Harper Full Of Gas

Uh oh the Harpocrite broke another promise. He is telling Canadians to live with high gas prices.

In the 2004 election campaign, and when he was Leader of the Opposition ,he called on the government to eliminate the GST on gas prices. Now he says his teeny tiny 1% GST cut will suffice. Ha, ha, oh thats rich. Rich for gas gouging Big Oil that is sitting on massive reserves in Canada and so do not have to raise the gas prices.

And guess who is really upset with this....why Harpers allies on the right like the Canadian Taxpayers Federation and gasp, the Blogging Tories. So I guess the honeymoon is now officially over.


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The Iranian View

Amidst the sturm and drang and the druming of war with a possible U.S. Nuclear attack on Iran the MSM and the blogs have missed the opportunity to give the Iranian view of their pride in joining the Nuclear club.

Yes pride. Mis-placed of course, but none the less pride just like the Americans have over being a nuclear power. Because with the advent of nuclear power, not the bomb perse, but the ability to produce their enriched uranium for nuclear power plants for 'domestic' use and thus the ability to produce the waste used for a bomb, the Iranian population are united in their view that this now makes them a Great Power.

In truth, the politicians who have overseen Iran’s nuclear file, whether under the presidency of Hashemi Rafsanjani or Mohammed Khatami, and to this day, under President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, are aware that the development of nuclear technology should not push Iran into crises that prohibit the country from using this technology for peaceful means.

As Iranians celebrated the announcement that their country had joined the nuclear club, conservative writers and journalists defended this incredible achievement but did not call for Iran’s exit from the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT). Instead, they demanded the articles in NPT to be implemented.

The Editor-in-Chief of Kayhan, Hossein Shariatmadari, known for his extremist views on such topics, demanded the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Mohammed El Baradei, investigate whether the NPT treaty had been breached, before submitting his report to the UN Security Council or the IAEA.

Yet, the academic Davoud Hermidas Bavand saw that from this point onwards, the Iranians should manage the nuclear file with great care and attention. He added that El Baradei’s talks in the Iranian capital would provide an indication of the IAEA’s intentions that it accepts Iran’s uranium enrichment program given that it has not breached any international treaty or it rejects it. In this case, it would throw the ball in the UN Security Council’s court.

Compared to their neighbours in the Middle East, this puts Iran on par with Israel. Israel who has the bomb but is not a member of the NPT, nor is India, both American allies. While Iran is a member of the Nuclear Club and subject to UN sanctions and IAEA observations.

The Bushehr nuclear reactor lies on the shores of the Gulf, and it is closer to Manama or Doha than to the Iranian capital which lies in the interior. This means Tehran is almost safe, much more so than the capitals of the Persian Gulf , in case a mishap or an attack. A nuclear Iran is not evidence the country has become a power in the industrial sense. Iran … “I cry out in the Gulf”

And while the U.S. and its allies threaten Iran over its joining their exclusive nuclear club, the point is that the Iranian people are united in their support for this. Which makes any attempt to mobilize the reformers to oppose the current regime a phantasmagoria.

In the world of geopolitics Iran becoming a Great Power, a global nuclear power places that country in an exclusive club. One whose membership is rather selective about who gets to join.

Missing in this one sided rant by the American Empire is the simple fact that all signatories to the NPT agree to eliminate nuclear weapons. The U.S., which along with Russia have the most nuclear weapons and WMD of other kinds, has refused to reduce its stockpile. In fact with the Bush policy of pre-emptive strikes, it is expanding its small scale nuclear capability with bunker bombs etc .

If sanity is to be regained then the world, the UN, countries like Canada need to demand that the U.S. and Russia along with all countries with nuclear weapons begin the mass destruction of these weapons for the safety and good of the planet.

That was and is the purpose of the NPT. And countries that do not belong to the NPT should be shunned until such time as they are forced to allow inspectors to check their weapons.

Canada has long been an advocate of Nuclear non proliferation, however under the Harpocrites it appears that the government in its hypocritical condemnation of Iran in support of the Bush regime seems to forget this.Harper says Canada stands with allies against Iran

If Canada is to condemn anyone it should be Israel, not likely with Zionist sympathisers like Stockwell Day in cabinet, and India, as well as those countries not members of the Nuclear Club; the NPT.

Canada could be a voice of sanity and calm in this current attempt by the U.S. to drum up support for another idiotic pre-emptive assault on a Soveirgn country. The real question is why after the end of the Cold War we see an increasing proliferation of nuclear weapons not a decrease. We are now less safe than we were when a balance of MAD existed between the Soviet Union and the U.S.

Canada as a country with NO nuclear weapons has the political responsibility and obligation to pose an alternative to this MADness and call for an end to all WMD. Period. And it the Harpocrites won't do it in a minority government then it behooves the Opposition to unite around this and demand it.




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Quit Yer Whining

Bush Calls Rising Gas Prices 'Major Problem' for Country

Yo America quit yer whining about gas prices.

Here in Alberta we are paying $4 a gallon, and we own the stuff.

While in the U.S. gas prices are half that.

You want good news or bad news? For commodities, it doesn't matter

But others hold out little hope for lower oil prices in the near future. "I think the price is going to go higher," said Peter Tertzakian, chief energy economist and director of ARC Financial Corp. in Calgary.

With China showing no signs of slowing and North American demand for gasoline remaining strong, "in the near term there isn't a lot of spare capacity out there to make the markets feel comfortable," said Mr. Tertzakian, author of A Thousand Barrels A Second: The Coming Oil Break Point and the Challenges Facing an Energy Dependent World.

While it's true that U.S. crude oil inventories are high, "that's like saying the gas tank is high in my car. But the issue isn't the gas tank in your car, it's at the pump."

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Alberta Gets No Respect

All that whining from Calgary, 60 per cent of Albertans want more respect: poll and the Oilers and Flames are in the NHL Playoffs.

Sheesh Toronto is out of the playoffs, how much more respect do ya want.

Especially since the Oilers played so lousy this year.

How much sweeter can it be when the Maple Leafs are out again, lets see they haven't been in the playoffs since Canada's Centennial.

So suck it up Alberta, and lets play hockey.



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Kielburger Wins Nobel

Congratulations to Craig Kielburger the founder of Free the Children who mobilized a grassroots movement amongst Canadian youth to fight against Child labour and Sweatshops. That movement grew into an international campaign that is growing every day.

Children's advocate Kielburger wins global honour

Craig Kielburger, who began his fight for the rights of children as a 12-year-old boy outraged by the death of an activist who opposed child labour in Pakistan, has won the "Children's Nobel Prize. Swedish authorities announced on Tuesday that the 23-year-old, who lives in Thornhill, Ont., had been awarded the 2006 World Children's Prize for the Rights of the Child.

See My Boycott Nike site for more on child labour and Sweat shops.

Also:

Where Are Your Clothes Made

Gildan Sweat Shop Success Story

Haiti Quebec's Shame

Canada's Dirty Secret: Haiti

Jack Abramoff Sweat Shop Lobbyist

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May I See Your Passport Please

Well that's that. Our tough talking Conservative Government; Harper, McKay and now Day, all told the US where to stick their mandatory passport plan and of course the US listened.

Michael Chertoff, the U.S. Homeland Security secretary, told Stockwell Day, Canada's minister of public safety, that the new regulations will come into effect Jan. 1, 2008. U.S. won't delay introducing new border security measures

Opps, oh well there is still softwood lumber....bet the Conservatives are successful in making their new friends in the White House quiver and shake over that issue too.


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A Vision Of Things To Come

Ralph Klein, Preston Manning and Mike Harris have all touted their "Third Way" for Health Care reform in Canada as NOT being modeled on the US but on Europe and the UK. Well lets look at the success the UK is having with its third way model of public private healthcare delivery. Opps better not. Blair faces inquiry into NHS crisis


One of the problems of the GP contract - like so many Labour health reforms - was the number of other radical changes, some of them contradictory, being pursued at the same time. The prime minister has still not learned. In an address to the New Health Network think-tank yesterday he listed four big reforms which the government is pursuing. This month marks the nationwide introduction of payments by results, the biggest change since the NHS was launched 58 years ago, under which finance flows to hospitals, ambulance services, primary care and mental health teams according to the numbers of patients treated, rather than a block contract. On top of that, the government is expanding patient choice, introducing more independent providers and promoting GP commissioning. He could have noted two other reforms - both currently unnecessary - involving radical restructuring of primary care trusts and strategic health authorities. Right goals, too many wrong results


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Go Willie Go

Are you on the bus or off the bus? That's the challenge Willie Lambert is making to the members of CAW. Bus driver aims to steer CAW at top

And it's about time that Buzz faced an election instead of an acclamation.

Hargrove has been repeatedly acclaimed to the union's top job since he first took over from Bob White in 1992. He has said this will be his last campaign -- the union's constitution requires staff to retire at 65, the age he'll reach at the end of another three year term. Hargrove Challenger

What is important in Willie's run is the criticism that Buzz has been getting over concession bargaining and sweetheart contracts with the Big Three auto giants, while failing to organize Magna International or the Japanese and Korean automakers in Canada.

Lambert also criticized Hargrove for accepting changes in labour contracts with Ford and General Motors and for failing to speak out strongly enough for protection of Canadian manufacturing.By agreeing to work rules and other changes in CAW contracts with Ford and GM, Lambert said, Hargrove is setting the stage for the companies to demand even more concessions in the next round of collective bargaining

Buzz dismisses Willie cause he is a public sector worker, a mere bus driver.

"He doesn't come from the auto industry - he works in the public sector. . . . So he doesn't have the same threat to his job as the auto workers."

Uh huh, well he is a bus driver driving the buses members of CAW make, and without drivers well I guess those buses would just sit idle. And the public sector has taken many hits over the last ten years, under Harris and Rae. What an a-hole.

Gee Buzz I thought you were trying to build a national social union not just an autoworkers union. Since that's why you said you were raiding SEIU and why you have been cozing up to AUPE.

Anatomy of a raid

And that's awful patronizing of you to attack Willie for saying what your old pal, mentor and ghost writer Sam Gidin has also said. And he came out of the auto industry. He has publicly criticised your cap in hand gofering for Big Auto.

Concessions in Oshawa: The End of an Era?
Monthly Review, VA - 31 Mar 2006
by Sam Gindin.

Go Willie Go.


Also See CAW To Leave CLC?

Get The Buzz


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Honk For Public Day Care

I want a national Day Care Program and I won't let go until I get it.

That Harper sure has a way with kids.

Harper willing to go to the polls over child-care allowance
Harper said that he could work with the NDP and Bloc Québécois. He suggested those parties are not ideologically opposed to his plan, but instead criticize the amount of the allowance.

What BS. They are opposed to his plan which only creates a baby bonus and ends federal funding to the provinces and does not create a national public daycare program. The NDP plan is just that plus a $1200 tax credit, not cash which will be taxed. Chow calls Conservatives’ childcare bluff

The BQ only care about getting money for Quebecs existing program, the so called fiscal imbalance. So the Tories will count on them to back up this baby-bonus, in exchange for an asymetrical fiscal deal with Charest.

Not only does the kid put the squeeze on Harper but in the very community centre where he is speaking the folks also think his plan is bunk. PM Keeps Plan for Child Care

Prime Minister Stephen Harper challenged his opponents yesterday to take his minority government down over the Conservatives' cherished child-care plan, saying they'll have the chance to do it soon.

Harper's announcement received lukewarm response from some parents in the community centre.

"I think it's just a payoff. Of course I'm going to take the money but I don't think it's solving any problems," said Lydia Pranaitis, who has two children under two.

When she goes back to work from maternity leave, Pranaitis said it will cost her $1,900 per month for child care.

"I think this whole system is breeding poverty," she said.

"If I were a single mother, what could you do?"

Benn Uba agreed it's better to have the money than nothing.

But the father of two children said he would rather see more child-care facilities with subsidies for parents.

"It's tight, it's hard," Uba said of trying to pay the family's bills and pay for child care.

"People don't want to have children anymore."

Besides the cash for parents, the Conservatives also pledged in their first throne speech to create 125,000 new spaces by offering $250 million in tax credits for businesses and non-profit groups that create new spaces.

Critics have said similar efforts by provincial governments have failed to motivate corporations in the past.

Taking Care of Canada's Children

By Nicole Hacock, Director of YWCA Cambridge

The fatal flaw in the Conservative plan is that it ignores Canadians’ desire for quality early learning and care programs. Although the government says it will offer tax incentives to businesses so they can create child care spaces, when the Mike Harris government in Ontario tried this in the 1990s, guess how many spaces the private sector created? None.

The Conservative plan confuses families’ legitimate desire for income support with the need for an accessible, high quality child care. We believe that Canada can deliver both. Families need both, if they are to help their children get the best start in life and balance the overwhelming demands of work and family life.

Since February 24, more than 22,000 Canadians have signed an on-line open letter that urges politicians to work together to honour the child care agreements created last year. At www.buildchildcare.ca, people from all walks of life are saying the same thing: $1,200 a year is not enough. Canada can, and must, do better.

Hayley Wickenheiser, a gold medal mother (and hockey star at the Turin Olympics) signed the child care open letter this week.

Also See

Childcare

Daycare



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Edmontonian Discovers New Dinosaur

And no its not the Conservatives though it does bear a striking resemblance to Alberta's very own Ralph-saurus

New discovery dethrones T-rex

U of A paleontologist identifies carnivore bigger than Tyrannosaurus and millions of years older

EDMONTON - A University of Alberta dinosaur hunter has identified one of the largest meat-eating dinosaurs to ever roam the planet, a bloodthirsty beast that hunted in packs in South America and ripped apart much bigger plant-eaters with its razor-sharp teeth and snapping jaw.

Philip Currie, a well-known paleontologist and biological sciences professor at U of A, and Rudolfo Coria, a paleontologist in South America, excavated a group of at least seven of the ferocious predators in red desert sandstone outside Plaza Huincul in Argentina.

The bones are 80 to 90 million years old -- much older than those of the Tyrannosaurus rex, which lived 65 to 70 million years ago in what is now Asia and North America.

"It's always pretty exciting when you realize you're working on a new type of dinosaur," said Currie, who co-authored a paper about the discovery that appears in the spring edition of Geodiversitas, a journal about earth sciences.

"For me, especially, big carnivorous dinosaurs have been one of my passions since I was a kid and found a dinosaur in a cereal box."

A Meat Eater Bigger Than T. Rex Is Unearthed

The discovery, along with other recent ones in Canada, Mongolia and the United States, appeared to support an emerging interpretation of the hunting behavior of predatory dinosaurs. Instead of being solitary hunters, as once thought, they may have operated in groups.

"The presence of so many animals in one quarry," Dr. Currie said in a statement released by the University of Alberta, "suggests that they were living together in a pack at the time leading up to their catastrophic death." Giant dino-predators may have hunted in packs

Meat-Eating Dinosaur Was Bigger Than T. Rex

Other dinosaur experts say the discovery sheds valuable new light on the most fearsome land predators ever known.

Lowell Dingus is an associate paleontologist at the American Museum of Natural History in New York.

"The remarkable remains of Mapusaurus provide another important example of the spectacular kinds of gigantic carnivorous dinosaurs that roamed South America near the end of the age of the dinosaurs," he said.

Mapusaurus belongs to a group of recently recognized theropod dinosaurs called carcharodontosaurs, which have also been found in Africa.

The new species "increases both our knowledge of the anatomy and the diversity of this peculiar group of theropod," said Ronan Allain of the National Museum of Natural History in Paris, France.

Allain says Mapusaurus is more closely related to the Argentinian Giganotosaurus than to the African species.

"It means a South American [carcharodontosaur] lineage could have evolved regardless of the African forms."

He says the other main contender for the title of biggest ever meat-eating dinosaur is Spinosaurus, whose fossil remains come from North Africa.

More on Dinosaurs

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