Still not getting our due

The market wonks and pundits are all a flutter about $100 oil. It hit that price last week in two, count em two, speculative deals amongst hundreds in the commodity markets. The price then dropped to between 97 and 99 dollars. This was declared a decline, with much brow wiping.

However the price of oil before last week was $95 at the end of 2007. Again a fact that seemed to be glossed over in the news about hundred buck oil. It hovered between $72 and $80 for most of last year. Then is shot up at the end of the year. Thanks to speculation not real market conditions of supply and demand. Today it is now in the high nineties.

Oil prices rose at a record rate last year a 60% hike . And they will continue to go up. It is one of the conditions of a Peak Oil marketplace.

Which means that Albertans are still getting short changed on our royalties. Since Stelmach's Royalty regime will not come into effect until 2009 and as an uncensored Alberta Energy Report reveals we have been short changed even under the existing royalty scheme.

Oil prices in 2007 rose 57% and wholesale gasoline prices climbed at a similar rate

Oil prices breached a record $100 a barrel several times last week, as falling inventories, geopolitical tensions, strong demand from developing countries and a weak dollar pushed futures above the psychologically important mark.

David Pumphrey Deputy Director, Energy, Center for Strategic and International Studies

"Fundamentals are still quite strong, and would support oil prices in the $90 to $100 range, but not much higher. The wild card is the financial markets."

Daniel Yergin Chairman of Cambridge Energy Research Associates

"Prices won't hover around $100 unless some bad things happen in oil-producing countries. Last year, oil averaged $72

Oil, gas price forecasts
Raymond James analysts are predicting that crude prices will again exceed Wall Street's consensus in 2008. "The global oil markets must push oil prices high enough to slow global oil demand growth in a supply-constrained market," they said. Accordingly, Raymond James raised its forecast of crude prices to an average $90/bbl in 2008, up from a previous estimate of $80/bbl "to reflect a tightening, supply-constrained oil market." Analysts said, "Additionally, we are raising our 2009 forecast from $85/bbl to $100/bbl due to our belief that additional oil supplies will be even harder to find in 2009 and beyond."

Raymond James analysts noted continued strong growth in domestic gas production—"primarily Barnett shale and Rockies driven"—and increased LNG imports should again push US gas storage levels to record highs in 2008. Therefore, they said, "We believe 2008 gas prices will be even weaker than originally anticipated and are revising our 2008 US gas price forecast down from $7/Mcf to an average of $6.50/Mcf for the full year, the lowest since 2004. We are also initiating a 2009 price forecast of $7/Mcf. While US gas prices could remain relatively weak through 2009, the build-out of global gas infrastructure should eventually drive global gas prices closer to BTU parity (6:1 price ratio) over the next 5 years."

Censored report shows gov't was told in 2006 Alta. missing out on oil billions

EDMONTON - Alberta Energy told the provincial government in 2004 that the province was missing out on billions of dollars in resource revenue, newly released documents show.

In a 2006 report, the department estimated that since royalty rates were capped at certain price levels, Alberta had lost between $1.3 billion and $2.8 billion in "uncaptured economic rent" for natural gas alone in 2003 and 2004, or between $700 million and $1.4 billion a year.

The department's cross-commodity resource valuation team called on the government to "increase conventional oil and gas royalties to restore Alberta's fair share at high prices."

Another section of the report, comparing Alberta with eight U.S. oil-producing states, showed the province ranked lowest in the percentage it took in royalties and taxes.

Premier Ed Stelmach announced last fall that he was hiking royalties, but not until 2009 and not to the extent called for by the royalty review panel headed by Bill Hunter.

In the documents, information about oilpatch returns against reinvestment between 1990 and 2003 show that despite higher returns for companies and record drilling, the ratio of reinvestment has declined. The words "higher returns, record drilling, declining reinvestment" were stricken from documents previously released to The Journal.

Alberta's NDP joined in the fray Friday by attacking Stelmach's new royalty framework as a massive giveaway to oil companies.

"When oil hits $100, this new royalty framework will forgo tens of millions of dollars a day compared to Alaska," NDP Leader Brian Mason said.

"When the time comes that oil regularly trades at $100, the Tory royalty system will cost Albertans over $4 billion a year."

Stelmach's oil royalty plan called inferior to Alaska's

Premier Ed Stelmach's new oil royalty revenue scheme will generate chump change compared to the system used in Alaska, says Alberta NDP leader Brian Mason.

"The two areas face similar challenges in terms of costly operations to extract crude oil and have similar right-leaning governments, yet Alaska has managed to come up with a system that generates far more money from oil than we ever could under the new royalty regime," he said yesterday.

By Mason's math, Albertans are foregoing $4.3 billion in extra oil revenue by not charging higher royalty percentages and capitalizing on $100 per barrel oil prices.

Mason said under the new royalty regime, Alberta will take in $7.4 billion, but that could jump to $11.8 billion if Alberta took a bigger piece of the pie.

"Alaska takes $42.24 on each barrel of $100 oil and the sky didn't fall as Big Oil warned us it would in Alberta just a few months ago.

"Alberta takes just $26.51 from a barrel of $100 oil. There is a huge gap there and a lot of room for us to earn more money. The price of a barrel of oil isn't going down much any time soon. As far as I can tell, the world only has so much of it to go around."

SEE

The Economist On Alberta's Fair Share


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The Secret Of Ron Paul's Success

Here is the secret of Ron Paul's success in organizing his campaign. He hasn't. He has left it up to his supporters to do it for him. It is a truly libertarian campaign.

Pop quiz: Who is the first presidential candidate ever to be interviewed by a college student in his dorm room, with the video posted on YouTube?

The answer is Republican longshot Ron Paul, who is waging one of the most dynamic but least-managed e-campaigns in the 2008 race.

The Texas Congressman's e-fundraising efforts are as unconventional as his use of media. Unlike other presidential wannabes, who rely on e-mail blasts to would-be supporters, Paul has been building his war chest by allowing his backers to drive much of the campaign themselves.

The Paul campaign has taken a bottom-up, community-oriented approach to online fundraising "so that as donations come in, the information about who's donating [and how much has been raised] is made available to everybody" on the campaign's home page, says Andrew Rasiej, co-founder of TechPresident.com, a New York-based group blog that covers how the 2008 presidential candidates are using the Web and how content generated by voters is affecting the campaign.

But Paul's campaign has taken a highly decentralized, bottom-up approach that's aimed at building a community of support while saving the organization money on IT overhead.

"Our strategy is shaped by the need to be frugal with money," says Justine Lam, Rep. Paul's e-campaign director in Arlington, Va. When Lam first began crafting Paul's e-strategy in March 2007, the campaign had a total of just $500,000 to work with. "We knew we couldn't run the same kind of campaign that [Mitt] Romney or [John] McCain could with the money they had," says Lam, a newbie to the political battlefields and the second person to join Paul's campaign staff. So thrift was the watchword when it came to campaigning online. For example, instead of hosting Ron Paul videos on his campaign Web site and chewing up valuable network bandwidth, Lam has uploaded his speeches and other video content onto YouTube.

Presidential campaign regulations have also played a significant role in shaping the Ron Paul online fundraising juggernaut. The Federal Election Commission has strict regulations prohibiting campaign organizers from giving instructions to supporters on what they should do to help the campaign. As a result, Lam and other members of the campaign team settled on a strategy of suggesting to devotees that they effectively develop their own independent campaign strategies in support of Paul.

The strategy "ricocheted through the Web and has allowed people to take ownership of the campaign instead of the campaign telling them what to do," says Lam, who previously managed webcast lectures for the Institute for Humane Studies at George Mason University in Arlington, Va.

The community-driven online fundraising strategy has worked brilliantly and has distanced the Paul e-campaign from the rest, say Rasiej and other pundits. "Ron Paul is probably the best example" of a presidential candidate who's made the most effective use of grass-roots e-mail and blogging, says Karen Jagoda, president of the E-Voter Institute in La Jolla, Calif.

The strategy appears to be working, at least from the standpoint of online attention. According to Hitwise Pty., an online measurement service based in New York, Paul attracted nearly 38% of Web traffic among all main candidates in the third week of December, trailed by former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, with over 16%. Obama came in third with just under 11%.

Although candidates such as Clinton have raised far more than Paul overall (Clinton's most recent FEC filing, on Nov. 21, shows that she has netted more than $45 million), Paul's community fundraising approach generated more than $19.5 million for the fourth quarter of 2007, easily outpacing all of the other candidates in terms of online fundraising, says Rasiej.

The watershed moment for Paul's online fundraising efforts was the "Ron Paul Money Bomb" of Nov. 5, when the campaign set a one-day record for contributions. "We've never seen anything like it," says Lam. "We raised $4.2 million that day under a completely supporter-driven 'money bomb.' No one has ever done that."

"We've never seen anything like it," says Lam. "We raised $4.2 million that day under a completely supporter-driven money bomb. No one has ever done that," she says.

Then on Dec 16, Paul upped the ante, raising an astounding $6 million.

The most that former Vermont governor Howard Dean amassed in a single day of online contributions during his 2004 presidential run was $500,000, Lam says.

Dean's campaign was also very much community-fed and Internet-driven. But back then, Dean's campaign organizers held frequent Meetup.com telephone conferences with supporters, which included weekly to-do lists for backers, says Lam.

Not Paul's people. "We might have a webconference once in a while to tell supporters what we're doing in the campaign [headquarters], but we don't tell them what to do," says Lam.

One of the truisms in Internet politics is that it's easier for "edge" candidates like Paul to catch fire online with would-be voters than it is for more mainstream politicians such as former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, says John Palfrey, executive director of the The Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School. That's because campaigns with smaller budgets and smaller support bases "are more willing to take the risk of using the Internet in experimental ways," says Palfrey.

"Ron Paul is running a very online-focused campaign," says Palfrey, "and he's becoming [more] relevant as a result."

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libertarian, Republican,, politics, right wing, conservative, internet, US Presidential race, Ron Paul,

Unfair and Unbalanced

So Fox had their debate last night without Ron Paul.

I saw the very beginning of the forum, in which Brit Hume said that ‘one of these five men will be the next President of the United States’ — a statement which I found presumptuous.

They claimed its because they only invited candidates with double digit standings in the National Polls. Well Ron Paul is ahead of Fred Thompson in New Hampshire. And it was a New Hampshire debate. But well....fair and balanced as Fox is they did not want him there. Any excuse would do not to feature the only Republican candidate opposed to the War in Iraq. And the result was a very boooooring political forum that fell flat.

Paul has been one of this campaign's biggest surprises. Rudy Giuliani, Fred Thompson, and Mike Huckabee have seen their popularity fluctuate, but Paul has continued to climb in polls (he's at 10 percent in the latest CNN/WMUR New Hampshire poll, well ahead of Thompson)."It's annoying not able to participate in the debate," said Paul, adding that Fox News reporters and commentators "are war mongerers who don't want to hear other opinions."

The decision by Fox to limit participation in the forum infuriated Paul supporters and even drew the ire of the New Hampshire Republican Party, which withdrew its sponsorship of the event.

Fox had invited Republican candidates Rudolph Giuliani, John McCain, Romney, Huckabee and Fred Thompson to the forum, but excluded Paul as well as California congressman Duncan Hunter.

Paul protested, arguing that he raised $20 million in the last quarter of 2007, almost the same amount as Hillary Clinton. Furthermore, a Research 2000 poll published in the Concord Monitor released Sunday showed Paul garnering 7 percent of the vote, besting Thompson and only 1 point behind Giuliani in the state.

On Saturday the New Hampshire Republican party expressed its disappointment with the decision to exclude Mr. Paul and Representative Duncan Hunter of California by severing its partnership with Fox.

“We believe that it is inconsistent with the first in the nation primary tradition to be excluding candidates in a pre-primary setting,” said Fergus Cullen, chair of the state G.O.P. party. “All candidates regardless of how well known they are or how much money they’ve raised should be treated equally here.”

The New Hampshire G.O.P. has been in discussions with Fox to include all the candidates in the forum, but the network said that it was only inviting candidates who received double digit support in national polls.

On Saturday, Fox News Channel issued a brief statement from David Rhodes, its vice president of news: “We look forward to presenting a substantive forum which will serve as the first program of its kind this election season.”

The voice that Fox News wouldn’t broadcast Sunday night came through loud and clear to the more than 400 Ron Paul fans who jammed into the Crowne Plaza hotel’s ballroom here Sunday afternoon to hear his alternative vision for America.

The crowd, representing many of the outliers of the American political spectrum, waved placards and American flags as they repeatedly rose to their feet.

If nothing else, Paul’s backers, who include pro wrestler Glen Jacobs (aka “Kane”) and former Rep. Barry Goldwater Jr., are more overtly enthusiastic about their candidate than most political activists.

That energy could make Paul’s primary day performance here a compelling undercard for Tuesday’s marquee matchups of Democrats Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton and Republicans John McCain and Mitt Romney .

In a Concord Monitor poll this week, Paul was one point behind Rudy Giuliani , well within the margin of error, for fourth place, with Fred Thompson behind them. Finishing behind Paul could be a jarring blow for better-known candidates who hope to compete for the nomination nationally.

“It makes [Fox] look so foolish,” Paul said after his speech. “What do they have against democracy?”

Note that I have been predicting Paul would do well in NH for sometime now , and the polls show that.

If you want to use polls the latest Rasmussen Reports has him tied for third place in New Hampshire with Iowa winner Mike Huckabee at eleven percent (11%) making Fox look even more foolish. Fred Thompson is at four percent (4%) in the state in that poll, and Rudy is only at nine percent (9%).

Fox loves to promote unbridled capitalism as the solution to everything. Well here is what happens when the market responds to such obvious politcal bias and censorship. Ya hit them where it hurts, in the pocket book.

Are Ron Paul Supporters Really Hurting Fox News Parent Company Shares?

Following Fox News exclusion of US Republican Presidential candidate Ron Paul in a Sunday debate, many of his supporters called for a boycott of sponsors and - perhaps worse - shorting Fox parent company News Corp's stock.

Maybe it's just a reflection of the market overall but News Corp's shares really dropped this past week as seen by the chart below.

Coincidence? Perhaps. Then again....

The exclusion of Dr. Paul has backfired as major newspapers in the state of New Hampshire have jumped all over the story....and it's not a story of how some lowly candidate has been told to stay home by Fox News because he doesn't stand a chance in hell of winning. The stories instead ask "How and Why?". How could Ron Paul not be invited when Rudy Giuliani performed much worse in Iowa than Paul, who managed to crack double digits with 10% of the vote? Why is Ron Paul not invited to a state debate where he is presently polling better than three other invitees in New Hampshire?

Fox News for us is a guilty pleasure. We watch it, we've appeared on Fox and we certainly do not encourage the shorting of a company's shares.....but the decision to leave Ron Paul out of this debate was a "bonehead" one to say the least made by individuals who we suspect do not have a full grip on reality.

The Republican GOP in New Hampshire has now backed out of sponsoring the debate, even though it will still go on as planned. The headlines on Monday, however, will be "Where was Ron Paul?" and his New Hampshire exposure is bound to be twofold as a result.

Paul has a real base in the Republican party and can build delegate status, with such an open race. As this liberal Washington state commentator correctly points out.

I stopped going out of my way to deliberately antagonize and belittle the Paul campaign a couple months ago. It was mainly because he ran and is running a real race. The guy raised $20 million in a quarter. Despite not spending a nickel he got 10 percent of the vote in Iowa - more than Giuliani - and with how flakey the voters are in the Granite State odds are good he'll do even better in New Hampshire.

Like it or not the guy is a real candidate. This isn't Dennis Kucinich or Tom Tancredo who couldn't get attention if they were holding the last ham sandwich in hungry town. Paul has name recognition. The way things are looking, he will probably be in the race longer than Mitt Romney or Fred Thompson. Although there's probably no scenario where Paul can win the nomination it is nowhere out of the realm of possibility that he will control a significant block of delegates which could be a factor should this race be decided at the convention.

The Paulites are playing by all the rules and doing everything you can ask in order to be a valuable part of the nomination process. Right now as you read this there are dewy-eyed Paul supporters signing up to be PCOs and precinct captains laying down the foundation of a good grassroots base. They're doing it across the country. They're doing it in King, Pierce and Snohomish counties.

Here in Washington, Democrats are choosing all of their delegates in the caucus while half the Republican delegates are coming from the primary; the open primary. It wouldn't be surprising if Paul came in second or even wins our state's GOP primary.

You see the signs along the road, you read the blog comments and you watch the YouTube videos. In terms of generating excitement the "Paultards" have been kicking the ass every candidate in both parties with the exception of Barack Obama

Paul appeals to pre Reagan Republicans, those who like Barry Goldwater feel the party was taken over by the Moral Majority.

Paul has gained a loyal following in New Hampshire by touting his strict constructionist view of the constitution and his support of individual liberties and small government with lower taxes.

Paul's campaign has helped highlight a growing group of disenfranchised Republicans who say they are being alienated by religious conservatives and others.

Supporter Louise Aitel, a high school teacher from Merrimack, said she was so turned off by the Republican Party's views that she voted for Al Gore in 2000, but will return to the GOP fold tomorrow to cast a ballot for Paul.

"I was so wretchedly tired of religion being part of the state," she said of her 2000 vote.

Paul said yesterday he is working to change the party and hopes his views will be considered.

"If it doesn't transform the Republican party, then it's going to get weaker and weaker," he said, adding that he is trying to "save" the party.

As result of the Fox move Jay Leno, desperate for content, has invited Paul to cross striking writers picket lines to be on his show. The day before the New Hampshire primary. Bingo just like Hucakbee was before Iowa. And we know the result that had.

Leno is competing to have maverick Republican candidates on his show to boost his ratings. He had Huckabee on for his inaugral show last week. With the strong libertarian base in LA and California, this will auger well for Paul and for Leno's ratings. That Paul crosses a picket line to do this does not do his cause justice, but the core of his liberaltarian base are union haters so they could care less.

As for Leno he desperately needs content as his latest endeavors show like when last week he had one of his male staff show off his beer belly in a slinky thong. Desperation reeks off the show which has not come to an agreement with its writers like its competitor Letterman did. Having Paul on is unfortunately a win-win. And a big loss to the Writers Guild.


Writers Guild of America members continue to picket outside “The Tonight Show” studios Wednesday as fans wait in line to get into Jay Leno’s show.

SEE:

Fox Vs. Paul

Tags;
libertarian, Republican, Barry Goldwater US, Ronald Reaganelections, politics, right wing, conservative, Mr.Conservative, Fox News, Jay Leno, US Presidential race, Ron Paul,

Excuse Me....Say What?

Really the Harper can't help it he is a Conservative....really....it's not his fault...all those years in the trenches with the Reform Party....his political education under the tutelage of the Calgary School....years spent as mouthpiece for the right wing business lobby; NCC....nope he can't help it he is a Conservative........

OTTAWA -- Two years ago, political pundits wouldn't have given Prime Minister Stephen Harper much chance of winning over Ariette Schoorl.

The 61-year-old, who considers herself left wing, was initially put off by Harper's "cold" personality.

But even though she doesn't always agree with the Harper government's policies, especially on the environment, she has come to admire the prime minister's poise.

"He stays cool, he stays under control and I appreciate that in the guy," she said. "He can't help it that he's a conservative."

And she considers herself left wing. Talk about politically naive. Clearly she is no Raging Granny. Nor the wife of a veteran.

Elsie Wayne plants a big one on her boy

SEE

Mrs. PM Stay At Home Mom

Correction Child Care For Seniors

Women Are Not A Minority

Sexism in Academia

Tory Cuts For All

A Pigs Ear

Only Christians Are REAL Women

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If A Mormon Can Be U.S. President....

If this guy, who belongs to a unique 19th Century American created religious cult, can run for President.....




















Could this guy be a contender?




Well no of course not he is dead.

But his cult isn't.

If American's can imagine a Mormon for President why not a Scientologist.

Sonny Bono,
Republican, Member of the U.S. House of Representatives
from California's 44th district
After unsuccessfully running for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate in 1992, Bono was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1994 to represent California's 44th District
He became a Scientologist, partly because of the influence of Mimi Rogers, but stated that he was a Roman Catholic on all official documents, campaign materials, web sites, etc.

Opps he's dead too. Well how about this guy.



After all Mormonism and Scientology share their origins in a gnostic world view.

Despite the vigilance of the early Church, the strength and pernicious influence of the Gnostic heresy—“ye shall be as gods”—has never diminished.

Saint John’s first epistle, written to the various churches dispersed throughout Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey), was most likely written in the mid-late first century in order to encourage fellow believers to persevere in the faith, in the midst of rather intense persecution, false teaching, and political oppression. While it is more common in popular scholarship to see this epistle as having been written near the end of the first century, given the content of the letter and the failure of John to make any mention of the destruction of either Jerusalem or the Temple would urge me to strongly prefer an earlier date (i.e., pre-A.D. 70). [Incidentally, I would argue the same for the book of Revelation, as it foretells the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, rather than describing it as an event which had already occurred. Otherwise, it wouldn’t make much sense.]

One of the most influential forms of “false teaching” prevalent among the early Christians was what we today know as “Gnosticism.” It seems somewhat clear to me that many of John’s words are carefully chosen, in both his epistle and gospel, in order to combat this erroneous way of thinking. However, we need to try and not only read his works in this light, and bear in mind that there was no “First Gnostic Church” of Ephesus, or any concretely established “Gnostic” religion; rather, it was a philosophical underpinning of many thinkers in the Greco-Roman world, prevalent before, during, and most significantly after John’s lifetime. The Gnostic paradigm was, however, closely connected with early Christian beliefs and did much to unfortunately lead many astray from the truth of the gospel. John, being the good shepherd he was, wanted to ensure that none of his children in the faith were distracted by the lies of this Greek way of thought.

The founders of both were influenced by the modern occult teachings of their day, Freemasonry, Rosicrucianism, Theosophy and spirtiualism etc. in the case of Joseph Smith, and the Ordo Templi Orientis in the case of L.Ron Hubbard.

joseph smith the founder of mormonism evolved
his theology over time, ending up with a doctrine
that is similar to the gnostic rosicrucians,
which was incorporated into freemasonry
as their theology.

smith actually joined freemasonry along with other
mormon leaders,only to be kicked out.

But the mormon doctrine of evolving into a god
and presiding over your own celestial kingdom,
along with mormon secret temple rituals being
copies of freemason rituals(wearing white robes,etc)
seems to have as it's foundation rosicrucian doctrine
which is claimed to have it's roots in ancient
egypt under pharoah Akhnaton,the ancient egyptian
priestly order of the "great white brotherhood"(they
wore white robes), and Hermes Trismegistus ,supposed
founder of Hermeticism and also being the egyptian
god thoth.

here is some interesting studies on this,

http://www.gnosis.org/jskabb1.htm

http://www.gnosis.org/ahp.htm

http://www.masonicmoroni.com/Links_Articles.htm

Few Mormons realize that the LDS temple ceremony is not of ancient origin, nor of modern revelation. Instead, the ceremony originated around 1790 when the Masons first conceived it for use in their secret society. Until 1990 the Mormon Temple Ceremony closely resembled the Masonic Initiators Ceremony, signs, tokens and penalties included. I never made the connection between Masonry and Mormonism until I began a serious study of the Mormon temple ceremony.

The Creed of the Church of Scientology (4 Feb 54)

The Church of American Science exists upon the following creed which is adopted as the creed of the Church of Scientology of California, with the additional tenets provided for in number 5 and 6 below:

	“1.	That God works within Man his wonders to perform.
	2.	That Man is his own soul, basically free and immortal, but deluded by the flesh.
	3.	That Man has a God-given right to his own life.
	4.	That Man has a God-given right to his own reason.
	5.	That Man has a God-given right to his own beliefs.
	6.	That Man has a God-given right to his own mode of thought and/or thinking.
	7.	That Man has a God-given right to free and open communication.

Liber LXXVII

"the law of
the strong:
this is our law
and the joy
of the world." AL. II. 2

"Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law." --AL. I. 40

"thou hast no right but to do thy will. Do that, and no other shall say nay." --AL. I. 42-3

"Every man and every woman is a star." --AL. I. 3

There is no god but man.

1. Man has the right to live by his own law--

to live in the way that he wills to do:
to work as he will:
to play as he will:
to rest as he will:
to die when and how he will.

2. Man has the right to eat what he will:

to drink what he will:
to dwell where he will:
to move as he will on the face of the earth.

3. Man has the right to think what he will:

to speak what he will:
to write what he will:
to draw, paint, carve, etch, mould, build as he will:
to dress as he will.

4. Man has the right to love as he will:--

"take your fill and will of love as ye will,
when, where, and with whom ye will." --AL. I. 51

5. Man has the right to kill those who would thwart these rights.

"the slaves shall serve." --AL. II. 58

"Love is the law, love under will." --AL. I. 57

And as religious cults (tm) (c) (r) they are both successful businesses.

In a recent article in The Washington Post, religious reporter Bill Broadway laments that Mormons are feeling picked on. Despite the large number of Mormons who hold prominent positions in government and Fortune 500 companies "Latter-day Saints get little respect where they want and perhaps need it most — in the religious community.

The LDS is, among other things, a very big business tightly controlled from the top down. If one believes that the entire enterprise is based on revelation that is authoritatively interpreted by divinely appointed officers, it makes sense that control should be from the top down. The LDS claims that God chose Joseph Smith to reestablish the Church of Jesus Christ after it had disappeared some 1,700 years earlier following the death of the first apostles. To complicate the picture somewhat, God’s biblical work was extended to the Americas somewhere around 2000 b.c. and continued here until a.d. 421. This is according to the Book of Mormon, the scriptures given to Joseph Smith on golden tablets by the Angel Moroni. American Indians are called Lamanites and are part of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel. Jesus came to preach to these Indians and for a long time there was a flourishing church here until it fell into apostasy, only to be restored, as the golden tablets foretold, by Joseph Smith. In addition to giving new scriptures, God commissioned Smith to revise the Bible, the text of which had been corrupted over the centuries by Jews and Christians.

Today’s Quorum of the Twelve Apostles is, allegedly, in direct succession to Smith, and the First Presidency claims powers that would have made St. Peter, never mind most of his successors, blush. The top leadership is composed, with few exceptions, of men experienced in business and with no formal training in theology or related disciplines. The President (who is also prophet, seer, and revelator) is the oldest apostle, which means he is sometimes very old indeed and far beyond his prime. Decisions are made in the tightest secrecy, inevitably giving rise to suspicions and conspiracy theories among outsiders and a substantial number of members. Revenues from tithes, investments, and Mormon enterprises have built what the Ostlings say "might be the most efficient churchly money machine on earth." They back up with carefully detailed research their "conservative" estimate that LDS assets are in the rage of $25-30 billion.

Scientologists are expected to attend classes, exercises or counseling sessions, for a set range of fees (or "fixed donations"). Charges for auditing and other church-related courses run from hundreds to thousands of dollars. A wide variety of entry-level courses, representing 8 to 16 hours study, cost under $100 (US). More advanced courses require membership in the International Association of Scientologists (IAS), have to be taken at higher level Orgs, and have higher fees.^[58] Membership without courses or auditing is possible, but the higher levels cannot be reached this way. In 1995, Operation Clambake, a website critical of scientology, estimated the cost of reaching "OT 9 readiness", one of the highest levels, is US $365,000 – $380,000.^[59][60]

Scientologists are frequently encouraged to become Professional Auditors as a way of earning their way up the Bridge. As a Field Auditor, auditors can receive commissions on people referred to Orgs and a 15% FSM commission on completed services.^[61]

Critics say it is improper to fix a donation for religious service; therefore the activity is non-religious. Scientology points out many classes, exercises and counseling may also be traded for "in kind" or performed cooperatively by students for no cost, and members of its most devoted orders can make use of services without any donations bar that of their time. A central tenet of Scientology is its Doctrine of Exchange, which dictates that each time a person receives something, he or she must pay something back. By doing so, a Scientologist maintains "inflow" and "outflow", avoiding spiritual decline.

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Obamaphenom

Since this is the fortieth anniversary of '68 we are once again experiencing political deja-vu as the Obama campaign picks up the shade (nephesh) of Robert Kennedy.

The '68 Democratic Convention was a choice between the establishment candidate; Hubert Humphrey and the anti-war candidate Eugene McCarthy. Coming up the middle was Robert Kennedy. And though he lost the early primaries, the youthful Robert won California before he was assissinated. Unlike McCarthy, Kennedy made change his message, more than being just against the war, Kennedy made the war on poverty regardless of one's skin colour the issue that mobilized his base.

It is interesting forty years later that Obama has mobilized that same enthusiasm and youthful base that both Kennedy and McCarthy benefited from, to now run ahead of the establishment candidate Hillary Humphrey. The picture of Hillary in Iowa in defeat surrounded by the Democratic establishment dead heads, hubby, Madeline Albrecht, etc. all that white hair and those white faces on stage said it all.

Despite her gender, Hillary Clinton blends into the pack of her fifty- and sixty-something white rivals on both sides – all experienced pols who, in varying degree, are held responsible for a country that Americans consistently tell pollsters is headed in the wrong direction.

Whereas Obama appealed in Iowa as he does in New Hampshire to independents, as well as Republicans tired of their party establishment. He mobilized to register new voters as Democrats, these included yes lots of young people but also women, thanks to Oprah. Many of those voting in Iowa caucuses last week did so for the first time, and of those the majority were older women. And they voted Obama not Clinton.

Most importantly Republican voters are moving towards supporting Obama in the primaries. Partially out of an 'anybody but Clinton' reaction but more importantly as a rejection of party politics of the establishment. Obama is seen as the anti-establishment candidate for voters in both parties as well as amongst independents. His populism is wider than the narrow vision of either Huckabee or Edwards, who focus on blue collar fears. Yes his message of hope is hokey, but it is a vision Americans are graving after six years of the politics of fear. His politics of change and of hope echo the Robert Kennedy campaign, as I have said before, and therefore cross class, race, religious, or other ideological blinders that limit his opponents campaigns, Democrat or Republican.

And that is what makes Obama a phenom, his appeal across party lines which makes him a sure winner for the Democrats. Unlike Clinton, whose appeal is limited to the party establishment. And unlike any of the Republican candidates whose message remains stay the course, or whose appeal is to their narrow base of supporters within that moribund party.

Why does Obama appeal to Republicans? Because despite all the fawning over Ronald Reagan, some Republican's remember that their party was founded not by a fiscal conservative, or by the Moral Majority but was once the party of Abe Lincoln. And Obama appeals to his spirit of the people, for the people, by the people.

Conservatives, never mind centrists, are booking passage on the Obama bandwagon. Which isn't surprising: Whomever the GOP nominates appears doomed in November, although the betting here is that the once-moribund John McCain campaign will both win the GOP nomination and give the Dem standard-bearer a good fight.

But the Obama swoon among conservatives is almost breathtaking. Lapsed neo-con Andrew Sullivan practically nominates Obama for sainthood in a recent Atlantic Monthly profile. Peggy Noonan, the former Ronald Reagan speechwriter, notices that Obama, in contrast to Clinton and Dubya, has the Stephen Lewis gift of cogitating while making his extemporaneous observations, rather than defaulting to talking points scripted by his staff. ("What a concept.").

Noonan warns the rather sound-alike Democratic and Republican hopefuls about "the quiet longing" among Dem, GOP and media potentates for an Obama upset. The capital dreads an encore of the (however justified) Hillary Clinton paranoia of the 1990s. It hungers, she says, for a refreshing phenom who might indeed be too wet behind those big ears, but reminds a lot of people of a much earlier Illinoisan with just one term in Congress by way of experience who saved the Republic from ruin in the 1860s.

David Brooks, one of the house conservatives at the allegedly liberal New York Times, wrote Friday that, "Whatever their political affiliations, Americans are going to feel good about the Obama victory, which is a story of youth, possibility and unity through diversity – the primordial themes of the American experience. And Americans are not going to want to see this stopped. When an African-American man is leading a juggernaut to the White House, do you want to be the one to stand up and say No?"

Whew. Bring out the smelling salts.

That Obama, unlike African-American leaders such as Jessie Jackson and Al Sharpton, has so little invested in the civil-rights wars of the past is among the factors in his favourable prospects of becoming America's 44th president.

Obama is the son of a Kenyan economist and a Kansas mother with slave-owning ancestors. He chose to be a black American rather than a multiracial one. But Obama is conspicuously impatient with adversarial politics, racial and otherwise. He frames poverty, chronic unemployment, and out-of-wedlock pregnancy not as issues of racial victimhood, but as a betrayal of founding American ideals of fairness that has been no less punishing to Appalachian whites than inner-city blacks. Obama also bluntly chastises his audiences for substituting video games for parenting.

Barack Obama is only the third African American elected to the U.S. senate since Reconstruction, and now is the sole black member of that body. (More than a dozen women serve). For America and that part of the world that still looks to the U.S. for inspiration, the first black chosen to lead a major industrial nation would indeed be a transformative event, and an unprecedented test of 21st-century American values in November.

SEE:

Winds of Change

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Fox Vs. Paul

More evidence that the neo-con establishment hates Ron Paul. In this case Fox News is not inviting Paul to their Republican debate Sunday night. Dumb move. But what do you expect from the channel that hates Paul the most.So much for fair or balanced.

Online protests seek to include Ron Paul in NH debate
An online protest is growing over presidential candidate Ron Paul's exclusion from a Fox News debate here on Sunday, even though other Republicans receiving fewer votes in Iowa or scoring lower in the polls were invited.

Paul received a fifth-place 10 percent of the GOP vote in Iowa's caucus Thursday, ahead of Rudy Giuliani, who received 3.5 percent. He's also ahead of Fred Thompson in New Hampshire polls, polling 7 percent to Thompson's 2 percent.

But both Giuliani and Thompson still appear to be invited to Sunday evening's debate sponsored by Fox News and the New Hampshire Republican Party. Paul isn't.

That's irked many Paul supporters, who responded by flooding a Fox News Web page on the debate with over 580 comments and creating a "Protest Fox" Web site. It says: "We need to send a message to Fox's Rupert Murdoch & his fellow Neocon buddies that he is not Musharraf and the US is not Pakistan, yet! Fox News cannot just stifle public opinion. debate and impact a primary election by excluding Ron Paul just because they don't like his message of freedom and liberty."

They're also planning protests outside Fox News affiliates. Another likely protest site is Saint Anselm College in Manchester, N.H., which has given Fox News space for a broadcast studio. That's where Sunday's debate will take place.

So why the exclusion? It's hard to say, and Fox News hasn't exactly been forthcoming on this point.

For his part, Paul said he thinks it's because he--alone among Republican candidates--opposes the war in Iraq. After being excluded, Paul explained that he views Fox News as a "propagandist" for the war with editorial views that are hardly in keeping with traditional conservative limited-government principles, according to a story by the Boston Globe.

Adding to the intrigue is that the New Hampshire Republican Party, which is co-sponsoring the debate and presumably has some say in who's invited, published a statement this week saying the media should not be in the "business of excluding serious candidates and talks were continuing with Fox."

And adding to the insult, at least for Paul supporters, is that ABC News is sponsoring a debate at the same place--Saint Anselm College--the evening before. Unlike the Fox News debate on Sunday, however, Ron Paul will be invited to participate.

Of course Fox neo-con commentators just hate Ron Paul.

SEAN HANNITY UPSET ABOUT RON PAUL WINNING DEBATE POLL

While Fox is the voice of America's War,

Ron Paul and Bill O'Reilly Duke It Out (09/10/07)



Fox Chatheads Aghast at Ron Paul's Appeal




Ron Paul is the voice of America's Troops. The folks fighting the neo-cons war for them. Paul can say he supports the troops while calling for their withdrawal from Bush's war.

New Spot: "Troops Support Ron Paul"

Republican Ron Paul is out with a new TV ad, set to run in New Hampshire through Tuesday's primary, stressing his military credentials.

Patriotic music booms. Soldiers salute. The announcer begins: "A proud military veteran who served our nation. Ron Paul salutes and supports our troops who protect and defend our freedom." A flag waves. The announcer continues, "But who do the troops support? Ron Paul. The record shows they're standing up for him." The ad concludes: "Ron Paul is their choice for commander-in-chief."

His campaign spokesman Jesse Benton said Paul "has long been a praised as staunch advocate for veterans' issues." Still, he "wants to bring the troops home from Iraq" because he would rather America "never again sends out brave soldiers to war unless doing so is necessary for our defense," according to Benton. Whether his anti-war message will appeal to New Hampshire veterans is hard to say.

While being dissed by the Republican establishment and its neo-con media flacks the real libertarian base of the pre-Reagan Republicans comes out in favour of Paul.

Congressman Ron Paul will be joined in the last days of the New
Hampshire campaign by former Congressman and conservative stalwart
Barry Goldwater, Jr.

"We are truly honored to have this legendary conservative family
here to support Dr. Paul and bring his message to New Hampshire
voters," said Jared Chicoine, NH State Coordinator. "A Goldwater
endorsement sends an unmistakable message about what Ron Paul really
means to the Republican Party."

Son of the late conservative senator from Arizona, Mr. Goldwater
himself served six terms in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Carrying on his father's legacy of fighting for small government and
individual liberty, the former Congressman endorsed Ron Paul for
President in November of 2007.

New Hampshire is going to be another win for Paul but will the media finally take notice? Only if he succeeds in coming in fourth again and burying both Thomspon and Guilliani once and for all. And his chances are very good in this most libertarian of all states.

Rasmussen: Ron Paul Soars to 14% in NH

And while most polls indicate a slug fest between former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney and Arizona's U.S. Senator John McCain on the Republican side of the fight, another Republican has been waiting behind the curtain for some time now: Texas Congressman Ron Paul.

Paul has endeared himself to legions of supporters with his grandfatherly conviction and steady, libertarian-style message against the Iraq War, for downsizing goverment with lower taxes, and against the erosion of Constitutional rights. Paul's voters are enthusiastic and oftentimes angry. But they have purpose to their anger, fueled as it is by the outrage of seeing America drift ever closer to a socialist "Nanny State."


Tuesday. If Paul can come into the first tier of candidates, say at least fourth or third, his campaign picks up new legitimacy as he will be introduced to America by the mainstream press.

What many traditional Republicans miss is that Ron Paul, like him or not, truly helps show America that the Republican Party is not all lockstep behind the Bush/Cheney Administration when it comes to foreign invasions and domestic surveillance. Since Bush's approval ratings have been in the deep cellar for two years now, having Ron Paul handy to make articulate arguments on liberty and a more prudent foreign policy shows a Republican Party that acknowledges its mistakes.

And even the liberals like him which just further pisses off Fox.

Ron Paul is Bill Maher's New Hero



And he even has support of an anarchist or two....



SEE:

Winds of Change

Huckabee: Paul is Dead

Republican Presidential Paul-itics

Ron Paul and Barry Goldwater

Ron Paul

Death Of Laissez-Faire Politics

Libertarians for U.S. President

Ron Paul Quotes Ayn Rand

Gravel and Paul on PBS

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Proletarian Doctors Redux

Bethune led the way. And Canada quietly has produced a model for creating doctors faster than the monopoly guild that is the College of Physicians and Surgeons would like to admit to.

As I have pointed out here before the way to create more doctors and reform the medicare system is to break the haughty power of the monopoly the doctors guild has on its profession. And it appears that such a possibility has been in place for forty years but nobody bothered to admit it existed.

Add to this a program of nurse practitioners, free tuition and a commitment to work in rural areas, as well as community based health clinics with doctors on salary we would well be on our way to ending the health care crisis. And it would cost far less than any other reform.

Canada could produce a lot more doctors at a lower cost, and medical students would save thousands in tuition if most of its medical schools moved to a three-year program, the Canadian Medical Association Journal suggests.

Such three-year programs have existed for decades at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ont., and at the University of Calgary.

Dr. Paul Hébert, editor-in-chief of the Canadian Medical Association Journal and a professor of medicine at the University of Ottawa, wants to know how they measure up against the four-year programs at the rest of the country's medical schools.

"We've had a 40-year experiment go on, and no one's looked at that data as far as I know in a very cogent and detailed manner," he told CBC Radio's Ottawa Morning Friday, the same week he published an editorial titled "Is it time for another medical curriculum revolution?" in the bi-weekly journal.

Dr. Norman Bethune, assisted by Henning Sorensen, performing a transfusion during the Spanish Civil War

Norman Bethune (1890-1939) was a Canadian thoracic surgeon. During the 1930s he became a convinced communist, and this led him to Spain, where he joined the anti-Fascist struggle. On the Spanish battle fields he became aware that 75% of serious battle casualties would survive if operated on immediately. In early 1938, he arrived in China, and proceeded to Yan'an, the revolutionary base area of the Chinese Communist Party. Mao Zedong commissioned him to organize a mobile operating unit in the interior of North China. Although he was forced to work under extreme circumstances, sometimes operating for forty hours straight without sleep, and within minutes of the front lines, he saved the lives of many Chinese party members and soldiers. He died of septicemia, contracted when he cut himself while operating under great pressure from advancing Japanese forces.

Norman Bethune (1890-1939)

• born in Gravenhurst, Ontario
• served as a stretcher bearer in a field ambulance unit of the Canadian army in France in 1915
• a bout of tuberculosis inspired his interest in thoracic surgery
• joined the surgical team at Montreal's Royal Victoria Hospital
• produced over a dozen new surgical instruments
• became disillusioned with medical practice because often patients who were saved by surgery became sick again when they returned to squalid living conditions
• visited the Soviet Union, and secretly joined the communist party in 1935
• opened a health clinic for the unemployed
• promoted reform of the health care system
• fought the fascists in Spain in 1936
• in Madrid he organized the first mobile blood-transfusion unit
• in 1938 he went to aid the Chinese against the Japanese invasion
• in China he formed the first mobile medical unit, which could be carried on two mules
• died of an infection due to the lack of penicillin, the infection ocurred during surgery due to a lack of surgical gloves
• Bethune is regarded as a martyr in China and is referred to as "Pai-ch'iu-en" which means "white weeks grace"
• next to his tomb in China there is a statue, a pavillion, a museum, and a hospital dedicated to him
• the family home in Gravenhurst is now a museum
• played by Donald Sutherland in the biographical film: "Bethune: Making of a Hero"
• biography: The Scalpel, The Sword by Ted Allen and Sydney Gordon
• for more information see Canada firsts (1992) by Ralph Nader, Nadia Milleron, and Duff Conacher

History of the Norman Bethune Tapestry by William C. Gibson, MD, DPhil

One day when I had just arrived back in Vancouver from World Health Organization meetings in Geneva I dropped in to see H.R. MacMillan at his home. As usual he began: "What is the best thing you saw while away?" I told him of a very fine tapestry which was in a travelling exhibition, showing Norman Bethune in the Chinese countryside. "Find it," he said. After months of correspondence with Chinese and Geneva sources, I had to report failure. So H.R. said: "Get one made in China and send me the bill." So I sent off to Shanghai a colour photo to be reproduced, giving the approximate size which we could accommodate. Six months later the Bethune tapestry arrived, almost buried in mothballs! We placed it in the Sherrington Room, where many came to study it.* The setting depicts a former Buddhist temple, which Bethune had converted to his operating room for the Eighth Route Army in Hopei Province in the north. Bethune had sailed on a CPR Empress liner from Vancouver soon after Japan attacked China, because he was at that time in Salmon Arm, B.C. on a fundraising mission for his blood transfusion service in the Spanish Civil War. On hearing of the invasion of China, he gave up his efforts for Spain, where he had done yeoman service for the legal government of Spain despite the Department of External Affairs in Ottawa, which threw no end of roadblocks in his way. With a Canadian nurse he set off for China, accompanied, alas, by an American Red Cross surgeon who turned out to be a chronic alcoholic (as I believe he had been in Newfoundland). In 18 months Bethune became a legend. After his death at age 49 of an infected finger, cut while operating, Mao wrote a eulogy which was memorized by every schoolchild in China. When I first visited China in 1973, with the Bethune Foundation, every stop we made was highlighted by children reciting it. * One visitor was Dr. Wong, who was Bethune's anesthetist, shown in the tapestry. Bethune is doing a rib resection to get at a lung damaged by a bullet. You can see him bending over the wedged-open chest of the soldier.

SEE:

Proletarian Doctors

Socialized Medicine Began In Alberta

Ex Pat Attacks Medicare

Privatizing Health Care

Laundry Workers Fight Privatization

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