Tin Man

Gee who do you think might have been responsible for this?

In the grip of speculators, tin hits 18-year high

And has lots of cold hard cash to invest?

China

China is also one of the major tin-producing countries; the main producing area is the Gejiu complex in Yunnan which has accounted for a large proportion of the total output in China for many years.

Total mined production of tin in 1990 (as ores and concentrates) was 211,000 tonnes, with the major producing nations being Brazil, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Bolivia and Thailand.

Thus an alliance that once was part of the non-aligned anti-Imperialist bloc now becomes aligned with the new Imperialist player on the block, who can throw some coin their way in the global marketplace.


SEE:

Turning Lead into Gold

China Burps Greenspan Farts Dow Hiccups

China: The Triumph of State Capitalism

China No Longer Red Nor In The Red

US vs China for Global Hegemony

Afghanistan or Africa

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Universal Health Care and Charter Schools

The right wing loved Wisconsin when it adopted their Charter School program, despite it's failure, to create a market place in public education or improve test scores.

Now that Wisconsin wants to try socialized medicine ala Canada, well the wailing, wrenching and rendering of political breasts on the right begins.

Let Wisconsin Experiment with Socialized Medicine

John Stossel says " go for it, Wisconsin ". His theory is that perhaps their experience will finally demonstrate for all that the "socialist approach" isn't the way to go. Of course, as you might imagine, "free" health care isn't free: The plan would cost an estimated $15.2 billion, or $3 billion more than the state currently collects in all income, sales and corporate income taxes.

Hopefully the empirical research that results from Wisconsin's experiment with Medicare, will be better than has been done with "For Profit Education" and Charter Schools.



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Blog Spam

Considering how many problems I have had with Blogspot why does this not surprise me. Google Can't Figure Out That Its Own Blog Isn't Spam


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Conservative Cherniak

If anyone was in doubt that Jason Cherniak is a conservative, as in a classic parliamentary Tory, this should be the final nail in that coffin.

As if we needed any more evidence.




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Pakistan 1933

Shades of 1933.

The government of embattled Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf said Thursday it may impose a state of emergency because of ``external and internal threats'' and deteriorating law and order in the volatile northwest near the Afghan border.

Except that Pakistan, born out of an anti-imperialist struggle the Muslim League which founded Pakistan was aided by the Nazi's, as was the right wing Hindu Nationalist movement.

Muslims had been aroused into solidarity with their Palestinian co-religionists, who were increasingly in open conflict with the Jewish settlers, and supported Hitler's anti-Jewish line. There was also the Khaksar Muslim militia, founded on the model of the Nazi Sturmabteilung (SA, "storming department") by Allama Inayatullah Mashreqi, who had returned from Germany full of enthusiasm for the national resurgence he had witnessed there.

The Muslim League, while in alliance with the British, also had a soft corner for Hitler: "When Nehru returned after a brief visit to Europe in 1938, he was struck by the similarity between the propaganda methods of the Muslim League in India and the Nazis in Germany: 'The League leaders had begun to echo the Fascist tirade against democracy... Nazis were wedded to a negative policy. So also was
the League. The League was anti-Hindu, anti-Congress, anti-national... The Nazis raised the cry of hatred against the Jews, the League [had] raised [its] cry against the Hindus.'" (B.R. Nanda: Gandhi and His Critics, OUP, Delhi 1993 (1985), p.88)

Allama Iqbal in contrast provided a much more workable situation. The Iqbalian concepts of "Mard-e-Momin" and "Shaheen" (even though Iqbal’s Mard-e-Momin and Shaheen could be civilians) were used- much in the same way Nazis used Nietzche’s "Superman"- to invent the "Super-Fauji" who could dodge bullets and travel at the speed of light ... all the while managing a pathetic little country like ours.

If Pakistan’s 60 years are mapped in terms of Allama Iqbal promotion, the graph would be highest under Ayub, Zia and Musharraf. The Ulema - including people like Dr. Israr- the same sort Iqbal had warned against- have also had good reason to own Iqbal. Much of Iqbal’s poetry is recited by the Ulema because it speaks of Islamic glory etc.

Today it is a nuclear state that exports terror.

Wait a minute didn't George II say something about that. As have the Democrats.

Oh yeah that might be why this happened.

Pakistan Leader Snubs Afghan Meeting

SEE:

The Economist Agrees With Me

Afghanistan A Failed State

Pakistan Speaks For the Taliban

Liberation Theology

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Not Surprised

Why am I not surprised.

The chairman of the company that co-owns the Utah coal mine where six workers are trapped has campaigned to improve mine safety - but his companies have incurred millions of dollars in fines over the last 18 months.

Must be a compliance problem.

SEE:

Bump

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Fair Trade Is Good Capitalism

Galloping Beaver points out that the vulgar liberaltarian Adam Daifallah is claiming Fair Trade Coffee campaigns are Left Wing.

Mon Dieu, and there I thought Fair Trade was good for farmers, good for the developing world, good for business, good for trade, the good old fashioned authentic market place.

Not the Oligopolistic Capitalism that Daifallah defends.


SEE:

Cooperative Commonwealth=Free Market

Chocolate Worms

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Their Satanic Majesties Request

The real psychedelic album of the summer of love.

Their Satanic Majesties Request is a psychedelic rock album by The Rolling Stones recorded and released in 1967. Its title is a play on the "Her Britannic Majesty requests and requires..." text that appears inside a British passport. Although, initially dismissed as a poor attempt to match The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, the album is now considered one of psychedelic rock's greatest albums.

Which is overlooked still after forty years of glorification of the Beatles, and the
dissing of the Rolling Stones as the bad boys of Rock N Roll. Because they had Sympathy For The Devil.

Though I doubt Cheap Trick will be doing a Fortieth Anniversary cover of it.

It is a great album. Starting off with the psychedelic sci-fi anthem; 2000 Light Years From Home.



The song "Sing This All Together" was used in the TV show Faerie Tale Theatre. It also contains a hidden track which may have given rise to later paranoia about back masking.

Why don't we sing this song all together?
Open our minds let the pictures come
And if we close all our eyes together
Then we will see where we all come from

Pictures of us spin the circling sun
Pictures of us show that we're all one

Funny things happen when you invoke Lucifer.


SEE:

Every Cop is a Criminal

More Sunday Satanic News

Classic Rock

Sunday In Hell

Marxism and Religion

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Gimme

Never gets.

Not after Charest used the Harper fiscal imbalance payment windfall as a tax break.

In a carefully orchestrated leak, the Charest government has served notice that it wants a new constitutional round to entrench what it calls "a Charter of Open Federalism," adopting the language of Stephen Harper's famous Quebec City speech, and effectively throwing his own words back at him.

In a Canadian Press story played prominently by Le Devoir yesterday, Quebec Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Benot Pelletier was all too available to confirm that Quebec would be "very, very insistent" on advancing open federalism on the division of powers between Ottawa and the provinces and specifically limiting the federal spending power.

For one thing, this is too clever by half. For another, it is a complete misread of both the political temperature and the public's mood in the Rest of Canada. However disposed Harper, as a proponent of classical division- of-powers federalism, might have been to such a gambit before Charest blew it on the fiscal imbalance, the prime minister can hardly entertain it in the context of Quebec's having got what it asked for, and coming back for more.

"Open Federalism" coming from a guy who says; " War Is Peace"


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Dumb and Dumber

P3's don't save taxpayers money.

This was a costly dumb idea under the Mulroney Conservatives and the Harper Conservatives are going to repeat the same mistake.

The government has reportedly received advice that Edmonton's Canada Place is the most valuable of the nine buildings being considered for sale. It is worth $265 million if sold under a 25-year lease-back deal.

Canada Place was valued at $152 million when the Treasury Board approved its construction in 1984. But in 1988 Kenneth Dye, then the federal auditor general, reported that the new Edmonton home of 3,200 federal civil servants would end up costing taxpayers $100 million too much.

Part of the extra cost was the result of a decision to have Canada Place built privately under a lease-purchase deal instead of having the government build it.

And the irony in this is that it will be public sector workers pensions that will probably ending up owning it.

But Dawson wasn't sure how a benefit for business can work for the government.

"They're not in business and they're not necessarily going to re-employ that money at any kind of a return."

As for possible buyers for Canada Place, Dawson said large pension funds may be interested.

The Canadian Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) now invests 45% of its assets outside Canada, up from 36% in 2005. Ontario Teachers' Pension Fund increased the percentage of non-Canadian assets in its equities portfolio from 56% in 2005 to 66% in 2006. OMERS has increased its foreign assets from 29% in 2000 to 39% in 2006.

With almost $500-billion in combined assets, the five top Canadian pension funds are getting a bigger piece of the global play book.

Not surprisingly, Canadian pension funds are now viewed as virtual private equity groups, says David Mongeau, of U.K.-based Avington International, a global mergers and acquisitions advisory firm that stickhandled a number of recent deals including the Legacy REIT sale with Caisse de depot, and the BCIMG purchase of the Canadian Hotel Income Properties Real Estate Investment Trust.

See:

Minister of P3

Mr. P3

Super P3

Public Pensions Fund Private Partnerships

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