Good Point

Another attack on unionized city workers, you know the stories we all hear, about the guys standing around doing nothing. Well such was the case when the City of Montreal decided to secretly spy on its blue collar workers and see how they were working. As a result the city bosses alleged they found workers taking to long to fill potholes. However there are always two sides to a story. This one will make the rounds of course because it is a stereotype, but the union side will probably get less coverage. So lets hear from them...

"The city is trying to advance its own interests by turning the public against the blue collar workers," says union spokesman Michel Fontaine. He's worried the city will use this issue to promote privatization of its municipal work force. Fontaine also has questions about how the investigation was undertaken. "How could the workers in question not have done their work for so many hours and be under surveillance, but not have a supervisor present?"

Yeah that was convenient having the supervisor the shift foreman away when the workers were being video taped. So where was he, and how come he didn't get suspended....I smell a rat.




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Will Tories Goose Workers

Sorry I just couldn't resist that headline after seeing this;

Tory government worries Goose base workers
Workers at the Goose Bay air base are wondering if the new government in Ottawa will implement $50-million of improvements promised by the Liberals in November.

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Canada

Science or Tourism

First NASA science research gets censored by the Bush regime then they do this;

Science will play a diminishing role at NASA as the space agency emphasizes lunar exploration in the next five years, according to a new governmental budget.

Budget would squeeze NASA spending
Bush, who two years ago called on NASA to recapture its former glory by mounting an ambitious program to return astronauts to the moon, is asking Congress to give the space agency a minimal raise. (Related items: White House version of NASA budget | Full NASA budget document (both PDF)

And how do they plan to fund their next moon mission, well through P3's.

NASA makes hard cuts in research to preserve shoot for the moon
Yet the budget also breaks ground for NASA, which proposes to invest $500 million over five years to nurture a fledgling commercial-rocket industry outside the usual cast of major aerospace characters. Start-ups such as SpaceX in Redondo Beach, Calif., are designing and building rockets aimed at driving down launch costs far below the shuttle's pricey $10,000 a pound. Space entrepreneurs have long complained that NASA has steeply tilted the playing field toward behemoths such as Boeing and Lockheed-Martin, even as it professed a sometimes grudging willingness to expand commercial development of space.

"Using money intended for science programs to find continued operation of the shuttle is a serious setback to the US space program," according to Wesley Huntress Jr., former associate administrator for space science at NASA who heads the geophysics department at the Carnegie Institution in Washington.

He argued the agency is using money from "a popular and highly productive program" to pay for a program slated for cancellation.

Which means expect less of this; NASA's Spitzer Uncovers Hints of Mega Solar Systems and this:Hot Halo Find Confirms Theory

And more of this:Tourism and Travel Commercial space flights may be on horizon
In Business Las Vegas, NV - 3 Feb 2006
... The FAA says a recent space tourism study that included a poll of affluent Americans indicates that space tourism could generate more than $1 billion in ...

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Krakatoa

Sea levels would have risen higher and ocean temperatures would have been warmer in the 20th century if the Krakatoa volcano in Indonesia had not erupted in 1883, scientists said on Wednesday. But the effect of Pinatubo on ocean temperatures was much smaller because of the impact of greenhouse gases which were much higher in 1991 than in 1883. "The Pinatubo eruption influence on sea level and heat content was dampened by this background warming," said Gleckler.
Krakatoa effect lasted decades - study





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Criminal Capitalism

Those who say that Enron was an exception, like oh say Tyco and WorldCom and QWest and Hollinger under Conrad Black well here are a couple of more exceptions proving the rule, that capitalism is a criminal enterprize.

Nortel settlement adds to the disgrace heaped upon execs

'Payola' probe turns towards radio conglomerates


The only reason business doesn't get caught or convicted more often is because of the golden rule, dem dat has da gold makes da rules. And then they have their pals enforce the rules.
New questions raised over Mulroney's ties with German businessmanLast Updated Wed, 08 Feb 2006 21:59:22 EST

CBC News

Former prime minister Brian Mulroney received $300,000 from a secret Swiss bank account after he left office because he was strapped for cash, German businessman Karlheinz Schreiber has told The Fifth Estate

And while there are those who break the 'rules' that is the function of capitalism, which is why capitalist complain about all dem der rules and regulations, cause even when they are doing business as usual they still can't help themsleves.

DoJ to investigate Mittal bid for Arcelor
MSNBC - 10 hours ago
The US Justice Department has begun an antitrust investigation of Mittal Steel's $23bn hostile bid for Arcelor, creating a potential regulatory hurdle for a proposed ...
Culture Clash Cited in Mittal's Arcelor Bid ABC News
Global behemoth Globe and Mail

We can add these stories I reported on;

Mittal

Japan's Dot.Com Scandal

Wal-Mart A Toxic Success

War and the Market State

Criminal Capitalism



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Scabs Cause Olympic Cost Overruns

Yep the private sector construction companies and their pals in the Olympic Organizing Committee in their usual Anti-Union enthusiasim for contracting out screwed taxpayers out of millions and probably by the end of it billions since they refused to bargain with the Construction Unions in B.C. They would rather do it their way, cause guess whose gonna pay....you and me. See the bosses like team work only when its on their terms. And so far their non-union labour has NOT been cheaper.

Olympic overrun could have been avoided: unions

B.C.'s construction unions say part of the $110-million Olympic cost overrun could have been avoided if the Vancouver Organizing Committee (VANOC) had made them partners in the project. B.C. and Yukon Building and Construction Trades Council spokesperson Wayne Peppard says the 2000 Olympics in Sydney showed how Olympic organizers, labour and industry could work together.

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CIA Secret Flights in Canada

It is being reported that the CIA has been using Canada for a base for its secret rendering flights.

What is interesting in this news report is this:

Records indicate aircraft allegedly controlled by the CIA continue to use Canadian airports amid unanswered questions about their activities.

Last fall, the Bloc Quebecois pressed the federal government to reveal details of the flights, concerned U.S. intelligence may be ferrying terrorist suspects through Canada to countries where they could be tortured.

The Public Safety Department said last month a federal review of landings by alleged CIA planes at Canadian airports found no evidence of "illegal activities."

Nope its perfectly legal for them to fly here as private aircraft on business. Clever folks in the PSD eh, not denying the CIA is using Canada, just that they aren't doing anything illegal, oh like running drugs for guns for hostages......


Other Stories on the CIA: Irans Nuclear Program Is A CIA Oops


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Team Work

As I have said here before;Socialized Medicine Began In Alberta we need to put doctors on salary, reduce the restrictions of grade point averages and the guild like control that universities and the CMA has over who qualifies for medical education, and look at creating medical services that are community owned and operated.

It appears I am not alone in believing this is the real reform we need to apply to healthcare in Canada. Of course this report doesn't quite go that far but it's a beginning.

Joint health-care training applauded by watchdog
Thu, February 9, 2006
Michael Decter will give a public speech tomorrow at the University of Western Ontario.
By JOHN MINER, FREE PRESS REPORTER

Providing separate training for different health-care professions makes as much sense as providing separate training for members of a hockey team, the chairperson of the Health Council of Canada said yesterday.

Praising the University of Western Ontario for starting to train different professions together, Michael Decter said it is important to build teamwork from the start.

"If you are going to train a hockey team by having a school for defencemen in one city and a school for goalies in another and a school for forwards in another, you wouldn't expect them to play as a team when you put them together," he said.

"Similarly, if we train doctors and nurses and pharmacists and physiotherapists all separately and don't involve them in any kind of teamwork through their training, then it shouldn't be surprising that they find it hard when they get out into the real world to form up into teams to practice."


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Say It Ain't So

I am stunned, shocked, why how can this be..... Provinces break health promises: report That's what you get when you give the provinces money with No Strings Attached.

OTTAWA -- Provincial and territorial governments are not keeping their promise to account for billions in health funding allocated by the former Liberal government, says the Health Council of Canada.

The federal government gave provinces $36 billion over five years in the 2003 first ministers' accord, and another $41 billion over 10 years in 2004, on condition that the money be spent on specific areas.

But it's not clear where the money is going, says the council, created to monitor implementation of the first ministers' accords.

"Information about how federal transfers are spent by provinces and territories is not easily accessible and some cases is not available at all. Most jurisdictions are not living up to their commitment to provide annual public reports."

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Make Friends and Kill Yourself

Reuters is reporting that internet suicide rates are up in Japan. That is folks meeting on the net to plan collective sappuku. It's a unique Japanese phenomena.

While in the West folks hide away in their rooms, by themselves, alienated from the world around them only to die alone leaving their notes on the internet. Now some commentators thought I was being harsh in my comments on this particular case, of the AI genius who commited suicide, because I failed to understand him or read his work.

But the point I was making is that he was his project. He had stepped into the abyss. All that we do is a process of self realization, one side is enlightenment the other is madness. The same goes for the technogeeks in society. They already are maladjusted in mass society, alienated individuals, being nerds and geeks, their best friend is their program or their computer. Thus they already have the tendency towards the dark side.

It's the darkside of the web, and the dark side of our culture which denies public access to information on the epidemic of suicide. As the pressures of capitalism deforms our culture it also deforms our psyches. The pace of society, the demands of work and consumerism, the social conformity demanded of us are greater than any other time in human culture. Capitalism dehumanizes us and in its twisted version of individualism we are reduced to being alone, alienated.

We lack authentic relationships, love and solidarity, as Eric Fromm points out in this essay from 1959. Love in America

Modern man is alienated from himself, from his fellow men, and from nature. He has been transformed into a commodity, and experiences his life forces as an investment that must bring him the maximum profit under existing market conditions.

Man bows down and submits to the demands of his own work, his machines, his organization of production and consumption, and loses the experience of himself as creator and subject of his truly human powers of love and thought. Thus human relations become more and more those of alienated automatons.

But automatons cannot love. They can exchange their „personality
packages“ and hope for a fair bargain. Love becomes the refuge for a
„team“ from an otherwise unbearable sense of aloneness. One forms an alliance
against the world as this „egoisme a deux“ is mistaken for love and intimacy.

Industrialization has provided leisure for entertainment, mass communications
media have made it continuously available, and our consumption-oriented
economy urges us to imbibe as much of it as possible. Turn where we will our
senses are assailed by hundreds of competing forms of amusement.
The tendency of mass entertainment, especially the movies, to exalt romantic
love at the expense of other kinds has already been noted. Its other effects on
love include the following:

(a) As financial considerations require that most
entertainment programs attract the largest possible numbers, they demand very little
of their audiences. This means that they contribute to human passivity; little more
is required than to sit and absorb. But if love is an activity, as we have insisted, it
is poorly served by inducements to become, as persons, more passive.

(b) The continuous entertainment which mass media offer us has turned what is inherently the most intimate of all human relationships into the most public and ubiquitous. Never before have so many people been wooed in such public fashion.
Sentiments which were formerly regarded as deep, personal exchanges between
two loving human beings are now common promises in the wind. „I love you“ is a
pledge by a disembodied voice to an anonymous mass. It is difficult to see how
this process can continue without undercutting some of the power of love’s language.

(c) When people spend their time together, not in coming to know one
another better as individuals, but in attending to something unrelated to anyone
in the group, neither friendship nor love is advanced. In this sense, it is one of the
ironies of our culture that the entertainment designed to bring people together
actually keeps them apart.

The phrase „mass culture“ has come to suggest a number of features of
modern society which work against the individual’s uniqueness,
depth of personal feeling, and self-identity.

Cities are crowded, work is specialized, and people are mobile, all of which
means that we encounter more persons but know and are known less
thoroughly by each. We are part of the busman’s „load,“ a proprietor’s
„customers,“ a manager’s „personnel.“ Vast, centralized enterprises with
radical divisions of labor inhibit workers’ individuality and reduce them
to the status ofr eplaceable cogs.

Government, business, and labor unions are all so big as to
make us feel impotent. Alienated from ourselves, from our fellow-men and from
nature, we try to escape from our loneliness, insignificance and insecurity by
identifying ourselves with others through conformity. We dress like them, behave
like them, and hold the same opinions, only to discover that
uniformity is noguarantor of true unity.

Huddled in togetherness we remain alone. Significant human relationships are a function of lives that are confidently rooted in the individuality that mass culture renders difficult.

Mind & Body, Alfred Adler, 1931

Character and the Social Process, Eric Fromm, 1942

One Dimensional Man, Herbert Marcuse, 1964

The Politics of Experience, R. D. Laing, 1967

Society of the Spectacle, Guy Debord, 1967


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