It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
To think Google is just a giant collection of classified ads on line. Worth billions on speculation and gouging. Until entropy sets in, or it becomes too big for its britches. That is a virtual as well as real monopoly. Thousands of us are still waiting for our checks from Google for posting their classifieds on our pages. While their clients who pay to post here watch as their costs for doing business with Google increase. For no other good reason than greed and the bottom line. Wired, Virtual, Online Capitalism is still Capitalism.
Google has famously turned itself into a $US111.5 billion company, from humble beginnings as a Stanford University project, on the back of online classified advertising.
Forget fancy innovations such as Google Earth or the recently announced blogging software. About 97 per cent of the company's revenues come from the four-line text ads that appear with Google search results.
Last year, that spelled $6 billion for the company's revenues, a figure that has impressively doubled for each of the past two years, as Google made investments that brought in new browsers and allowed it to explore ad formats other than its core click-on mode.
But in the startling words of its own chief financial officer George Reyes on Tuesday: "We are getting to the point where the law of large numbers starts to take root."
Mr Reyes' observation that it was inevitable that growth would slow caused pandemonium on the market as investors dumped the stock, fearing the company had reached the limits of its potential.
The possibility of slowing growth had already prompted several major investment banks to begin selling Google shares in the month before Mr Reyes' statement. The influential Barrons newspaper went as far as to suggest Google shares were worth as little as $188.
These bearish predictions are based on fears over how much Google will be able to ask from advertisers in the future, a key issue in the overall struggle by investors to properly price Internet stock following the dot.com bust.
Last year, retailers reported that the cost of advertising certain items, such as jewellery, on Google's keyword searches had jumped as much as 80 per cent as larger companies were willing to sacrifice some of their traditional advertising budgets to try the online format.
Higher prices, industry watchers reported, had prompted some of Google's traditional bread-and-butter clients - small companies - to be priced out of the search engine, leading some to speculate that pricing had begun to hit its limit.
PALO ALTO, Calif. (MarketWatch) -- Google Inc. (GOOG) Chief Executive Eric Schmidt described his company's decision to enter the Chinese market by agreeing to censor certain Internet sites as an extremely difficult one.
The Silicon Valley search giant wanted to be part of the growth that will make China a dominant force in the world for the next 100 years, he said. But "we had to abide by the laws" that make certain topics off limits in the emerging Asian country, Schmidt said during a wide-ranging discussion at the Siepr Economic Summit here. "It was a very difficult decision."
The breakthrough came when co-founder Sergey Brin spoke to friends of his in Russia, Schmidt said. The company decided it couldn't stand by its mission to bring information to people if it didn't serve all people everywhere, he said.
Still, it is difficult to legislate morality, he said referring to the Sarbanes-Oxley Act that he noted cost companies like Google $2 million to comply with.
Schmidt, during a question-and-answer session, defended the concept of Net neutrality, a regulation keeping Internet service providers from favoring their own content over the content of others by charging companies like Google an access fee. Google, and other major Internet companies, have the money to pay, but what about the next new startups conceived by two graduate students from Stanford University, he asked.
Abandoning Net neutrality would slow down the adoption of new technologies, Schmidt said.
Schmidt added that he felt confident about his company's legal stand against book publishers who hope to stop Google from putting copies of their books online. "We're in the process of testing" the Fair Use Doctrine, he said. "We think this is pretty high ground we are standing on."
He also defended the company's use of pro forma earnings in its quarterly reports. The company backs out charges for stock compensation. Analysts who cover the company do the same thing. "They delete that charge," Schmidt said. "I can think of no better explanation" for the use of pro forma.
The pc thought police on the right are at it again, over at the Canadian Medical Association. I have waited to see why they decided to fire their world famous editors at the CMA Journal before commenting on this controversy. And now the Lancet has revealed it. The editors were critical of the new Federal Minister of Health and the Tories plans to privatize healthcare in Canada. Political Correctness that bugaboo of the right in their culture war against pluralistic secular society now comes back to bite them on the ass. This is a case of conservative PC censorship.
In this week's issue of the British journal The Lancet, author Paul Webster notes the firings followed a series of controversial articles on health politics. He places particular emphasis on an online CMAJ article critical of federal Conservative Health Minister Tony Clement, pointing out that the CMA "advocates reforms to the Canadian medical system including the expansion of private delivery of health-care services." The article was later replaced "with praise for the new minister in the revised version."
While folks in Mayerthorpe, and around the country,remember the four RCMP killed in their community a year ago we have to ask why are the RCMP covering up the reasons for their deaths.
For now, the RCMP are largely silent on the investigation. They have not released any new details since March 31, 2005. "We know that the Canadian public wants to know what happened," says spokesman Cpl. Wayne Oakes. "We want to know what happened."
Of course these emotional appeals help promote more draconian laws that would give the cops more powers over us citizens. We love to give up our freedom for the security of the State and its armed force. But the real reason these cops died is still not being covered in all these memorials, testimonies, and flights from reason to emotion.
Lost in all this bouha is the allegation that these cops were contracted out to work overtime as repo men, they were collecting a vehicle from the site which had an outstanding loan. The opening act in a tragedy that has shocked the nation began Wednesday, when police arrived at the farm to assist in the court-ordered seizure of some property and found stolen goods and a marijuana grow operation.
The news immediately after focused on the fact that this was a dangerous marijuana grow op, and again emotion trumped reason with calls for tougher grow op laws etc. etc. But a grow op it wasn't. There were a few marijuana plants being grown, as happens all around the country. But again emotion and political agenda's trumped reason.
The RCMP officers who died were allegedly not informed by dispatch thatJames Roszko was dangerous, armed and known to be a cop hater. And they were not from around Mayerthorpe so how would they know.
Just because of the uniform? These workers are armed and know they face potential life threatening confrontations, its part of the job. But workers who do not expect to die on the job and do are treated with far less fanfare, and deserve memorials too.
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Really can you blame Iran for wanting to become a nuclear power when everyone else around it is, the map does not show American nuclear missles in Turkey etc., and then the Americans do this.....Bush defends controversial nuclear pact with India
Socialist Swine and Dadahead have been going at tooth and tong over who was the greatest (English) philosopher Kant or Hume. I had to take issue with them for forgetting Hegel, which of course Monty Python didn't. But then they were Cambridge English School Boys after all, the buggers. None the less everyone forgets Spinoza, which is what happens when you drink too much Ne Plus Ultra.
Gary L. Hardcastle Department of Philosophy University of Wisconsin - Stevens Point Stevens Point, WI U.S.A.
My aim in this talk is to present a comprehensive overview of each and every one of the main themes endured by analytic philosophy in the last sixty years or so, and to argue the bold historical claim that the whole lot is well represented-indeed, often best represented-in the work of Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, and Michael Palin, collectively and henceforth referred to as "Monty Python." Since I have all of fifty minutes to make my case, I expect we'll have time for a song at the end. So let's get to it.
Poor Colleen, poor Alberta. We both have to put up with an abusive, tyrannical drunk.
And its not like the media didn't know about Ralph's temper and his intemperance, they just have laughed it off and helped cover it up. Afraid of his wrath just like Colleen.
The King is in his counting house laughing like a maniac......
On Monday, Klein's handlers were left to clean up after the premier said - inaccurately - that Prime Minister Stephen Harper had promised to hold Senate elections in the fall.
A few days earlier, he had been confused during question period about the amount of money health authorities had requested from the province, pegging it first at $100.6 billion and then at $10.6 billion. Only later, outside the house, did he concede that he had truly bollixed the math - and the Hansard record - because the correct figure was $1.6 billion.
Then came Wednesday's incident. During a heated question period exchange over his plans for health-care reform, the Liberals sent their policy booklet to the premier though a legislative page.
"I don't need this crap," snorted Klein, tossing the booklet over his shoulder. There were conflicting reports as to whether it actually hit 17-year-old Jennifer Huygen, since the chamber camera didn't record the incident and press gallery reporters, who listen to question period from their offices, didn't see it.
Keith Brownsey, a political scientist at Mount Royal College in Calgary, said there's nothing new in Klein's behaviour and it probably won't hurt him when his party reviews his leadership later this month. "This has been his standard operating procedure since Day 1," said Brownsey. "It ranks up there with the confrontation with the homeless . . . back in 2001. This is a shameful display, a complete disregard for the position of the Opposition and the decorum of our parliamentary system. "But he's always been like this. The attitude, generally speaking, in Alberta is, 'Oh, it's just Ralph,' and he's forgiven." Brownsey compared Klein's rule to that of an autocratic kingdom like Brunei.
Ontario Premier calls for abolition of SenateOntario Premier Dalton McGuinty says he would reform the Senate by abolishing it altogether. Here! Here! We don't need no stinking Senate.Not even a Triple E Senate. "So to elect senators in Canada under the existing system would serve both to entrench and exacerbate an existing inequity," he said. "I think it's time for us to abolish the Senate in Canada." It is the vestigial remains of the old British Aristocracy, the House of Lords. In much the same way we have the vestigial remains of our reptilian past in our brains. It comes from the power of the rentier class over the rising bourgeois in England. To be a Senator you must be over 30, own $4000 dollars in property, and be a Canadian citizen. Reformed it becomes a bourgeois institution delayed.
Saskatchewan Premier Lorne Calvert said on Wednesday that it's irrelevant whether senators are elected or appointed because the chamber is ineffectual as it stands.
Among the most important and useful truths, those that pertain the the better political organization of a society are at the forefront. They are among those of which it is a shame to have not studied carefully, and cowardly to dare not proclaim, when we believe that those we possess are true and therefore useful.
The good political doctrines of modern times, I find them condensed, explained and delivered for the love of peoples and for their regeneration, in a few lines of the 1776 Declaration of Independence, and the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. The true sociological doctrines of modern times can be summed up in a few words: Recognizing that, in the political and temporal order, the only legitimate authority is the one to which the majority of the nation has given its consent; that are wise and beneficial constitutions only those for which the governed have been consulted, and to which the majorities have given their free approbation; that all which is a human institution is destined to successive change; that the continuous perfectibility of man in society gives him the right and imposes him the duty to demand the improvements which are appropriate for new circumstances, for the new needs of the community in which he lives and evolves.
II • Democratic Renewal In order for the people to exercise their sovereignty and govern themselves, there is an immediate need to: PROCLAIM A NEW AND MODERN CONSTITUTION This new and modern constitution must enshrine: • The rights and duties of all citizens without any discrimination on the basis of language, race, national origin, religion, gender, lifestyle, ability, age, wealth or on any other basis; • The right of Quebec to self-determination, up to and including secession; • The hereditary rights of the Aboriginal peoples; the injustices of the past and the harm done to them must be redressed through the provision of indemnity payments; • The rights of the national minorities of Canada, including the recognition of the equality of all languages and cultures and the creation of conditions for their flourishing; • The vesting of sovereignty in the people. To enable the people of Canada to exercise their sovereignty, this new and modern constitution must lay down as a fundamental principle that there can be: • No Election Without Selection. Under the fundamental law that elected representatives and all institutions must be subordinate to the electorate, the constitution must enshrine: • The Right to an Informed Vote; • The Right to Recall; • The Right to Initiate Legislation. These laws must be turned into reality through the creation of institutions which enable the electors to exercise their right to elect and to be elected and facilitate their maximum participation in governance. A Canada-Wide Electoral Commission, as well as Electoral Committees in each constituency would be bodies to replace Elections Canada. The finances and facilities currently provided to Elections Canada and to Members of Parliament to operate their constituency offices would be reallocated to fund the functioning of the Canada-Wide Electoral Commission and Electoral Committees. The Members of Parliament would conduct their affairs through the Electoral Committees to which they would be subordinate. The Canada-Wide Electoral Commission and the Electoral Committees would be entrusted with two key tasks: 1) Guaranteeing that all electors can exercise their right to elect and be elected; and 2) Ensuring that the elected representatives are subordinate to the electors and serve their interests. These bodies would involve a large number of people, especially in the task of ensuring the subordination of the elected to the electors. The new and modern constitution must establish: • The rights of all citizens and residents by virtue of being human. In providing a guarantee to these rights, the constitution must hold the society, and the governments which represent that society, responsible to provide people with the highest possible standard of living within the existing conditions. It must also set out the aim of raising this standard to higher levels, consistent with the development of society, so as to meet the ever-increasing needs of the people for health care, education, culture and other necessities of life. The constitution must guarantee the recognition of the claims of all people on society by virtue of being human, as well as the claims based on the conditions of their collectivity in the case of women, youth, workers and all other collectives in the society.
There is a certain irony in this manifesto one of the signatories Maryam Namazie who emailed this to me is a member of the Workers Communist Party of Iran, WPI.
And because of this lowest common denominator popular frontism, this Manifesto is also being distributed on blogs on the right, and I am sure they don't realize that some of the signatories are on the left. Opps.
Ah well. I am sure that this guy won't be supporting the Manifesto no matter how much of an Iranian democrat he claims to be.
I have seen a kindered politics in the Workerist Marxism of the WPI and the WCP of Iraq. They have focused on important issues such as womens and union rights in the Middle East. And I have appreciated their non dogmatic marxism. Which is why they can criticize Stalinism. On the other hand this popular front approach of aligning with secularists whose criticism is the need for enlightenment liberalism is problematic for those who call themselves Marxists.
While rejecting cultural relativism they embrace it by calling for acceptance of the enlightenment. The enlightenment is NOT socialism, nor a socialist morality, it was and is the values of the bourgoise, to see a Marxist party calling for such a lowest common denominator politics is not only disappointing but smacks of opportunism.
One signature that is missing is Tariq Ali a long time critic of Fundamentalism and a Pakistani Marxist. And that is problematic. Since Ali says this about the whole cartoon issue from whence this Manifesto arises.
Amid the cartoon furore, Danish imams ignore the tragedies suffered by Muslims across the world
Tariq Ali Monday February 13, 2006 The Guardian
The latest round of culture wars does neither side any good. The western civilisational fundamentalists insist on seeing Muslims as the other - different, alien and morally evil. Jyllands-Posten published the cartoons in bad faith. Their aim was not to engage in debate but to provoke, and they succeeded. The same newspaper declined to print caricatures of Jesus. I am an atheist and do not know the meaning of the "religious pain" that is felt by believers of every cast when what they believe in is insulted. I am not insulted by billions of Christians, Muslims and Jews believing there is a God and praying to this nonexistent deity on a regular basis.
How many citizens have any real idea of what the Enlightenment really was? French philosophers did take humanity forward by recognising no external authority of any kind, but there was a darker side. Voltaire: "Blacks are inferior to Europeans, but superior to apes." Hume: "The black might develop certain attributes of human beings, the way the parrot manages to speak a few words." There is much more in a similar vein from their colleagues. It is this aspect of the Enlightenment that appears to be more in tune with some of the generalised anti-Muslim ravings in the media
But for the WPI to promote this as they are doing, is a shift to alliances with the bourgoise, something that they have not done before. And it does not bode well, for their independent Marxist critique of the Middle East. Such alliances in the past have led to the disintigration of workers organizations into electoral political parties, something the WPI has opposed in favour of direct action and workers councils.
