Calgary Herald or that city’s CBC would be acceptable in place of Levant, who he charged “blusters on with half-facts and innuendo.”

He said even Edmonton Sun columnist Neil Waugh would be a more insightful voice on the right, as would Link Byfield of the defunct Alberta Report magazine, given his long experience with the conservative cause..

Associating Levant with a “small voice from Calgary,” Plawiuk said there was a regional dimension to his campaign, charging that Newman’s show was turning down Edmonton voices in favour of what he called Canada’s most Americanized city.

Friends of Canadian Broadcasting spokesman Thompson said CBC cutbacks have gutted regional programming, which has “certainly affected the diversity of perspective that the CBC has been able to offer its audience” in his mind. V


Interesting that Friends of Canadian Broadcasting doesn't do content analysis. That's not what they say on their web site. And their actions say otherwise. However I guess what they don't do is look at specific programs. Though Don's show has slipped in some American spin which should concern them.

FRIENDS of Canadian Broadcasting is an independent, Canada-wide, non-partisan voluntary organization whose mission is to defend and enhance the quality and quantity of Canadian programming in the Canadian audio-visual system. FRIENDS is not affiliated with any broadcaster or political party.

FRIENDS relies upon individuals for donations to finance its watchdog role, public policy initiatives, public opinion leadership and research activities directed at our priorities.

Looks like CBC's top-ranked managers, specifically president and CEO Robert Rabinovitch and CBC-TV executive vice-president Richard Stursberg, have been stung by Friends of Canadian Broadcasting.

A fundraising letter sent recently to Friends' members – who number 66,000 dues-paying households – attacks the duo for their "incompetence, neglect and recklessness" and "appallingly deficient vision."


The spokesperson for CBC says Don has a broad representation from Alberta which of course is a lie. His regular, as in frequent, guest commentator on things Albertan is Ezra.

Keep sending those cards, letters, and emails to CBC. And please cc me at
eugene-at-union-dot-org-dot-za


See:


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Diminished Expectations

They won't be discussing royalties, or homelessness, or the environment, or crumbling infrastructure. Nope, the Tired Old Tories are holding a short pre-election fall sitting of the legislature to deal with this..... Speeding tickets, smoking ban top fall legislative agenda



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This Is News?


Paris Hilton throws tantrum in Toronto

And it only gets sillier...
The amateur porn star allegedly threw a temper tantrum when she saw posters of her porn film debut A Night In Paris, being advertised in the Toronto Adult Movie store, "You guys can't use my image in a porn store," a woman said to be Hilton was heard saying, according to CTV. "I'm going to call my lawyer and sue the (expletive) out of this place. I really want them down because they're mean and this is not right. I'm really serious, this is disgusting. And I want the other ones too or I'm calling the (expletive) cops." Listen to the exchange here.

It seems everyone is throwing tantrums these days......

Turkish Temper Tantrum

China Throws a Temper Tantrum

A temper tantrum for a rate cut


SEE:

Paris Discovers Jesus In Jail



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Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Halloween Blog Apples


My own personal carnival of blog posts inspired by Halloween. Here are my selections of Tricks and Treats.

It is clear that Progressive Bloggers have more fun posting on Halloween then their Blogging Tory counterparts.


Progressive Bloggers

This is the gay Christmas boys & girls.Rocky Horror Picture Show: Sweet Transvestite

We're kind of antisocial socialists at the Bunker, and none of us particularly enjoy handing out carbos to kids. So we tend to turn off the lights on Hallowe'e'n, settle down with the mead and popcorn, and enjoy a dusk to dawn session of our favourite scary movies. Here they are.

Like many people the Shag gets tired of hearing about the general state of the world or at least the unpleasant parts that usually arise from some combination of ordinary stupidity and the pathologies of politicians. Since its almost the end of the month let's take a look at a few tidbits related to the celebration of Halloween.Pumpkin carving is a popular part of of the season. Come October, pumpkins can be found everywhere in the country from doorsteps to dinner tables. One of the market gardens located near Lumsden, Saskatchewan always has several hundred on hand at the end of the selling season which I've been told carries on right to the end of this month. The carving of "jack o'lanterns" is supposed to have originated with an Irishman by the name of Stingy Jack.


I have collected some spooky links to post today, to get in the mood for the Holiday. One of my favorites: and one of the most amazing sites i have ever been, is to be found at Devil's Tramping Ground. This flash animation is so beautiful and haunting. The Banshee will make the hair on the back of your neck stand up, while you marvel at this work. Want to see some ghost videos? heh. Ever heard the term, Pepper's ghost? read more...

List of Good Halloween Sites
It seems that Sean over at Mashable has gotten disapointed about how halloween has been celebrated recently and wants to revive the fun in the day. In order to reinvigorate Halloween he’s collected list of more than 20 Halloween websites.

Vampires!
Muhahahahahhaha! Garlic won't work on these.......Stake through the heart would be kind of....Sparky? Not to mention expensive... No the only way to slay these Vampires, is to unplug them. All those conveniences in your house suck the life out of your bank account, and contribute to…

A Very Nunc Scio Halloween

Halloween. The day where we, the living, dress in strange outfits to confuse the spirits who roam among us. Or, conversely, the day where North America’s sugar intake trebles and the good people at Nestle and Hershey do little jigs around their respective offices, commemorating one of…

Happy Halloween everyone. Yesterday I was at the CUPE rally on the UofR campus. There were a lot of reporters there, and I met Patrick Book of CJME.com I’m going to be wearing my chicken costume to the party in the Archer Library, and hoping I won’t have to use it to stay warm outside later in the week. Murray Wood shakes a finger at Hallow’een Grinches. Kids only get to be kids once, and they need supportive adults to hand out sugary snacks.

Remember the fun of Halloween when you were a kid? Dressing up, decorating the house, carving the pumpkin, sorting through the treats after you?ve gone out?only fractions of the easy days of our childhoods?Calgary?s recreation department wants to put the break on Halloween?.They?re encouraging people to give out swim passes instead of the regular chips and/or chocolate combo?swim passes?for Halloween?how anal?Their justification for it is that ?the tradition of dropping candy into kids' bags doesn't make sense anymore amid so much concern over childhood obesity?(CBC News)WTF!?!Personally, I?ve always believed that reason kids are getting heavier is that they?ve become enslaved to the television set; the computers.

Elin and Lukas are going to mock me, but I have miniature chocolate bars to give out to the neighborhood kids tonight. When they were growing up, we gave out small boxes of raisins, and the rule was that the two of them could eat as much as they wanted on Halloween night, but the rest was trashed. My idea was that an occasional splurge doesn?t hurt but that weeks of eating candy was bad for teeth and bad for concentration.But, as Emerson said, consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, and I decided to be inconsistent a couple of years ago. There will be candy for the little ones who come by, although I?ll turn off the front porch light and bring the jack o?lantern in about 7:30 p.m. when the big kids start roaming. Magic is one thing, gluttony is another.Reading that back, I see that Lukas and Ellin will laugh even harder if they read it, since in my indulgent inconsistency I still sound preachy. Fine thing to be on a pagan holiday

I have my costume on.......If I look familiar...well, sorry. That means your OLD. (shhhhhhhhhh......best not to say anything) A couple more Halloween tunes, one from deep in the vault....... And another twisted tune, that cracks me up! (Politically correct critiques not necessary) read more

If your cheap like me than you know that the pressure to spend a fortune on Halloween candy can be a little much. $5.99 for 50 Nestle Favorite mini chocolate bars???

...it would look like this:Save the pumpkin, save the world.Happy Halloween!

Sean McDonald posted a photo:

HAPPY HALLOWE'ENIE!!!

Happy Hallowe'enie Beanie

Your moment of Wingnuterer. Boo!


Blogging Tories

Happy Halloween!

I present to you an assortment of macabre political images and, if that doesn't scare you enough, three two videos from the greatest movie ever (watch it today!)

Happy Halloween.

C'est l'Halloween !

Même en pause, je désirais tout de même vous souhaiter une belle journée d'Halloween.

De plus, je vous laisse la chance d'écouter et de voir une prestation de la chanson "Halloween" de King Diamond, chanteur du groupe Merceful Fate. Cette chanson ce retrouve sur l'album Fatal Portrait réalisé en son nom personnel.

Que j'aime bien en passant...

Au plaisir

Halloween horror
Daimnation! | 31 Oct 2007 | 11:35am EST
Can your heart stand the terror of...Mr. B. Natural? Part two here - if you dare. Damian P...

Happy October 31st
Christian Conservative | 31 Oct 2007 | 9:24am EST
Halloween? BAH, HUMBUG! Instead, I'd like to wish every one a Happy Reformation Day!The 95 Theses The Ninety-Five Theses on the Power of Indulgences, commonly known as The Ninety-Five Theses, was written by Martin Luther and is widely regarded as the primary catalyst for the Protestant Reformation. Luther used these theses to display his displeasure with the Church's indulgences,

Scary Halloween for dion
31-10-07, 3:39 pm @ Dr Roy's Thoughts
Today is Hallowe'en, a day for ghost of the past to rise and witches to fly. HM Minister of Finance has completely overwhelmed the headlines with the mini budget. There is nary a word about the income trust matter or the 1995 referendum. HM Government is setting the agenda in the media, even with an almost universally unfriendly media. There is plenty of money left to cut the debt and announce even more personal tax cuts. Wed, October 31, 2007 Liberals spooked

Costumes too sexy for kids?

French maid costumes for adults are one thing, but for kids? ‘Prime News’ asks if Halloween is getting too racy (video).

Being a Whore for Hallowe'en or Just Dressing Like One
A Step in the Right Direction | 31 Oct 2007 | 3:10pm EST
Hmm....this article got me thinking. An excerpt:Meet the sexy-costume backlash: teen and tween girls who, bucking the marketing hype and peer pressure, are resisting the ever-growing tide of provocative wares. This year, there are more risqué costume options for girls than in previous years, retailers say. In addition to the "classic" sexy genre of French maid, nurse and cop,





See my Halloween Posts:

The Witch of Edmonton

Aliens Invade United States


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