Suplus Value

Here is the Stats Canada confirmation of that old Marxist theory of surplus value:

Canadian workers are more productive than ever. And they are cheaper, too
Canada's economic output is rising three times faster than the number of hours that people are working, helping to push Canada's labour productivity up by 2.3 per cent over the past year.

There is another side to the economic numbers, however. Canada's productivity is rising because the cost of labour is slowing.

Hourly compensation rose by 0.8 per cent in the first quarter, half the increase in the fourth quarter of 2005, keeping a lid on unit labour costs.

Whenever you hear the word productivity that simply means techology and cheap labour producing more profit. The watchword of capitalism. For workers it means you are getting screwed and paid less for it.

"Productive labour is therefore labour which reproduces for the labourer only the previously determined value of his labour-power, but as an activity creating value increases the value of capital; in other words, which confronts the labourer himself with the values it has created in the form of capital."

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Diamonds and Rust

While Miners in the North are on Strike at the Ekati Diamond Mine, Craig Kielburger of Free the Children puts Northern Development under the gaze of development elsewhere in the Diamond Fields of the World.

Fresh off the plane, I stood in a region engulfed by housing development and communities flush with new-found wealth. I wasn't in Sierra Leone or South Africa, where diamond mines have given rise to phrases such as "blood diamonds" and have caused massive social upheaval. On a work-related visit, I was in Canada's portal to the vast and serene north and, with my untrained eye, all seemed normal. We've all fallen prey to the marketing coup of the last century by believing that "a diamond is forever." But the communities that mine these diamonds are not.Since the discovery of Canadian diamonds in 1991, the Ekati and Diavik diamond mines have begun production in the Northwest Territories. The Snap Lake plant is gearing up for production next year and, as of this year, the Jericho project in Nunavut will also be in production. But according to Statistics Canada, these mines will be operational for only the next eight to 20 years.Once these mines shut down, miners can rarely transfer their skills beyond the industry. Diamonds are forever; prosperity isn't

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Pack Up And Move

Here is the authoritarian solution to unemployment typical of Conservatives and other right wing regimes, oh like the you know who.

MP: Help workers move
Alberta Tory says government should help relocate unemployed

Unemployed Atlantic Canadians should be encouraged by Ottawa to go where their opportunities are — namely job-rich Alberta — a parliamentary committee heard Thursday.

The suggestion, that the Conservative government could use taxpayers’ dollars to relocate jobless people from the Atlantic region, was made in Ottawa by Brian Jean — a Tory MP from northern Alberta — at a session of a federal committee studying employability in Canada.

Of course this guy forgets that there are over 2500 tradesmen currently unemployed in Alberta looking for work. Unemployed trades?

Or maybe he didn't. Since they are all union workers, and he is after all a Tory.

Do I smell another form of Tory Union busting.




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Fraser Institute Exposed

Here is an excellent expose on that charitable taxpayer funded think tank of the Right; The Fraser Institute. Who funds the Fraser Institute?

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Made In Cuba Green Policy

On Clean Air day Rona Ambrose assured reporters, again ad naseum, that sometime soon we will have a Made in Canada Green Plan.

My message to you, on Clean Air Day, is that the Government of Canada is working towards a “Made-in-Canada” approach to deliver real change and real results for all Canadians, in our common campaign to clean up our air and to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions.

So instead of Ambrose the Minister of Do Nothing standing up in the house talking about how the US is ahead of us, ad nauseum;

Hon. Rona Ambrose (Minister of the Environment, CPC): Mr. Speaker, the truth of the matter is that thanks to the Liberal government being in power for 13 years the Bush government has done more on the environment than this country has for the last decad. The Americans are outperforming us on pollution control. They are outperforming us on emission reductions. This government is going to ensure that we outperform not just the Americans but all of our counterparts.

How about we start comparing the Made In Cuba plan with the lack of plan that the Tories have. Because Cuba is way ahead of Canada, and the U.S.

Castro's new soldiers
Richard Gott
03 May 2006 04:59

At a petrol station outside the Cuban town of Cienfuegos, half a dozen teenage girls stand languidly by the pumps, jumping to attention when a car or lorry pulls up. They work the pumps efficiently, take payment and enter the transaction on to a large official form. They are dressed neatly in T-shirts and jeans and a slogan across their backs proclaims their identity as trabajadores sociales, or social workers. They are Fidel Castro’s latest army of guerrillas, deployed in the struggle against corruption, the scourge to which state-run economies have always been peculiarly vulnerable. They are also the vanguard of the generation upon whom the future of the Cuban revolution will depend.

On earlier visits to Cuba I have observed the petrol problem. Driving through the countryside you could always find a willing accomplice to direct you to a tank in someone’s back garden, where petrol would be sold at an advantageous price, or simply off-ration. It had been siphoned off the state’s supplies. The practice seemed harmless enough. Yet it had begun to create a large hole in the economy. Castro complained that “as much petrol was being stolen as sold’’, and last year his government stepped in with a novel solution. About 10 000 young activists, more than half of them women, have taken control of the country’s pumps, while the usual attendants have been sent home on full pay.

The social workers’ jobs do not stop at the petrol stations. They also go from house to house to hand out low-energy light bulbs, to check that everyone has the new electric pressure cookers provided by China and to prompt the exchange of old, gas-guzzling fridges from the 1950s for something more energy efficient. Others will move on to examine financial practices in bakeries and the construction industry. About 30 000 of these revolutionaries, aged between 16 and 22, have been deployed across the country. Identified some years ago as a potentially counter revolutionary class, they are helping to keep alive the revolution’s mystique.

Maybe the Tories could mobilize all their Blogging Tories and Fraser Institute student Interns to be Green Social Workers like Castro has done.

Besides both parties share the same intials; CPC. And same style of authoritarian leadership.


And don't forget all the Canadian investment in Cuba. Like Sherritt Gordon.

And we have a long tradition of being business and social partners with Cuba.

Our CPC could learn some lessons from the Cuban CPC.

Other Great Leaders of Canada have.



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Klein Makes Me Feel Safe

Trust Me Says Klein. There is nothing to Fear but Fear Itself.

“There’s no need for Albertans to be concerned,” said Klein, adding should a threat arise, the province is ready. “We do have an emergency plan and a security plan in place.” But how a potential threat will be dealt with or how the province would react to an attack, the premier admitted he does not know. “I don’t know what that security plan is and they won’t tell me,” said Klein.

Yeah Right. He doesn't know the plan but assures us he has one. I feel secure.

Sounds like Rona Ambrose's Made In Canada Green Plan. Oh yeah she worked for Klein once.

Maybe Klein will sign up to Warren the Moron's I Am Not Afraid Campaign. Maybe Molsons will sponsor it since the logo looks like something from a beer commercial.

I am an Albertan and I am afraid that we don't have a security plan.



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The Beautiful Game

I have watched a few FIFA World Cups off and on over the past few years. Not having a Canadian team in the game sort of makes it hard to feel participatory. No cheers for Canada

And despite the Stanley Cup and the NBA playoffs in North America, the rest of the world is preparing for the World Cup of Football, which unlike 'World' cups in the US of Eh is really a World Cup. Stop Everything: The World Cup is On!

Like the Olympics it happens only every four years and grabs the attention of millions. Even in Canada. World Cup brings best out of Toronto

What makes it the Beautiful Game, well it is the least expensive sport, it is a democratic sport anyone can play, as the left wing South American writer Eduardo Galeano noted, and even the poorest of the poor can rise out of the ghettos of the world to make it in the game.

Of course like all sports the FIFA World Cup of Soccer is big business, very big business.

But strange bedfellows are made in the world of Canadian Broadcasting when it comes to this years cup. The result is we get to watch all the games.

Rogers Sportsnet holds the rights for the World Cup, but will share game broadcasts and the studio show with bitter rival TSN. More amazing, the biggest game of all — the final on July 9 — will be on CTV, parent network of the aforementioned bitter rival.

For the game schedules click here. And it will be HD digital for really clear in your face viewing.

Here is a couple of good beginners guide for those who don't watch football (only called soccer in North America to differentiate it from the CFL/NFL game)

Why you should care about World Cup

NAMING THE BEAUTIFUL GAME It's Called Soccer

Certainly the Stanely Cup playoffs have grabbed my attention this year, with unprecidented exciting hockey not seen since the Oilers heyday of the eighties or back during the Montreal Canadians dynasty.

And the CFL was hot this year with Edmonton winning. And the NFL Superbowl was no slouch either. That is the other 'football'.

And of course playoffs in any sport is sweeter and more meaningful when your team is playing.

Which is why I will be watching the FIFA World Cup.

I finally have a team I can cheer for while I await Canada's day at the Cup.

Yep the Ukraine is in it. Like the Oilers they are an underdog. Making it all the sweeter when they win.

Ukraine Out To Garner Respect In Its First Cup Appearance

They have several star players but none as well known as striker Andry Sehvchenko, who has been picked up by Chelesa.

They have a dynamic coach who has brought the team together, choosing young players for speed and depth. They have made the Cup. Nazdarovev.

Anatolii Tymoschuk has told skysports.com that Ukraine will command the respect of their World Cup finals opponents.

With Shevchenko reminding Ukrainians of his namesake the Great Ukrainian National Poet and Hero Taras Schevchenko, the spirit of the country is with them.

Will they win the Cup who knows, they played fifth ranked Italy to a draw, but that is not the point. They are in the cup. Lets see how far they get. And as I said now it gives me something to watch and team to cheer for.

The are playing in Group H against Spain, Tunisia and Saudi Arabia, and I believe they can take it. And I am not the only one. Group H shows World Cup balance

Ukraine

Prediction — This is one of the tournaments true sleepers. They could have a potential meeting with France, a country with which their footballing talents are often compared to. And with their defense and finishing up front, it could mean au revoir Les Bleus.

Jeez getting old you turn into a sports nut.

Or perhaps its the war times, forcing us all to take out our visceral aggressions in sports, to deal with the stupidity of war and the politics of fear.


Also See:

Sports

Ukraine

Football



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We Are All Flintstones

Praise the Lord the Christian Bible believers were right. We didn't come from apes.

Yep the Flintstones had it right. We did come from stones, no wonder we rock n roll.


Australian Coastal Mounds May be Fossils of Earth's Oldest Life

The evidence prehistoric ameoba dung.

Others argue that primitive microbes formed the piles. The new study supports this second notion. Abigail Allwood's team trudged a 10-kilometer-long stretch of stromatolites and identified seven different types with exotic shapes. Some look like upside-down ice cream cones, others like egg cartons. Allwood told Nature magazine podcast interviewers that the formations are too complex to be chemical, although she acknowledges that their biological origin is unproven.

"Any one structure, even any one group of structures is not conclusive evidence of life in itself," she said. "The way I approached this was to look at a very large number of structures over a region and as I walked along the outcrops I began to notice that rather than just one type of structure there were actually several different distinct types and realized that they were distributed in patterns so that actually they look very similar to reefs. But they're obviously not coral reefs. They're reefs entirely built by microorganisms."

Also See:

Creationism

Evolution

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Teeny Tiny Tories

Scientists have discovered the ancestors of the Harper Conservatives.

Studies reveal pygmy dinosaur species

and of course the discovery was in Germany.

Harposaurus Sr. and Harposaurus Jr.

Also See:

Dinosaurs

Evolution

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666 in the news

Perhaps it is the millipede that is the Great Beast.

666-Legged Creature Rediscovered

Out of the past crawls leggiest bug

Although Illacme plenipes was discovered by a government scientist in 1926 in the same area of San Benito County, it hadn't been seen since. The leggiest female had 666 legs on half a millimetre width

Also See:

TSX 666

666, Crowley, Great-Beast, Satan, Anti-Christ, 6/6/06, Omen, Evil, Live, Christian, monothesism, religion, apocalypse, armageddon, endtimes