America's Historic Election

The election of Barack Obama as 44th President of the United States was the fulfillment of the drream of Abraham Lincoln and Fredrick Douglas, who himself ran for the Republican nomination for President. Obama kicked off his campaing in Springfield, Illinois Lincolns home. His politics of unity, his sweep in the polls showing America is neither Blue nor Red but purple; his politics as I have pointed out here before are those of classic 19th century liberalism. He appeals to the old Republican party, the progressive, labour party of Lincoln not the later nativist, neo-con party of Reagan. And he made that clear in his victory speech....


Let us resist the temptation to fall back on the same partisanship and pettiness and immaturity that has poisoned our politics for so long. Let us remember that it was a man from this state who first carried the banner of the Republican Party to the White House – a party founded on the values of self-reliance, individual liberty, and national unity. Those are values we all share, and while the Democratic Party has won a great victory tonight, we do so with a measure of humility and determination to heal the divides that have held back our progress. As Lincoln said to a nation far more divided than ours, "We are not enemies, but friends…though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection." And to those Americans whose support I have yet to earn – I may not have won your vote, but I hear your voices, I need your help, and I will be your President too.


While McCain supporters chanted USA, USA, Barack appealed not to a narrow jingoist nationalism but to a greater vision of Americans by their own merit and pulling together in a collective effort to meet the historic challenges facing them with his call; Yes We Can.

He is a Lincoln Republican and a FDR Democrat, remembering the the latters success was based on the progressive movement that pushed not for his election but for the third party candidate; Robert La Follette. A party and movement often overlooked for its impact on American politics, after it got Teddy Roosevelt elected president.

Obama was that third party candidate who used the Democratic party to win election, while appealing to both Republicans and Independents to join him in a bi-partisan campaign to make history. He swept red states and those he didn't win he got more votes in than any other Democrat ever has. He vindicated Howard Dean's fifty state strategy, and he did it by using the grassroots organizing of Saul Alinsky and the Civil Rights movement.

Lincoln and Douglas would be proud as would both Kennedy brothers, and LBJ who in their own way paved the way for Obama's historic election. Today is the fulfillment of the dreams of Martin Luther King, A. Phillip Randolph and Malcolm X. And it is the redemption of the Democratic party forty years after the debacle in Chicago in 1968.

The tears of Afro-Americans from the young students on campuses shown on TV to the celeberities in the crowd in Chicago; Jesse Jackson and Oprah Winfrey, were the geniune mass weltashung of the realization that finally the ugly history of slavery and segregation were ended last night. And a man was elected on the merit of his belief's not his skin colour.

It's a new dawn in America.



SEE:

America's Real Conservative Choice For President



Lincoln Obama



Black Like Me

Winds of Change

The Blue Origin of the Red States



The Era Of The Common Man

A NEW AMERICAN REVOLUTION



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Pallins Pipeline 2

As I posted here previously the Alaska pipeline being built to transfer oil and gas south into the Gulf Coast refineries is being built by TransCanada Pipelines. Which originally was created by C.D. Howe and the Liberal Government and included the Alberta Socreds provincially created pipeline. Private capitalism which would not take a risk then took advantage of crown corporations created by public infrastructure funding. As taxpayers in Canada we have always funded big projects, like the railways and Air Canada, only to hand them over to private business interests when they were successful. Today you and I still pay for the privatization of our public infrastructure. Because that is the history of economic development in Canada, state capitalism for private benefit.



Ernest C. Manning was premier for 25 years. He was the wilful leader who walked the narrow path between powerful ideological opponents on the left and the right.
The socialists hordes in 1955 -- OK they were the Liberals and the CCF (today's NDP) - took 40 per cent of the popular vote in the election and wanted more government ownership of the oil industry.
Manning held the day with his 46 per cent of the vote -- and 37 of 61 seats.
The oilpatch capitalists, on the other extreme, tried to maximize their profits during the post Leduc oil boom that began in 1947.
Manning fought them off, too.
And Manning's government created a unique pipeline company in 1954 that was neither government owned, nor the profit-making tool of the international oil companies. It was called the Alberta Gas Trunk Line and is today part of TransCanada Pipeline.



In 1956, C.D. Howe forced the plan for the Trans-Canada Pipeline, a gas pipeline from Alberta to central Canada, through Parliament but paid heavily when the Liberal government lost the next election and he lost his seat.C.D. Howe retired from politics in 1957 at the age of 70.





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Steady Eddie Runs Away

Alberta's farmer CEO Ed Stelmach has no plan to deal with economic meltdown so what does he do instead skips the first ministers meeting for an all expenses paid junket to Europe. Guess he missed the news that this is a global crisis and that Europe ain't open for business its businesses are collapsing. And typically the Tired Old Tories have no plan. Instead they put their heads in the sand and hope no-one notices their arses are in the air.


Alta. premier to skip first ministers' meeting
Trish Audette , Canwest News ServicePublished: Monday, November 03, 2008
EDMONTON - Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach is skipping national economic discussions in Ottawa next week in favour of going to Europe on a trade mission.
Stelmach explained Monday that his presence at the first ministers' meeting, hosted by Prime Minister Stephen Harper, is unnecessary. The premier said organizers rejected having him connect to the Ottawa meeting by phone, so Alberta is sending a senior cabinet minister.
"We'll clearly identify the areas that we're concerned about," said Stelmach. "One of them is income trusts and another is where they cancelled all of the accelerated capital cost allowances for the oil and gas industry."

Premier needs to deliver plan that will restore hope
The premier has been disappointingly mum on his plans to restore confidence . . .
Danielle Smith, For The Calgary HeraldPublished: Tuesday, November 04, 2008
On Monday, the finance ministers met to talk about the next steps the federal government will take to address the pending economic crisis. What Premier Ed Stelmach now needs to do is set a date to provide an economic update of his own, so Albertans know what he intends to do about it.
The premier has been disappointingly mum on his plans to restore confidence among consumers and business owners. Meanwhile, Alberta is not likely to avoid the effects of what appears to be the beginning of a global economic slowdown.
Business confidence is at the lowest levels we've seen in nearly two decades.
For the last four weeks, starting on Oct. 6, CFIB has surveyed members on a weekly basis to get their views on how they expect the economy to perform over the next 12 months. The results are sobering.
Each week the small business outlook has looked a little dimmer, as massive shifts in commodity prices and the shrinking availability of credit disrupt investment plans. For the first time, the index is now virtually equivalent to its previous record low -- found in mid-1990 -- a time that coincided with a protracted recession.
For the last four weeks, starting on Oct. 6, CFIB has surveyed members on a weekly basis to get their views on how they expect the economy to perform over the next 12 months. The results are sobering.
Each week the small business outlook has looked a little dimmer, as massive shifts in commodity prices and the shrinking availability of credit disrupt investment plans. For the first time, the index is now virtually equivalent to its previous record low -- found in mid-1990 -- a time that coincided with a protracted recession.
But the most important question Taft levelled, which still appears to have no clear answer, is: "As the world economy staggers to a halt, what is this government's plan to protect the wealth and jobs of Albertans?"
Stelmach responded that he would dip into the $7.7 billion stability fund if he needed to, but that doesn't address the core problem. The core problem is the Alberta government spends too much.
This year, the province increased operating spending by 9.7 per cent and capital spending by 22 per cent.
Not long after the budget was delivered, the province threw out its surplus management strategy (which was supposed to dedicate one-third of surpluses to infrastructure, one-third to infrastructure maintenance, and one-third to savings) and announced it would spend an additional $4 billion, on carbon sequestration and public transit.


Tories 'handing' U.S. oilsands upgrading jobs
Premier blames federal government
Renata D'Aliesio, Calgary HeraldPublished: Tuesday, November 04, 2008
Opposition leaders accused Alberta's premier on Monday of standing idly by as the United States siphons oilsands upgrading jobs from the province.
In question period, Liberal boss Kevin Taft seized on new industry warnings that Alberta is on track to upgrade only half of its bitumen production, far short of Premier Ed Stelmach's goal of 75 per cent.
Taft listed a litany of American upgrader projects designed to process the province's tar-like bitumen, including plans slated for Indiana, Minnesota and Montana.
He said the Alberta government should be worried that $30 billion worth of oilsands projects, including upgraders and processing plants, has been shelved due to the global financial turmoil.
"This government is on the brink of handing control of Alberta's wealth to the United States," Taft charged.


Unintended consequences: discounted Alberta land
Crescent Point says royalties deflated prices
Dan Healing, Calgary HeraldPublished: Saturday, October 25, 2008
It's a bold investment strategy tinged with more than a little irony -- Calgary oil executive Scott Saxberg, a vocal opponent of higher Alberta oil royalties unveiled a year ago this week, says his Saskatchewan-focused company is going to aggressively bid for land rights in this province.
"We are now looking at lands in Alberta because we believe, based on the way royalty rules are, Alberta is basically giving away their land for free," the president and chief executive of Crescent Point Energy Trust told the Herald in an interview this week.



SEE

The Economist On Alberta's Fair Share
Still not getting our due
Ed's Politics Of Fear
Nationalize The Oil Patch
Royalties Pay For Jobs

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October Surprise Was The Market Crash

On the Sunday News Talk Shows and on the American cable news channels the pundits all commented on how this election there was apparently no October Surprise.

In American political jargon, an October surprise is a news event with the potential to influence the outcome of an election, particularly one for the presidency.

No October Surprise???

What do you call this.......Mutual funds plummet in October as global credit crisis grows

THE US stock-market crash appeared to draw to a close with the month of October, as a gain in the final session helped shares to stellar returns for the week.However, consumer-spending data and a steady stream of layoffs suggest the bear market is not over yet. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 144.32 points, or 1.57 per cent, to 9325.01, for its first two-session gain since September. For the month of October, the Dow fell 14 per cent, its biggest percentage drop since August 1998. It could have been worse: Until Tuesday's rally helped it bounce 11 per cent this week for the best weekly return since 1974, the Dow was looking at one of the worst months in its 112-year history. The Nasdaq Composite rose 22.43 points, or 1.32 per cent, to 1720.95, gained 11 per cent on the week and finished the month with a loss of 18 per cent. The Standard & Poor's 500 rose 14.66 points, or 1.54 per cent, to 968.75, helping it to a 10 per cent gain for the week. In October, the broad S&P 500 fell 16.9 per cent, its worst month since the date of another infamous crash, October 1987. "It was nuts," said Joseph Saluzzi, co-founder of agency brokerage Themis Trading, of the October action. "There was a time there in the middle of the month people were afraid, thinking: 'What is really happening here? Is this the end of the world? What's going on?'

It cost McCain the election when he insisted that the fundamentals of the economy were good as the market came tumbling down.US Election Panel: 'It was close until the credit crunch

Wall Street collapsed right on top of McCain
Point: Dan SchnurThe most decisive event in this campaign wasn't anything either of the candidates said at their respective conventions or in any of the debates. It wasn't a sound bite from a speech or interview, or a memorable assertion in a television commercial or e-mail attachment. The turning point in this election didn't happen on the campaign trail but rather on Wall Street. In the last week of September, the race was essentially tied. Then Wall Street collapsed -- and it collapsed right on top of John McCain.In the first week or two after the extent of the economic meltdown became apparent earlier this fall, what had been a closely contested election broke significantly in Barack Obama's direction. The worst month for the Dow Jones industrial average in more than a decade made McCain's national security credentials almost irrelevant to voters frightened about their economic futures. Just as the success of the troop increase in Iraq and the rise in gasoline prices earlier this year represented real-world events that boosted McCain's support, the political ramifications of the rapidly spreading economic crisis have been of immense assistance to Obama's efforts to convince voters as to the necessity of a change of course in Washington.

SEE:
McCain A Socialist
No Austrians In Foxholes


tagsGreat Depression, John McCain, market crash, free trade, Republicans, recession, asset-backed commercial paper ,, goldhomes, mortgages, housing, bubble, US, economy, oil prices, sub-prime mortgage, Wall Street, crash, recession,October Surprise, Inflation, Staglation, Stock-Market, US, Federal-Reserve-Chairman, Oil, gold, commoditiesSmoot-Hawley, protectionism, tariffs, Herbert Hoover, U.S., U.S. economy, Canada, Great Depression, John McCain, market crash, free trade, Republicans, recession,

Pork

So Joe the Plumber, who ain't a plumber but a McCain stand-in stereotype gets preferential treatement because of his celeberity status....pork by any other name. Hey McCain gimme the straight talk on this....

Joe the Plumber gets warning, not speeding ticket
TOLEDO, Ohio (AP)
— Police stopped "Joe the Plumber" for speeding last week but didn't issue a
ticket out of concern it would reflect negatively on the Toledo department, an
officer's report said.
Officers tracked Samuel J. Wurzelbacher driving about
50 mph in a 35 mph zone in his Dodge Durango SUV on Wednesday, the police report
said.
In the final presidential debate, Republican John McCain portrayed
Wurzelbacher as emblematic of people with concerns about Democrat Barack Obama's
tax plans. Wurzelbacher has since endorsed McCain. His instant fame set off a
rush of interest in the plumber's background.
Toledo's police chief said on
Tuesday — the day before the traffic stop — that a department clerk faces a
disciplinary hearing for allegedly looking up Wurzelbacher's address on a state
computer database.
Wurzelbacher was given a verbal warning because of that
ongoing investigation and because a citation could have "negative repercussions
to the department and city as a whole," according to the report, which lists
"Patrolman Bailey" as its author.
Wurzelbacher would not comment on the traffic stop when reached by telephone Monday evening.

And I really like 'Joe's' honesty

JW: You know, I don’t know enough about that to give you a real intelligent
answer

Typical Republican.

TagsJohn McCain, republican, U.S.presidential election, Samuel J. Wurzelbacher, ,Joe The Plumber

Vegetarians For McCain

In a deseperate bid for votes McCain in a sound bite I just heard on CBC said he is appealing to; "independents, libertarians and heck even vegetarians."

Someone should tell him that appeal to liberal vegetarians might not sit well with his VP.

Born Sarah Louise Heath in Sandpoint, Idaho, in February 1964, Palin was the third of four children. The family moved to Wasilla when she was a child. Her dad, Chuck, was a teacher and loved Alaska’s hunting and fishing lifestyle. Today Chuck’s pick-up truck has a bumper sticker reading “Vegetarian — Old Indian Word For Bad Hunter”.

Ironically it is the same sound bite he used back in 2000 when running against George W.

I hope to my Republican friends, and I believe to most Americans -- that we can reassemble a coalition, a coalition that reaches out across party lines, preserving our core with conservative Republican principles and yet attracting to our banner people who are independents, people who are Democrats, libertarians, vegetarians.''

The McCain campaign has gone green recyling old sound bites in the last hours before their defeat.


Tags
John McCain, republican, U.S.presidential election, Sarah Pallin,

Latino Votes Will Change American Politics

While much talk has been about Obama's success mobilizing black voters the other big ethnic block that will swing the elecion tommorow and change the face of America is Latino's. In fact it is the Latino vote that has Obama closing in on McCain in his own home state; Arizona. Red states are turning purple.

While the Republican Party represents the white folks in Red States including McCains home state, there are thousands of Latinos who work for those Republicans, and they are not voting for McCain who sold them out to appeal to the nativist politics of the Republicans to win the party's nomination for President. A decision he will live to regret after tommorow.

SEE:

West Side Story

Richardson On The Ticket

The Ugly Truth About Migration

Tags
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America's Real Conservative Choice For President

Much has been made about Barack Obama being a socialist and a Marxist by the dwindling white power base that is the decrpit Republican Party. But the reality is that tommorow America will have a choice between a real conservative President and a Republican. That choice of course is Barack Obama.

For conservatives, Obama represents a sliver of hope. McCain represents none at all. The choice turns out to be an easy one.

His politics of unity; the third way, his appeal to Americans that they need to take personal responsibility for their families and their neighbours, his rise to power as an example of American meritocracy, his appeal to hard work, and a fair share for all, are traditional American conservative values, indeed they are the values of bourgoise enlightment exemplified by Freemasonry. His are the values of both Abraham Lincoln and FDR, not Ronald Reagan. After all prior to Regans unholy alliance of neo-cons, paleo-cons and evangelicals, conservatism was really just an outgrowth of 'classical liberalism'.

His endorsement by Colin Powell, as well as by other leading Republican's and conservatives such as Chris Buckley, shows that Obama's polics are more closely aligned to 'tradtional American values' than those of the evangelical right wing that hijacked the party of Goldwater.

And his promise to expand the war in Afghanistan means that he and Harper have something in comon despite the difference in their party labels. And Obama's Green Plan will coincide with the one that is still to be unvieled by the Harpocrites.


A Conservative For Obama
Ronald T. Wilcox
I'm a conservative. I've spent my money and my time in support of Republican candidates. I also support Barack Obama for president.
Modern conservatism is deeply rooted in ideas and political philosophy, in rational discourse and pragmatism. John Stuart Mill matters to conservatives.
Conservatives used to ask the tough questions and did not accept simplistic solutions. That is why it is deeply disappointing to me, both personally and professionally, that John McCain has run a campaign that is so antithetical to rational discourse about public policy. His campaign has been about glib answers to complex problems. His choice for vice president was political malpractice.
He has catered to a wing of the Republican Party that believes everything will be all right--if only the government gets out of the way. No matter the problem, that is the only acceptable solution. To suggest that research about or thoughtful analysis of a situation might, in some cases, point in a different direction is apostasy.
For these Republicans, simply the act of doing policy analysis must mean that you are a liberal. They know that real Republicans, and real men, don't need to think things through. I do not respect these people. They have dragged a proud movement that had much to offer our country down into the mud of ignorance.
And yet the reason I now support Obama is only partially due to McCain's decision to embrace this base form of populism. It also stems from a growing respect for Obama's thoughtfulness, which reveals itself when he's faced with difficult questions. I do not agree with all elements of Obama's tax policy, but I certainly get the impression he has thought about it a whole lot more than McCain.

The attraction of Obama to Sullivan and other conservatives is not surprising. In fact, their support is consistent with the constructive wing of the philosophy of conservatism. Those stuck in the world of divisional politics can be baffled by this. How, they ask, can people who admire Reagan and Thatcher also have time for Obama?Aside from his positive message of unity, there are a number of things concerning Obama which appeal to conservatives, not least his appreciative attitude towards traditions and his understanding of the importance of learning from history. In her ambitious New Yorker profile of Obama published last May, Larissa Macfarquhar writes that Obama was critical of his parents and grandparents for breaking up from their respective communities and moving to other towns and countries. They allowed themselves to be seduced by the American dream of individualism and mobility, something which to Obama seems "credulous and shallow." To Obama, the abandonment of their surroundings in Kenya and Kansas to start anew somewhere else seemed, writes Macfarquhar, "a destructive craving for weightlessness." Freedom has a price, and this is shattered communities and loneliness.

Many traditional conservatives (not the neo-con subspecies) are embarrassed by George Bush and are looking for a way out of the foreign and domestic policy nightmare that he has engineered. They also understand that John McCain would be more of the same or even worse. There is a lively discussion of Barack Obama that is taking place both in the blogosphere and in the media directed at a conservative audience, and much of the discourse is surprisingly receptive to the idea that Obama, though a liberal, could bring about genuine change that will benefit the country. A recent article by Boston University professor and former army officer Andrew Bacevich appeared in The American Conservative magazine and is available on the internet at www.amconmag.com. It is entitled "The Case for Obama" and makes the point that Obama is a candidate that is certainly no conservative, but he is the only real hope to get out of Iraq and also avoid wars of choice in the future. Bacevich rightly sees the Iraq war and its consequences as a truly existential issue for the United States, one that should be front and center for voters in November. Any more adventures of the Iraq type will surely bankrupt the country and destroy what remains of the constitution. Bacevich also notes that the election of John McCain, candidate of the neoconservatives and the war party, would guarantee an unending series of preemptive wars as U.S. security doctrine and would validate the disastrous decisions to invade Iraq and wage an interminable global war on "terrorists." Electing Obama instead would be as close as one could come to making a definitive judgment on the folly of Iraq and everything that it represents, a judgment that is long overdue. Many conservatives would agree that the Obama commitment to leave Iraq is the right way to go and long to return to the days when America only went to war when a vital interest was threatened.




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Pension Rip Off

Canada's corporations are crying the blues again about the fact that they have underfunded liabilities regarding their pension obligations to their workers. While they may have a point that the government discourages them from putting extra into their pension funds, the fact is that they use this excuse to not max out their share of their pension responsibilites. Much like the government itself with its public sector plans, which are paid for by employers and employees, but the government never puts in its share, instead it uses its general funds to account for its future liablities, which of course gets it into trouble during periods of economic downturn and when the state runs up deficits and gets into debt as it did in the ninties.
That being said while corporations could benefit from legislative changes to the tax code, the fact remains that they would still prefer to invest in stocks and to pay their CEO's lucrative salaries and pay generous dividends to their shareholders before they invest in their own workers. Surprise, surprise. Now that market has melted down they cry the blues about not having paid their share into their future obligations to those who produce their wealth; their workers.

See
The Importance of Savings
Your Pension Dollars At Work
P3= Public Pension Partnerships
Chinese Social Security Scandal
Social Insecurity The Phony Pension Crisis
Pension Plunder
Labour Is Capital
Pension Free China
Kids Are Commodities
Workers vs Worker
Air Canada Profits From Bankruptcy
Are Income Trusts A Ponzi Scheme

Vencap
AIM High
P3 Myth Busting
Infrastructure Collapse
Fire Sale
Dumb and Dumber
Public Pensions Fund Private Partnerships
Golden Parachutes
Your Pension Dollars At Work

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Fee Fi Fo Fum

I smell the blood of a Tricertops......Or we could say this was as obvious as the nose on his face...after all with a snout like that why is this a surprize?!

Tyrannosaurus Rex could sniff out distant prey even at night, yet another reason the flesh-ripping predator reigned supreme as king of the dinosaurs, according to a study published on Wednesday.
Earlier research had shown that the towering T-rex could see better than an eagle and would have been able to run down the fastest of humans.
The new study now unveils a previously unheralded weapon in the fearsome theropod's arsenal: a dangerously keen sense of smell.


SEE:
Dino Time
T-Rex In Your Gas Tank
Hooversaurus
Sex Can Be Dangerous
Sudbury And The Dinosaurs
Dinos and World Systems Theory
Prehistoric Bi-Plane
More Dino News
Prehistoric Happy Feet
Creationism Is Not Science
Paleontologist Versus Paleo Conservatives



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