Tuesday, May 23, 2006

Dodge Ball


some economists believe the Bank of Canada may be habitually overestimating inflation because the central bank is focusing too much attention on traditional factors that cause prices to rise -- like a tight labour market and booming domestic demand -- and not enough on globalization and international competition.

Yep I have said it before the Bank of Canada is stuck in the Mulroney era. Leave well enough alone, David Dodge. But of course being a monetarist like he is he won't.Bank of Canada expected to raise interest rates which will result in;

Markets could be in for more losses in coming week
"That calls into question the Bank of Canada's own assertion that core inflation was going to be back at the two per cent threshold by the third quarter," said TD Securities chief strategist Marc Levesque. "It looks like the bank may have a bit more wiggle room on the inflation front, so I think this just adds to the likelihood that it could, in fact, choose to take a pass and do nothing." "Tame core inflation, a tight-as-a-drum labour market, healthy retail sales, a firm Canadian dollar, a red-hot economy in the west... what's a central bank to do?" asked Avery Shenfeld, senior economist with CIBC World Markets.

Leave well enough alone. Geez does it take an anarchist to tell the capitalists how the market works? Guess so.


More on Dodge

Also See

Loonie

Petro Dollar

Monopoly

Monopolies


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Silly Headlines

Human Remains Found in Quebec

I would hope so since humans have lived there for thousands of years.



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Harper Has Already Abandoned Kyoto

Which is why Rona Ambrose is on CTV Question Period,on Sunday and sitting on her duff in the House and not in Bonn.

And when asked why she isn't in Bonn, she replies like the trained parrot she is; "We want a made in the USA....errr...Canada policy."

Yeah more like a Made In Alberta policy.



Kyoto backslide sparks furor

Canada sabotaging Kyoto accord, environmentalists say

Canada wants Kyoto deal scrapped - reports


More On Kyoto


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Ping!

I use Pingomatic to hit multiple blog-readers. Lately it has been a bit funky but over all it when it works it saves you lots of time. And don't forget to Tag!
And if you have breaking news, its good to also post it to Indymedia.


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Monday, May 22, 2006

Just The Facts Ma'am

This is a follow up on my previous article;UN Report Says We Need A Living Wage

Just the facts ma'am.

The facts show that for the majority of women in Canada Day Care is NOT a matter of Choice it's a matter of NEED.

And this is true for single mothers who have no choice in whether to work or not. The myth of the two income family which allows for so called 'choices' of staying home, is a return to the era of Leave It To Beaver, and even then women worked outside the home.

Those who claim to speak for choice in staying home can only afford too because they live on two family incomes, both are professionals earning above average wages who can afford to have one parent stay home by defering their salary.

The attack on Day Care in Canada by the Harpocrite government is based on their base in Alberta's patriarchical religious right, who wanna keep the little woman at home barefoot and pregnant. And if she dares to not be married well she is after all a fallen woman and should get no support from society. She should be shunned.

Such is the real message in the Harpocrites Non Day Care policy.

Single mothers

550,000 – The estimated number of single-parent families headed by women in Canada in 2004.

$27,700 — The after tax income of lone-parent families headed by women in 2004.

Source: The Daily, Thursday, March 30, 2006, “Income of Canadians”.

38% — The proportion of families headed by lone-parent mothers that had incomes which fell below the after-tax low income cut-off (LICO) in 2003. In comparison, this was the case for 13% of male lone-parent families and just 7% of non-elderly two-parent families with children. The incidence of low income among lone-parent families headed by women has declined somewhat since the early 1980s, when the figure hovered around 50%.

68% — The percentage of female lone parents who were employed in 2004.

Source: The Daily, Tuesday, March 7, 2006, “Women in Canada”.


Working Mothers

65% — The percentage of all women with children under the age of three who were employed in 2004.

70% — The percentage of women whose youngest child was aged three to five who worked for pay in 2004.

Source: The Daily, Tuesday, March 7, 2006, “Women in Canada”.

54% — The proportion of children in Canada aged six months to five years who were in some form of child care in 2002-2003, up from 42% in 1994-1995. (From the National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth.)

Source: The Daily, Wednesday, April 5, 2006, “Child care: An eight-year profile”.

Boy babies less likely for single mothers


Women living with a male partner are more likely to give birth to boys than women who live alone, suggests a study of 86,000 US births. The finding hints that higher numbers of single mothers could explain a recent drop in the birth rate of boys in some developed countries.

Evolutionary theory suggests female animals can boost the chances of propagating their genes if they can control the gender of their offspring, depending on environmental conditions and the fitness of their mate.

Males are generally considered more costly to feed and raise than females. But, if fit, they can produce many offspring with many different females. But whereas an unfit female is still very likely to reproduce, an unfit male may never mate.

In humans, about 51% of babies are boys. But previous research has shown that women tend to have girls when food is scarce and boys when they are optimistic about their own futures. The effect of a committed partner on a child's sex has been unclear, however, with various theories making contradicting predictions.

Gender Inequality in Poverty in Affluent Nations: The Role of Single Motherhood and the State.

Poverty, as measured in this study, refers to whether the household one lives in has a total cash income below half of the median income of households in the individual's nation. Nations with high poverty for women also tend to have high poverty for men. The U.S. and Canada lead the way with the highest poverty rates for both men and women. The lowest poverty rates for both occur in Sweden and the Netherlands.


Single Mother Crisis in Canada

posted by: Ladan Affi (Friday, February 10, 2006)

The Somali Crisis in Canada:
The Single Mother Phenomenon

"The growing Somali community is considered to be one of the most disadvantaged among the visible and ethnic minorities In many cases, women fled Somalia with false passports and could only bring the number of children stated on these passports. The financial issue of the cost to bring the children to Canada was also used as a factor to decide which children to bring. The decision of who would depart and who would stay is a most difficult one since there are mother who leave young children behind in the hopes of sponsoring them, once they become permanent residents. This process however, on average, takes over one year and sometimes longer.

Third, the rate of divorce among Somali couples is incredibly high. The confilicts which arise are mainly due to the redefinition of traditional cultural roles between women and men and the stress of trying to cope in a foreign country. For example, women raise a family without the help of their husbands, yet it is the men who expect to be treated with respect and exert authority as heads of households as they once had in Somalia. These men are expecting to be obeyed without contributing very much to the well-being of the family.

In Somalia, men did not help their wives with household chores and caring for their children because there are many relatives helping them instead. In Canada, however, this kind of support from relatives does not exist, yet Somali men fail to understand that.



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UN Report Says We Need A Living Wage


Canada failing to care for poor, disadvantaged: UN report

Yep ever since 1995, when Paul Martin became Finance Minister and Ralph Klein kicked off his phoney war on the debt and deficit on the backs of the poor, unions and public sector workers.

The UN committee's findings are particularly harsh in regards to cuts made under the previous Liberal government to federal transfer payments earmarked for social services. The report suggests the cuts have had a serious impact on the standard of living of many of the country's minority groups. UN committee delivers harsh appraisal of Canada's social services


But it saved its harshest critique for how the Liberals, and now the Harpocrites, use EI to fund their surplus while denying Canadians basic economic rights. UN report criticizes Canada's EI program

While those who are optimists will focus on the fact that the committee reports;
Despite Canada's economic prosperity, the report says, roughly 11.2 per cent of the population lived in poverty in 2004. That is a drop from 13.7 per cent in 1998.

They will say we are doing better, when we still have over ten percent of the population living in poverty, many of those are women; as single mothers and seniors. Which is why we need a Social Wage.



Also see:

Living Wage articles




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Harpers Billion Dollar Blunder


The Liberals blundered over the helicopter purchase by the Mulroney government, which the Chretien Liberals made an election promise to renege on. They did. Costing us billions in the lost contract and then billions more in replacing the helicopters.

Now the Harpocrite government has done the same thing with the canceling the Liberal Governments Environmental programs. One of their five priorities.

Ironic ain't it.

Tech firms see red in Tory pullout

Canada is paying a huge price in lost investment and business development because of Ottawa's dithering over climate change, industry people say. In particular, we're missing opportunities in the burgeoning global trade in pollution credits — a system that played a big role in reducing acid rain and is now widely viewed as the best way to induce businesses to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.The plan devised by the previous Liberal government, they say, was flawed and developing at a frustrating turtle speed. The new Conservative government has caused further delay by killing that plan without anything to put in its place."The do-nothing option is not free," says Len Eddy, president of AgCert Canada, the Edmonton-based Canadian branch of an international company that invests in emissions-cutting projects. "It's an extremely expensive option. "Analysts estimate the lost investment this year totals as much as $1 billion. It's gone forever, Eddy says.

Also See:

Kyoto

Harper

Rona Ambrose

Climate Change

Global Warming

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Harpers Ideal

Here is the result of law and order platforms embraced by the right, and what we can expect with the Harpocrite Government's new crime laws.

The US Prison Industrial Complex is growing by 1000 people a week thanks to, wait for it....the War on Drugs.

Something the Harpocrite has declared as part of his law and order policy for Canada. So this is what we have to look forward to.

The United States continues to have the highest prison population in the world, withe 1,000 inmates added to the nation's prisons each week from June 2004 to June 2005.

At mid-year 2005, jail facilities were operating at 95% capacity;

The Sentencing Project, an advocacy group, reports that the U.S. incarceration rate in 2004 was the highest in the world, at 724 per 100,000 population. Second was Russia, at 532 per 100,000.

'The data is clear: Drug use is driving up prison numbers throughout the region,' the state's corrections secretary Tim Reisch said in the news release. 'In South Dakota, we are directing our resources to address the issue head on.'

One American in 136 is in prison.



Imagine that more prisoners in the 'land of the Free' than in Russia. And both countries share something else in common, the disreputible use of Capital Punishment.



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Maxim Jail Time

No this is not a case of free speech it's a case of idenity theft and a violation of that most sacred of all American property; intellectual property. It is also just unintelligent, period.

Khushboo case: SC refuses to grant bail to Maxim editor

New Delhi, May 22: The Supreme Court today refused to grant anticipatory bail to Sunil Mehra, editor of the magazine Maxim, against whom a case has been registered for publishing indecent morphed photographs of Khushboo.

The actress had sued the Indian edition of men’s magazine Maxim for a picture published in its inaugural January issue. She filed a defamation case along with criminal and obscenity charges against the British publishers as well as the editors of the Indian edition.

The magazine morphed Khushboo’s face onto a woman clad in black lingerie, with the caption, ‘‘Of course I am a virgin if you don’t count from the behind’’ under it.

Despite the fact that the fine print under the picture reads, ‘‘Women you will never see in Maxim’’ as well as ‘‘100% fake’’, the actor doesn’t see the humour. ‘‘I’m not an object. This incident has damaged me and the publishers must pay for the damage,’’ she said.

And she is not the only star complaining about Maxim ripping off their 'images' to use in their magazine.


Model Complains About Corbis Photo On Maxim Cover


May 18, 2006

By Daryl Lang

Model Veronica Varekova is publicly accusing Maxim magazine of using her image on its cover without her permission, though the magazine says it licensed the photo legitimately from Corbis. "They put me on the cover without my permission," Varekova told the Associated Press this week. "They have no right to do it." The photo of Varekova, topless and seen from the back, was shot by photographer Michael Williams for the British edition of GQ last year and licensed to the American edition of Maxim through Corbis Outline. Varekova's complaint draws light to the common practice of reusing photos shot for one magazine in another market. (It is also convenient publicity for Maxim's June issue, which hit newsstands today.)

As they say on Hawaii Five-O; Book 'Em Danno.

Clearly Maxim fails to follow the Playboy principle of paying its models, photographers, and authors, etc. Imagine that a principled Mens Magazine; Playboy NOT Maxim.


And no you will not find Sidney Crosby in Maxim.



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Anarchist Humour

I thought that this was a particularly funny comment in an pithy ironic sardonic anarchist fashion.

It shows that not all of us support the stupid twits in the Animal Liberation Front, as you can tell from my rants about the Seal Hunt.

And here is another case in point about animal research being useful. Yes I said that. Perfect Cure for Cancer Found In Mice

Which is why I don't subscribe to the ideology of the Green Anarchist.
While remaining a Social Ecologist.


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Carnival of Personal Finance


The Carnival of Personal Finance 49 is online now, and your humble scribe has a contribution in this issue.

To my critics who decry capitalist ads in a libertarian communist blog, ya have to know how capitalism works to critique it, and one thing it teaches is TANSTAAFL.
An anarchist taught me that.



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Sid Crosby Metrosexual


I came across this cheescake shot of Sidney Crosby at Jes GÅ‘lbez hockey Rants

While it graced the pages of Vanity Fair poor Macho Jes thinks its eye candy for the girls.

Poor deluded fool, this is homoerotica if ever there was any. But then Jez does have a thing for Sid.

Oh right only straight men watch hockey. Yeah right, boys.

Vanity Fair is the very epitome of Metrosexual, unlike say oh, Maxim.



Is this a cheapshot against Jes?
Yep.
He hates the Oilers.





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Swedens Ugly Win


While all eyes were on the NHL games this weekend, it was the final round of the IIHF World Cup in Riga, Latvia. And Sweden defeated Canada on Saturday to go on and win their second Gold Medal, after winning against Team Canada at the Olympics.

This however was an ugly win, not worthy of the Swedes, and frankly a lousy call by the Refs. A major nasty cross check was put on Sidney Crosby, the young outstanding Canadian in the game, after he scored.

While assessed as a major penalty of five minutes, it should have been a major game misconduct worthy of losing a player for the rest of the game. It was an ugly cross check to Crosby's face knocking off his helmet , busting his nose and knocking him to the ice while he was celebrating his goal.

Sid's effort falls short

The game was comfortably in Sweden's control until Crosby was viciously cross checked in the jaw by Mika Hannula after scoring to make it 5-3 with 35 seconds to play in the second period.

He left the game feeling dizzy but had a breakaway 10 seconds after returning in the third period. Crosby then set up Patrice Bergeron's goal to get Canada within one and had a few chances to tie it.

It was a performance that left his teammates in awe.

"I think it said a lot to us the way Sid came out and played the third period because he was in rough shape during the second intermission," said captain Brendan Shanahan. "It says a lot to hockey fans and the people of Canada."



It was malicious and brutish. Something that one expects in the NHL but not in International Hockey. But then look where Sweden and the other Europeans play hockey, in the NHL.

As it was Crosby went on to score another goal, but it wasn't enough to win. That cheap shot, cheapened the game, and the Swedes win. What victory they gained in the Olympics is now tarnished, and their Gold Win in the World Cup was not won by gentlemen but by thugs.

Canada loses 5-4 to Sweden in semifinal

The game looked comfortably in Sweden's control until Crosby was viciously cross-checked in the jaw by Mika Hannula after scoring to make it 5-3 with 35 seconds to play in the second period.

The Canadian star had his arms in the air in celebration after poking his own rebound past Johan Holmqvist when Hannula ran him into the end boards. Crosby stayed down for a minute before being taken straight to the Canadian dressing room.

Hannula was assessed a five-minute major and given a game misconduct, but Canada only got a three-minute power play after a melee ensued.

"It was a blatant cross-check to the face," Canada coach Marc Habscheid said. "It's disappointing, especially when there's smiles and laughs on their bench. . . .

"He's a great player, I don't know what they were doing."

Crosby returned for the third period and broke in alone on Holmqvist just 10 seconds into the period, but was stopped by the Swedish goalie.

His revenge would still come. Crosby took control of the puck behind the goal while still on the power play and fed Bergeron, who one-timed it by Holmqvist at 3:38 to narrow the lead to 5-4.

As Canada pressed for the tying goal, the Swedes continued to test Crosby with late hits after the whistle. The teenager's temper was questioned a couple times during the NHL season, but he showed no signs of losing his cool here.

"I think it said a lot to us the way Sid came out and played the third period because he was in rough shape during the second intermission," Canadian captain Brendan Shanahan said. "It says a lot to hockey fans and the people of Canada who are still trying to figure him out."

In a lot of ways that game ended it for Canada, demoralized they could not win against Finland whom they played for the Bronze. The cheap shot on Crosby, and the continued attacks on Canada's Star Player shows that the age of Gretzky is over even in International Hockey, and the rough and tumble NHL rules, rule.

Pluck just not enough
`Drained' Canadians give their all but come up empty versus Finns
Olympic champion Swedes blank Czech Republic to win gold


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Montenegro By A Nose


`Victory' for Montenegro
Balkan state votes for independence, unofficial tally shows

Opponents of break with Serbia refuse to concede defeat

An unofficial count of all ballots by a referendum monitoring group gave Yes forces 55.5 per cent of the vote — slightly above the 55 per cent minimum set by the European Union for the sovereignty vote to be recognized.


I would say winning by .5 is a Pyrrhic victory And it resolves nothing leaving both sides now dangerously divided, and thus could increase the potential for politcal upheaval and instability in Montengro more than anything else. Reminding us once again of the dangers of independence by referendum.

Something Quebec also learned the hard way in 1995. And which the Federal Clarity Act will to little to correct.



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Sunday, May 21, 2006

Anarchism A Google Trend


I looked up Anarchism on Googles new tool; Google Trends and found that Greek was the language used most often to look up Anarchism. No surprize there since Anarchy comes from Greek; Anarkos. Which may explain why Anarchy gets confused with Kaos sometimes, exactly Mr. Shmart.

English was second and Swedish third, yes there is a large Anarcho Syndicalist movement in Sweden. Proving my thesis that you need a strong social democratic movement and government to create a condition for a strong extra-parliamentary left opposition, the very ocean within which anarchism spreads.

New Zealand topped the list for regions where references to anarchism can be found. Canada I am pleased to say came ahead of the U.S. and U.K. in sixth place. Not to shabby.

When it came to cities Vancouver came second behind Dublin (which is home to the Platformist Anarchist movement) and ahead of Auckland. The US. West Coast was well repersented of course with Seattle, Portland and San Fransisco. Surprising London England home of Freedom Magazine was missing.

The four most popular articles since 2004 are;

Teen Columnist: Music fat cats bastardizing punk rock, anarchism
Tucson Citizen - Sep 7 2004
Indigenism, Anarchism, and the State
ZNet - Apr 29 2005
The triumph of anarchism
Hindu - Dec 10 2005
Venezuela 2006: Anarchism against all odds
Bay Area Indymedia - Mar 10 2006


Now compare that to Libertarian which is dominated by English language and American sites and you can see which is the real Internationalist movement.

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Macho Kinsella


Macho Warren Kinsella was in fine form the other day proving that not only is he a Zionist syncophant but he is sexist as well.

Calling Tor Star blogger Antonia Zerbias a 'screecher', the sort of epithat used for women, oh like Sheila Copps, because in his conspiracy adled brain he see's her focusing on the Asper media chain, of which the National Pest his employer is part of, because, gasp they are Jewish. Hence she must be...wait for it...an anti-semite.

This guy never gives up on the low blows and cheap shots, and seeing anti-semites everywhere. He is in a sense the mirror image of the fascists whom he opposes, they too see conspiracies everywhere.

Maybe she is criticising the Asper chain because they are a Media Monopoly, like their predecesor the notorious criminal and Dark Lord of Media; Conrad Black. Whom they replaced when they bought him out. Wait lets not criticize Lord Black, his wife is Jewish. Warren is Canada's other loonie.

Warren is so predictable, when it comes to anything to do with Israel. The illegal state that currently rules over occupied Palestine. And now he is defending the yellow journalism at the Pest, his employer, when they make false claims about Iran. Of course Warren like other Zionist apologists see a nuclear Iran as far scary than a nuclear Israel.

At present, Iran has little more than primitive gropings towards the technology needed for nuclear self-defence. Yet these are being presented as a casus belli by Bush, Blair, Chirac and Olmert, whose own states are armed with hundreds—in the American case, thousands—of nuclear weapons. Whining and cavilling over the small print of Vienna protocols, however warranted, is a futile pursuit for Iranian diplomacy. The country would do better to choose the right moment and simply withdraw from the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Of all the anachronistic emperors in the world, it is the most brazenly naked. There is not a shred of justification for the oligopoly of the present nuclear powers, so hypocritical it does not dare even speak its name—Israel, with 200 nuclear bombs, is never mentioned. There will never be nuclear disarmament until it is broken. Tariq Ali: Mid-Point in the Middle East?


See:
Harper Says No Nukes For India

Iran

Asper

National Post


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You don't need a Weatherman to know.....

From this mornings weather prediction on the Weather Channel


Mainly sunnyChance of thunder- showersChance of thunder- showersCloudy periods
TEMPERATURE 7°C21°C21°C11°C
CONDITION Mainly sunnyChance of thunder- showersChance of thunder- showersCloudy periods
P.O.P. 0%40%40%10%
WIND S 10 km/hSW 10 km/hS 10 km/hSE 10 km/h
HUMIDITY 100%47%49%86%

We don't expect any precipitation from Sunday morning to Monday morning.



Oh really no precipitation. Wonder what they mean by Thunder Showers?!

As this clearly shows weather prestidigitation is neithier prescient nor empircal.

And as a science IT is in good keeping with astrology.

Proving you really don't need a Weatherman to know which way the wind blows.....





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Harper Says No Nukes For India



Finally the Harpocrite government has decided to take a stand in opposition to the U.S. In this case over the USA's new found nuclear alliance with India.

The real reason of course is less about enlightened politics than it is about dealing with American attempts to force Canada and Australia to clean up their nuclear waste, a punitive attempt to make US uranium exports appear more competitive.

That and of course the promotion of US nuclear plants, which are far less safe than the Canadian CANDU reactors. Harpers announcement about India, while good PR will probably last as long as when he and Howard get an agreement from their pal Bush to include them in his new nuclear pact. Yep colour me cycnical about Harper ever doing the 'right thing'.

Mr. Harper, speaking at a joint news conference with the Australian leader, said the Conservatives have not yet established a nuclear policy. But he believes nuclear reactors will be an important source of energy in the decades ahead.


But the question of supplying India is another matter, he suggested. "It's an issue we are looking at with some degree of caution."

Canadians are particularly sensitive on this point, he said, because India used Canadian-supplied technology in the early 1970s to put together its first crude nuclear bomb.

Mr. Harper said Canada will be looking to see if India signs on to international non-proliferation agreements as Ottawa decides whether to supply that country with nuclear technology.

Harper also said his government is "looking carefully" at a United States proposal that would compel uranium exporting countries such as Canada to repatriate and dispose of spent nuclear fuel.

The Bush administration has proposed creating the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, a consortium of nations that supply nuclear fuel in order to better control weapons proliferation. Canada and Australia together export 43 per cent of the world's uranium.

Neither Harper nor Howard directly addressed the question of repatriating nuclear fuel waste, but both indicated nuclear power is part of their countries energy future and that the U.S. proposal is in play.


See Nukes
and Nuclear

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Gee Thats What I Said

The strong Canadian dollar is doing the Bank of Canada's job for it -- keeping a lid on inflation -- and in doing so is saving each Canadian household hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars, and the economy billions.

Yep thats what I said here. To those right wingers who say I don't undertand economics. Nyah, Nyah.



Also See

Loonie

Petro Dollar

Monopoly

Monopolies


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Saturday, May 20, 2006

Canada Reaches Peak Oil In 2020

Behind the rosy glasses and good news, tinkling of champagne glasses, report of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, touting the increased growth in the Tar Sands oil production, there lies the ominous Peak Oil prediction. Yep peak oil will begin in Alberta in 2020, about the time that Hubbert predicted. " production from conventional oil wells will decline by half by 2020, to only 550,000 barrels a day, CAPP predicts."

And Alberta is not the only region in Canada facing a decline in conventional gas and oil production. Canada's newest oil supply source, offshore production on the Grand Banks of Newfoundland, is forecast to peak at 320,000 barrels per day in 2010 then sink by 50 per cent to 160,000 barrels daily in 2020. Slow exploration, poor drilling luck, forbidding environmental conditions and political disputes over resource ownership and revenues are expected to stall development.

So while CAPP predicts Tar Sands production will replace conventional production, that still does not mean that Peak Oil conditions will be allievated in 2020. Rather they are betting that Tar Sands production will meet world demand, however they fail to consider that their predictions are based on current world demand, not on the inevitable; increasing demand. And again they gloss over the more serious issue, our conventional oil and gas reserves are on decline. Period.



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Technocracy Inc. Predicted Oil Crisis Over 50 years ago

I thought I would re-post this article here, as it is buried deep in my RedBetweenTheLines blog at Modblog. And given how often Modblog fails, which is why I no longer post there, I thought I would republish it here. Just in case it disappeared into the cyberabyss. And it is still relevant since it was published in January 2005. Wow way back then.

Recently a discussion on M.K.Hubbert arose on the marxism discussion list. This in itself was rather surprizing since Hubbert is a technocrat, and Technocracy Inc. is usually dismissed by the left as being some utopian scheme, or some kind of strange sect or cult. They were the original scientists and engineers for social responsibility, and being ahead of their time their theories appear to read like science fiction.

Hubbert is a favorite reference for my uncle, John Gregory, a professional engineer and geologist who worked for the National Research Council of Canada and is a long time member of Technocracy Inc here in Edmonton. As a social democratic technocrat living in the energy capital of Canada, his promotion of Hubberts therom was downright heresy. I grew up with a political understanding of technocracy as a progressive movement thanks to my uncle. Technocrats in Edmonton have always been activists appearing at all the progressive rallies and forums promoting their form of planned industrial/energy economy.

M. K. Hubbert predicated the Oil Crisis of 1972, waaaay back in the Fifties. He predicts that we will face a further oil crisis in the early part of this Century as reserve stocks decline along with increased demand.
Hubbert was dismissed at the time as a technocrat and his work is still villified in some circles today.Hubbert's work however has gained further legitimacy as oil prices have rocketed, and the Imperialist oil wars have drawn attention to this ongoing crisis.

Hubberts solution to this crisis was his theory of steady state economics. What was once thought of as crackpot theories of Technocracy, Hubbert has gained with new respect for his predictive analysis. Especially now that the impact of oil culture on the biosphere has been documented. Hubbert had already predicted that increasing reliance on oil would lead to an evironmental crisis in 1974.

Before dismissing Technocracy, one should review their work on economics needing to be energy based, actual credits based on the total value of physical energy available in an industrialized society. Not wage based, in other words they call for abolishing the wage system! Technocracy opposes capitalisms m-c-m formula (money-capital-money, or as we would call it today the Casino Capitalism of the Stockmarket) they oppose this money economy or price economy as they call it and propose replacing it with an energy economy.

Technocracy is a left wing industrial/social planning model , once banned at the same time as other left wing groups in the US and Canada. They promoted the theories ofthe Icelandic/American socialist Thorstein Veblen, author of the Leisure Class which gave us the term 'conspicious consumption'. Spefically Technocracy was influenced by his work: The Engineers And The Price System, regarding the social responsibilities of Science and Engineering which were direclty linked to the radical workers movement of the 1920's. The opening chapter is about Sabotage in the work place, the workers dissastisfaction with work and their alienation in industrial societies.

Technocracy Inc. from its beginings had friendly relations with the IWW, and was influenced by its unique form of North American syndicalism. Howard Scott was a friend of IWW General Secretary Vincent St. John, who got him to write articles for the union. Like other brain workers Technocrats viewed themsleves as workers, not a professional managment class as scientists and engineers have become today.

Unfortunately like left wing ideas of workers control, or self management which have been recuperated by capitalism and its managment theorists, technocracy and the term technocrat have been used as a prejorative for years. The reality is that technocrats are not just social engineers but socialist engineers, and an open organization to everyone, except politicians. Why thats downright anarchist of them.

Which may explain why politicians use technocrat as prejorative, they don't like being left out of anything.

Modblog stories on Peak Oil

Le Revue Gauch stories:

Thorstein Veblen

Technocracy

Peak Oil



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Another Free Trade Deal


I must have been sleeping through these talks....but note why they take on importance now...more open markets to importing not just goods and capital, but skilled labour into the Tar Sands.

Canada and South Korea are in the midst of negotiating a free trade agreement and have just wrapped up the fifth round of bilateral talks aimed at signing a comprehensive deal by the end of 2006.South Korea is interested in expanding its presence in the Canadian oilpatch and the country's state oil firm, Korea National Oil Corp., will be opening an office in Calgary. The country is also interested in providing skilled labour

Time for Alberta's unions to begin to organize their own globalization campaign by working with unions in Korea, the Phillipines and Venezuala and anywhere else that the capitalists are planning to import temporary labour from.
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Friday, May 19, 2006

Hockey is Violence


So ask your self this, why does boxing on ice skates; hockey result in riots on Whyte Avenue. Could there be a connection between this violent sport, one the fans watch for fights, as Don Cherry has made a video career out of, and fans on Whyte getting rowdy and violent? Nah.

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Neil Waugh Moves Left


Yep its true the right wing crumdgeon Neil Waugh,business columnist at the Edmonton Sun, has become the friend of the workingman and gasp building trades unions!

Though he still manages to get his digs in on the AFL and the divide in the house of labour over the issue of CLAC and CNRL brining in temporary workers, and whether the house of labour should salt CNRL or boycott them.

In his latest column he blasts the Alberta government making him sound like he signed up with the NDP. Move over Brian Mason there's a new pinko in Redmonton.


Alberta unemployment rates are at "near record low levels. The demand for manpower exceeds the available supply of skilled workers in many sectors of the economy," the CAPP document noted. (Unless you are an Alberta Building Trades Council tradesman sitting at home while Chinese and Filipino boilermakers, welders and electricians are showing up at two, maybe more, Fort McMurray jobs.) CAPP's "solution" is "training and immigration."

Sooner or later someone must be asking, if Albertans are giving up billions in forgone royalty (oilsands plants only pay 1% until payout), why are we wreaking environmental havoc in the boreal forest with this massive buildup in production? Especially if the "immigration" solution is to import crews from the Third World?

Why aren't energy companies being forced to build their value-added facilities in Alberta, rather than sending the stuff down bullet pipelines to American refineries? This huge ramp-up in oil- sands production maybe CAPP's agenda. But remind me again, what's in it for Albertans?


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