Pakistan Enabling the Taliban

As reported here before the key to the Taliban expansion into Afghanistan has been the dictatorship of Musharraf in Pakistan. First making a peace treaty with the Northern tribes and the Taliban then invading Balochistan. That province which happens to border on Kandahar province in Afghanistan.

Pakistan: The Worsening Conflict in Balochistan

Reliance on the Pashtun religious parties to counter its Baloch opposition has strengthened Pashtun Islamist forces at the cost of the moderate Baloch. With their chief Pakistani patron, Fazlur Rehman’s Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam running the Balochistan government in alliance with Musharraf’s Muslim League (Quaid-i-Azam), a reinvigorated Afghan and Pakistani Taliban are attacking international forces and the Kabul government across Balochistan’s border with Afghanistan. But the international community, particularly the U.S. and its Western allies, seem to ignore the domestic and regional implications of the Balochistan conflict, instead placing their faith in a military government that is targeting the anti-Taliban Baloch and Pashtuns and rewarding pro-Taliban Pashtun parties.


Also See:

Afghanistan

War






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Crusader for the Pope

Uh oh that wacky Pat Robertson is at it again. This time he is helping out his friend the Pope. With friends like these.....

From the September 19 edition of the Christian Broadcasting Network's The 700 Club:

ROBERTSON: When somebody gives the clear, historic record and just says, "Let's have a dialogue," that person is set up for death. And now we understand the leaders of Al Qaeda are calling for a holy war between Islam and Christianity. It's going to come, ladies and gentlemen, and I hope that those of you who care about this pope will support him. He's a wonderful man.

Yep while the Pope tries to soothe the waters Pat just has to stir them up. He really really wants a crusade in the holy land to invoke the rapture.

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The Secret to a long life

World's oldest people live in Japan owing to seaweed, smoking and rice vodka

Hey I do all those, but I think the seaweed is over-rated and so is rice vodka, I prefer mine made from rye or potato. Though I hear beet vodka is the new hot thing. Any vodka as long as its very very cold. Going for another puff now.



Also See:

Smoking


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Airships Time Has Come

While nuclear power generation of steam processing for the Tar Sands is in the news off and on again, one of the other wonderful wacky ideas the Lougheed government in Alberta considered in the late 1970's and early 1980's was the use of Airships for heavy lift operations in the Tar sands.

The plans included airships with extra lift for carrying HD equipment, the extra lift provided by attached helicopters.

It turns out to be not so wacky and idea. Airships are an excellent energy efficient and sustainable form of transportation. The dangers posed in the past have been overcome.

But the Hindenberg incident doomed them to the pages of science fiction, from Jules Verne and H.G. Wells to Michael Moorcock, for the last sixty years.

The Hindenburg Revisited

Everyone knows that the Hindenburg burned and crashed because it was full of hydrogen. According to Addison Bain, everyone is wrong.

But no longer a report on sustainable transportation in the arctic published last year suggests that Airships need to be seriously considered for Northern development. Furhermore airship development for the north is being taken seriously as a form of sustainable energy efficient transportation see the links below to conferences and studies.

A Zepplin first transversed the Arctic in 1931 in a successful mission. Italy and and Russia also experimented with ariships in the Arctic prior to WWII.

The 1931 Polar Flight of the Airship Graf Zeppelin

An Historical Perspective

With todays technology and designs lighter than air aircraft need to be considered for doing the heavy lifting that other petroleum based forms of transportation can't because of costs.

The International Pipeline and Offshore Contractors Association (IPLOCA) is giving serious consideration to this idea that was once bounced around the Lougheed cabinet. Ah those were the days when the Alberta Advantage was our imagination and enthusiasm for the future.



Examines the political, commercial and personal stories that lie behind airship flights within the Arctic Circle. This book goes far beyond a description of the flights themselves, however fascinating and adventuresome they may have been in their own right. From the first lighter-than-air ascent in the Arctic in 1799 to the flight of the 'Graf Zeppelin' in 1931, it examines some of the early plans and endeavours. 10 maps. Diagrams. 177 b/w illustrations/photos. 312 pages. Hardback

Big balloons prescribed as cheap cure for what ails Nunavut

It’s all up in the air

Prof pitches scheme to test airships in Arctic

Airship industry seeks wider acceptance

21st Century Airships - The future of flight

Airships to the Arctic

University of Manitoba 2003 Airships to the Arctic Symposium II

Airships to the Arctic III

The Mobilus Initiative: Creating A New Component of the US Aerospace Industry Centered Upon Transport Airships

Cargo Airships: Applications in Manitoba and the Arctic

A CASE FOR AIRSHIPS IN THE CANADIAN ARCTIC
Exploration, movement of heavy
bulky equipment, basic research, environmental
and resource management, and sovereignty
issues require transportation that
is cost effective (reduces the high cost of
caching fuel), can move slowly over the
landscape (oceanographic measurements,
geological and geophysical surveys, global
change surveys and wildlife census), has
minimal environmental impact, is highly
visible, and uses a vehicle that can move
easily over rough ice, water and land.
Given the scenarios outlined above it
is clear that other transportation options
need to be considered. One of these is the use
of airships. There are many skeptics concerning
use of airships but most people
agree that airships are light on infrastructure
(the airships are the infrastructure),
require little maintenance, and use comparatively
little fuel. Some of the uneasiness
with airships comes from the perception
that they are unsafe, primarily based on the
image of the burning Hindenburg and the
use of hydrogen.
This article presents a historical perspective
on arctic exploration using airships,
some past and current technologies relating
to airships, and a brief review of comparative
cost of operations. We also discuss the
potential benefits of airships to environmental
research and natural resource management
in the Arctic, and evaluate northern
weather patterns as they relate to airship
operations, as this is a consistent concern of
those who question their use under the
“harsh” arctic conditions.



The Mackenzie Valley Highway: Should it be Completed? If so, How Should It Be Funded

The first part of this paper will examine whether the Mackenzie Valley Highway project
is economically justified. Estimates of construction and annual maintenance costs are available.
In assessing the benefits from quicker and cheaper transport, account will be taken of an
alternative highway route, the Dempster Highway. Consideration will also be given to anemerging technology, airships, which in the near-to-medium future may become a viable alternative for the transport of consumer goods and commercial freight to Northern communities and development sites.

Full Proposals for IPY 2007-2008 Activities
Click for printer friendly version Proposed IPY Activity Details

1.0 PROPOSER INFORMATION

(Activity ID No: 324)

1.1 Title of Activity
The use of airships to study aquatic (marine and freshwater) and terrestrial ecosystems, visually and through the collection of samples across large sections of the Arctic

The key objectives are to test 1) airships as an alternate scientific vehicle, with a low environmental impact, by developing a series of ecological transects across the Canadian Arctic, 2) airships as a mobile transport infrastructure for short term flights such as caching scientific supplies, dropping off and picking up research crews in isolated areas, accessing hunting areas and testing scientific equipment (geophysical and oceanography). Furthermore greenhouse emissions will be documented and data will be collected on weather and air/water/soil/tree samples collected along the transects. Airships will also be used at sea ice break-up and during the spring hunt in the vicinity of Iqaluit. Of particular interest will be an assessment of the impacts, if any, on the movement of mammals and birds and the ability to improve census methods and 3) determine if airships could have a role in mitigating some of the effects of a warming Arctic.
The airship will originate from Yellowknife and key activity areas will be around Inuvik and Iqaluit. The Inuvik Research Centre and Nunavut Research Institute (Iqaluit) are major research partners in the proposal. ETAA plans several ecological transects from Yellowknife to Inuvik, Yellowknife to Iqaluit via Rankin Inlet. A transect is planned along the north slope of Alaska to Barrow and back across the Beaufort Sea in conjunction with the Canadian coast guard vessel (Nahidik). Additional activities will occur in the vicinity of Inuvik (transects over the Mackenzie River delta) and Iqaluit (test equipment, move supplies and move hunters during the spring hunt at the ice edge). The period of operation will be about 6 months over 2 years with most activity during the summer months. Arctic weather has often been considered a limitation for airship operation in the Arctic. A recent evaluation of weather patterns in the Canadian Arctic indicates that airships could operate much of the year in the Canadian Arctic because weather does not appear to be limiting.

The Transportation Context
Airships could form an integral part of sustainable passenger and freight transport.
The majority of new concepts for medium and large airships rely on rigid structures for
providing a maximum payload capacity, safety and efficiency. Airships cruise at a low
altitude (1000 - 2000m) which helps avoid interference with other modes. They require
little ground infrastructure and could link to other transport modes.
“Air crane” concept
The Dutch CargoLifter AG “CL160” is an example of a large semi-rigid freight
airship for point-to-point delivery of heavy and bulky loads – “air crane” concept. With
a payload capacity of 160 tons and a range of 10,000km this offers an option for
transport of bulky goods which might otherwise require bridges to be temporarily
removed or loads to be disassembled and reassembled. The first full scale prototype is
to fly in summer 2001. Larger airships targeting unique market segments like bulky and
heavy freight transport will require innovative solutions addressing logistic aspects of
this concept. There are other developments in Russia and the US.

Lovin' Hydrogen
Maverick energy guru Amory Lovins says a profitable, pollution-free hydrogen economy is just over the horizon. It's merely a matter of taming the most powerful gas on the planet
DISCOVER Vol. 22 No. 11 (November 2001)

The Hydrogen Economy
By Jeremy Rifkin
After Oil, Clean Energy From a Fuel-Cell-Driven Global Hydrogen Web

The Home Page for Lighter-Than-Air Craft

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He Shoots

He scores....Domi dating Stronach

It seems that Belinda has traded one right winger in for another.

Good news for Hillary, that Stronach is out of contention for Bills wayward glances.



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Quack, Quack, Moo, Moo, Bang, Bang

Here is the Harpocrites messaging on the Long Gun Registry that has not changed since the election, nor since this summer. Despite the recent shooting in Montreal it continues to be the message from the government and their media syncophants.

The Conservatives made themselves the champions of decent law-abiding long gun owners like farmers and duck hunters

"Duck-hunters, farmers and law-abiding gun owners do not pose a threat to Canadians, criminals do,"

Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day said.

Our Government believes that enforcement should be focused on criminals who use guns, not law-abiding long-gun owners like farmers and duck hunters.

Justice Minister Vic Toews

Can’t define madness

That fight — the battle to ban the assault weapon that allowed Marc Lepine to murder his 14 victims in the blink of an eye — was a torturous fiasco, no matter which “side” you took.

The initial impulse, from traumatized students, from grieving families, from concerned Canadians everywhere, was just to do something to prevent dangerous characters from getting their hands on deadly weapons and ammo so easily.

But it somehow morphed into a billion-dollar registry that threatened to turn duck hunters and farmers into criminals — wasteful nonsense that neither satisfied nor protected anyone.

Shootings don’t vindicate gun registry

Some nut-bar with an illegal, automatic weapon opens fire on students at the downtown college, and supporters of the registry suggest it’s proof we need to keep forcing duck hunters and farmers to register their rifles and shotguns.

The message is clear duck hunters and farmers are the Tories electoral base. Not urban Canadians.

According to the 2001 Census there were 313,000 farmers in Canada, a population in decline.

And there is a severe decline in duckhunters in Canada.

In little more than a couple decades, two of every three duck hunters in Canada have vanished and the free- fall in numbers shows no sign of slowing. Sales of Migratory Bird Hunting Permits in Canada rose from 380,059 in 1966, peaking at 524,946 in 1978, before starting a long ride down to 197,584 in 1999. The outlook for the Canadian waterfowl hunting heritage is bleak. Hugh Boyd, Scientist Emeritus with the Canadian Wildlife Service has used population projections from Statistics Canada, and trends in permit sales to predict the number of waterfowl hunters in the future. His figures show that the number of duck hunters will continue to decline from 1999 levels, by 17% in the next two years, 49% in 7 years and by 64% over the next 10 years. Boyd also considered the influence of age in the trends. He found that the sharpest drops were occurring in the 15 to 24 year old age class, followed by 25 to 34 year olds. Projected permit sales for the 2001 season in these age classes are 14,100 and 19,700 respectively. There are zero sales of migratory bird hunting permits projected for persons under 35 years of age in 2006.

So this is who the Tories are courting with their pandering to get rid of the Long Gun registry, a disappearing population of less than a half million voters. Now I would call that a special interest group. Good luck in getting a majority next election.

See:

Gun Registry

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You Won't Have Me To Kick Around

But Klein merely shrugged his shoulders, adding he doesn’t expect the race to become a platform for sandbagging him. “I didn’t kick around Don Getty and Don Getty didn’t kick around Peter Lougheed,” he said, adding he won’t overtly support any candidate nor did he know who he’d vote for.

Still lying after all these years..... "But Getty ran a deficit," said Ralph Klein

Actually he didn't

Other accomplishments of the Getty Government include a strong record of fiscal management, self-government for Metis Settlements, private telelphone lines for rural Albertans, the election of Canada's only elected Senator, and the creation of Family Day.

It was, in fact, Klein's predecessor, Don Getty, who framed and launched Alberta's fiscal revolution. In the aftermath of the 1980s energy-price recession, Getty slashed public spending. In an April 2006 Edmonton Journal interview, Getty said, "(Klein) continued what we were doing. The debt and deficit was solved by God. Or Mother Nature, maybe. It was the price of oil, not any special creation."

The reality is that during the Getty era the price of oil had increased, steadily.

Getty inherited a deficit of $761 million in 1985-6,

and oversaw its rise to $3.4 billion in 1992-3.

Klein took over in 1993, and was running a surplus two years later, leading to Alberta's current status of having no net debt. Some people will point to oil prices collapsing in 1986 as the reason why Alberta started running deficits; they are wrong. Let's compare the price of oil during the Getty and Klein administrations:

Year	Getty	Year	Klein
1986	$14.64	1993	$16.74
1987	$17.50	1994	$15.66
1988	$14.87	1995	$16.75
1989	$18.33	1996	$20.46
1990	$23.19	1997	$18.97
1991	$20.19	1998	$11.91
1992	$19.25	1999	$16.55

During Deficit Don Getty's administration, the price of crude oil averaged $18.28. During Klein's first seven years, the time period where Klein moved Alberta from a debtor to a net creditor, the price of crude oil averaged $16.55. It is clear that the price of oil is not why Alberta runs surpluses.

The reality was that Getty was a lame duck Premier. The deficits were the costs of buying votes, building hospitals, seniors homes etc. that had been the Tories success model under Lougheed.

That and a few spectacular failures in diversification and the slogan of the Ralph team became; Getting Government out of the business of business. But it was all temporary.

The deficit plagued all of Canada, in fact it was a global phenomena. By 1995 it had hit home with the Federal Liberal government, and they began a slash and burn program of cutting funding to the provinces. Worsening deficits in Ontario but not Alberta.

Here the Ralph Revolution was about privatization, cutting public services, and creating a low tax regime. All the solutions of the neo-con Republican agenda from south of the Border. That is why the province ended up with a surplus. The oil industry had little to do with it, since the Tories had implemented a royalty holiday in 1985 in response to the NEP. Which had resulted in the initial deficit crisis.

Klein's government introduced legislation that required the government to balance its budget by 1996-97. To accomplish this, the Tories implemented severe expenditure cuts, government downsizing, and the privatization of some services. A series of severe expenditure cuts was met with little resistance from a population intent upon seeing its financial house put in order. At the same time, the government expanded government-run gambling, which proved to be a windfall. The cost cutting and the revenue generation succeeded, and thereafter the Tories recorded a series of budgetary surpluses. Their success had a wide influence on other provincial governments, which began to duplicate Alberta's cost-saving measures.

Ralph Klein's revolution has merely gone full circle, argues his old nemesis, former Liberal leader Nancy MacBeth. "He's had three back-to-back budgets that grew by close to 40% and now we're short of money," she shrugged in an interview. "The problem is that he can't blame the last ten years on (former premier) Don Getty. He's got his own record to deal with."

Ralph ran his campaign and subsequent elections always refering to the failure of the Getty Government as if it wasn't a Tory Government. He ran against Getty more than he ran against the opposition. The Ralph Revolution was about implementing a Republican program in Alberta abetted by the likes of the Fraser Institute and the National Citizens Coalition. It was never about the deficit or the debt. That was an excuse, just as was Ralph's constant blaming of Getty for his problems.

In Alberta, the decade began with the surprise resignation of Premier Don Getty in 1992. Getty was succeeded by former Calgary mayor and provincial environment minister Ralph Klein, whom the Alberta Progressive Conservative Party chose as leader in December 1992. In the provincial election that took place the next year, the Progressive Conservatives managed to remain in power by distancing themselves from the shortcomings of the Getty regime. The stage was set for what was to become known as the Klein Revolution (Lisac 1995).

When Ralph Klein took office from Don Getty in December 1992, Alberta had accumulated debt of nearly $6 billion, and the provincial Liberals under Laurence Decore were poised to form the next government. They were running against the Tories chiefly on the grounds of fiscal probity and smaller government. Against the odds, Klein was able to distance himself from the previous Conservative administration and to win the 1993 election using many of the policies advocated by Decore.

The new Conservative leader Ralph Klein campaigns on his charisma. (TV; runs 3:31)

"Go Ralph Go!" shouts the crowd of Ralph Klein supporters. During the 1993 election campaign, the new leader of the Alberta Conservatives is playing up his populist charm, making the most of photo-ops, and calling his party "Ralph's team" in an attempt to distance himself from former Conservative premier Don Getty.

The Calgary Sun - Alberta Tories on brink

Back in 1992, with Laurence Decore’s Liberals almost topping the polls and Premier Don Getty’s regime in chaos, Moore and a small group of other “true” Conservatives went to then-environment minister Ralph Klein and promised to deliver the support of at least 35 MLAs to Klein in a leadership bid.

Actually, Moore and his group put 37 MLAs behind Klein. Then came a razor-edge fight between Klein and Nancy Betkowski, who later showed her true colours by becoming leader of the provincial Liberals.

Moore, who was called on the carpet and chastised often by Getty for condemning that premier’s free-spending ways that eventually made Alberta into a debtor province for the first time since the Great Depression, had given Klein, and his eminence grise Rod Love a list of five commitments in return for the MLA support. They were:

• Cut the cabinet roughly in half to 15 ministers.
• Chop the civil service by at least 25%.
• Pass legislation to prevent ever running a deficit.
• Prevent the government from getting involved in money-losing private sector business enterprises.
• Cabinet ministers who did not operate within their budgets must be fired outright.
• Klein followed through on all those commitments, but only initially.

I will leave the last word to the editor of a rural weekly, the folks that are supposed to be the backbone of Ralphs world.

The lack of a plan has been evident for years
Rocky Mountain Outlook, Canada - 14 Sep 2006

By Carol Picard - Editor
Sep 14 2006

The recent admission by outgoing Premier Ralph Klein that the government had and has no plan for managing the precipitous growth of the province elicited gasps of amazement throughout the land. Such has been the sense of betrayal that even columnists at Alberta’s notoriously Conservative daily newspapers have now begun voicing serious criticism of the government — something virtually unheard of throughout the dozen-plus years of “Ralph’s World”.

Well, they’re a decade late and a dollar shy. The truth of the matter is, there never has been a plan — just a goal. And most Alberta voters — newspaper columnists included — have been caught up in the cult of Personality Politics.

Way back when, when Klein took over from Don Getty, he was hailed as a saviour of sorts, promising to deliver the province from a sea of red ink created by his predecessors. He and his ministers and MLAs proceeded to reduce the deficit and eliminate the debt in a slash-and-burn approach that voters elsewhere in the country couldn’t stomach when their own leaders attempted the same. Klein’s macro-economic analogy to the household finances appealed to the lowest common denominator, and was folksy enough to get heads nodding, enough to ensure him widespread support despite the pain.

There was nothing orderly about it, and no forethought at all was evident. To reduce education costs (seen as red ink on a profit-loss statement that had nothing to do with future planning or a healthy and civilized society) he eliminated kindergarten, assuring all that the government had “studies” showing that kindergarten was a useless frill, a theory that flew in the face of scientifically-based educational practice. He squeezed education dollars so hard students commonly attended classes of 30 to 40 students, even at the elementary level. No evidence it hurts them, the government cried, despite empirical evidence that said otherwise.

Capacity at universities was slashed — particularly in nursing and education — in an effort to save a buck, despite the looming reality of an aging baby boomer generation needing additional health care. Today we face shortages in such professions.

He blew up hospitals and closed beds, and today, in the face of huge growth, the medical system is limping. Even at the time, as patients lay on gurneys in hospital corridors for hours, as wait times in emergency wards increased into the double-digits, anyone who dared go public with their criticism was dubbed the “Victim of the Week” by our premier.

His arrogance towards those who disagreed with him was breathtaking, and examples abound, but his descent from King Ralph to today’s scapegoat should not take anyone by surprise. Today, the Emperor truly has no clothes.

And today, some of his henchmen are running willy-nilly around the province, trying to win support for their own bid to be premier. If not actively distancing themselves from Ralph, they are remarkably silent about their participation in the “no-plan” approach to government.

But Albertans as a pack have remarkably short memories and huge stomachs for betrayal. One of them will prevail and, as promised, become our next premier. Lucky us.

Also See:

Alberta

One Party State

Klein

Democratic Deficit

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