All Quiet On the BT

Cerbeus notes that the Blogging Tories have been notably silent on last nights Quebec motion, and the consequential resignation of the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs. Silent as death. Oh except for Adam Daifallah who mentions it en passant as they say in Chess.

Deafening silence over the real meaning of the motion that passed last night.

Senator Marjorie LeBreton and Transport Minister Lawrence Cannon met reporters to try to explain the government's reasoning for cabinet solidarity on the issue.

But reporters pressed LeBreton and Cannon to clear up confusion on the motion itself, asking why it refers to the Québécois even in its English version and why not Quebecers.

A reporter from the Montreal Gazette, the largest English newspaper in Quebec, wanted to know whether her readers were Québécois too.

"Does it include every resident of Quebec regardless of which boat their ancestors came over on?" she asked.

Cannon replied: "No, it doesn't. It doesn't. Let's be clear on this."

See

Quebec



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Tory Losers

Liberals, Bloc win byelections, May finishes 2nd

Well this says alot about the New Government of Canada. They can't win byelections after nine months in power. Even with a right wing parachute candidate in London, handpicked by the PMO with support of paid government hacks. Of course they also didn'tdare run their unelected Senator/Cabinet Minister in Quebec. And Elizabeth May despite being a parachute candidate made a good showing. Strategic voting would have helped May win.

So will Garth Turner be the first Green MP now? Well the party has shifted to the right with its appointment of the former leader of the BC Green Party as its Deputy Leader.

The London byelection shows the NDP have the Green Party to worry about.


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Good News From NATO

NATO prepares exit strategy for Afghanistan
NATO forces could start withdrawing from Aghanistan in two years time but more reinforcements are needed now - that was the message from Alliance Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer at a summit meeting in Latvia. De Hoop Scheffer said a gradual transfer of power to local forces was possible, but first the country needed to be stabilised.

Let's see that would be in 2008. At least a year earlier than the Harpocrites committed us too. Good News indeed. good news for our troops who are in harms way, and good news for taxpayers footing the bill. And if NATO can't muster all the troops they need why there will be extra Brit and US forces available next year as they exit Iraq.

See

Afghanistan






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Stelmach Up The Middle

Ted Morton is scared. He announced yesterday that he was now the moderate candidate for leadership of the provincial PC's. With major endorsements from Hancock and Oberg and now Norris, Stelmach is gaining strength in numbers. And this scares Morton.

Morton tries to lure support from leadership rivals

With Dinning grabbing the majority of the votes and Stelmach’s support growing since the ballots were counted, Morton, who sits in the right end of the political spectrum, yesterday cast a wider net looking for Conservatives of all shades to join his campaign.

“To the supporters of the other candidates ... I’d be honoured to have your support,” he said.

“My goal has always been a broad, inclusive coalition that includes all Conservatives, red Tories, blue Tories, green Tories, back into our party.”

And although he has promised to build a party based on principle, at the end of the day, he will do what the Tory majority wants him to do, he said yesterday(MON).

“A Ted Morton government will be as Conservative or as Liberal or as moderate as our party wants it to be,” he said.

“The key to keeping a conservative coalition together ... means that no one fraction is going to get everything they want all the time, including myself.”

Yes I know I said that Stelmach was out of the race earlier however I have crunched the numbers and with Norris supporters added to them he has a chance to win. Mea Culpa and a nod to Ken Chapman.

Obviously the Morton camp has done the same. With Saturdays balloting based on Proportional voting, you chose first, second and third place, Stelmachs chances are now better than they looked on the weekend.

Take a look at Greg Farries Map and you will see why.





Mortons power is in the Socred stomping grounds of Southern Alberta. While Stelmachs support is now enhanced in Edmonton, and Northern Alberta (Oberg), and even with Obergs support in Calgary, which went Dinning red.

Dinning will not win the first ballot on Saturday, the forces in the PC's are united in a campaign of anybody but Dinning.

"I think that Jim Dinning is a nice man" but he's surrounded himself with the "Calgary mafia" and "back-room boys," Norris said, explaining why he didn't hitch his star to Dinning's campaign.


Dinning shot his load last week. And his numbers will not go up. His campaign is stalled thanks to Stelmach.Some of the Oberg support may go to Morton, but it is weak. Doerksons vote will go to Morton and Stelmach. McPhersons support goes to Stelmach.Rather the numbers say that Stelmach can come up the middle and win the second ballot. Add them up yourself.

Dinning 29,470 (30.2%)
Morton 25,614 (26.2%)
Stelmach 14,967 (15.3%)
Oberg 11,638 (11.9%)
Hancock 7,595 (7.8%)
Norris 6,789 (6.9%)
Doerksen 873 (0.9%)
McPherson 744 (0.8%)

Stelmach with support from Hancock, Oberg and Norris alone has 40,989. Which is why Morton is afraid, very afraid.Not only has he gotten support from the four, fifth and sixth place candidates, he is everyones favorite second choice on the three choice ballot next weekend. Morton and Dinning supporters all will vote him as second choice. So if there is no clear winner on the first ballot, Stelmach wins.

"Seventy per cent of our party rejected the establishment status quo of Jim Dinning on Saturday night and, given the preferential ballot system we'll be using, the real race is between Ed and myself," Mr. Morton said.

Dinning is claiming it's a two way fight between him and Morton.

Dinning has ruled out Stelmach as a contender and says Morton is his only challenger."I have a high regard for Ed Stelmach. I would love to have him as a right-hand person. He cares about Alberta, he's a smart guy. But clearly, I think that this has come down to a serious two-person race with two distinctly different choices."

I thought so do. But it ain't so. Stelmach seen as man to heal party torn over leadership vote

It's Stelmach up the middle. Which would be good forAlberta. Why? Well two little words; Harry Strom.

See:

Conservative Leadership Race

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Klein Kills Homeless

Relentless sub-zero temperatures are now being blamed for contributing to the deaths of four people in Alberta who were either living on the street or didn't have appropriate permanent shelter.

Man dies trying to keep warm in camper trailer

The grandstand building on Calgary's Stampede grounds has been open since Friday night to provide a temporary emergency warming shelter for up to 300 homeless people because all of the regular shelters were full.

Not satisfied with a drunken brawl in a homeless shelter in Edmonton several years ago now King Ralph can take responsibility for further deaths of the homeless in Oil Rich Alberta.

Well where else do you lay the blame. Remember this is the guy that admited he 'had no plan' to deal with the boomtimes. He was only good at cutting funding to things like homeless shelter programs.

And when the Mayor of Calgary recently complained about not enough municipal funding from the province for progams like homeless shelters, Klein told him to stuff it.

When you are King you are responsible for your people. The bucks stop with Ralph.

Baby It's Cold Outside

See:

Drunk Holds Court

Klein Steals From The Poor And Disabled

Klein Outta Control

Killer Klein

Severely Normal Albertans Go Bye Bye

Ralph Klein

King Ralph


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Left Wing Pragmatism III

Ecuador

It's oil that gives the Left it's power in Latin America. And Ecuador has lots of it.Ecuador to seek to rejoin OPEC: Correa And Canadian Petrocompanies are major investors, though they have sullied reputations having been implicated in the destruction of Ecuadors rainforests.

Kapawi Journal; Ecuador Indians Fend Off Oil Companies With Eco Tourism

But while many ecology-friendly getaways are operated by big tour companies or foreign entrepreneurs, the Kapawi Ecolodge and Reserve is run with the participation of the Achuar, the region's dominant Indian tribe.For the Achuar people, Kapawi is becoming an increasingly important symbol of their independence as they try to resist oil companies that want to drill here. The idea, indigenous leaders say, is to demonstrate options to oil exploration.

People and Forest of Intag…the forests of western Ecuador are among the hottest of the hot spots of the world, meaning that they are among the most endangered ecosystems—down to less than 10 percent of their original extent, mostly destroyed in the past 40 years—and also contain exceptionally large numbers of plant and animal species found nowhere else in the world. The extraordinary value of the Ecuadorian western forests, including the largest remaining remnant that includes Intag, is well known to biologists around the world and often cited in the scientific literature…

Now China and India the new Asian Dragons are investing in Ecuador.Which is real Free Trade but not the kind the Americans want.

China's two largest oil companies will link up to buy assets of EnCana Corp. in Ecuador for $1.42 billion, the second time in a month that Chinese producers won a bidding contest for overseas oilfields against India.China Petrochemical Corp. and China National Petroleum Corp. ``are partners in this venture,'' Liu Weijiang, a spokesman at China National Petroleum, said in Beijing today. Oil & Natural Gas Corp.'s bid may have been rejected because EnCana wouldn't agree to a term guaranteeing that Ecuador honor the sale, an official at the Indian company said.

In capitalist terms the oil companies have nothing to fear from a stable left government in Ecuador. Or they would be pulling out. But of course being pragmatic capitalists they won't. And they will pay the price to stay and profit from Ecuador's rich oil fields. Which includes their social responsibilities to the people and rainforests of Ecuador. The price of oil: how we live and die in the Amazon

Correa may default on Ecuadors debt however that has been done before, and not by a left government but by puppets of US Imperialism. So whats the beef. Nothing. Correa keeps the Ecuador dollar on par with the U.S. and uses oil profits for social programs.

If Venezuela is the example then consumers and workers benefit as more money in their hands means more money bouying up the local economies. Something any good neo-con understands. That's why the keep calling for tax cuts; to put money in the hands of the people. Which is where Ecuadors petrodollars will go with Correa.

Hugo Chavez Gains An Ecuadoran Ally

Ecuadorans voted for populist economist and self-styled "humanist, leftist Christian" candidate Rafael Correa who promised big changes in another Latin American country ruled up to now by and for the interests of capital and against the public welfare.

Correa will face huge challenges ahead when he takes office on January 15 in a country of 13 million, over 70% of whom live in poverty and who supported a man promising to help them with the kinds of social programs Hugo Chavez instituted in Venezuela. Correa sounded a positive tone last night at his campaign headquarters as the early returns showed him to be the likely winner. He told his supporters "It won't be Rafael Correa who assumes power in January; it will be the people." He'll be Ecuador's eighth president in the last decade including three of them driven from office by mass street protests against their misrule. In Mr. Correa, Ecuadorans expect something much different, and he promised to deliver it for them.

Correa said he'll deliver a "citizens' revolution" and supports beginning it by calling for a constituent assembly to write a new constitution, a pattern similar to the one Hugo Chavez followed after his election as Venezuela's president in 1998. He called for renegotiating the country's $16 billion foreign debt and hasn't ruled out an Argentine-style default to free up money for vitally needed social programs that include 100,000 low-cost homes, doubling the $36 "poverty bonus" 1.2 million poor Ecuadorans receive each month and raising the minimum wage.

Debt Restructuring

Correa, who has taught economics at San Francisco University in Quito, said during his four months as finance minister last year that he favored restructuring the nation's $11 billion of foreign bonds. During his campaign Correa said he wouldn't rule out an Argentine-style default. Argentina stopped payments on $95 billion of bonds in late 2001, the biggest sovereign default ever, two years after Ecuador defaulted on its own debt.

Born in Guayaquil, on the Pacific coast of Ecuador, Correa studied economics in Belgium and later at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Correa was appointed finance minister in April 2005 by President Alfredo Palacio. El Comercio reported he was fired four months later for fighting with the World Bank and arranging to sell bonds to Venezuela without providing details to the president.

Ecuador's economy recovered from recession after the government defaulted on $6.5 billion of debt in 1999 and adopted the use of the dollar as its official currency in 2000. The IMF forecasts Ecuador's economy will expand 4.4 percent this year, buoyed by the rally in oil, the country's biggest export, after growing 3.9 percent in 2005.

Last night, Correa reiterated he may default on the country's debt and said Ecuador doesn't need a free trade agreement with the U.S. He also said he would maintain the dollar as Ecuador's currency, replace congress with a constituent assembly and try to ensure Ecuador, South America's fifth-largest oil producer, rejoins the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries after leaving it in 1992.

The switch to the dollar attracted investors, revived an insolvent banking system and helped reduce the inflation rate to 2.1 percent last year from 108 percent in 2000. In 2005, the economy expanded 4.7 percent, according to Standard & Poor's.

Correa's opposition comes from the United States in particular the agribusiness giant Dole Fruit company which benefits from its banana monopoly in Ecuador. This is what is meant by Free Trade, allowing American agribusinesses to maintain their colonial style monopolies in Latin Amercia. While European competitors find their African based markets undercut by companies like Dole. Dole Fruit company bought out the Chiquita Company which was part of the CIA backed United Fruit Company that maintained a monopoly in the region over the past fifty years.

Correa's opponent is the richest man in Ecuador who is the countries coffee, construction and Banana magnate. And a fruit cake.

Banana Magnate

Noboa, Ecuador's richest businessman and a proponent of free trade and foreign investment, may have scared some voters by his references to God and by falling to his knees at campaign rallies to pray for victory, said Daniel Linsker, an analyst at London- based Control Risks Group, a political risk consulting company. ``Noboa was an embarrassment,'' said Esperanza del Castillo, 61, who owns a gift store in San Antonio de Pichincha. ``Correa is an economist, he is academically capable of managing the economy and I like that.''

See

Left Wing Pragmatism II

Left Wing Pragmatism

Politics is Pragmatic

Ortega

Oaxaca Mexican Revolution Continues

State Capitalism

Globalization

Latin America

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Left Wing Pragmatism II

Venezuela

The new evil empire for America is Venezuela and its leader Hugo Chavez. Right after Cuba and Fidel Castro. The American media and politicians liberal and right wing go into spasms of red baiting when one utters two little words; Hugo Chavez.

They deliberately refer to him as a Tyrant and Dictator, smearing him in the headlines and op ed pieces while in footnotes reminding their readers or listners that he yes he was democratically elected. And he will be elected again.
Venezuela's Chavez confident of re-election

What they fail to see is that Chavez for all his rhetoric and bluster is no more and no less a dictator than Ralph Klein, who ruled North Americas only One Party State, and technically still does, of Alberta.

The American media complain that Chavez has increased the state bueracracy, the public sector, well gosh darn so has Klein. Venezuela government payroll balloons

And Alberta and Venezuela have much in common. Really. Not just both our oil and oil sands but a booming economy. And a booming economy is what will get Chavez relected next Sunday.With a population the equivalen of Canada, the oil boom has made Venezuela that 'other petro-economy' like Canada. The boom is benefiting not just the poor but the middle class. And the middle class always votes with its pocket-book.

And while complaining about Venezuela American capitalism thrives in the country, in consumer products. What the Americans are failing to do is invest. Thus Venezuela is partnering with other countries, China,Russia, Iran, etc. who have excess capital for investment.

Venezuelans hit the malls with revolutionary zeal

MARINA JIMÉNEZ

Print Edition 27/11/06 Page A1

Hugo Chavez, Venezuela's President and the man headed for an easy victory in next Sunday's election, may be spreading the Bolivarian socialist model, but at the airy Sambil shopping centre, there are few revolutionaries. Only shoppers. "Venezuela is the second biggest market for plasma televisions in Latin America," says Amilcar Marcos, manager of the mall's LG store.

Outside the mall yesterday, thousands of Chavez supporters in red ball caps and T-shirts filled the streets for a massive closing rally downtown in support of the President, who is ahead of his main rival in opinion polls by as much as 30 percentage points.

With the price of oil now hovering around $60 (U.S.) a barrel, the economy in Venezuela, the world's fifth-largest oil producer, has thrived in recent years.

Mr. Chavez, whose efforts to change Venezuela's economic and social structures are named for independence hero Simon Bolivar, has put an estimated $20-billion into social programs in the past three years. He has funnelled petro-dollars into missions that offer everything from literacy classes and free health care in the poor barrios to preferential contracts for 100,000 newly formed co-operatives. Thousands of Venezuelans have been added to the state payroll. This month, the government handed out its annual Christmas bonuses early, paying about one million government workers the equivalent of three months salary, about $3-billion (U.S.).

In the first five months of this year, consumer spending increased by 30 per cent, compared to the same period last year, according to an AC Nielsen audit of Venezuelan store sales. Sales of Scotch increased 55 per cent last year to 2.6-million boxes of imported and domestic whisky, making Venezuelans among the top 10 consumers of Scotch in the world.

Car sales are expected to reach 300,000 this year, compared to just 84,000 in 2004. Demand for new vehicles is so intense there is a now a four-month wait at dealerships, in a country where a litre of gas costs about 15 cents. Iran backs Venezuela car factory

This consumer boom underscores a key paradox: While Mr. Chavez is ahead in the polls and Venezuelans approve of his leadership, they have no desire to transform their oil economy into a socialist one.

Despite their President's close relationship with Cuba's Fidel Castro, 84 per cent of Venezuelans -- including Chavistas -- do not support the Cuban model, according to a recent poll by AP-Ipsos. A survey by Datanalysis shows that 81 per cent don't support the expropriation of private property, and only 7 per cent agree with a recent statement by Mr. Chavez that being rich was a bad thing.

"There is a great divide between the ideology in Chavez speeches and the people who follow Chavez. They don't actually want to live in a Cuba," notes Cristina Marcano, co-author of the biography Chavez Sin Uniforme.

Even if they are lukewarm on Mr. Castro, Mr. Chavez's message of social justice and the need to include the poor majority -- for years excluded by the corrupt ruling elite from the country's oil largesse -- clearly resonates. It has permanently altered Venezuela's political landscape.

Venezuelans live poor in an oil-rich country

- In Venezuela, the revolution is everywhere, even on the packaging for beans, margarine and cooking oil on the shelves of the state-run supermarkets. Images of independence heroes on horseback gallop across packages of pasta. Socialist slogans decorate bags of flour, all sold at deep discount at the 15,000 Mercal shops -- non-profit grocery stores the government has opened across the country.

"For a Venezuela without illiteracy," reads a bag of rice, with a lengthy reference to the constitutional rights of the people. A one-kilo bag costs 50 cents, half the price charged in the "capitalist" store down the street.

"We lived a lot worse before Hugo Chavez came along," said Noris Palma, 29, one of a dozen customers at the Mercal outlet in Parroquia El Valle, a poor neighbourhood at the city's western edge, which is also home to a government-run soup kitchen and a free medical clinic. "Now there are more opportunities for the poor -- to go to university, maybe to get a house. I have asked the government to help build one for me and my fiancé."

Mr. Chavez, Venezuela's mercurial President, is best known on the world stage for his virulent anti-American rhetoric, his cozying up to pariah nations such as Iran and Libya, his oil diplomacy and attempts to export socialism.

But here at home, the 52-year-old twice-divorced former paratrooper remains a wildly popular, if divisive, figure. Mr. Chavez is expected to easily win the Dec. 3 presidential election, with a 20- to 30-point lead over his closest rival. The charismatic populist, first elected to office in 1998, is busy overseeing oil-financed social programs called "missions" that have reached an almost surreal level. This week, for example, he announced the construction of 50 new universities and pledged to distribute 52 million energy-efficient light bulbs.

The leftist tide that appeared to be sweeping the Americas earlier this year has given way to leaders with a more moderate vision, including the new presidents of Mexico and Costa Rica. At one time a notorious leftist, Alan Garcia regained the presidency in Peru by embracing free trade and open markets. Even Nicaragua's president-elect, former Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega, campaigned on a platform of stability and moderation, using John Lennon's Give Peace a Chance as his theme song.

See;

Chavez

Left Wing Pragmatism

Politics is Pragmatic

Ortega

Oaxaca Mexican Revolution Continues

New Asian Dragon

State Capitalism

Globalization

Latin America

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Venezuela, globalization, Tiger Economies

Baby It's Cold Outside

Listening to CKUA they just played Baby It's Cold Outside with Louis Armstrong and Velma Middleton And it is. Brrrrr. And just think it is still Fall, twenty three days till it is officially winter. Brrrrrrrr

lyrics - baby, it's cold ou ...

Wind chill warning for:
City of Edmonton-St. Albert-Sherwood Park

EXTREME WIND CHILL VALUES EXPECTED OVERNIGHT.

CLEARING SKIES AND NORTHERLY WINDS OF 20 KM/H WILL PRODUCE EXTREME WIND CHILL VALUES OF -40 OR LESS. EXTREME WIND CHILL VALUES WILL DIMINISH LATER THIS MORNING AS THE WINDS GRADUALLY DIMINISH.

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