Don't Ask Don't Tell

This is intrusive; a supposed survey of the sexual orientation of teachers and staff in Halifax public schools. Why? Oh cause we are concerned about human rights say the bosses, oh really or is it a fishing expedition?! MYOB!

N.S. teachers union cautioning against filling out sexual orientation survey

HALIFAX (CP) - A teachers union has cautioned its members against filling out a survey being distributed by the Halifax school board that asks about their sexual orientation, warning the sensitive information might not be protected.

The Nova Scotia Teachers Union said the roughly 8,000 teachers and other staff receiving the one-page questionnaire with their pay stubs Thursday should consider leaving several sections blank.

While the union can't offer direct advice about filling out the survey, spokesman Grant MacLean warned of the risks in completing sections that ask respondents to identify themselves as homosexual, bisexual or heterosexual, and then list their name and employee number.

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Stupid Smoking Laws

I can't believe I actually agree with this guy, but then he wrote this; Tough Anti-Smoking Laws Blanket Canada . Occasionally, rarely, maybe just this one time. The fact is you can outlaw smoking but that will not stop cancer. Cancer is caused by industrial capitalism.

Test shows pollutants in kids' blood, urine

Toxic shock

Toxic Shock, Part 1: A review by federal regulators has determined that chemicals once thought to be benign are potentially dangerous for the physical health of Canadians.

Federal regulators have determined that about 4,000 chemicals used for decades in Canada pose enough of a threat to human health or the environment that they need to be subjected to safety assessments.

The sheer number of chemicals needing review means there is probably not a person in Canada who hasn't been exposed to some of them.

While many are industrial compounds, others are widely used to make everyday products found in practically every home and office in the country, ranging from hair dryers to water bottles, fast-food wrappers, TVs, computer casings and the inside of tin cans.

A tip o the blog to I Didn't Get Where I Am Today

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Work Sucks

The headlines say it all, the problem is that workers continue to drag their asses into work, or even take all that stress home with them and work from there. Their misplaced loyalty is seldom rewarded since our bosses are psycopaths.

We need to quit enabling these sick bosses, who download more and more work onto us in the name of productivity, which is wage slavery. Work is driving us nuts.Mirror Mirror On The Wall

Comrades the revolutionary struggle is the struggle against work, that is against wage-slavery.

Work stress toll continues to rise

The stress of increasingly demanding jobs and invisible tethering to wireless devices is taking a rising physical toll on Canadian employees, according to a health study.

Twenty-one per cent of workers experienced physical health problems because of stress or depression in the past year that were bad enough to make them want to call in sick, the survey of 1,501 Canadian employees by Montreal-based pollster SOM for Desjardins Securities found.

The 'presenteeism' problem

Employers, who have long worried about absenteeism among their employees, should also be concerned about "presenteeism," suggests a report released today by a Canadian financial institution.

"In Canada, employees put work first -- before family and friends," says the report by Desjardins Financial Security, which argues that in doing so, everyone loses, including the employer.

Money worries trigger mental illness: Survey
Toronto Star, Canada - 12 hours ago
Maxed-out credit cards, BlackBerrys that buzz at all hours, and fear of being replaced were considered the most common triggers of mental health problems that

Health survey highlights

Is your job making you sick?

Stressed-out Canadians are putting work first, exacerbating mental health problems that affect their productivity and well-being, according to a survey released today.

Is your boss a corporate psychopath?
Answer 6 short questions to find out if you're working for a corporate psychopath.

Psychopath in a suit

See

Goof Off Day

The Right To Be Greedy

Relatively Speaking

Capitalism Kills

Outlaw Working Alone

Whose Family Values?

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Share The Wealth

Inco workers win takeover protection, raises

With the mere threat of a strike. In a boom economy, when nickel prices would go through the roof if they struck. While the big Canadian mininge Corporations are in the midst of an orgy of mergers and acquisitions, that is market monopoly, the mineworkers got job protection. Way to go.

The agreement "reflects Inco's extremely strong financial position and recognizes our members' contribution to that success, as well as protecting Inco employees through any merger or takeover process," Fraser said in a release.

But no matter how well paid or what signing bonuses they get they still won't be making as much as this guy.

	Inco Ltd.	Scott Hand, CEO	$10,715,736
Salary: $1,240,969 Bonus: $2,416,888 Subtotal: $3,657,857 12% chg Other: $161,791 Share Units: $2,436,903 Option Gains: $4,459,173 TOTAL: $10,715,736 New option grant: 54,000 ($800,789)

Even though it is the mineworkers who create the weath. Which is proven by the fact that had they gone on strike nickel would have become more valuable as well as making the companies involved more valuable. Maye the Steelworkers settled to short, and should have demanded shares and a seat on the board.

A looming strike at Inco Ltd.'s key Sudbury operations could send nickel prices higher and potentially make Inco's offer for Falconbridge Ltd. more attractive. That's because a strike at Inco's Sudbury operations, which account for roughly 9 per cent of global nickel output, tends to mean higher nickel prices as traders bet on potential shortages.

Also See:

Criminal Capitalism: Xstrata

Monopoly

Inco

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Soccer Scandal

Got this interesting email in response to my article on the Juventus scandal in Italy. This is the site of one member of European proto-situationist culture jammers and net artists collectively known as Luther Bissett.

Hi there,
I bumped into your post. If you're interested in following the development of this football scandal, with particular focus on its links to Italian politics, I built a lenspage on squidoo called "Calcio. Italian soccer and its nightmares", with daily updates etc.
http://www.squidoo.com/italiansoccer
And re Berlusconi's conflicts of interest:
http://www.wumingfoundation.com/english/outtakes/burlesquoni.htm

Ciao,

R. / WM1

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Uh Oh

Dodge also noted that interest rates are still historically low, 
which one analyst said seemed to be a suggestion 
that there might be room for more increases.

Told ya. Never trust the Bank of Canada. Their interventionism is old school, predictable and disastourous. Disastorous as in job losses, just like in the Mulroney era when this policy originated.

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Capitalist Demands Regulation

Regulate the market for me please.

"While I understand the Bank of Canada's role is to control inflation by varying interest rates, I have a hard time understanding why it only steps in when there is a loss of confidence in the Canadian dollar, and not in the opposite case when there is excess confidence." Laurent Beaudoin, chairman and chief executive of Bombardier Inc., questioned Bank of Canada policy at the company's annual general meeting yesterday.

See: Before the Crying Starts


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Cry Me A River

Unless the Canadian dollar cools off, he warned that manufacturers, such as Bombardier, would have little choice but to move jobs to the United States or elsewhere to remain competitive. Bombardier says its costs in Canada have increased by hundreds of millions of dollars relative to its largely U.S. dollar revenue base.

Bombardiers chicken little threats to cut jobs are hogwash. The reality is their drop in earning is BECAUSE they already cut jobs.

Bombardier's first-quarter earnings fell after a charge for job cuts at its train-making unit, but business jet deliveries and prices rose, the company said on Tuesday.

And then they will come cap in hand and ask for more corporate welfare from Ottawa to bail them out. And the reality is that Bombardier's problems are perenniel. Less to do with the dollar than the collapse of the American airline industry, and competition in Europe.

MONTREAL -- Bombardier Inc. posted a 56% decline in net income for the fiscal first quarter amid a 6% drop in revenue, as slower rail-equipment sales in Europe, the strengthening Canadian dollar and the financial struggles of U.S. airlines weighed on results.

Bombardier stock derailed over results

Cameron Doerksen of Versant Partners in Montreal said Bombardier's aerospace margin of 2.8 per cent in the first quarter was only slightly higher than the 2.7-per-cent reported a year ago.

The margin "is essentially unchanged from a year ago despite higher deliveries of business jets that were presumably sold at better prices," he wrote in a research update.

In the transportation -- or rail -- unit, the first-quarter margin was 3 per cent, up from 2.4 per cent a year earlier.

Mr. Doerksen questioned the company's ability to sustain higher margins in the longer term.

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Ho Hum Folk Festival

The problem with Terry Wickham is that he takes his audience for granted. The Edmonton Folk Festival is no longer exciting, nor experimental, in fact it is downright pedestrian. That's cause Terry leaves all the good acts for his Calgary Folk Festival. Which has been apparent over the last couple of years.

You see the Edmonton Festival is suffering from its own success. The consumers will come and consume, regardless of the performers presented. Wickham takes that as a given. Hence this years really, really, boring line up. No matter how they dress it up, with their syncophantic media relations.

Folk Fest reveals richest roster ever Not rich in performers but in fees probably and gate reciepts. About the only exciting act in this group of retro performers, really gimme a break Linda Rondstadt and David Bromberg, is Chumbawamba. And they are only mentioned in passing.


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Wrong Move

The Edmonton Police Service has dumped the cop in charge of community relations, who organized the largely peaceful crowd control situation on Whyte Avenue on Sunday night, in favour of this Orwellian named crew; the public safety unit, also known as the riot squad.

"I, quite unabashedly, state that yes, I was fired from that job," said South Division Insp. Bryan Boulanger, still reeling yesterday over the abrupt sacking. Boulanger said his approach to policing Whyte - "professionalism, discretion and tolerance" - clashed on more than one occasion with that of the commanders of the public safety unit, also known as the riot squad. "They wanted to put on their hats and bats and go out swinging," he said.

Yep and that would be a PR disaster. All you need to make hooliganism turn into a full scale riot is riot cops.

As I have said here before you need to charge the bars a tax since it is their drunks partying on the streets, plus make sure they are closing early. The other point is that while many revelers are drunk, they are coming from elsewhere, they have not been partying on Whyte all night.

They are encouraged by websites like bluemile.ca and coppermile.ca
Gee do ya think maybe the City should encourage these web sites to be more socially responsible and say post a message about responsible partying versus hooliganism.

Also when you herd all the revelers into the area of 105 st. around the old post office building, you have no control. Period. The crowd becomes too large. It naturally gets out of control. Spread 'em out don't let people bunch up, keep them moving.

The police line last Sunday was well behaved and friendly, it should have continued down to 109 St. The cop in sharge should not have been fired for what has been mainly a media snow job. The hooliganism occured later in the evening.

And interestingly there were three knifings in Edmonton that night, but NOT on Whyte. This of course was deemed less important to report than the predictable hooliganism on Whyte.Three stabbings overnight

Inviting the Riot Cops to patrol Whyte is asking for trouble. Since they won't listen to the cop in charge and undermined his authority on Sunday night they are just as responsible for the holliganism. Reinstate Boulanger.

Whyte reports overblown say business owners

Saturday’s hooliganism at the intersection of 105 Street and Whyte Avenue isn’t as bad as the media makes it out to be, say bar owners and shopkeepers in the area.

But they agree it’s time cops start pushing back at the idiot vandals who’ve been ruining everyone else’s fun.

“Everyone in the world is starting to think Whyte Avenue on game day is like a Saturday night in downtown Beirut,” says Blues On Whyte manager Jim Szakszon.

“Outside of that intersection the late night crowd gets very thin. The wisest thing the police can do is start ticketing every jerk that gives bar owners and fans a bad name.”

See Whyte Avenue


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