Wednesday, January 25, 2006

Rahim Jaffer Not In Cabinet

Well at least there is a silver lining to the ignomious victory for the right wings favorite drinking buddy and Muslim of convenience (he claimed to have missed his first election forum cause he was attending Muslim services) Rahim Jaffer.

PARTY OF THE NIGHT

Jaffer's election-night party Monday at Mike Yasinski's Hudson's Pub on Calgary Trail morphed into the Conservative party's celebration headquarters.

From an eerie quiet earlier in the evening, the party hit a fevered pitch by 11 p.m. and was still going strong when Hicks on Six rolled out the door at 2 a.m. yesterday.

The next generation of political leaders - Jaffer, Rajotte, Lake and Ambrose - cracked an enormous bottle of champagne, saving a few drops for Laurie Hawn who arrived a short time later.

Celebrating with the members of Her Majesty's newest government of Canada were provincial cabinet ministers Lyle Oberg, Gene Zwozdesky; Leduc MLA George Rogers; Conservative campaign director Hal Danchilla and the political "godfather" of many of the younger members of Parliament, retired Conservative MP and MLA Ian McClelland.


He is the only Tory in Alberta who got less than 50% of the popular vote. Told ya. The guy does not have Edmonton Strathcona's support. He was touted as cabinet material at one point when the media speculated on a Harper victory, well not now.

The Calcutta Telegraph of India is speculating on which Indo-Canadians will be in Harpers cabinet and Jaffer ain't one of them.Brown tinge stays same in Canada. Funniest specualtion in this article which fails to name Jaffer at all, is the idea of Nina Grewal being in cabinet. Grewal the quietist backbencher versus Jaffer the laziest.

The excuse for Jaffer not being in cabinet is that Harper has enough high profile potential MP's from Alberta for cabinet. All good old white Albertans.

So if you live in Edmonton Strathcona and are a drinking buddy of Rahims or were thinking after three terms you would finally have a cabinet minister from the riding, well forget it. You get more of the same, the laziest self serving MP in the house.

More Jaffer stories

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Blogspot down Today. But For How Long?

Yeah the last time they fixed something we were offline for a day.

We'll be taking Blogger down on Wednesday the 25th at 4pm PST to fix a bit of a switch that's gone wonky on us. The outage should last about 15 minutes. Blogger.com and Blog*Spot blogs will be inaccessible during this time. This repair will fix the problem that caused the brief outage last Friday night. We're also using this down time as an opportunity to tune our databases for more efficient spam catching and deletion.
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Canada Changes Course


Winds of Change was the slogan of the old Unite the Right post Mulroney Conservative movement in Western Canada attempting to realign the Reform Party of the time with the remainder of the Mulroney Tories they had just decimated in the 1988 election.

After Monday night the headlines in the papers in Canada and around the world were a Deja Vu. Canada Changes Course.

I just can't come to say it. Nope just can't. Can't say Prime Minister Harper. But apparently I don't have to. Cause the first thing the Harper did was wrap himself up with the old Mulroney Team.

24 January 2006

OTTAWA – Statement by Prime Minister elect Stephen Harper:

“The Conservative transition team will be led by Derek H. Burney, who served previously as Canada's Ambassador to the United States and as Chief of Staff to Prime Minister Brian Mulroney. Mr. Burney will be assisted by a group with extensive experience in government. Their main objective will be to ensure a smooth transition from the outgoing to the incoming administration.”


Welcome Back Prime Minister Mulroney.


My Blahg has more on the nasty Mr. Burney and the transition he promises.

With Mr. Burney at the helm Steven Harper will become Mulroney-Too, and that will make the U.S. very happy. Actually it already has.

Canada Moves to Join the Great Club of Relevance: Amity Shlaes

White House looks for closer ties with Canada

Press Briefing by Scott McClellan

Q This morning there was a program at the American Enterprise Institute on the election in Canada. And Stephen Harper was just elected Prime Minister. And three former members of the administration -- David Frum, who was a presidential speechwriter, Roger Noriega, who was an assistant Secretary of State, and Phil Swagel, who was chief of staff for the White House Council of Economic Advisors -- discussed the softwood lumber dispute. And they all agreed that the U.S., they said, acted like a rogue nation in this dispute, that the U.S. is in the wrong. And I'm wondering if the administration would agree with that, and if we might see some resolution of the softwood lumber dispute now that we have a new leader in Canada.

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, first of all, let me offer our congratulations to the new government that is taking place, taking form in Canada. We congratulate the Conservative Party and Stephen Harper on the victory. We have had a strong and broad relationship with Canada, and we look forward to working with the new government to strengthen our relations even more. So we offer our congratulations.

In terms of the softwood lumber issue, this is something that we've had a disagreement over. The President has discussed it on a number of occasions when he's met with the Prime Minister there. And we are continuing to work to try to bring it to a resolution and that's what we will -- that's what we are committed to doing.

Q Scott, this morning you said that President Bush would call the Prime Minister from Canada, Stephen Harper. Can you give us an update --

MR. McCLELLAN: No, I don't have an update on that. I expect he will be calling him soon to offer him his congratulations and say that he looks forward to working with him.

Q Can you give us -- there's a bit of a sense in Canada that this conservative government in Canada will be better able to work with the conservative Bush administration. Can you just give us a historical significant comment on --

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, we've had a good working relationship with Canada for a long time. There are many areas where we have worked closely together with the government. We look forward to working with the new government and strengthening those ties even more. I'm not going to try to compare one administration to the next. We congratulate Stephen Harper and the Conservative Party on their victory, and look forward to working with them.

Q Could the fact that they have a very short minority government be a problem? Could that force Stephen Harper to adopt a stronger, tougher attitude --

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, that's getting into internal politics inside Canada. I'll leave that analysis to others. 



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The Last Poll

There was lots of speculation in the penultimate days before the Canadian election about which polls were the most accurate, and subsequently whose polling companies would be toast. Much speculation went on with the Blogging Tories that SES which did not give their party the big lead was out to lunch. Progressive Bloggers on the otherhand took heart over the SES polls. As it was SES faired the best being the closest to the actual vote count. Damn close. But for you poll junkies who need one more hit here is an interesting American site with an analysis of the polls. Political Arithmetik

And while we are speaking of polls the UBC Election Stockmarket Poll did amazingly well showing that a real marketplace in votes could replace Bay Street. Or was it Bay Street could marketize voting. If so you would not lose money betting on SES.

How well did we do? ESM vs. Pollsters (Popular Vote Predictions)

 LIB CPC NDP BLQ OTR Absolute
Error
1. SES Research (Jan. 22) 30.1 36.4 17.4 10.6 5.6 0.4
2. UBC ESM (Jan. 22) 28.1 37.6 17.8 10.5 6.0 4.2
3. Strategic Counsel (Jan. 22) 27 37 19 11 6 6.3
4. Ekos (Jan. 20) 26.9 37.1 19.5 11.5 4.6 8.1
5. Ipsos-Reid (Jan. 22) 27 38 19 12 4 9.6


How well did we do? ESM vs. Other Seat Projections

 LIB CPC NDP BLQ OTR Absolute
Error
1. Milton Chan
(electionprediction.org)		 104 118 29 56 1 12.0
2. UBC ESM 95.5 125.2 32.6 53.4 1.2 15.0
3. Gregory Morrow
(democraticspace.com)		 94 128 29 56 1 18.0
4. SES Research 84 134 34 55 1 36.0
5. Laurier Institute (LISPOP) 78 140 33 56 1 50.0
6. Jordan O'Brien (jord.ca) 72 135 38 62 1 62.0
7. Strategic Counsel 56 149 41 61 1 94.0
8. EKOS (Jan 20) 53 151 41 62 1 100.0
9. Ipsos-Reid (Jan 21) 46 157 42 62 1 114.0





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Eight Years Old Hunting In Day Cares

Let us compare these two stories and ask ourselves what does this really say about gun crazy America.

8-Year-Old Brings Father's Gun to Day Care, Shoots Classmate

8-Year-Olds May Be Allowed To Hunt In Wis.

Current Limit Is 12

POSTED: 3:09 pm EST January 23, 2006

MADISON, Wis. -- Legislators who fear young people are losing interest in Wisconsin's hunting tradition want to allow children as young as 8 to shoot deer.
Rep. Scott Gunderson's proposal would lower the hunting age from 12 to eight.The Republican from Waterford said it's important to get kids hunting at a younger age.
But the idea of a lower hunting age horrifies Joe Slattery, whose 14-year-old son was accidentally shot and killed by a 12-year-old while deer hunting in Marinette County last year. He said 8-year-olds don't have the ability to handle guns.
The state Assembly already approved Gunderson's bill. The measure still needs approval from the state Senate and governor to become law.

Now Conservatives in Canada exhort us that Gun Control Laws here should be like America. At the same time they want to raise the age of consent laws from 14 to 16. And they want to lower the age that a teenager can be tried as an adult for violent crime to 14. Go figure.


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When AI commits suicide

When Artificial Intelligence (AI) gets too smart, that is begins to reach the capactiy of 'human conciousness' will it have the urge to self destruct due to its self realization that it exists in an existential paradigm?

Well the Canadian creator of Mindpixel an internet based AI system commited suicide in Chile recently and left his online note for his AI to learn from.Including references to Camus, the stranger.

Chile: Canadian Blogger Commits Suicide in Santiago

Roberto Arancibia meditates (ES) on the suicide of Canadian blogger, Chris McKinstry in his Santiago apartment. McKinstry was the founder of Mindpixel, a digital mind modeling project. His final blog post, entitled “Very Serious Thoughts on Suicide” quotes, among others, Charles Caleb Colton: “Suicide is a fundamental human right. This does not mean that it is morally desirable. It only means that society does not have the moral right to interfere.”

Very strange indeed and not the least disturbing. Why? Because it shows the very real 'alienation' that we all suffer under capitalism, which divorces us from our very real humaness. In this case this individual who lived for his machine, his fantasy, which was also his reality, ended his own corporeal existance to live in his machine. Dues ex machina.

His individualist exhortation that society does not have the right to interfere in his final decision, is true, and a pathetic testiment to the joys of embracing ones alienation as liberation. Alone in his room away from society, had he not blogged would anyone have known. No.

So his appeal on his blog was his cry of angst and desperation, that he wanted society to know. And if he wanted society to know then he wanted us to do something or say something. Had he not, he would not have blogged a suicdide note. He would have simply put rocks in his pockets and walked silently and alone into the ocean humming the theme to MASH.

His self destruction was nihilism. Nihilists one more step to be revolutionary to recongnize your self alienation as class struggle.

 The propertied class and the class of the proletariat present the same human self-alienation. But the formerclass feels happy and confirmed in this self-alientation, it recognises alienation as its own power, and has in it the semblance of human existence. The class of the proletariat feels annihilated in its self-alienation; it sees in it its own powerlessness and the reality of an inhuman existnece. To use an expression of Hegel's, the class of the proletariat is in abasement indignation at this abasement, an indignation to which it is necessarily driven by the contrdiction between its human nature and its conditions of life, which are the outright, decisive and comprehensive negation of that nature.

"Within this antithesis the private property-owner is therefore the conservative side, the proletarian, the destructive side. From the former arises the action of preserving the antithesis, from the latter, that of annihilating it.

"In any case, in its economic movement private property drives towards its own dissolution, but only through a development which does not depend on it, of which it is unconscious and which takes place against its will, through the very nature of things, only inasmuch as it produces the proletariat as proletariat, misery conscious of its spiritual and physical misery, dehumnaisation conscious of its dehumanisation and therefore self-abolishing. The proletariat executes the sentence that private property pronounced on itself by begetting the proletariat, just as it executes the sentence that wage-labour pronounced on itself by begetting wealth for others and misery for itself. When the proletariat is victorious, it by no means becomes the absolute side of society, for it is victorious only by abolishing itself and its opposite. Then the proletariat disappears as well as the opposite which determines it, private property. Conspectus of the Book The Holy Family by Marx and Engels



Two Fake Brains Better Than One

Wired
2000-09-15 03:55:00.0

A few weeks ago, computer scientist Chris McKinstry announced a plan to harness the brain power of Internet users to fuel an artificially intelligent thinking machine.

Web surfers flocked to his Mindpixel Digital Mind Modeling Project website, and McKinstry's database of mindpixels -- "one-bit" pieces of knowledge -- swelled so quickly that his system became temporarily overloaded.

But even though AI laymen took to McKinstry's decentralized, profit-sharing model of artificial intelligence (anyone who enters data gets a share in the company), many in the academic AI community balked at his plans.

Now, it seems that the academy is changing its tune, as no less venerable an institution than MIT's Media Lab has decided to collaborate with McKinstry.

"We think that the future of AI is to get the public involved," said Push Singh, an MIT graduate student in AI who runs a Media Lab project called OpenMind.

Singh said that the public involvement that McKinstry has been able to spur so far -- Mindpixel already has almost 20,000 registered users -- would be an asset to OpenMind.

Like Mindpixel, OpenMind is an AI machine that learns from user input. At the OpenMind website, users are presented with a series of stimuli -- photographs, phrases, or diagrams. Singh said that the computer learns "common sense" from users' aggregate response to a certain stimulus.

For example, if the computer shows you a picture of a family at a picnic, you might type in, "Families like to spend time together."

Someone else might write, "Picnics are fun when the weather permits."

And yet another person could say, "I hope they didn't forget the Grey Poupon!"

With enough such responses, some clearly more valuable than others, Singh said that the computer will learn a kind of common sense about families or picnics or mustard, and how they relate to each other.

And with a little common sense, OpenMind will be able to at least approximate humanness, Sing said.



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Tuesday, January 24, 2006

Liberals=GOP?!

On the other hand there is this wonderful whimsical look at the Canadian Election as a warning to the GOP.

Warning shot for GOP The Canadian example
Not long ago, Canada's Conservative Party looked to be irretrievably on the ropes. Today, the Conservative Leader, Stephen Harper, will become the country's next Prime Minister.

How did this happen? Basically, Canadian voters got tired of the corruption, pork-barreling, and smugness of the entrenched Liberal Party.

Meanwhile, here in the United States, it's the entrenched Republicans, who control all three branches of government, who are facing these problems.

All I can say is that unless the GOP gets its act together soon, it may join the Canadian Liberals on the outside.

Oh that would be rich. Rich in irony. That would be the cherry on the cake. I can see the headlines now....Canadian Conservative Victory Dooms Republicans.

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Really Dumb Advice

It's not just the Blogging Tories that are full of themselves so are our blogging Southern neighbours to the right....With arrogance typical of those who know best Pejman Yousefzadeh says;

Having said all of this, it now behooves the next Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, to behave as if he does have a majority. This does not entail being arrogant with power. But it does entail the understanding that the very people who today warn him not to be arrogant with power are those who tomorrow will scold him if he is timid with it.

Ahem obviously dumb as a sack of hammers about Canadians. Must be reading too much Kate over at SDA. Or David Frum. Cause this is exactly what Harper MUST NOT DO. Because you dummy its exactly what the Liberals did and look where it got them. Oh yeah and Joe Clark did it too. Real success that was. Shortest minority government in history. This is not the USA where the PM has presidential power. You twit.


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Jack Abramoff Sweat Shop Lobbyist


My my not satisfied with being a mover and shaker for the right wing fundamentalist lobby in the Republican party and the Bush regime. Jack Abramoff tries his hand at interntational trade lobbying. Abramoff promoted a Tawainese sweat shop company to the PTB with the Bush administration and the Republican House and Senate.

And why shouldn't he, the Bush adminstration loves outsourcing and sweat shops. After all it's their policy of outsourcing and sweat labour of Latin American underground workforce that the Bush administration relies on for rebuilding post Katrina America.
Mystery firm linked to US lobbyist scandal

Abramoff recorded Rose Garden's address as a luxury flat in Tai Hang, above Causeway Bay, and its business as international trade. Over the next year and a half, the records show, Rose Garden paid Greenberg Traurig US$1.4 million (HK$10.92 million) for putting its case to the Senate, House of Representatives and US Department of Labor.

Hong Kong's Companies Registry has no record of Rose Garden Holdings; nor does the telephone directory. The apartment listed by Abramoff as Rose Garden's premises has been owned since 1992 by Luen Thai Shipping and Trading, according to the Land Registry.

Luen Thai Holdings and its controlling shareholders, the Tan family, were leading beneficiaries of Abramoff's Washington lobbying.

Luen Thai Holdings, which held a HK$669.4 million initial public stock offering in 2004, was built on the business of sewing together clothing for top US brand-names such as Liz Claiborne, with the assistance of young women from China and other Asian countries on the US-controlled Pacific island of Saipan.

The foundations of the company's profitable niche are loopholes in US law that allow free migration to the island, set its minimum wage below mainland US levels and allow clothing sewn there to carry the "Made in USA" label and be exempt from quotas and tariffs.

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It's the company you keep

They say you are judged by the company you keep, or in this case the Company that keeps you. In power. By lobbying....and bribery.


If Jack Abramoff is the Prince of Darkness in Washington what does that make Ralph Reed?


 Perhaps the right hand of god could explain the parable of Jesus and the money changers to his followers.


Ralph Reed Republican Anti-Christ.


Taking Over the Republican Party

"The Grand Old Party is more religious cult than political organization."
President of the Alamo City Republican Women's club, 1993


Will Abramoff's Deep Throat Swallow Thin Reed?


During Jack Abramoff’s reign as chair of the College Republican National Committee in the early 1980s, Ralph Reed and GOP operative Grover Norquist each did stints as that committee’s executive director. Abramoff, an Orthodox Jew, later helped Reed organize the remnants of evangelist Pat Robertson’s failed 1988 presidential bid into the politically potent Christian Coalition in 1989. Reed and Norquist resurfaced a decade later to help Abramoff extract tens of millions of dollars from Indian gambling interests and other clients. Now Abramoff has promised to walk federal prosecutors through his vast web of political corruption, thereby endangering the careers and reputations of members of Congress, other lobbyists and Ralph Reed—just as the preternaturally young-looking evangelist makes his first bid for public office. These prosecutors have subpoenaed records from Reed but have not identified him as a target of their investigation.

In Ga., Abramoff Scandal Threatens a Political Ascendancy

By Thomas B. Edsall
Washington Post Staff Writer

DAWSONVILLE, Ga. -- Ralph Reed, candidate for lieutenant governor, had just finished his opening statement to the Dawson County Republican Party when retired pulp paper executive Gary Pichon sprang from his seat with a question that cut to the chase:

"Did you accept any gifts, commissions or other payments of any kind from Mr. Abramoff, and are you likely to be a party in the unfolding investigation

Silence enveloped the 60 or so Republicans in the auditorium, and Reed's cheerful manner turned tense. "No," he replied. "No to all these."

As everyone knew, Pichon was referring to Jack Abramoff, whose outsize Washington lobbying scandal has reached down to Georgia. Abramoff and Reed -- the former executive director of the Christian Coalition -- have been friends for 25 years, and until recently it had been a mutually profitable association. Now it is proving highly inconvenient for Reed, and threatens to stall a career that has been emblematic of the modern GOP.


Reed blasts ‘guilt by association’ in friendship with Abramoff
01/24/2006 By Greg Bluestein
The Associated Press

ATLANTA — Ralph Reed, former leader of the Christian Coalition and candidate for Georgia lieutenant governor, said Monday that he’s confident voters will reject accusations of ‘‘guilt by association’’ through his links to disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
Reed has been under intense scrutiny since his longtime friend Abramoff admitted to conspiring to defraud his Indian tribe clients and pleaded guilty to corruption-related charges.

Reed offers cash to drum up crowd for Christian Coalition

By JIM GALLOWAY
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 01/21/06

Ralph Reed wants a good crowd at today's annual gathering of the Christian Coalition of Georgia. And he's willing to shell out cash for it.

His Republican campaign for lieutenant governor sent an e-mail to supporters this week offering to pay the $20 entrance fee and — for out-of-towners — an overnight stay in a hotel.

Ralph Reed Pulls Out His Carpet Bag; Half of Reed's Donors from Out-of-State, Says Public Campaign Action Fund

Abramoff Scandal is Albatross for Ralph Reed
Disclosures that Reed once ran an anti-gambling campaign that was secretly financed by casino-owning clients of his friend Abramoff have damaged his ability to raise funds for a bid to become Georgia's next lieutenant governor, other Republicans say. That may undercut his chances of winning an office that he could use as a steppingstone to national political ambitions, they say.

Campaign-finance reports filed this week show that Reed, 44, lagged behind opponent Casey Cagle in fundraising for the July 18 Republican primary during the past six months, after collecting more than twice as much money as his rival before that. Cagle raised $667,000 from June 30 to Dec. 31 to Reed's $404,000.

``A lot of those big corporate donors are now hedging their bets,'' said Matt Towery, the 1990 Republican candidate for lieutenant governor, who was once a colleague of Reed's on Capitol Hill. ``Ralph faces a very difficult and now problematic candidacy.''

An Atlanta Journal-Constitution poll last month showed Cagle and Reed would perform about equally well against the Democrats in the November election. The poll was conducted by Zogby International before Abramoff pleaded guilty to fraud and conspiring to corrupt public officials.... Reed's fund-raising slowdown in the past six months coincided with the drumbeat of news about Abramoff and Reed's connections to him. Those ties are gaining more attention in the aftermath of Abramoff's Jan. 3 guilty plea and the widening probe into the potential bribery of lawmakers.


Poor Ralph Reed, having to defend himself against charges he is a shyster, a con artist, a bag man, a politcal snake oil salesman whose crime is bribery and influence pedaling and whose sin is avarice and pride.

It reminds me of that famous Doonesbury cartoon about another Republican guilty of avarice and pride; Guilty! Guilty! Guilty!


Photos Of Bush With Abramoff Withheld Oh dear it is really begining to sound oh so Nixonian. Ralph Reed+George W. Bush+Jack Abramoff= Guilty!Guilty! Guilty!




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