Another Privatization Failure

The U.S. military loves to contract out to the private sector. It embraced the P3 model of Reinventing Government promoted by both Al Gore and the neo-cons.

Of course the failures of privatization of service delivery have been revealed in Iraq and the resulting failures of the U.S. government following Katrina. Now it appears there is another billion dollar privatization boondoogle in the works.


Bioshield dispute underscores problems with US defense program

The anthrax attacks of 2001 prompted passage of Project Bioshield, which promised to build national drug stockpiles to be used in case of a bioterror attack.

The project was supposed to jump start a national security renaissance among drug makers by guaranteeing contracts to develop drugs for combatting potential bioweapons. But it has been greeted with skepticism by many in the industry.

The anthrax project, the first and largest Bioshield contract, was to be the crown jewel.

In November 2004, the $877.5 million (euro690.2 million) contract was awarded to VaxGen to genetically engineer a replacement for the current anthrax vaccine, which requires six shots to be administered over 18 months. VaxGen's is expected to require no more than three shots.

Since winning the contract, however, VaxGen has repeatedly stumbled, starting with its disclosure it would miss the original deadline of November 2005 by a year.

Even before winning the contract, the company had a checkered past highlighted by the 2003 flop of its experimental AIDS vaccine, which failed to protect inoculated volunteers from getting infected.

Since then, it was dropped from the Nasdaq Stock Market for failing to file financial reports, its chief scientific officer left the company in July, and its stock price hovers near $4.40 -- at the low end of its 52-week range -- as VaxGen and the government try to work out their differences.

Then, in March, the government said it wouldn't pay VaxGen until the company completed a costly and time-consuming human test to ensure the vaccine was safe. The new requirement forced the company to sell its stake in another biotechnology company for $79 million (euro62.1 million) to stay afloat and finance the new test.

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Privatization



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Open Transparent Government

Not a chance, meet the New Government same as the Old Government.

Potentially embarrassing information requests "amber-lighted"

The Harpocrites are denying there is any such program. But denying it doesn't make it so.

And while we are at it how about making patronage appointments for old pals of the government like Harvie Andre. Who having promoted the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline when he was in the Mulroney government will now promote the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline as the negotiator for the New Government of Canada. Something he has a great deal of experince with since he has been lobbying for the pipeline as a private consultant. Wait a minute can you say conflict of interest?

Mackenzie Valley Pipeline

The latest round of pipeline fever began last October when former federal Conservative cabinet minister Harvie Andre unveiled an ambitious $8-billion plan to bring both Prudhoe Bay and delta gas on stream as early as 2005. Andre is a Calgary management consultant and the Canadian chairman of Arctic Resources Co. Ltd., a new consortium launched by a group of Texas financiers. They are proposing a 1,760-km pipeline, from Boundary Lake on the northern B.C.-Alberta border to the Mackenzie Delta, that would connect with a second 520-km line to Prudhoe Bay to be built offshore, in the seabed. Andre argues that the economies of scale realized by harnessing both the Prudhoe and delta reserves would significantly improve the rate of return for producers. He also maintains that, by planting the Prudhoe Bay portion offshore, the environmental risks identified in the 1970s can be sidestepped. "Twenty-five years ago, there weren't a lot of ocean-bottom pipelines," he says. "The technology has changed enormously and today there are thousands of kilometres of them."

Andre has been involved for months in talks with northern aboriginal groups and territorial government officials. So, too, have TransCanada and Westcoast. In addition to the original Foothills line, the pipeline giants are also actively considering the option of a pipeline through the Mackenzie Valley. "There's a lot of meetings going on," reports Nellie Cournoyea, chairwoman of the Inuvialuit Regional Corp., the body that administers the land claim reached by natives in the Beaufort Sea region in 1984. "The major companies are all in this area and we deal with them every day."

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Global Warming Worries Canadians

It worries us but not our New Government.

Global polling shows Canadians like the rest of the world are far more aware and worried about Global Warming than the politicians.

A Canadian poll in September showed that Canadians, unlike the New Government in Ottawa, are worried about global warming.

A month later we are still worried and we do not believe that the New Government will do anything about global warming.


Tories face environmental balancing act

Nearly two-thirds of Canadians believe the Conservative government will fail to take adequate steps to fight global warming, and blame the oil and gas industry for making matters worse.And a similar number 63 per cent are ''desperately concerned'' that the ''world may not last much longer than another couple of generations'' if drastic action isn't taken immediately.

The poll also found:

Almost 71 per cent of Canadians believe major companies with huge profits should be forced to pay more to clean up the environment, as opposed to taxpayers, even if it means driving them out of business.

66 per cent of Canadians believe the scientists, versus 34 per cent who believe changes in the climate are due to ''the effect of normal warming and cooling patterns that rise and fall'' over time.

Proving Canadians right, the New Government has abandoned Kyoto and come up with.....well we are still waiting for something to deal with Global Warming and not just smog. Government set to force automakers to cut emissions

But the real creators of smog in our larger urban environments are not consumer automobiles but commercial trucking, which the Tories have avoided dealing with just like they have avoided dealing with the oil industry which is the other creator of green house gasses in Canada. An industry that is of course in Alberta home of the Reform/Alliance/Conservative party. And where the flatearth soicety dominates....In Alberta, 51 per cent do not believe greenhouse gases are heating up the planet. The province is also home to the tar sands, one of the world's largest oil reserves, which could see industry emissions double over the next decade.

See:

Kyoto

Ambrose

industrial ecology

Social Ecology.

Green Capitalism

Environment

Green Plan

Oil

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A Made In Alberta Canada First Energy Policy

Gordon Laxer, brother of Progressive Blogger James Laxer, had the guest editorial/opinion article in the Edmonton Journal yesterday, well worth the read.

The energy resources in Alberta are also Canadian resources, as Harper finally recognized the other day.

In fact in many cases they are not Alberta owned, but owned by First Nations peoples.

The Aboriginal Role in the Development of Alberta’s Oil & Gas

It is time for Alberta to plan for a national energy policy, not just a drill, process, ship to the U.S. policy.

Canada-first energy strategy needed

This presentation was made last week to the provincial Oil Sands Consultation Committee by Gordon Laxer, professor of political economy and director of the Parkland Institute at the University of Alberta

To conserve energy, Canada must first regain control over energy supply and use. Our NAFTA partners already have this. Only Canada must export a majority of its energy in perpetuity. Canada, with Alberta's backing, should demand a Mexican exemption.

Mexico is in NAFTA and got an exemption from proportionality. Why can't we get the same? If the U.S refuses to budge on this, we are allowed to unilaterally leave NAFTA by giving six months notice.

NAFTA isn't of much use. The U.S. ignores rulings favourable to Canada, and insists on those, like proportionality, which aren't. If one party ignores an agreement, other parties aren't bound by them either.

What might an energy security strategy for Canada look like?

In contrast to the 1980 national energy program that Ottawa imposed, a security strategy must be a provincial-federal partnership. What could it include?

First, the Dinning principle: R. J. Dinning headed a 1949 Alberta commission that recommended the province retain 50 years supply of natural gas before exporting to other provinces. The Dinning principle that only after Canadians are taken care of should energy surplus to long-term reserves, be exported, should be extended to oil. But, with dwindling, conventional oil and gas supplies, the period of proven supplies before exports, should be 10 to 15 years.

Second, halt projects in the tarsands which have not yet been approved. Replace them with aggressive conservation initiatives. More can be gained by reducing energy use than through more production. Using less will prolong energy supplies and reduce greenhouse gases. Banking oil for the future will increase its value when it's removed in 15 years.

Third, raise royalty and lease rates, and taxes to Norway's levels to capture the full value of nature's capital, for the owners -- the citizens of Alberta and First Nations. Follow public opinion and include Crown energy corporations, like Norway's Statoil, to capture more of the economic rents.

Fourth, reverse the Sarnia-Montreal pipeline and bring western oil to Quebec again.

Fifth, change Alberta's leasing policies so that no further oil is exported until Canadian needs are met.

But, we are not doing these things.

"No plan" Ralph inadvertently captured Canada's current energy policy when he said 25 years ago: "Let the Eastern Bastards Freeze in the Dark."

Today, thanks to governments led by Klein, Harper and his Liberal predecessors, Canada has an America-first energy policy. When, not if, the first big energy crunch hits, Canadians will demand that their governments meet their needs first.

Do you think anyone is listening? Nah.


See


Tar Sands




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Capitalism Proves Socialism Inevitable

As Marx points out the two major contributions of Capitalism to the development of Socialism is the centralization of capital which demands efficiencies of planning.

In other words capitalism creates the need for a planned economy, or economic planning to maximize profits. Thus the preconditions for a socialist economy are born in the breast of capitalism as it evolves.

After years of cowboy drilling and production the Oil and Gas industry are now using centralized planning. Canadian Natural Resources CNRL, has dropped the use of contracting out of its operations, and has seen savings from cost over-runs that companies like Bechtel, KBR, Fluor, Halliburton rely on for making profits. Instead of using these companies CNRL is doing all its oil sands construction and operations in house.

Another company that is using planning, Encana still contracts out its construction and drilling operations. However it does so under direct oversight of the corporation. The contractors work according to a plan Encana has created to maximize its profits.

Welcome to the new planned economy that Thorsten Veblen wrote about a hundred years ago, and Technocracy has adovcated ever since.
Big Don' needs light touch with next-generation rig

Veteran gas industry workers say they've never seen anything resemble the speed and efficiency that EnCana is bringing to bear at its Cutbank Ridge property near Dawson Creek, close to the Alberta border.

The Cutbank Ridge project is being carried out almost entirely by independent companies working under contract to EnCana.

The contractors outnumber EnCana employees 35 to one in the field, but it is Encana's vision of managing gas development that keeps the whole thing running at peak efficiency.

There are crews running the drill, crews delivering sections of pipe, lubricating fluids, water and concrete in support of drilling operations, crews opening up roads and clearing the next drill sites in the exploration sequence, crews hauling equipment from site to site. A few kilometres away, 250 contractors are swarming each day over a former forestry cut block where a new $50-million gas processing plant is nearing completion to handle all the new gas that will come as Cutbank Ridge proceeds to full production.

Chuck Keown, a construction superintendent for Core Pipelines, started in the industry at 18 and now, 20 years later, says he's seeing something unprecedented.

"The way they have set things up, I've never seen it like this, to be honest with you," Keown says. Nobody has to wait for a truck to arrive or is idled by some overlooked logistical detail.

"There is no area where things lag, right through to production. To do things in sequence like that is an amazing thing to see -- organization is an art," Keown adds.

See:

Oil

Gas

Marx




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Space Vampires

Is a novel by my favorite angry young man of modern philosophy; Colin Wilson. It was made into the Sci-Fi movie Lifeforce, by Texas Chain Saw Massacre director Tobe Hooper. Great book, great film. The novel is a pastiche of H.P.Lovecraft's Cuthulu Mythos, with the usual dash of Wilsons Faculty X, magick by any other name. And lo and behold if one day in the far distance of cold space a real space vampire appears. One that cannot be countered with crosses and garlic.


Astronomers have found possible proofs of stellar vampirism in the globular cluster 47 Tucanae.

Blue stragglers are unexpectedly young-looking stars found in stellar aggregates, such as globular clusters, which are known to be made up of old stars. These enigmatic objects are thought to be created in either direct stellar collisions or through the evolution and coalescence of a binary star system in which one star 'sucks' material off the other, rejuvenating itself. As such, they provide interesting constraints on both binary stellar evolution and star cluster dynamics. To date, the unambiguous signatures of either stellar traffic accidents or stellar vampirism have not been observed, and the formation mechanisms of Blue stragglers are still a mystery.

See:

Space

Portrait of the Artist As Jack the Ripper

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Gosh Shucks

"I also shared in that letter with (Homeland Secretary Michael Chertoff) that as we had taken that particular step, I would sure appreciate if they would do the same." Day: US asked to clear Arar as security threat He forgot to add the giggle, and hayseed 'Gosh Shucks',and oh yes the pretty please. The Americans of course have no idea what he is talking about.

But what did you expect from Stockwell Day who also owes Arar an apology for having labeled him a terrorist. Still waiting for the Conservatives to apologize for believing and promoting the RCMP lies that he was a terrorist. Not just an apology as the New Government of Canada but as the Conservative Party who when in opposition smeared Arar as a terrorist.

When the then-Liberal government began belatedly, timidly asking for Arar's release from his Syrian torture chamber in the fall of 2002, opposition leader Stephen Harper was dismissive. The Liberals, he claimed, were "hitting the snooze button on security matters." His colleague, Stockwell Day, even argued the government's "lack of vigilance" had allowed a notorious terrorist like Arar to avoid detection and detention in the first place.The Arar case is not the end

And how about firing some of them RCMP bad guys. Nope not this Law and Order government. Instead they allow the RCMP commissioner to hold on to his job, and they accept that those who broke the law regarding domestic spying, a law in place years prior to 9/11, should get meritous service awards.

RCMP Commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli testified at the Commons Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security on Thursday of last week. Mr. Zaccardelli said after Mr. Arar's extraordinary rendition from New York to Syria in 2002, he was alerted to Mr. Arar's case and that he attempted to correction false information about Mr. Arar that the RCMP sent to U.S. authorities.

"I learned about it when I reviewed the information. We tried to correct it with the Americans. We let Canadian officials know about that," Mr. Zaccardelli said of the false information.

But opposition MPs said Mr. Zaccardelli's testimony was incomplete and asked if he had known that the RCMP's information was false, why he did not correct the record in Canada. It remains unclear why the RCMP and CSIS together resisted–as Justice O'Connor documents–the attempt by the minister of foreign affairs to send a letter to Syria saying that there was "no evidence" that Mr. Arar was linked to al-Qaeda. CSIS didn't want Arar returned to Canada

Yep the New Government is a Police State in the waiting. Waiting for a Majority.

See

Arar

CIA



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Foley Hides Behind Booze

Disgraced U.S. Congressman Mark Foley is now hiding his homosexuality behind the classic closet excuse, he is not gay he is an alcoholic with emotional problems. Yep just like the Boys in the Band.

It has been a long held belief that one of the reasons for alcoholism and drug addiction amongst homosexuals is the result of being in the closet.

Foley's Behavior No Secret on Capitol Hill and they are not refering to his drinking. Of course the scandal is that the Republicans and Foley continue to hide behind family values.

Foley Built Career as Protector of Children It would not have been so reprehensible if he had not been a self hating gay man who denied himself a real adult relationship. This is the real sickness of right wing politically correct homophobia.

See:

Catholics and Republicans

Child Abuse

Catholic Abuse

Pedophiles


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Mutual Aid In Space

Kropotkins principle of mutual aid appears even in the creation of stars and galaxies.

Large and small stars in harmonious coexistence ,

Photo from the Hubble Space Telescope, presented at the 2006 General Assembly of the International Astronomical Union in Prague, shows a star forming region in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). This sharp image reveals a large number of low-mass infant stars coexisting with young massive stars.


See:

Space

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Tanning A Drug

So says Psychology Today. Tanning: More Than Skin Deep I guess we had better add this to the list for the war on drugs.

Those deprived of a UV fix experienced nausea and jitteriness—symptoms that are an awful lot like narcotic withdrawal. UV light causes the body to release endorphins, the body's natural painkiller. Baking twice a week—in the sun or in a tanning bed—is enough UV exposure to cause dependence.

Or perhaps as Dr. Andrew Weil has long proclaimed getting high is natural for human beings. And the so called dependency is the result of feeling good. Anything wrong with that?








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