Orwellian Marketing

When you have a lousy track record for safety what do you do? Fix the situation? Invest in safety? Nope you get the PR spinmeisters out and make safety your new motto for your corporate brand. Money well wasted.




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CN


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Infrastructure Imbalance

It's not a fiscal imbalance we face in Canada it is an infrastructure imbalance. Inquiry to probe overpass collapse Taxes on gas etc. which was supposed to go to infrastructure, roads, overpasses, etc. don't.

Taxes taken by the province and Federal governments are not passed on to municipalities, or if they are it is crudgingly. Yet it is municpal governments that are expected to provide the infrastructure.

Instead of worrying about provincial fiscal imablances lets look at the real results of the failure of all levels of government to fund our crumbling infrastructure. All the more reason to look at a new form of confederation that includes the municipalities at the table.

And no we don't need more P3's or toll roads that benefit privateers. We have the monies it's a matter of investing them in real physical infrastructure and on going maintenance


n a 2000 study done for the Canadian Federation of Municipalities by McGill University, it was identified that almost 70% of our municipal infrastructure is in need of repair. This includes roads, bridges, sewage collection and treatment, and water distribution and treatment. The study also estimates that it will take over $20 billion to rehabilitate these facilities to year 2000 standards. Between 2001 and 2003, according to their own reports, Infrastructure Canada, a federal department that you would think would address the crumbling infrastructure in Canada, paid out over $4 billion in grants. Of that $4 billion, not a single cent was allocated to fixing existing infrastructure. Of the funds, according to the report, 43% went to new public transit, 7% went to new urban roads, 12% went to tourism, 4% to expansion of broadband Internet, 22% for new highways, 11% for new water projects and 1% to new housing.editorial - Political opinion and review - Politics Canada




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Shameless Plug

The 2006 Canadian Blog Awards are now open for nominations. Looking forward to all your votes.

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Blog Awards


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Catholics and Republicans

What does the Catholic Church and Republicans in Congress have in common?
They both cover up for pedophiles.

GOP leaders knew of Foley e-mail in '05

Pope 'led cover-up of child abuse by priests'

It is the crisis of the instrumentality of governance, authoritarian state structures like the Vatican and the American Political State are prone to psychotic paranoia over maintaining power, which means they cover up rather than admit the truth.

And the media usually acts as an abetting force as it did in the case of Foley.

Efforts to reach the boy were unsuccessful, but he told the St. Petersburg Times last November, "I thought it was very inappropriate. After the one about the picture, I decided to stop e-mailing him back." The Times didn't publish the comments until Friday.

In the U.S. it is considered child abuse for old men in political office to send sexual emails to pages. In Alberta it is ok for drunken abusive old men in political office to throw books at pages

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Child Abuse

Catholic Abuse

Pedophiles


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Literacy and Volunteerism Unproductive

As I said here the Harpocrites believe in compassionate conservatism, that is philanthropy and charity rather than social programs. In their slash and burn approach to cutting unproductive programs (that is Liberal initiated programs) they have thrown the baby out with the bathwater. Two major programs they have cut into actually are essential one is volunteerism the other is literacy. Both have been cut across Canada. In Edmonton the cuts will mean the end of basic core programs. Core. Productive. And what does Edmonton Strathcona MP Rahim Jaffer have to say about the meanspirited ill advised cuts to these programs?

Jaffer also said he doesn't believe the funding cuts for Volunteer Alberta will affect volunteerism numbers in the province."We want to make sure the programs we're funding are actually having a positive effect, otherwise what's the use in funding those programs?"

Uh they are having a positive effect but won't have if you cut their core funding. The con-job is that the Harpocrites have not looked at what they are cutting, they just used a machete to get through the jungle of Liberal programs they love to hate.

See:

Tory Cuts For All

You Tell 'em Danny Boy

Harper



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Libertarian Communism Redux

A couple of comments on my posting of Kropotkin's 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica definition of Anarchism and Libertarian Communism decried my use of such outdated material. Why it was almost 100 hundred years old. Blow the dust off that.

So here is a more recent comment on what Libertarian Communism is and is not. It is the free association of producers and the unlimited distribution of the wealth of their labour.

But as we all do, this author too looks backwards to the origins of political economics from whence all such definitions come.

What is communism? - Anarkismo

One of the first people to critically engage with political economy and attempt to turn it around to defend the improvement of the condition of the working class and rural poor was the scion of an Anglo- Irish landowning family from West Cork by the name of William Thompson. Born in 1775 in Cork, the young Thompson had been an enthusiastic supporter of the enlightenment, republicanism and the French Revolution. He later became a leading figure in the Co-operative movement in radical opposition to Robert Owen.

Thompson moved to posit a system of "free exchange" where equal access to land and the means of production was guaranteed to all, but distribution was governed by the right to the produce of labour taking precedence over the right to subsistence. As the anarchist historian Max Nettlau noted "[Thompson's] book, however, discloses his own evolution; having started with a demand for the full product of labour as well as the regulation of distribution, he ended up with his own conversion to communism, that is to unlimited distribution".

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Libertarian Communism



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Tortoise or Turtle

The U.S. contines to refuse to consider handing over control of the Internet to a UN style body like the International Telecommunications Union, because it might be too slow to implement rules and technology.

Well that's the excuse, the reality is of course the Americans need to maintain their monopoly over the Internet. Financial Times is reporting that the Department of Commerce is going to wait another three years before selling off the Internet (tm) (c) to ICANN the private corporate overseer of the Internet.

But irony of ironies ICANN has been accussed of being too slow to recognize new Internet domain names in languages other than English. Which is why the EU and others want the UN to run the Internet like it does the ITU.

So which is slower the Tortoise or the Turtle.

Bottom line as I have said here before, we need the Internet to be organized based on something like the ITU which had the support of anarchists like Peter Kropotkin when it was formed.

Martin van Creveld, The Rise and Decline of the State, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1999

- The foundation of the International Telegraph Union "which took place in 1865 marked the first time when states created an organization in which they themselves were members but which at the same time had a legal person of its own as well as a permanent staff and a permanent headquarters at which it could be reached." "... in 1932 the organization was transformed into the International Telecommunication Union." (p. 382)
- "Serving as a model for others to come, the ITU was followed by the International Postal Union (1874) and the International Bureau of Weights and Standards (1875)." (pp. 382-383)
- "By 1984 the number of intergovernmental organizations, which had stood at 123 in 1951 and 280 in 1972, reached 395." (p. 383)

Also See:

Internet

Monopoly

Telecos want to Monopolize the Net

NARUS Is Big Brother

The End of State Monopoly Internet

Big Brother Bush

Google Censorship China

Inclusive Internet

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Interview With A Flat Earther

As I reported here the BBC exposed Exxon Mobiles funding of Global Warming Deniers. The new flatearth lobby. The Competitive Enterprise Insititute promotes questioning the science of climate change. Unfortunately their spokespeople are less credible than those whom they question as a BBC TV interviewer caught one of them out. Something, of course, the U.S. Media fails to do.

BBC Reporter interviews Myron Ebell from the Competitive Enterprise Institute;

"Mr Ebell, you are not a scientist. It is clear that many people on your side of the fence are misrepresenting the arguments. You yourself described the government’s chief scientific advisor in this country of “knowing nothing about climate science”. He is at least a scientist. Now, do you see the problem that respectable scientists have with the sort of points made by organizations such as yours? "



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Global Warming



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Besmirching Belinda

I wonder if Domi's spurned wife voted Conservative?

Domi's wife Leanne said in court documents that she believed her husband was having an "intimate sexual relationship" with Belinda Stronach, a cabinet minister in Canada's previous Liberal government. Hockey star confirms divorce, not affair

One has to ask this simple question; since divorce is no fault in Canada why she decided to go the public adversarial route? Why does this smell of Conservative political operatives being involved?

Leanne Domi has not made any direct statements to the media about the breakdown of her marriage, yet the allegations laid out in the divorce application are quite specific. "Tie Domi has committed adultery with Belinda Stronach,'' the first line of the court document reads.

She didn't have to go to the media once she filed pulbic divorce papers. That was red meat for the shark frenzy. What's In The Leanne Domi Divorce Document?

The ensuing blame Belinda coverage in the media and blogosphere shows that this was a deliberate and calculated attempt to do political damage to a sitting MP.

Belinda Stronach was warned in no uncertain terms that her private life would be "completely exposed" if she entered federal politics

The lack of focus on the primary player in this; Tie Domi himself shows the insulation the media wraps its sports heros in, while leaving politicians open season to speculative perjorative reporting.

Leanne claims he was 'violent' with her, yet a previous joint lawsuit with hubby disputing that allegation was a success for the Domi' and a career killer for a sportscaster.

In 2004, Tie Domi and his wife Leanne filed suit against the "Team 1200" AM radio station in Ottawa after a commentator, Don "Dandyman" Romani, insinuated on the air that Domi beat his wife. The lawsuit was dropped after the station fired Romani, who apologised to the Domis, and said his remarks were an ill-advised attempt at humour.

Domi's divorce was sure to get news coverage, however to implicate Belinda Stronach in this in a public way stinks of backroom politics. This is more than just being a case of a woman scorned getting her revenge.

Leanne Domi alleges her husband asked her not to go public with details of their divorce, promising to give her $1 million in cash and their $1.5-million house if she did not hire a lawyer. If she contacted a lawyer, however, "I would get nothing," she said in the application. Domi, estranged wife make a deal

This was calaculated for its political as well as media impact. The damage done a truce was called between the warring factions. The focus on Belinda is one sided when one considers that it was Tie's actions, not her's, which historically ruined his relationship with his wife.

According to a Google for Julie Hannaford, Leanne Domi's lawyer, she is no mere spring chicken, no articling lawyer. She is a player, she is a past President of the Empire Club.

She litigated the World's First Gay Divorce

She took Culutral studies at Trent.

She is a partner in Borden Elliot which was merged into the giant International Bay Street firm of Borden Ladner Gervais.

Julie Hannaford

Julie Hannaford, M.A. (Toronto), LL.B. (Toronto) was called to the Bar of Ontario in 1985. She practices law in Toronto as a partner of Borden Ladner Gervais LLP. Her practice is concentrated in litigation. Prior to being course director in the Trial Advocacy course at U of T, she taught as a part time member of faculty at Osgoode Hall in the Trial Practice course. She has taught at the National Institute of Trial Advocacy in their advocacy training programmes at Minneapolis, Dallas, and Boulder, and in their faculty training programmes held at Notre Dame University and Harvard University. She has been invited faculty/team leader in the Trial Advocacy course at Louisiana State University Law School at Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and has chaired and taught in courses on advocacy and trial practice for the Ontario Centre for Advocacy Training (OCAT), the Law Society of Upper Canada, and the Canadian Bar Association (Ontario).

See:

He Shoots

Belinda Stronach


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All Fizzle No Sizzle

The rightwhing columnists in the media and the blogosphere like to talk about the "usual rent a crowd", when it came to mass demonstrations , and I am talking double digit thousands, against the government.

The term seems apt for the Conservative Party stalwarts that got the pro-war rallies going in Ottawa and now Toronto.

Too bad their Toronto rent a crowd wasn't larger, a handfull of Blogging Tories and other Conservative Party supporters essentially held a rally to support the war on the backs of our troops.


Hundreds gather in TO for 'Red Friday' rally

These rallies which the right has claimed exist to show tropps and their families we support them, have been hijacked by the Pro War Pro Harper crowd not to support our trooops, or they would demand their withdrawl, but to support the war.

Apparently the irony of holding Pro War Rallies on the same day as funerals are held for Canadian KIA, is lost on these guys.

Yesterday's rally was held on the same day as funerals for three Canadian soldiers took place in Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Ontario.

And despite all their so called grassroots organizing , free media exposure generated by rightwhing talkshow hosts on Corus & Global radio networks, they could only pull a few hundred folks out in megatropolis Toronto.

Red Rally support for troops today 680 News

September 29, 2006 - 6:48 am
By: Jaime Pulfer with report by Ashleigh Patterson

Toronto - Dundas Square will be a sea of red today as people participate in the Toronto Red Rally to support for Canadian troops in Afghanistan.

A sea hardly, it was a pond.

Even less than rallied in Ottawa. But then again the New Government in Ottawa encouraged civil servants and employees to attentd the rally. In Toronto it was a public private partnership Tim Hortons relents, workers join 'Red Friday'

OCAP and the armies of homeless have held larger demos in T.O. And recent Anti-War demos have also been bigger. And that was without Timmies support.

Indeed only a week ago mass rallies were held across Canada, not in two single cities in Ontario, to call for action on Darfur. An issue Harper refuses to discuss.

There were rallies all across Canada last week to stress the importance of responding to Darfur. Helping to lead the world on this issue is important, and completely within Canada's traditions of peace keeping and protecting innocent people. But this government is unable to divide its focus and resources. Afghanistan is the Harper Governement's Sixth Priority

The lesson of this tale is that these Red Fridays have been a one day wonder. They originated in a genuine feeling of folks, especially military families, wanting to show publicly they support the troops. But supporting the troops is not tacit support of the current Afghanistan mission.

It got hijacked by the Military for its own purposes, more fighting assignments more equipment to fight with.

The New Canadian government is using these rallies to show that, despite polls saying otherwise, Canadians back Harpers War.

Forces will listen to Red Rally cheers on radio

Canadian forces are being given a chance in Afghanistan to hear red today -- a rousing wave of support that will rock the downtown in a giant flag-waving rally. The 2,500 Canadian soldiers are being urged by the military brass to tune in the Red Rally cheers and best wishes when hour-long radio broadcasts start at noon from Dundas Square on CFRB and AM-640 Radio.

Well the majority of Canadians do not support the Harper/Hillier war plan, as is shown in polls and in the streets of T.O. on Friday. And make no bones aout it this is not only a New Law & Order State it is a Militarized one as well. Hillier is Harpers kinda guy, so its hands off, and the Military runs its political masters. Does anyone else find this scary? A New Canadian Government with its own Republican Guard.

The only people not getting the message are Mssr. Harper and Hellier as well as the rent a crowd at the Blogging Tories and the right whing talk show hosts in the MSM.

Showing that the BT blosgosphere and even the conservative activists, especially those in the media, carry less poloitical weight then they credit themselves with. They couldn't even organize a 'mass' demonstration of their own core supporters.

Something RightWhingWhiner and Talk Show Host Dave Rutherford found out when he rallied his listners against young offenders only a few thousand showed up, compared to 15,000 that rallied to save the Grey Nuns hospital from Kleins Kuts.

I await their mewling mumbles about the silent majority supporting them.

Support Our Troops is one of those tropes that has two meanings. And as Alice found out from the Red Knight one of those meanings is whatever Harper wants it to be. And in this case it is Bush-like denial of reality. As he did in New York saying Canadians supported the war when the polls said otherwise.

There is no mass support for this war. Conservative calls to unquestioning patriotism fall on deaf ears in Canada. Since most of us realize that Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundral.


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