If This Is Success

If this is the new definition of success I would hate to see the definition of failure.

Enron's Lay called 'an American success story'




Also see:
Are Income Trusts A Ponzi Scheme
Alberta Fleeced by Enron


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Ken Lay

Profiting from Contracting Out

As I have reported here before on this bust; The Neo Liberal Canadian State this is a perfect case of why contracting out and P3's , in this case IT or computer services, by the Federal Government was an abysmal failure. It cost us billions in the Firearms Registry boondoogle. And now this.....

Former bureaucrat faces fraud charges
Toronto Star - 30 Jan 2006
OTTAWA—The Mounties have charged a former Defence Department bureaucrat and two other men in a multimillion-dollar fraud involving computer maintenance contracts.
Charges laid in DND computer billing case Ottawa Citizen
Charges laid in $100-million DND billing scheme CBC News
580 CFRA Radio - Ottawa Business Journal - Ottawa Sun - all 11 related »


Also see Privatization


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Psychological Problems or Gun Problems

Another gun related massacre in the U.S., this time a woman postal worker. So the U.S. media covers it as a case of a psycho killer. The question is not her psychological state, but how come she had access to guns.

But of course the gun nut culture of the U.S. will never ask that question.

Proving once again in the negative, that gun control works. Sure we have the occasional gun incident up here in Canada but not with the regularity that they do in the U.S.

Official: Shooter had 'psychological problems'

Witness: 'We all hightailed it out real quick'

Tuesday, January 31, 2006; Posted: 11:30 p.m. EST (04:30 GMT)

GOLETA, California (AP) -- A former postal worker who had been put on medical leave for psychological problems shot five people to death at a huge mail-processing center and then killed herself in what was believed to be the nation's deadliest workplace shooting ever carried out by a woman.

The attack Monday night was also the biggest bloodbath at a U.S. postal installation since a massacre 20 years ago helped give rise to the term "going postal."

See my other articles on guns

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Mercedes Benz State of the Union

CNN's Lou Dobbs is an excellent example of the contradictions of capitalism.

He wants American Capitalism to be unique. It should not be a national capitalism in competition with other national capitalisms but rather it should be fair and balanced as some other network says.

It should take care of its workers, it should be Fordism.

He critiques Amercian corporations for outsourcing and offshoring Amercian jobs in one breathe, low wages paid to Amercian working families, then he attacks immigration err sorry illegal aliens in the next.

Somehow he believes that there is a mythical level playingf ield out there. That the problem is corporate America isn't being fair, to Americans. That capitalism is about fairness not dog eat dog competition. Boy talk about an idealist. When he isn't being a jingoist.

Last night on CNN before the State of the Union Lou did a special where he spoke out for the besieged American working class, opps I mean Middle Class (whatever that is).....

ANNOUNCER: This is a special edition of LOU DOBBS TONIGHT for Tuesday, January 31, "The State of Our Union: The View Outside the Beltway."

Here now, Lou Dobbs.

LOU DOBBS, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening, everybody.

Three hours from now, President Bush will deliver his fifth State of the Union speech. Tonight on this broadcast we will report on the real state of our union, no spin, no denial, but a nonpartisan, non- ideological view of the reality that makes up this country coast to coast.

We're live all across the nation with our special reports on the issues that matters most to working men and women, middle class Americans, from health care to educational opportunity, to the outright war on our middle class.

DOBBS: And the middle class should be, one would think, the center of the focus of both the Democrats and the Republicans. To this point, they've given themselves up to their corporate masters, and, in fact, neither party, even the Democratic Party with its traditions, is focusing on the needs of what is the foundation of this country, our middle class.

GERGEN: Well, that's right. There's a fellow named Ernie Cortez (ph) who's a big organizer of the Hispanic community in the South, and he told me once a couple years ago, you know, the Republican Party increasingly speaks for people who make more than $200,000 a year and the Democratic Party increasingly speaks for people who make more than $100,000 a year. Who speaks for people who make $40,000 to $50,000?

DOBBS: David Gergen, thank you.

Lou asked his viewers this question:

QUICKVOTE

Do you expect to hear President Bush say anything approaching these words: "The middle class is the foundation of American society" in his State of the Union address?

And the result was 94% of his viewers figured the President wouldn't. Guess we know who the majority of Americans think he speaks for.....those folks who make more than $200,000 a year.

So Lou explain this to me, how come Mercedes-Benz was the offical sponsor for President George Bush's State of the Union Address on CNN last night.

Mercedes-Benz. And its new S-Class


While the Mercedes-Benz is distributed in the U.S. by German owned DaimlerChrysler it is still produced in Germany.

Mercedes S-Class the sponsor of the State of the Union on CNN, costs $86,175, is way out of reach of Middle Class Americans Lou was concerned about.
Guess thats why its called S-Class. Superior.

Hey Lou, will CNN now make your corporate bad guys list for accepting sponsorship from NON American corporations?

And for having a sponsor offering a foreign made car only affordable by George Bush Republicans, not middle class Americans?

Inquirying minds want to know.

There is another irony here.

Lou the jingoist patriot is promoting the The Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund is constructing a world-class state-of-the-art advanced training skills facility at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas. The center will serve military personnel who have been catastrophically disabled in operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Mercedes Benz ad for its S-Class is Even Cars Need a Hero.

Someone once said capitalism knows no nation. Lou should learn this lesson soon.

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A Libertarian defense of Communism

Libertarian communism is the idea of workers councils, workers self management, the syndicalist ideal of workers control, Soviet power, Soviets without Bolsheviks that is. The Soviet Union Versus Socialism, by Noam Chomsky

Fire your Boss and Do It Yourself, the economics of self liberation.

Brad Spangler does it again from his position as a free market Libertarian he defends what others think is non-libertarian, oh you unbelievers you. Better yet he says that workers councils and workers control of the means of production is the highest expression of free market libertarianism.

This results in a dawning realization that quasi-Bolshevist seizure of state-allied corporations by their own non-managerial workers, such as Carson suggests, is entirely justified on libertarian grounds and that there is nothing in such actions incompatible with respect for genuine property rights and dedication to the free market ideal. Indeed, it would be the highest expression of that ideal.

The Emerging Anarcho-Centrist Agenda for Socialist Revolution with Free Market Characteristics

Or as Herr Dr. Marx put it the workers struggle is the struggle of the working class to eliminate itself as a class to become the human race. To eliminate classes by the radical realization of each individual as having self and social worth. Not just value as part of the creation of capitalism.

From each according to their abilities to each according to their needs, can only result when the producers/consumers are individuals and not wage slaves. Where the social abundance produced by all of us is not privatized for the use of only one class but for all.

That is to become the owners of the socialized means of production. You need to understand socialized to be the corporatized structure of advanced capitalism not state ownership. Thats where most rightwhingnuts get confused.


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State Of The Union Deja Vu

Gee was it just me or did King George II State of Dis Union speech last night seem familiar. Like his comments on the war in Iraq.

Could have sworn I heard that in December when he did his whirlwind speaking tour defending the indefensible, after his polling numbers ended up in the basement. Yep I did. It was word for word.

Most of what he had to say was well same old same old. He gave that huyuck Texas bubba look, pause wait for applause, pause guys waiting for applause, oh boy they are applauding, smirk. Half the house failed to applaud on key points, and only Senator McCain applauded vigorously when el presidente said that he would do something about cleaning up lobbying. Yeah right when hell freezes over.

Ho hum nothing new here lets move on.

Bush: U.S. must kick oil addiction

U.S. President George W. Bush uses his fifth State of the Union speech to propose weaning America from its addiction to imported oil and stands firm on staying in Iraq.

DEVELOPING STORY

• Special Report: Scorecard: Rate the speech | Reaction

• Anderson Cooper 360 blog: Taking the offensive

• Democrats: 'There is a better way' | Transcript

• Watch: Domestic spying | Iranian threat | Energy

• Gallery: Photos | Quiz | Slide show | Fact check

• Highlights: Domestic issues | International issues | In full


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Not very diplomatic

Those John Wayne types in the U.S. armed forces in Iraq are at it again. This time they shot up the Canadian Amabasador to Iraq's car. More friendly fire. Lets see we had Canadian troops killed when Americans dropped bombs on them in Afghanistan. We have had an ambassador killed and troops injured since we have taken over for the fleeing err withdrawing U.S. troops in Kandahar. And now this.

Oh yeah remember its just an accident. This is what happens when you give 18 hear olds live ammunition. An accident like when they killed the Italian Spy chief and injured the Italian reporter after shooting up their car.

With allies like these who needs enemies.

Guess this wasn't worth a news flash last night cause the Canadian newsmedia probably didn't want to interrupt err embarass Georgie Bush during his state of dis Union speech.

Apparently now that the orgy of self congratulations in the U.S. is over CNN is now reporting on this.

(CNN) -- U.S. forces in Baghdad accidentally shot at the car of the Canadian ambassador to Iraq, John Holmes, but no one was injured, a State Department official said.

It was not immediately clear whether Holmes was inside the vehicle.

"It's an unfortunate incident," the official said of Tuesday's incident. "We are in close contact with the Canadians about the matter."

Tip o the blog to Right of Center Ice for this

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Ralph Likes Brokeback Mountain

Looks like the Klein government having lost the infamous Vriend case and then having been defeated over the issue of Same Sex Marriage, has now accepted the inveitable. It is praising in official press releases the fact that the gay content film Brokeback Mountain is on the way to the Oscars. Thats because the film was made in Alberta. Gay sex on the silver screen made in Alberta. Come home Bruce and Steve all is forgiven. A tip o the blog to daveberta for this.



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Tune In, Turn On, Drop Out

This month marked the 100th birthday day of Albert Hoffman the discoverer of LSD.

Father of LSD recalls his famous bicycle trip


LSD inventor keeps on truckin' at 100 The drug was popularized by Timothy Leary, the one-time Harvard lecturer known as the “high priest of LSD,” whose “turn on, tune in, drop out” advice to students in the 1960s glamorized the hallucinogen. The film star Cary Grant and numerous rock musicians extolled its virtues in achieving true self-discovery and enlightenment.

But away from the psychedelic trips and flower children, stories emerged of people going on murder sprees or jumping out of windows while hallucinating. Heavy users suffered permanent psychological damage.

The United States banned LSD in 1966 and other countries followed suit.

Mr. Hofmann maintains that was unfair, arguing the drug was not addictive. He has repeatedly said the ban should be lifted so LSD can be used in medical research, and he took the drug himself, purportedly on an occasional basis and out of scientific interest, for several decades.

And it has been 58 years since LSD was discovered and applied to scientific and psychiatric assessment. LSD - My Problem Child by Albert Hofmann

LSD was studied extensively by Dr. Oswald from Weyburn, Saskatchewan. Boing Boing: Midcentury LSD Experiments at Canadian mental hospital Yep little old Saskatchwan.

Dr. Oswald had done earlier experimentations with mescaline which he had administered to the author Aldous Huxely.

Mescaline, LSD, Psilocybin and Personality Change

Oswald was a pioneer in LSD investigations, he was the originator of the term 'psychedelic'. The experiments conducted in Saskatchewan were the more positive aspect of LSD experimentation during the late fifties and early sixties.

Flashback: Psychiatric Experimentation With LSD in Historical Perspective

In the popular mind, d-lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) research in psychiatry has long been associated with the CIA-funded experiments conducted by Ewen Cameron at the Allen Memorial Institute in Montreal, Quebec. Despite this reputation, a host of medical researchers in the post–World War II era explored LSD for its potential therapeutic value. Some of the most widespread trials in the Western world occurred in Saskatchewan, under the direction of psychiatrists Humphry Osmond (in Weyburn) and Abram Hoffer (in Saskatoon). These medical researchers were first drawn to LSD because of its ability to produce a “model psychosis.” Their experiments with the drug that Osmond was to famously describe as a “psychedelic” led them to hypothesize and promote the biochemical nature of schizophrenia. This brief paper examines the early trials in Saskatchewan, drawing on hospital records, interviews with former research subjects, and the private papers of Hoffer and Osmond. It demonstrates that, far from being fringe medical research, these LSD trials represented a fruitful, and indeed encouraging, branch of psychiatric research occurring alongside more famous and successful trials of the first generation of psychopharmacological agents, such as chlropromazine and imipramine.

During the 1950's and 1960's the Canadian Defense Department, and the American Defense department and the CIA funded LSD research on unsuspecting Canadian subjects. They also did joint secret studies of Biological Chemical warfare weapons on the citizens of Winnipeg, and as we are finding out now, Agent Orange tests on unsuspecting Canadian troops and citizens in Gagetown NB.

Bio-Chemical Warfare and You

The most infamous of the CIA LSD mindcontrol experiments was the work of Dr. Ewan Cameron, but he was not alone. McGill university was also implicated in the illegal and unethical treatment of prisoners and unsuspecting patients by psychiatrists using LSD as well as other behavioral modification drugs and techniques.

Canadian experiments

The experiments were even exported to Canada when the CIA recruited Albany, New York doctor Ewan Cameron, author of the psychic driving concept which the CIA found particularly interesting. In it he described his theory on correcting madness, which consisted of erasing existing memories and rebuilding the psyche completely. He commuted to Montreal every week to work at the Allan Memorial Institute and was paid $69,000 from 1957 to 1964 to carry out MKULTRA experiments there. The CIA appears to have given him the potentially deadly experiments to carry out since they would be used on non-U.S. citizens.

In addition to LSD, Cameron also experimented with various paralytic drugs as well as electroshock "therapy" at 30 to 40 times the normal power. His "driving" experiments consisted of putting subjects into drug-induced coma for months on end (up to three in one case) while playing tape loops of noise or simple repetitive statements. His experiments were typically carried out on patients who had entered the institute for minor problems such as anxiety disorders and postpartum depression, many of whom suffered permanently from his actions.

It was during this era that Cameron became known worldwide as the first chairman of the World Psychiatric Association as well as president of the American and Canadian psychiatric associations. Cameron had also been a member of the Nuremberg medical tribunal only a decade earlier.

Resources on Drug Experiments Performed by the US Government

Letter re: LSD experiments at Prison for Women, Kingston

bioethics

LSD TESTS KINGSTON PRISON FOR WOMEN 1960'S

The Canadian military funded LSD experiments on students and musicians in Montreal

Canada was the one country that was extensively doing scientific and psychiatric studies on LSD, and would later influence the American studies such as those Ken Kesey went through and documented in his novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.

THE USE OF LSD IN THE TREATMENT OF ALCOHOLISM


In fact it was the CIA which popularized LSD in the research community and can be thanked for its becoming the popular hippie drug it would become. The Original Captain Trips

The CIA aghast at the result of its 'experiment' getting out of control later would plant phony LSD fear stories in the press of the day, Time Magazine in partiuclar, about how LSD caused people to stare at the sun and go blind or leap off buildings because they thought they could fly. The incidents may have occured, not during hippie Timothy Leary style 'trips', but when unsuspecting CIA agents had been drugged without their knowing it.

The CIA dropped LSD but continued to practice narcopolitics with guns and weapons for heroin exchanges begining with the Vietnam war and it still continues today. As well as later connections between the CIA and the Cocaine cartels in Latin America. The War on Drugs was really about the war on drugs NOT supplied by the CIA. Always has been.

The CIA and The Politics of Heroin

CIA Hawking Heroin in Baghdad?

And while Dr. Hoffman blames LSD's wayward travels as the popular Tune In , Turn On, Drop Out drug of the Leary hippie era, its scientific banishment was orchestrated deliberately by the U.S. government after MKULTRA and other CIA experiments on mind control proved failures, and the popularity of the drug was getting out of their control.

Scientific research using LSD had to be restricted if not outright banned to cover up the covert studies done by CIA funded psychiatrists or else the scientific community would find out that results of so called benign studies were something more sinister.

The effect of lysergic acid diethylamide(LSD-25) on perception with stabilized images


The Guardian reports on one of the original British scientists who studied LSD prior to the famous Timothy Leary psychedlic revolution, who wants to return to studying its impact on mental illness.

Re-opening doors of perception
Sarah Boseley reports on the psychiatrist who wants to reverse the taboo against using LSD to help troubled patients

The revival of the idea of studying the impact of LSD is because the British Home Secretary has called for an extensive review of the drug legislation in Britain.

Will Clarke go soft on LSD and Ecstasy?

Charles Clarke has ordered a sweeping review of drug laws which could lead to the effective downgrading of Ecstasy and LSD.

The Home Secretary, who caused fury by resisting demands to toughen the rules on cannabis, said the current system of classifying drugs could be torn up.

He is considering a new system which would take into account the 'social' consequences of each drug, including links to muggings and burglaries. Drugs are currently split into Class A, B and C.

In 1972 Canada like Britain plans to do today, did a comprehensive Royal Commission into the use of drugs. The Ledain commission is noted for its work around cannibis and the controversial reccomendation at the time, one that remains controversial, for the decriminalization of cannibis and recreational drugs. The study also included research on LSD.

Canada was the soul source of scientific experimentation on LSD and for access to LSD even after the U.S. banned it.

BC's Acid Flashback

Long before Timothy Leary and the Summer of Love, patients at Hollywood Hospital in New Westminster were being treated with LSD.

To Rick Doblin, New Westminster's Hollywood Hospital was a far-off place of myth and legend. It was 1972, and being a college student in Florida, he was keen to expand his mind. So he wrote to the hospital to see whether he could undergo its most famous treatment; a 12-hour trip into his consciousness, under the influence of pure Sandoz LSD.

"It was the only place left where you could have a guided LSD experience in a controlled setting," Doblin says. But the hospital told him it would cost $600, more than an 18-year-old could afford, and the trip never happened.

He never forgot about that hospital, though. After doing a PhD in public policy at Harvard, he became director of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, a Florida-based research group that designs experiments using mind-altering drugs in psychiatric therapy. Last month Doblin was in the news because the U.S. Food and Drug Administration had approved a MAPS-designed study using MDMA (better known as Ecstasy) for post-traumatic stress disorder. Now Doblin is helping create an experiment using LSD - which, like MDMA, was successfully used by therapists for years before it was outlawed. So he's set his sights once again on Hollywood Hospital - or at least the files for the thousands of patients who were treated there with LSD between 1957 and 1975

Canada remained a source of LSD for drug studies conducted in the late 1970's all were done on animals none on humans after the US Administration banned the scientific use of LSD.

DISAGGREGATION OF BRAIN POLYSOMES AFTER LSD IN VIVO Involvement of LSD-Induced Hyperthermia

RNA Synthesis in Isolated Brain Nuclei after Administration of d-Lysergic Acid Diethylamide (LSD) In Vivo


Today a new age of mind explorers, working in the computer enhanced virtual reality of the wired culture have re-discovered the positive uses of LSD. LSD: The Geek's Wonder Drug?

The earlier researchers like Dr. Timothy Leary and Richard Albert (Baba Ram Dass) who used LSD to open the doors of perception ( as Aldous Huxely refered to his experiences on a similar hallucinogen; mescaline) this generation of mind explorers has their work to build on and Dr. Leary's later interest in computers. What goes around comes around and goes around and comes around.

Todd Brendan Fahey made the Digital Leap at the close of 1994.

The synthesis of psychedelic drugs and the Internet has not been widely written of by the mainstream media, but Fahey and others believe the relationship to run deep.

John Perry Barlow remarked to Fahey, in an as-yet unpublished interview: "I'll go so far as to say, if the government succeeds in its War On (some) Drugs--if everyone who used marjiuana and LSD were to really be put in jails--America would not have an operational computer left."

This remark mirrors Timothy Leary's assertion, to Fahey in 1992, that "Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak were barefoot, long-haired acid freaks" and that Bill Gates was known to use LSD while at Harvard.

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Conservatives embrace Corporate Welfare

All may not be lost for Buzz Hargrove yet. As I reported in my article on Mittal, Buzz was worried that state capitalism in Canada was threatened by the election of the Conservatives. It appears that they may be changing their tune now that they are in government and the Canadian dollar has slapped them into reality.Loonie soars to a 14-year high

Ian at Tilting at Windmills says Monte Solberg is singing a different tune about the crisis in trade between Canada and the U.S.

Oh Canada. Oh Subsidies:Why the Conservatives have decided to subsidize manufacturing

What is driving the Canadian dollar is the increase in commodity prices, oil, minerals, etc.and the foreign take over of several large scale Canadian businesses. And of course another rate rise on the U.S. dollar, Canada will follow suit with Bank of Canada President David Dodge playing 'me too'. Something he has been rightly criticized for by Jim Stanford of the CAW.

Loonie soars to a 14-year high

Indeed, commodity prices surged again yesterday, with zinc hitting a record, gold trading at a 25-year high and silver near a 22-year high. Oil reversed an earlier decline and natural gas prices jumped, with many analysts predicting energy prices this year will surpass the lofty levels of 2005.

With oil and other commodities accounting for about 35 per cent of Canadian exports, this all bodes well for economic growth. Crude oil prices have risen 10.2 per cent so far this year, on top of last year's 44.9-per-cent advance.

But there's another positive for the loonie, namely foreign takeovers of Canadian companies, which boosts short-term demand for the currency.

Yesterday, Saudi Prince al-Waleed bin Talal's Kingdom Hotels International and investment firm Colony Capital LLC offered to buy Toronto-based Fairmont Hotels & Resorts Inc. for $3.3-billion (U.S.).

Last week, U.S. billionaire Jerry Zucker sealed a deal to buy Hudson's Bay Co., Canada's oldest company, by adding $28-million (Canadian) to his $1.1-billion bid.

Dofasco Inc. was also up for grabs. If Arcelor SA's bid is successful, the Luxembourg firm will spend $5.6-billion on Canada's largest steel maker. And Swiss bank UBS AG said it will pay $173-million to buy the rest of its Canadian operations it didn't already own.

"An announcement of a merger or acquisition can definitely lend short-term support," said David Powell, currency analyst at Ideaglobal in New York, especially because it's less liquid than other global currencies. He stressed that traders were reluctant to place big bets ahead of today's announcement by the U.S. Federal Reserve, marking the last rate decision with chairman Alan Greenspan at the helm.

"This may be the calm before the storm," he said. "That's going to be the defining event of the day, the week, if not the month, the quarter and the first half of the year."

With the Canadian dollar being strong the Bank of Canada could afford to drop interest rates, in order to drop the cost of the dollar and make it all the more attractive against the U.S. dollar. The commodity index appears to be increasing thanks to pressure from China for resources. Resources it needs from Canada and elsewhere. So with high prices for copper, nickel, oil, gold, platinum, potash, uranium etc. which we are rich in
the Canadian dollar will increase, what it doesn't need is to be artificially helped by Dodge. Nor does Canada's manufacturing industry need corporate welfare from the Conservatives.

What we need is tripartite investment in industry, and securing it for trade purposes in the global market, that is institutional investment funds/ federal and provincial governments/union pension funds investing with ownership buy in.

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