Mulroney shouldn't have slagged Trudeau in the press as a way to promote his book. It's in poor taste and does nothing to rehabilitate his own popularity, which was finally beginning to recover, albeit slowly.Amen.
" As a child, I remember three main villains in Canada: one was Hitler, who was going to start a war - it was as inevitable as the sunrise; the second villain (not necessarily in this order) was the Treasury Board, which was depriving Canada of enough resources to get equipment for the military, to fight the threat of Hitler; and the third great villain was Mackenzie King, who was prime minister, and was not only a draft dodger in World War I, but had no sympathy and no understanding of, and no interest in, the military and as a consequence damaged Canada's future."
Peter Worthington
William Lyon Mackenzie King returned to Canada to run in the 1917 election, which focused almost entirely on the conscription issue, and lost again, due to his opposition to conscription, which was supported by the majority of English Canadians.
Human toddlers outperform apes in social learningSometimes it takes an art historian to define what science and religion cannot agree on; what makes us human.
One theory holds that humans have distinctive "cultural intelligence," she said. Alternatively, some think humans hold an advantage in social cognitive tasks simply because they have more general intelligence.
Human toddlers show markedly better social learning skills compared to their primate cousins, a new study finds."Social cognition skills are critical for learning," Herrmann said in a news release.
"The children were much better than the apes in understanding nonverbal communications, imitating another's solution to a problem and understanding the intentions of others," she said.
Hermann's study involved 230 subjects -- 100 chimps, 30 orangutans and 100 children.
The children were two-and-a-half years old. That age was picked because the subjects could handle the test's tasks, but they were not old enough to know too much.
The apes resided in sanctuaries in Africa and Indonesia. They ranged in age from three to 21 years.
All the subjects were subjected to the cognitive tests of the Primate Cognition Test Battery.
In areas such as space, quantities and causality, the toddlers and the primates were found to be about equal.
For communication, social learning and theory-of-mind skills, the children scored 74 per cent and the primates only 33 per cent.
In "The Human Animal in Western Art and Science" (University of Chicago Press, 320 pages, $40), the Oxford art historian Martin Kemp offers a new solution.Mr. Kemp's new solution proposes to draw a line between man and beast not on the basis of reason or the presence of a soul, but in accord with a subtler distinction. Although some animals use crude tools, no animal uses what he calls "indirect tools." These are tools, such as a needle or a bow and arrow, which require a series of imaginative "pre-visualizations," both to invent and to use.
To conceive a needle, one must be able to envisage the process of connecting two pieces of material; this in turn involves picturing such implements as thread or the needle's eye and, in a further stage, the specific looping motion of sewing. As in chess, the ability to picture objects and processes in future and successive stages is required. This seems clearly beyond the capacity of any animal.
Mr. Kemp's argument is persuasive. Such strategic visualization, proceeding by a logic of images rather than of concepts, does appear peculiarly human. And yet, the puzzle of our apartness remains; to be human is to be caught in a strange midway kingdom. We sense but can't know the minds of our fellows in that neighboring realm. Montaigne put it best, in a remark Mr. Kemp quotes: "When I play with my cat, how do I know that she is not passing time with me rather than I with her?"
NDP leader campaigns in anticipation of election
It was perhaps that headline that finally pushed him over the edge to actually respond to public challenges. However it was far from being decisive leadership, despite Neil Waugh's cheer leading, as the Edmonton Journal correctly points out.
Alberta's Ed Stelmach tagged with "Mr. Dithers" moniker, low support
Political analyst Jim Lightbody says now that Albertans have gotten to know Ed Stelmach as the new premier they're ``quite unimpressed.' Lightbody says Stelmach seems like a very nice man who is in way over his head. He says the Mr. Dithers tag on Stelmach is much deserved because the premier has been indecisive on key issues, such as nuclear energy.
- Up in Peace River, Brenda Brochu feels like she was "blindsided" when she heard her town was selected as the proposed site of Western Canada's first nuclear power plant -- and the first to be built in decades."When did we ever say we wanted nuclear power here?" said Brochu, who is head of the Peace River Environmental Society.
A lot of Albertans are feeling exactly same and so they should. With little warning and almost no public discussion, Peace River residents and the rest of the province are suddenly staring at plans for a $6.2-billion privately built and operated plant proposed by Calgary-based Energy Alberta.
And all this before there's been any formal public decision that Alberta should go down the path to nuclear energy.
Premier Ed Stelmach should have consulted Albertans, developed a consensus that nuclear power was the right option, or not, with everyone fully aware of the serious issues nuclear energy raises.
Instead, there were private talks, with a handful of municipal politicians in the Peace River area keen to attract the jobs, business spinoffs and tax assessment that will come with such a massive project.
They may be elected officials, but those private talks are no substitute for the broad public discussion Albertans need to have first on whether they want to go down this road.
And who knows perhaps with Alberta's tradition of wholesale turnover and electing upstart parties, which the NDP is, well anything could happen if Stelmach calls an election this fall or next spring.a growing number of government MLAs have announced they won't seek re-election under their new leader, Ed Stelmach.
The most recent retiree is Wetaskiwin-Camrose MLA LeRoy Johnson.
That means thus far seven have indicated they will step down when the election is called. That's only about 10 per cent of the government caucus.
It's not as if anyone has to widen the legislature exits to accommodate the departures.The trouble for Ed Stelmach is unless more government MLAs quit this time around he will have to run with "Ralph's Team" for the election expected in 2008.
That's not a good thing for a premier trying to rebrand the Tory party as something new and re-energized -- not as a bunch of oldsters, some of who were first elected when Brian Mulroney was in the prime minister's chair and Toad the Wet Sprocket was in the top 40.
Since Alberta joined Confederation in 1905, only four parties have ever formed governments. When political change came, it was wholesale and the victor was a party that had never governed the province before.
Liberals, 1905-1921
Won Alberta's first election in 1905 under Alexander Rutherford. Re-elected under Mr. Rutherford in 1909 and under Arthur Sifton in 1913 and 1917.
United Farmers of Alberta, 1921-1935
Won 1921 election under leader Herbert Greenfield. Re-elected 1926 and 1930.
Social Credit, 1935-1971
Founded as Social Credit League of Alberta 1932. Won 1935 and 1940 elections under leader William Aberhart. Re-elected under successor Ernest Manning 1944, 1948, 1952, 1955, 1959, 1963, 1967.
Progressive Conservatives, 1971-present
Won 1971 election under leader Peter Lougheed, re-elected 1975, 1979, 1982 and 1986. Led by Donald Getty in 1989 and 1993, then by Ralph Klein in 1997, 2001 and 2004.
Tories to set record
On Sept. 18 the Alberta Tories will surpass the Social Credit party's 36-year record as Alberta's longest-serving government. The country's longest-serving political dynasty was the Liberal Party in Nova Scotia, which held office for 43 straight years, until 1925.
Then there's Craig Chandler.Funny thing the small-c conservative comment was left by a Craig on a Progressive Bloggers post about Chandler.He is proudly confrontational, and his official web page sports a photo of him with fists raised.
This is a guy who makes Stephen Harper look like Jack Layton. Even so, I had trouble believing Chandler actually wrote the outrageous quote attributed to him that is making the rounds of the Internet.
It sounds suspiciously like a parody of what a right-wing nut would write as advice to newcomers to Alberta:
"To those of you who have come to our great land from out of province, you need to remember that you came here to our home and we vote conservative. You came here to enjoy our economy, our natural beauty and more. This is our home, and if you wish to live here, you must adapt to our rules and our voting patterns, or leave. Conservatism is our culture.
"Do not destroy what we have created."
You might want to take a moment and re-read it. Yes, it really does say you must vote conservative or leave.
I phoned Chandler for a comment.
"That seems a little taken out of context for me," he said initially. However, as we talked he e-mailed me the whole article he had written for a weekly newspaper under the heading, "If you move to Alberta -- Adapt or Leave." Hmm. The quotation is entirely accurate and not at all out of context.
The only parody here is inadvertent self-parody.
Chandler took pains to say he meant small-c conservative, not necessarily the Conservative party.
Thomspson sums up our hopes and fears.Advocate for Democracy, Part II
I had a post about a week ago about a couple of politicians who were ignoring the basic rules of democracy and it seems someone may be in damage control mode. I had this comment posted to the entry:
"I never said anything about people voting PC. I talked about small 'c' conservativsm.
Craig"
Now I can't verify that the post is from Craig Chandler himself, one of his supporters or just a random troll. I could but I don't track people down on the internet... I'm too busy doing real life things.
His comments are of course undemocratic, mean-spirited and head-shakingly stupid.
Consequently, the New Democrats and Liberals would dearly love for him to win the Tory nomination in Calgary-Egmont.
Alberta's Conservatives might be dropping in the polls, but you have to wonder if they've dropped so low as to be on the same level as the likes of Craig Chandler.
With authorities promising tighter borders, some farmers who rely on immigrant labor are eyeing an emerging generation of fruit-picking robots and high-tech tractors to do everything from pluck premium wine grapes to clean and core lettuce.Such machines, now in various stages of development, could become essential for harvesting delicate fruits and vegetables that are still picked by hand.
"If we want to maintain our current agriculture here in California, that's where mechanization comes in," said Jack King, national affairs manager for the California Farm Bureau.
More than half of all farm workers in the country are illegal immigrants, according to U.S. Department of Labor statistics.
As I wrote in Gothic Capitalism; "the term Robot first appears in the Czechoslovakian science fiction novel/play; R U R (1920) aka Rossum's Universal Robots by Karl Capek. Robot is shortened form of the Russian word for worker, robotnichki, it also refers to work or drudgery."
Because of the immigration issue, migrant workers are becoming a difficult entity to find," Maconachy said. "If growers have a crop that needs to be harvested and there aren't the people to do it, they'll need to find a mechanized way to do it."Philip Martin, an agricultural economist at the University of California, Davis, said it was still unclear if heightened immigration enforcement would drive away enough workers to justify huge expenditures by growers on new machinery.
And the number of variables involved makes it difficult to determine how much, if anything, growers could save by switching to automated systems.
Regardless of mechanization, there will always be the need for workers. Mechanization of farming was the origin of capitalism, transforming self sufficient peasant's into wage slaves in the growing industrial metropol's.
“If the whole class of the wage-laborer were to be annihilated by machinery, how terrible that would be for capital, which, without wage-labor, ceases to be capital."
Karl Marx
Spies will soon have own social networking site Experts say the service will only be as effective as those who use it. And with many older workers puzzled by their younger colleagues' obsessive use of Facebook and its ilk, full-blown use could take time.
Mark Lowenthal, president of The Intelligence & Security Academy and the government's former assistant director of central intelligence for analysis and production, admits he's baffled by social-networking sites and isn't sure if A-Space is the ultimate solution to fixing problems in the agencies.
"Clearly, we don't always behave like a community so anything you can do to help foster that to a degree is a good thing," he said. "We want to do better. Anybody who's dealt with adapting technology to the intelligence community will tell you that the intelligence community has not been brilliant in catching up."
A community of spies is a community spying on itself.
Within a few years, it became obvious that Ron Gostick’s warnings were more than valid. Not until the early ‘70s did a few right of centre journalists like Lubor Zink and Peter Worthington dare to say what Ron Gostick had said in 1968.
That is why they are once again making common cause with the nationalists to demand special status for Quebec. That bunch of snivellers should simply have been sent packing and been told to stop having tantrums like spoiled adolescents. But our current political leaders lack courage. By rushing to the rescue of the unhappy losers, they hope to gain votes in Quebec; in reality, they are only flaunting their political stupidity and their ignorance of the demographic data regarding nationalism. It would be difficult to imagine a more total bungle.
Premier Ed Stelmach will travel to Toronto later this month to tout Alberta's contribution to the Canadian economy."I'll also leave a message about what we're doing with respect to the work we're doing on the environment," Stelmach said Wednesday.
The premier said he will attempt to drive home the message that Alberta's boom is Canada's boom, a theme he has told national audiences before.
Stelmach will spend Sept. 24 and 25 in the city and deliver a lunch-hour speech to the Empire Club on the 25th.
Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach is being criticized from within his own ranks for agreeing to make a speech in Toronto during the Ontario election campaign.A senior cabinet minister, who did not want to be identified, says there's no way the premier should make the Sept. 25 speech to the Empire Club, especially if it bashes Ontario.
"This is a mistake," said the minister as he left a three-day caucus planning session. "He shouldn't have agreed to deliver this speech."
But a Stelmach spokesman says the premier never hesitated to accept the speech when the invitation was extended by the Empire Club.
The Alberta Advantage will be John Tory's disadvantage.
