Firefox 2

Released last October I only just upgraded to Firefox 2 yesterday when Google notified me that an upgrade was available.

And wow what a difference.

It includes spell check, which really helps me out, as folks have commented on my spelling, and it works automatically, in my email, my blog, when I post to Canada Blog Exchange, wow I was impressed.

Then my system shut down and it retrieved and restored my settings, including this blog posting when I opened Firefox again.

It includes a Google search bar, and when you click to open a new site it posts it in the tab bar rather than in a new window. IE7 ain't got nothing on this.

What we do care for, and where IE7 can’t compete, is innovative features. The live bookmarks, which bring Web feeds into the bookmarks folder, now get live titles as well. These add live micro-summaries to previously static bookmark titles, which can show the latest news headlines or blog posts, for example.

Like many of the new features, session restore used to be available as a third-party extension but is now built in. This enables the browser to restore all current tabs should the browser shut down abnormally — a lifesaver with multisite browsing and sadly missing from IE7. As is the integrated inline spellchecking that works in a similar, squiggly underline fashion as Word but is active in Web forms, forums and blog posts. Tab handling has improved in Firefox 2, with all labels now having a minimum size to ensure descriptions are readable no matter how many are open, before becoming scrollable when the screen is full. Also, if you close a tab by accident, you can now restore it with a single click.





The graph shows that, over the last week or two, Firefox 2 uptake has finally overtaken Firefox 1.5 usage. This appears to be quite an accurate assumption since Firefox's user base has traditionally been considerably more tech savvy and, further, the upgrade to Firefox was not forced on users. Hence, user uptake of the new browser appears to be much more enthusiastic than the uptake of IE7,





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Strange Bedfellows

The politics of universal health care makes for strange bedfellows in the U.S.

Wal-Mart, Unions Unite on Health Care

This united front of business and labour are calling for universal health care. But it is not Canadian style single payer universal medicare.

Joining Wal-Mart Stores Inc. CEO Lee Scott and Service Employees International Union leader Andrew Stern at a Washington press conference were top executives from Intel Corp., AT&T Inc. and Kelly Services Inc., a temporary staffing agency.

The partnership of business and union leaders laid out four main goals, including universal health-care coverage for all Americans and boosting the value of every U.S. dollar spent on health care. The business and union leaders' coalition, dubbed "Better Health Care Together," pledged to convene a national summit by the end of May to recruit others from the private sector, labor, government and non-profits.

If the environment is Canada's top election issue, Health care is going to be the issue in the next U.S. Presidential election.

But will any of the candidates endorse a single payer system like we have in Canada?


Wal-Mart, Union Leaders Collaborate on Health Care- PBS




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Nortel Slash & Burn

Since the nineties Nortel has been cutting its workforce and shipping jobs off shore, 56,000 workers cut, and it still has not gotten it out of its fiscal spiral downwards. Why should this be any different.

Nortel to slash 2900 jobs in latest cost-cutting

Nortel Networks Corp. will slash 2,900 jobs, or 8.5 percent of its workforce, over the next two years and shift another 1,000 employees to lower-cost locations like China, India and Mexico as North America's biggest maker of telephone equipment struggles to shore up its profits.Nortel, which currently employs about 34,000 workers, said on Wednesday This is the latest round of job cuts at Nortel, which once employed about 90,000 people. Last June, the company said it would cut 1,100 jobs and alter its pension plans in an attempt to contain costs.

The layoffs are the latest in a series of cost-cutting moves made by Chief Executive Officer Mike Zafirovski since he took over the beleaguered company in November of 2005. Since the collapse of the telecom and “dot com” markets in 2001-2,
Nortel has cut more than 60,000 jobs.

As usual let's look at how much the guy at the top makes while his company bottoms out and he slashes jobs.

	Nortel Networks Corp.(1)	Zafirovski, Mike	$37,429,297
Salary: $305,785 Bonus: $0 Subtotal: $305,785 % chg Other: $28,698,591 Share Units: $8,424,921 Option Gains: $0 TOTAL: $37,429,297 New option grant: 5,000,000 ($10,695,000) Industry: Information Technology Legend

And the reason for Nortel's collapse was not productivity nor the crash of the dot.com bubble but criminal capitalism.

Nortel CFO Leaves (Again)

Nortel chief financial officer Peter Currie is stepping down this spring to take on "new challenges."

The company announced Tuesday that Mr. Currie will be stepping down on April 30 of this year, although he will continue to provide advice to the company to ensure a smooth transition.

Currie took over the CFO chair one year ago to help Nortel recover from several years of financial scandals and mismanagement. Between February 1999 and April 2004, two of the three men who held the title of Nortel CFO were fired for cause.



See

NORTEL: REDUX

NORTEL: Canada's Enron

Criminal Capitalism

We Need a Living Wage

The Phoney Debate On Net Neutrality

CEO


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Where's Janke Now

Mammoth Halton cocaine seizure

I wonder if Steve Janke, Angry In The Great White North, will find some way to link this cocaine bust to Turner crossing to the Liberals and thus to Dion.

Like he did the last cocaine bust of Liberal supporter in B.C.

See

Steve Janke


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Garths New Weblog Banner

Garth Turners new weblog banner which sounds suspiciously like Hillary Clinton's campaign slogan; "Let the conversation begin!,"

Note the Dion green background, not really Green more like pale green. But not teal. Nope definitely not teal.

And he is no longer principled or independent.





See

Garth Turner



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Not PM Material

It's a sad day when the PM is upstaged by Stephane Dion and Garth Turner. So much for Dion not being PM material.

Here it was the official anniversary of the Conservatives wining the election last year, and the PM was reviewing his accomplishments and announcing his new five point election platform and he gets undercut by Garth and Stephane.

All the news focused on Turner becoming a Liberal. Including in the blogosphere.

Whereas Stephens New Government of Canada Redux speech got lost in the media wash over Turner. Including in the blogosphere.

And Harper was supposed to be the master strategist. To bad it wasn't true this time, so sad.

And Turner did it again today challenging Harper to call by elections. Which will make the news again.


See

Garth Turner

Dion

Liberals

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Gore Quote

As I reported yesterday here is John Baird quoting Al Gore.

Hon. John Baird (Minister of the Environment, CPC):

Mr. Speaker, I think that was an excellent description of the previous Liberal government.

Let me say to the Leader of the Opposition that when he says we should have acted one year ago, I say he should have acted 10 years ago.

The Leader of the Opposition can quote Goldman Sachs. I can quote someone speaking about Canada's environmental role in the world:

--Canada, once again providing leadership in the world, fighting above its weight class and showing moral authority to the rest of the world. That's what Canada's known for.

Do we know who said that yesterday? Al Gore.


See

Baird

Environment



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MP's, Ottawa

Child Care for Seniors

In response to a question from Liberal Leader Stephane Dion in QP, PM Harper rattled off the programs his government has instituted since last year when they were elected.

Which included "the Child Care Credit for Seniors" he said.

See I told you their universal child care benefit was for baba sitting.

See

Daycare

Childcare



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Joined At The Hip

Scary picture at the Canadian Club in Ottawa yesterday.

PM Stephen Harper presents his new election platform, another Five Point Platform.

Beside him, not a Minister, not a Senator, but none other than General Rick Hillier.

These two are like peas in a pod.

Joined at the hip.

Like Roy Rogers and Trigger. Trigger...happy.

Despite the talk about the environment, the fiscal imbalance or even tax cuts we know which priority is number one for our Macho PM; Afghanistan. After all it was his first photo op mission abroad, and war making is not a tough decision for either of these warmongers.

And Harper is calling for an "assertive" foreign policy, by boosting the strength of the military, as well as continuing reconstruction and the fight against terror in Afghanistan. Harper says his government will table a comprehensive report in Parliament summarizing Canada's role in Afghanistan and announcing the next steps in its participation there.

See

Hillier

Afghanistan






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Free Labour = Free Of Unions

Critic howls over trade agreement Note the headline.....It's from the Edmonton Sun of course......And you know there is trouble when the Fraser Institute says its a good deal....This is the latest ne0-liberal/neo-con attack on workers and their unions.

Alberta's highly touted free trade agreement with B.C. is "a wolf in sheep's clothing," says the head of the Alberta Federation of Labour. Gil McGowan is warning other provinces that the Trade, Investment and Labour Mobility Agreement, dubbed TILMA, "is not all sweetness and light."

But McGowan says union lawyers fear the deal will give companies the right to sue municipal and provincial governments and school boards that try to bring privatized services under the public umbrella.

He's also concerned the deal will result in a "dumbing down" of Alberta rules for trades training.

Liberal critic Bill Bonko says the deal should have been debated in the legislature if it was so good, rather than being negotiated behind closed doors.

But Jason Clemens of the Fraser Institute raves about the deal, saying the Yukon, Saskatchewan, Ontario and the Atlantic provinces are keen on it.

"This really could be a domino effect across the country to remove or dramatically reduce trade barriers," he said.

Also see: Legal advice on TILMA

For more on the TILMA go here and here

This is a provincial agreement that was drafted to meet the open corridor polices of NAFTA and the new North American Union proposed under the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) which will be discussed by the Three Amigos this summer in Kananaskis.

And it fits in with the agenda of the Harpocrites in Ottawa and their business cronies who are promoting this policy as well as the increased use of temporary workers.

The $10-billion plan to help manufacturing compete globally
Expand the temporary foreign worker program to make it easier to hire non-Canadians when there are no domestic citizens available.

Although governments can only influence manufacturers' success to a certain degree, the industry believes Ottawa could be doing much more to help.

The sector's wish list includes lower corporate income taxes, the elimination of provincial trade barriers, more investment in skills, and broader tax credits for industrial training and corporate research.

And let's not forget who Harper put in charge as Minister of Human Resources.

And there is a Conservative former MLA and anti-union candidate running in former Conservative MP John Williamson's federal riding here. After all Alberta has the worst labour laws in Canada. And is home to the Right To Work Movement which was once headed by Conservative MP Rob Anders.

As Jean Charest once said, back when he was leader of the Federal PC's, "Alberta sets the agenda for Canada."


See

Labour

Unions

Temporary Workers

NAFTA

AFL





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