Deja Vu

It's fitting that the day that marked the end of Reagan Republicanism was the day that this happened; Daniel Ortega: Return of the Sandinista



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Purple Wave USA

It was a purple wave of petulant protest against politial pulchritude of the Bush Regime. Last night the Democrats with support from real conservatives, both fiscal and social, and from real liberals, sweeped the Republicans out of power in both the House and Senate.

And as I write the contest for America is still being contested. Senate Races were close even those that the Democrats lost like the Tennesse. In Virigina the race is so close its going to a recount. In Montana a supposedly solid Republican Red (neck) state they have voted for an organic lentil farmer and Democrat for Senate giving the boot to long term incumbent Republican Senator. In Missouri the Show Me state, they Showed Bush The Door.

And for those on the right who have made hay at the expense of Howard Dean, well he who laughs last.....Dean forced the Dem's to take on the Republicans in the South, what he called the fifty state challenge. In doing so the Democrats moved to the right, as Howard Ford Jr. best emulates. They took the Republican messaging and made it their own. Which is what Dean had predicted would be the winning formula back in the Presidential Primaries of 2004. And folks laughed and jeered him. Well not tonight. They have the crying towels out, and Dean has the last laugh.

What this portends is that the Democrats are regaining their hold in old Dixiecrat country which went Republican under the mobilization of the ultimate special interest group; the Evangelical Christian Right. Tonight the Democrats put serious chinks in the Republicans Armour of God. For instance in the still undecided Virgina Senate Race, the Democratic contender (and winner) got 36% of exit poll voters who identified themselves as evangelicals while voting to oppose Gay Marriage which was on the ballot.

In Tennesse you couldn't tell the difference between the Republican or Democrat, who were both pro-life, gun loving, evangelicals. In another race the Republican lost because the Democrat had all the right arguments and all the Republican incumbent could say was me too.

In California the Govenator said he loved sequels as he won a landslide second term. but that was because he distanced himself from Bush, and the Republican party, by hiring a Democratic Strategist for his Communications Director, and by moving to a bi-partisan position on key issues like minimum wage and the environment. In siding with the Democrats on crucial issues the first Austrian Govenor of Kali-fornia assured himself a win. Can we all say Kalifornia Uber Alles.

As that state goes, which after all gave the U.S. two Republican Presidents, so goes the 'values' of the Republicans. And Kalifornia has now given the Americans their first woman speaker in the House. Of course the hysteria of the right warned America against Nancy Pelosi. Can you say misogynist politics. Why of course you can. Its the ugly underside of the Republican core values. Along with race baiting as we saw with the attack ad against Ford. These are the core Republican values. As the expose of their corruption reminded everyone over the past three months right up to the last weekend, hypocrisy thy name is Republican became the battle cry of the citizens of America. Especially authentic conservatives.

In a sense this was predicted by the Libertarian movement in the United States, which called for support for the Democrats. The Libertarians that are not Republicans have opposed the war from the begining. But even as late as this fall they came out in favour of classical liberalism, from whence they came, and in its name called for a vote for the Democrats.

More on Libertarian Democrats
I don't think that anyone who is genuinely concerned about limiting government can vote for the Republicans. So, while the Democrats may be distasteful and unpleasant to deal with once they reach power, voting for them as a replacement for the Republicans makes the most sense

The neo-cons in the White House never considered the base important except to get elected and to hold the presidentcy. The Party never considered the base important, except to get elected and hold both houses. When in power they quickly abandoned any pretext to libertarian conservatism, and embraced Struassarian power politics that Rothbard warned against over forty years ago.

It was the independents that made the difference in this election, and the mass mobilization of voters, who were prepared to oust the Republicans. The significant loss of Repulican support can be seen in Lieberman's win, as it can be seen in Webbs.

The Democrats have manuvered to appeal to fiscal conservatives and liberal evangelicals. There is a growing trend for liberal evangelicals to identify themselves as such, being concerned with issues like AIDS, poverty and the environment. The social agenda is changing and the election reflects this sea change in the right. The Church of Global Warming

What was a unified Republican front since Reagan fell apart over the past six years in a morass of opportunism and power for the sake of power. Empire building was the goal of the Roverian Republicans, as it was for Bush and his neo-con advisors. The Empire was shaken to its foundations this morning.

The cry of the Democrats will be the Empire is Dead Long Live the Empire.







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A Taxpayers Timmies

Here is another example of Canadian state capitalism, or as it is called by the neo-liberals private public partnerships (p3's),regardless of who the New goverment of Canada is.

Who pays for Afghanistan's Tim Hortons? Why you and I do.

The total cost for the first year of operations at Tim Hortons' Kandahar operations was over $3.9 million. And keeping the operation running during the duration of Canada's mission in Afghanistan is estimated to cost as much as $5 million a year. The only major expense Canadians won't be paying is the $450,000 franchise fee, which Global National has learned that Tim Hortons has waived in this particular case.

Ah thats generous of them.

Lets see thats $4.5 mil for us and for Timmies its $.5 mil. And the Tories talk about tax farness and corporations paying their share. Yeah right. And we don't even get shares in Timmes for our investment.

Tim Hortons Inc. Announces Third-Quarter Results; Declares Second Quarterly Dividend

Total revenues were $413.6 million in the third quarter, up 7.1% compared
to $386.1 million in the third quarter of 2005. Rent and royalties revenues
were up 10.5%, in-line with systemwide sales growth of 11.5%(1). Same-store
sales growth momentum continued in the third quarter with Canada increasing by
5.9% and the U.S. increasing by 9.2%.

See:


Tim Hortons

Afghanistan

Harper In Kandahar for Timmies

Hockey Night in Kandahar

A little taste

The Other Afghanistan

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Samhain

Whose this Sam guy that witches celebrate. What does he have to do with Jack O' Lantern, and of course the Day of the Dead. And why is Halloween, or Hallo' mass the New Year?

You Call It Hallowe'en... We Call It Samhain






See:

New Age Libertarian Manifesto

Pagan

Witch

Gnostic

Heresy




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Monday Science Guy

It seems that my posts today have made this Monday, Science Day.

• Just Right Ice
• Elephants Cogitate
• Dialectics of Extinction
• Pay Now Or Pay Later

See:

Science

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Just Right Ice

Another example of the Goldilocks Enigma....the X-rays were 'just right'....

Splitting Water Creates Alloy

"At first, we saw these unexpected H₂ and O₂ peaks in our X-ray Raman spectra," Wendy Mao tells C&EN. "Then we released pressure from the diamond anvil cell, and we actually saw gas bubbling out."

Upon further investigation, they determined that at high pressure the X-rays dissociate H₂O and the resulting atoms recombine into a previously unknown solid of H₂ and O₂. This new "alloy" is spectroscopically distinct from a simple H₂-O₂ mix.

X-rays are known to create free radicals and instigate reactions at ambient pressure, but examples of similar transformations at high pressure are rare. "We managed to hit on just the right level of X-ray energy input," Hemley explains. "Any higher, and the radiation tends to pass right through the sample. Any lower, and the radiation is largely absorbed by the diamonds in our pressure apparatus."

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Elephants Cogitate

End the Ivory Trade! And the incarceration of elephants.

Happy the elephant recognises herself in a mirror. Image: Diana Reiss/Wildlife Conservation Society.

Elephants possess self-awareness

SYDNEY: Elephants can recognise themselves in mirrors, an ability which gains them membership of the cognitive elite, U.S. researchers say.

"We report a successful MSR [mirror self-recognition] elephant study and report striking parallels in the progress of responses to mirrors among apes, dolphins and elephants," said the researchers. They report their findings today in the U.S. journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Mirror self-recognition is considered a sign of self-awareness which, until now, has been observed only in humans, apes and dolphins. These animals - as well as elephants - all have large brains, complex social systems and high intelligence levels.

"When CITES first banned the ivory trade in 1989, Africa's elephant population was 609,000 (down from 1.3 million in 1979). Now the most optimistic estimates are around 400,000 elephants. Losing elephants is an ecological disaster. Elephants are not just ornaments or tourist attractions; they disperse seeds, prune the trees and shape the land wherever they live, naturally." Ian Redmond, Born Free Wildlife Consultant and elephant expert

West Africa's ivory trade thrives

By Alex Kirby BBC News Online environment correspondent Poachers' victim in central Africa A lively illegal trade in ivory is now flourishing in three populous states in West Africa, conservation groups say. They found more ivory in Nigeria, Ivory Coast and Senegal than the countries' own elephant populations could produce. The wildlife trade monitoring network Traffic and the global conservation group WWF say West Africa's vibrant ivory markets spur the poachers on. They believe much of the ivory their teams found will have come from animals slaughtered by gangs in central Africa. Any international ivory trade must be sanctioned by Cites, the United Nations Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species.

Elephant News


SEE:

Dialectics of Extinction

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Dialectics of Extinction

"We came up with the idea that humans themselves act as both press and a pulse," said West. "Humans began manipulating the environment - the press - from the advent of agriculture. However, that alone did not trigger the current mass extinction. That seems to have been triggered by the pulse of industrialisation and the demands for energy and resources that came with it."

New theory for mass extinctions



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Pay Now Or Pay Later

Global warming could soon cost trillions

According to the Observer, the Stern report says unchecked climate change would cost up to US$6.98 trillion (A$9 trillion) - more than World Wars I and II and the Great Depression of the 1930s.

It also warns that the world needs to spend about one per cent of global gross domestic product - equivalent to about US$349 billion (A$454 billion) - on the issue now or face a bill up to 20 times higher than that in future, the paper says.

Stern also calls for a successor to the Kyoto agreement on greenhouse gases to be signed next year, not in 2010 or 2011 as planned, because the problem is so urgent, according to the paper.

He reportedly says that failure to act quickly would trigger a global recession and calls for an international framework to tackle the issue.

The Observer says his report is the first heavyweight contribution to the debate on climate change by an economist rather than a scientist.

See:

Ambrose

Environment

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I Am Not A Number

I am a free man. So said the Prisoner. Now it turns out that strange white ball that chased him all over the island when he tried to escape actually exists.

Scientists Stumped: Underwater Photographer Captures Picture of Mysterious Gelatinous Ball; 'A Bit of Science Fiction'

The Prisoner was the British paranoid Sci Fi TV series created by the first TV spy guy; Patrick McGoohan. Who starred in Danger Man/Secret Agent






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