Tuesday, June 06, 2006

Stephen Nixon, Richard Harper

Gee this reminds me of when Richard Nixon decided to comment on the Charlie Manson Case.

Before the trial began, the Manson case became a political issue. President Richard M. Nixon condemned Manson on public television, calling him a dangerous cult leader.


Especially when the PM makes it personal.

Terror suspect Chand accused of wanting to behead prime minister ...

The lawyer chastised Harper for expressing "happiness" that the suspects had been arrested over the weekend.

"I expect my client to get a fair trial; as fair as every other trial that occurs in Canada," said Batasar.

"In fact the comments made by the prime minister himself with respect to his happiness that these persons had been arrested certainly is surprising and shocking."

"I believe the prime minister should keep out of the process and let justice take its course."

And like the Manson case with the hysteria around terrorism innocents are bound to be locked up and have the key thrown away with our new law and order security state under Harper. Especially when he has already declared them all guilty.

Bobby Beausoleil, the intended beneficiary of the copycat Tate-LaBianca murders, remains in prison despite his having been convicted of a single murder that was not aggravated by factors like torture or rape. It is probable that the specter of a headline reading "Manson follower paroled" is behind his continuing imprisonment. The Manson Myth

Snipers, leg irons, selected evidence, police brass — all calculated to sway the public, lawyers and security experts say

However after the inital media hysteria dies down and the real facts are placed before the courts the chances are very good that this was all a tempest in a tea pot. Used to assuage the US Public, bolster the Harper Government and of course put more bucks in RCMP, CSIS and local cops budgets. This high profile bust comes after CSIS claimed it needed more money to detect immigrant terrorists entering the country, and while the current security state anti-terrorism law is being reviewed. Coincidence, I think not.

As for the innocent they will have to wait for their day in court to overcome the social pariah status they currently face. Most so called security cases in Canada have ended up with NO convictions according to the panelists on Mike Duffy's show today. And they too recommended that Harper should have kept his trap shut.





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Double Jeopardy


This is a case of double jeopardy where in the victim is subjected to both the sexist regime of Sharia law in Iran and the ruling classes discrimination against ethnic minorities in Iran.

Today on Parliament Hill MP's from all parties gathered to denounce the pending death sentence for Nazanin Fatehi who killed a rapist attacking her. She is Kurdish in a largely Farsi country. Double Jeopardy.

Congratulations to all the Women MP's who united to make this case their cause and held an all party joint press conference withNazanin Afhin-Jam on Parliament Hill today to celebrate the news that a new trial for Nazanin Fatehi maybe pending.


Update: Nazanin's death sentence has been overturned by the Iranian head of Judiciary Ayatollah Shahroudi. The case will now be sent back to a lower court Read more


And congratulations to Nazanin Afhin-Jam who has used her celebrity for a just cause.
Ex-beauty queen spearheads fight

Sign and spread this petition, started by the Canadian model and singer Nazanin Afshin-Jam.

The MP's should offer Canada as an asylum for Nazanin since we know she will not get a fair trial under the Ayatollahs.



18-year old Nazanin Mahabad Fatehi (f) was sentenced to death after she reportedly admitted stabbing to death one of three men who attempted to rape her and her niece in a park in Karaj in March 2005. She was 17 at the time. During her trial, she reportedly told the court “I wanted to defend myself and my niece. I did not want to kill that boy. At the heat of the moment I did not know what to do because no one came to our help”.


NAZANIN FATEHI: The Kurdish woman awaits execution in an Iranian prison for killing the man who tried to rape her NAZANIN AFSHIN-JAM: The Canadian model is leading a growing international campaign to spare the jailed woman's life

Bodog Music Recording Artist Nazanin Afshin-Jam Pleas to World Media, Kofi Annan and the UN to Save the Life of Another Nazanin in Iran

Save Nazanin

This website was created to spread information about the 18-year old Iranian girl Nazanin Mahabad Fatehi, who has been sentenced to death by hanging. Nazanin`s "crime" was killing a man who ambushed and tried to rape her. Please take a few moments to read about her case and what you can do to stop the execution and save Nazanin`s life.





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Blame the Workers

In a sleazy move that is typical of B.C. Ferries management they are now blaming the mariners, the Ferry Workers for not being trained on new equipment installed on the Ferry, Queen of the North, that sunk earlier this year. The equipment an automatic pilot and navigation computer were installed only weeks before the sinking, and none of the ships crew were trained in their operation.

The Transportation Safety Board considered this failure of management so serious that they wrote the B.C. Ferries Corporation with their preliminary findings. B.C. Ferries response, provide training for the workers heck no. Blame the workers, issue a new form letter demanding the workers sign that they are trained, failure to complie and you are fired.


Lack of training cited in fatal BC ferry sinking

The TSB said some crew members on the bridge of the ship felt they did not have enough training to work with the new equipment — specifically the newly installed auto-pilot system. "These are master mariners, so again I'm having a little trouble that they would want to be in control of a ship and not be familiar with their equipment," said David Hahn, president and CEO of BC Ferries. Hahn said the company is taking the preliminary findings seriously and have already taken steps to address the training issue. "We've introduced a new form that we're asking all the officers to sign, stating that they're familiar with the equipment, they're comfortable with it," he said. "We have to remove that doubt."



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Labour Produces All Wealth


As the wobblies say; Labour produces all wealth, all wealth belongs to labour.

It's the labour theory of value, nice to see it in the headlines.


Workers look to cash in on mining industry riches

It pays to hire an apprentice - Landmark study reveals that employers accrue $1.38 for every dollar they invest in training an apprentice


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Take A Valium

Ok everybody who is mounting their Outrage Over CUPE campaign here are two articles that put the CUPE Ontario motion to boycott Israel in context.

One from the left;
Union drawing attention to Israeli injustice, argues Linda McQuaig

and surprise surprise one from the right;

Toronto Sun EDITORIAL: We choose Israel — and Palestine
We agree with CUPE that what it calls the apartheid wall and we call the security barrier, is an affront to the dignity and lives of the Palestinians. But we see it as a necessary evil, precisely because it has dramatically lowered the number of terrorist attacks on Israel. We agree with CUPE that the Palestinians have suffered under occupation. Unlike them, we accept the reason for the occupation — Israel’s need for security.

Unlike the other right wing ranters like Coren and Levant, and the syncophantic Kinsella, the Sun editorial is a ray of reason in a stupid reactionary attempt to discredit CUPE for DARING to criticize Israel.

Of course not to be left out of a controversy and free press coverage, the self appointed voice of Labour and the Left in Canada also takes cheap shots at CUPE.

CUPE boycott of Israel won't help cause of peace
The labour movement and the left should try to counteract despair in the Middle East with calls for genuine dialogue and exchange, not by finger-pointing and boycotts, writes Buzz Hargrove
But then Buzz wants to raid them so his motives are not exactly pure. And he is still ticked off that the CUPE dominated Ontario NDP kicked him out.


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Duh Oh

Equalization report favours Quebec Well slap me up the head and call me stupid, I would never have expected that.

Despite the privatization putsch of the Charest government, and the call for a more market state by the right wing of the BQ/PQ, the fact remains that Quebec is a State Capitalist nation.

It relies upon federal handouts to function, including massive job creation subsidies, subsidies to Bombardier and other SME's, which is exactly what undermines its claims to independence. It is actually capable of generating a surplus but it refuses too. Its economy is bourgoise like its nationalism, both are protectionist.

Which gives succour to the Western Alien-Nation whiners and Alberta Separatists.

Some on the right argue that of course Quebec is a have not nation because it is State Capitalist. The reality is that it is a basket case economy because it relied on years of Liberal cronyism both provincially and federally to remain a protectionist economy, despite promoting and embracing the FTA and NAFTA.

Liberalization of the economy will be fought by both the left and the crony capitalist ruling class as it is not in their mutual interests to change. It is the last basition of classical captialist industrialism in Canada.

Showing that without a truly Pan-Canadian industrial policy Quebec will remain a basket case economy, asking for handouts while producing massive surplus value.

RBC forecasts slower economic growth for Quebec

RBC notes that for Quebec, as the most reliant province on the manufacturing sector, the stronger Canadian dollar brings some challenges to many of these industries, specifically high-tech and electrical products, machinery manufacturing, primary and finished textiles and clothing, transportation equipment, paper, furniture and wood products. Combined, these industries make up over two-thirds of Quebec's GDP and about 400,000 workers. In addition, export sensitivities exist particularly in industries exposed to the coming slowdown in North American housing and auto markets. Another area for concern is the impact of aggressive competition in the U.S. from low-wage countries like China and India, in industries such as textiles and clothing, furniture and fixtures and machinery, in which Quebec has traditionally been strong.

Canada Economic Development -- The Economy of Quebec


See: Quebec

The Neo Liberal Canadian State

Origins of the Captialist State In Canada



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Volunteerism

More than 22 million Canadians - 85 per cent of the population over 15 - gave money to a charity or non-profit group in 2004 for a total of $8.9 billion.

And those that did were average Canadians, not the wealthiest Canadians. Charity begins at home, and Canadians donot mind paying for social services others require, it is the nature of our social democratic society.Which is why we don't mind paying taxes. If the services are provided. We bitch when they aren't. And of course you get a tax recieipt for your donation, which gives you more of a tax deduction than RRSP's.


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Worse Than Terrorists

The White Slave Trade. Yep overlooked in all the sturm and drang about the supposed Muslim terrorist cell broken up over the weekend, and CUPE's boycott of Israel, was this little story.

Israeli-Canadian women trafficking ring busted

According to suspicions, ring members placed ads in Russian newspapers in Israel offering escort services in Canada

I await the outrage from the Blogging Tories ,the Zionist apologists and those who praise the fall of the Soviet Union.


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Build It In Lloydminster


Alberta too expensive to build super-refinery

Ok so build it in Lloydminster since we share the city with Saskatchewan it should be cheaper on one side of the street or the other.

After all they have the Husky upgrader there.

Sheesh do I have to tell youse guys everything? There and that didn't cost a half million like the consultants report did. Geez.


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Drop In The Bucket



Oh big threat. The Alberta Government has finally gotten off its ass a year later and charged CN rail with environmental damage for the toxic spill at lake Wabamun. The fine a piddly $500,000, a drop in the bucket for CN who had record profits and donated a cool $1 million US to a local hospital to assuage their guilt. Heck it's spare change to Hunter Harrison the American CEO of CN.

The cost of the clean up? $75 million. That fine really is going to help the taxpayers of Alberta who have had to clean up the mess. Guess this is another fine example of Alberta Government regulations, when they finally are enforced, defintely prove this Government is not in the business of regulating business....just screwing Albertans.Wabamun residents unhappy with CN charge

And oh yeah CN had another toxic spill this weekend, in Quebec.

See: CN



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Happy Birthday to the Anti-Christ


Somewherei n the world today the dread lord of all that is evil is born. Evil is of course just Live spelled backwards.

Like all the nutty notions of evil conjured by the Christian and other patriarchiacal monotheistic faiths thay are what they hate. They are their own worst enemies, becoming what they denounce.

Any ways here's the link for all the Google news about 666 since this is the Sixth Day of the Sixth Month of 06. Which has not occured for at least one hundred years, since 6/6/1906. So maybe the Anti-Christ is 100 years old.

1906 From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

June 6 - Durham & South Carolina Railroad operates its first revenue train, Bonsal to Durham, North Carolina. The date, when written as a six-digit date and the zeroes removed, evaluates to the Number of the Beast (numerology) (666).


Or perhaps 200 as he could have been born 6/6/1806 or maybe 300, or 400, or...well you get the idea.

Besides everyone knows the Great Beast was Aleister Crowley. And he is dead.

Besides now that the Soviet Union is gone we all know the Evil Empire is Amerika, and it is the evangelical christians that run that Empire that are agog about the end times, armageddon and the apolcalpyse and can't wait to make it happen, which may explain much about George W's foreign policies. After all he talks to god. Of course that god maybe the other guy.

So on with the show this is it. The End Times Are Here.....Again.

Also See:

The Morning Star

New Age Libertarian Manifesto

Judas the Obscure

My Favorite Muslim

Antinominalist Anarchism

Icky Icke

Could It Be Satan

Papal Fallibility

Pope Benedict Deus Cannus Est

Catholic Hajib

Another Catholic Child Molester

Christian Killers and Rapists

Keeping the 'X' in X-MAS

American Fairy Tale

Ken Lay and Son of Sam



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Truth Be Told


I like reading the capitalist press. No not the MSM, the business press. They tell it like it is. Like who the new Federal Reserve Chairman in the U.S.; Ben Bernanke, really represents. In this throw away line from Business Week; "Is the Fed chieftain simply failing his own class on clear messages?"

There ya go. We know which class they are talking about too, the ruling class.

And his message...the dreaded word that strikes fear into the very heart of capitalists....Revolution? No. Stagflation!

Something Monthly Review has said was inevitable under the current market dominance of the State and Monopoly Capital in the U.S.

Fears of stagflation leave Dow battered
Bernanke's comments unnerved investors because they raise fears of stagflation, an environment of rising prices and stagnating economic growth. His tough talk on inflation also increased concerns that the Fed will raise its target for short-term interest rates, currently 5%, again at the end of June, dashing hopes it would pause in its two-year-long rate-tightening campaign.Bernanke's comments unnerved investors because they raise fears of stagflation, an environment of rising prices and stagnating economic growth. His tough talk on inflation also increased concerns that the Fed will raise its target for short-term interest rates, currently 5%, again at the end of June, dashing hopes it would pause in its two-year-long rate-tightening campaign.

Stagflation fears stalk UK industry

WILL HIGH OIL BRING STAGFLATION?

Tuesday, May 09, 2006 - FreeMarketNews.com

Will rising oil prices bring stagflation? Stagflation is the combination of high inflation and high unemployment/recession, a phenomenon that Keynesian economists long thought to be impossible—until it happened in the UK and the US in the ‘60s and ‘70s. -Jeff Vail

Stagflation Here We Come!
May 15, 2006

For the foreseeable future I believe we are looking directly at Stagflation.
Stagflation is an Inflationary environment coupled with very low rates of growth.

Here’s why I believe we are facing Stagflation:

The US economy is a paper tiger. Almost everyone I know in the US is involved someway or another in Real Estate. And that means Debt!
Now Debt is ok provided the assets behind the debt don’t Fall in price and precipitate a massive Liquidation.
So the Fed’s job is easy. Print money ‘til the Cows come Home but don’t ever allow asset prices to drop.

There’s one problem ofcourse - Gold.
That pesky metal is so sensitive to an increase in the money supply. Whenever it rises it scares the Dickens out of the public into believing that Price inflation will break out any moment.
To maintain credibility the Fed bangs its fist on the table and says they’ll raise interest rates to snuff out any sign of inflation.

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Monday, June 05, 2006

More Munk-Key Business


After blogging about Barrick Gold Meister Peter Munk yesterday, today another Munk key business is in the news.

Brookfield, Blackstone to Buy Trizec for $8.9 Bln

une 5 (Bloomberg) -- Brookfield Properties Corp., owner of the World Financial Center in lower Manhattan, and buyout firm Blackstone Group LP agreed to acquire Trizec Properties Inc. for $8.9 billion including debt, the second-largest takeover of a real estate investment trust.

Trizec, whose chairman is Canadian real estate mogul Peter Munk, will almost triple Brookfield's U.S. properties, especially in New York, Washington and Los Angeles. Half of Brookfield's 48-million-square-foot portfolio is in Canada.

Even though Trizec's shares have outperformed most other office REITs in the past year, ``the company continues to be undervalued in the public markets,'' Tim Callahan, the Chicago- based company's chief executive officer, said today in a statement.


Office REITs Jump on Merger Speculation
NEW YORK — Shares of office real estate investment trusts rose in afternoon trading Monday after Brookfield Properties Corp. agreed to buy Trizec Properties Inc. at an 18 percent premium.
Munk is the man with the golden thumb. But not all that glitters is gold. Munks Trizec has major problems in its West Coast investments.

For Trizec, the deal marks the end of a turbulent and fascinating history that saw a company with a major stake in retail development transformed into a leading office market player. Two attempts at grand-scale retail development, in L.A. and Las Vegas, proved disastrous, and frequent course changes under Peter Munk's guidance in the late 1990s also marred the stock's performance.

Los Angeles the city of light and darkness, the contrasts of poverty and excess, of working class enclaves and big city development. As Marxist Urban Historian Mike Davis has documented in his books on Los Angeles.

"The ultimate world-historical significance---and oddity---of Los Angeles is that it has come to play the double role of utopia and dystopia for advanced capitalism," writes Davis, in City of Quartz: Excavating the Future in Los Angeles. "The same place, as Brecht noted, symbolized both heaven and hell. Correspondingly, it is the essential destination on the itinerary of any late 20th century intellectual, who must eventually come to take a peep and render some opinion on whether 'Los Angeles Brings It All Together' (official slogan), or is, rather, the nightmare at the terminus of American history (as depicted in noir)."

Trizec led that development which disposed of older working class communities in favour of large scale downtown buildings, with tax breaks and tax incentives from the generous ruling class of the city.


City of Quartz, Fortress LA

Eighty years later, the martial spirit of General Otis pervades the design of Los Angeles's new Downtown, whose skyscrapers march from Bunker Hill down the Figueroa corridor. Two billion dollars of public tax subsidies have enticed big banks and corporate headquarters back to a central city they almost abandoned in the 1960s. Into a waiting grid, cleared of tenement housing by the city's powerful and largely unaccountable redevelopment agency, local developers and offshore investors (increasingly Japanese) have planted a series of block-square complexes: Crocker Center, the Bonaventure Hotel and Shopping Mall, the World Trade Center, California Plaza, Arco Center, and so on. With an increasingly dense and self-contained circulation system linking these superblocks, the new financial district is best conceived as a single, self-referential hyperstructure, a Miesian skyscape of fantastic proportions.

Like similar megalomaniacal complexes tethered to fragmented and desolate downtowns--such as the Renaissance Center in Detroit and the Peachtree and Omni centers in Atlanta--Bunker Hill and the Figueroa corridor have provoked a storm of objections to their abuse of scale and composition, their denigration of street life, and their confiscation of the vital energy of the center, now sequestered within their subterranean concourses or privatized plazas. Sam Hall Kaplan, the former design critic of the Times, has vociferously denounced the antistreet bias of redevelopment; in his view, the superimposition of "hermetically sealed fortresses" and random "pieces of suburbia" onto Downtown has "killed the street" and "dammed the rivers of life."'

Yet Kaplan's vigorous defense of pedestrian democracy remains grounded in liberal complaints about "bland design" and "elitist planning practices." Like most architectural critics, he rails against the oversights of urban design without conceding a dimension of foresight, and even of deliberate repressive intent. For when Downtown's new "Gold Coast" is seen in relation to other social landscapes in the central city, the "fortress effect" emerges, not as an inadvertent failure of design, but as an explicit--and, in its own terms, successful socio-spatial strategy.

The goals of this strategy may be summarized as a double repression: to obliterate all connection with Downtown's past and to prevent any dynamic association with the non-Anglo urbanism of its future. Los Angeles is unusual among major urban centers in having preserved, however negligently, most of its Beaux Arts commercial core. Yet the city chose to transplant--at immense public cost--the entire corporate and financial district from around Broadway and Spring Street to Bunker Hill, a half-dozen blocks further west.



Once again Munk has benefited from State Capitalism, as with his Clairtone business in Nova Scotia which sucked millions from taxpayers before going belly up. In the case of Trizec from municipal state capitalism as they were inticed with tax give ways to invest in the redevelopment of downtown LA.

TRIZEK ANNOUNCES DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES PROPERTY ACQUISITION


Trizec again reports poor Hollywood sale

In another indication of the continued struggles at the Hollywood & Highland complex, developer Trizec Properties Inc. has disclosed that operating income will be sharply lower than expected this year and that the adjoining Hollywood Renaissance Hotel had average occupancy during the first six months of 54 percent, far below break-even levels.

The dismal results, revealed as part of New York-based Trizec's earnings report, provide the most revealing glimpse to date on how badly the once-ballyhooed project has been performing. While much of the sluggish business can be tied to factors beyond the developer's control--in particular the post-Sept. 11 slowdown in Asian tourist business-the numbers are certain to renew questions on the project's long-term viability.


In Los Angeles Trizec benefited from insider real estate deals that Davis documents, and of course from Proposition 13 which boosted the real estate and development sectors bank accounts. That wealth went into the pockets of companies like Trizec which are tax free trusts.
City Beat Interview with Mike Davis

Remember, California had a lot of poor immigrants in the ’30s and, ’40s, but that generation went to good schools and got free higher education. The same level of opportunity is not being made available to this generation. Their future has been looted in advance by the selfish policies of Proposition 13. Who benefited most massively from it and the reason it was a fraud were commercial and industrial property owners. They got untold billions. This grew out of a very justified complaint in a period of rapid land inflation. Poor people and retired people were faced with punitive tax bills. But the solution was to simply destroy progressive property tax as a source of revenue. It had the most perverse effect – taking away funds from schools. It has led to newer home buyers paying sometimes 10 to15 times more taxes than their neighbors. It has allowed a lot of wealth to escape taxation.

The looting of LA which Davies links to the Rodney King riots today continues in the merger and acquisition orgy on Wall Street and the sale of Trizec Truist into private hands. More capital flows out of LA and into the world market.

Also check this interview this Davis.

Tomdispatch Interview: Mike Davis, Turning a Planet into a Slum

Tomdispatch Interview: Mike Davis, Green Zones and Slum Cities




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Russian Oligarchy

The New Zealand Herald has published a mini bio of the ruling class in Russia. Ruling Class. Not party apparatchiks, not the central committee, though many of them came out of the ruling one party state. The AZ of Russian oligarchs
Contrary to the ideological mythology of the liberaltarians, when state capitalist regimes embrace capitalism they do not become free markets, or markets period. They merely become monopoly capitalism. And the difference between state capitalism and monopoly capitalism (the military industrial complex) is an illusion.


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Irony

Here is the definition of irony in the tradition of Mark Twain, Ambrose Bierce or H.L. Mencken. Freedom of The Press Conference....in Moscow.
Moscow Hosts International Press Congress

MosNews

The WAN press freedom roundtable was held Sunday, on the eve of the World Newspaper Congress, World Editors Forum and Info Services Expo 2006, the global meetings of the world’s press. More than 1,700 newspaper publishers, editors, other senior newspaper executives and their guests are in Moscow for the events, which open Monday.

Free Russian media guarantees democracy - Putin

Yep the only free press belongs to those that own one. And Putin owns the press in Russia.Many have complained that Putin has suppressed the free press in Russia, which is an old Bolshevik tradition. And Putin is an old Bolshevik.
World’s Press Appeals to Putin for Press Freedom

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Living In The Past

As I have said before the Bank of Canada is living in the past with its anti-inflation fetish for raising interest rates. And I am not the only one who noticed they are stuck in the Mulroney era with their policies.

During the 1985-90 period, for example, when oil prices were very low, inflation in Calgary was well below the national average, while inflation in Toronto and Montreal generally outpaced the national average. That episode also underscores that the net effect of an oil shock on overall inflation need not be a wash -- national inflation actually rose during that period of cheap oil, from about four per cent to five per cent, but Toronto's inflation rose more, to 6.3 per cent.

The bottom line? There can be little doubt that the current energy boom contains some inflation risks for Canada. However, so far, the inflation risks in oil-producing regions are being at least partly offset by disinflationary pressures in regions that do not produce oil, but use a lot of it.

Stephen S. Poloz is senior vice-president corporate affairs and chief economist for Export Development Canada.


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Asymmetrical Federalism

The Harpocrite government has created a new form of asymmetrical federalism, with its denial of the Kyoto agreement.

First it was Quebec that said it would go it alone as a province in meeting its Kyoto targets.
Provinces can pay Kyoto tab, PM says

Now this;
Mayors to go it alone on Kyoto

And this:
Greenpeace teams with Quebec separatist parties to pressure feds on Kyoto

But it seems that less than 25 years after Trudeau left office, the stamp he put on Canada “is being undermined by a new generation of politicians who have no regard whatever for his belief in the need to maintain a strong central government,” says Michael Bliss.The historian may be right. The notions of “asymmetrical federalism” promoted by Paul Martin and Stephen Harper’s decentralist idea of “open federalism” (never mind the behaviour of the Chrétien government that all but delegitimized the federal presence in Quebec) would be anathema to Trudeau. He would denounce such practices as weakening the national government. Trudeau deconstructed


And maybe instead of a Made In Canada policy modeled on the US we should model it on China, who also didn't sign Kyoto. So says political hack Maurice Strong who created the Kyoto accord.


See: Kyoto



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Anybody But Chavez

In Peru the right wing celebrates a victory over Hugo Chavez. No he was not running in their Presidental election. The US and its right wing allies in Latin America a cheering a victory, mind you a pyrhic one, since the winner is a fascist who is particularly inept.

Victory for Garcia in Peru election

With 77 percent of the ballot papers counted, Garcia has won 55 percent of the vote with Humala on 45 percent. Commentators say the public has had to choose between the lesser of two evils.The news will come as a blow to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who, as Garcia says, made no secret of his support for Humala: "Today, Peru has sent a message of national sovereignty and has defeated efforts by Hugo Chavez to incorporate us in the expansion strategy of his military and backward-looking model, which he has tried to implant in Latin America," said Garcia. Garcia's opponent has conceded defeat.

If the results hold up, it would make official a political comeback for Garcia after his previous administration ended in economic ruin, rebel violence and accusations of rights abuses.
Former president wins in Peru
García , 57, who once faced corruption charges and ended his first presidency in disgrace, sounded a note of contrition during a spellbinding victory speech before a throng of supporters. Voters had seen the race as an unappealing choice between a former president whose first administration had been an unmitigated disaster and a former army officer who once led a military rebellion. But voters saw García as the lesser of two evils.




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Sunday, June 04, 2006

Historical Revisionism

Right Whing Whiner Michael Coren takes on CUPE over their boycott of Israel. In his latest Toronto Sun column, which was published in other Sun papers across Canada, Coren engages in historical revisionism that one expects from the likes of Ernst Zundel.

Coren justifies the oppression of the Palestinian peoples by claiming the continous existence of a State of Israel, and denies the existence of the Palestinian peoples.

"The Jewish state, Israel, came into existence more than 1300 years before the birth of Jesus Christ and 2000 years before Islam existed. The Jewish people have lived in the country for more than 3000 years and resisted Greeks, Persians, Syrians, Romans and legions of other tyrants. There never was a Palestine. After the Romans murdered hundreds of thousands of Jews and destroyed entire cities they attempted to expunge any trace of Jews and Judaism from Israel. Thus they renamed the land after the ancient Philistines, a people who had creased to exist."

Gee Michael what state would that be again? The one ruled by King Solomon perhaps or the one founded by the terrorists of the Stern Gang.

United Monarchy
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The United Monarchy refers to a period in the History of Israel where the Twelve tribes of Israel were united into one monarchy under King Saul in roughly 1050 BC. The empire according to the Torah reached its height under the reign of King Solomon. Some scholars and historians doubt the extent of the monarchy described in the Torah, and instead suggest a smaller localized kingdom while others go further to doubt its existence



Because there is big difference between them.

You see the Palestinian peoples did exist at the time of Solomon, in fact you can
check your bible to see. It's recorded in the Song of Songs, the Holy of Holies. The daughters of Jerusalem, indeed the main female voice in the song are; I am black but comely, O daughters of Jerusalem! Like the tents of Kedar, like the curtains of Solomon.

Where upon the threshing dance that is referred to in the text is a "Palestinian peasant dance, a wedding dance" according to Marvin H. Pope in his Biblical exegesis of the Song of Songs.


"Return, return, O Shulammite; return, return, and let us gaze upon you." "What will you see for the Shulammite, as in the dance of the two camps?

The Jewish Encyclopedia states:
Still another view regards the book as picturing the popular festivities held in Palestine in connection with the wedding-week. Of such festivities there are hints in the Old Testament (Judges xiv. 10-12; Jer. xvi. 9; Ps. xix. 6 [5]; comp. Matt. xxv. 1 et seq.); and Wetzstein (in his article "Die Syrische Dreschtafel," in Bastian's "Zeitschrift für Ethnologie," 1873, pp. 270 et seq., and in the appendix to Delitzsch's commentary on the Song) has given the details of the modern Syrian marriage celebration, in which he finds parallels to those of the poem. In the week succeeding the marriage the villagers assemble; the thrashing-board is set up as a throne, on which the newly married pair take their seats as "king" and "queen"; there are songs in praise of the physical charms of the pair, and dances, in which bridegroom and bride take part; especially noteworthy is the "sword-dance," performed by the bride with a naked sword in one hand (see vii. 1 [R. V. vi. 13]). In accordance with this view the "king" of the poem, sometimes called "Solomon" (an imaginative designation of a person of ideal beauty), is the bridegroom; the "daughters of Jerusalem" are the village maidens in attendance on the bride; the royal procession of iii. 6-11 is that of the bridegroom (comp. Ps. xix. 6 [5]); the dialogues, descriptions of bodily charms, and other pieces are folk-songs; according to Budde, the name "Shulamite," given to the bride once (vii. 1 [vi. 13]), is equivalent to "Shunemmite," and isan imaginative reminiscence of the fair Abishag (I Kings i. 3).

You see it was not the State of Israel, but the Kingdom of Solomon.
"The kingdom of Solomon," says George Rawlinson, "is one of the most striking facts in Biblical history. A petty nation, which for hundreds of years has with difficulty maintained a separate existence in the midst of warlike tribes, each of which has in turn exercised dominion over it and oppressed it, is suddenly raised by the genius of a soldier-monarch to glory and greatness." Song of Solomon - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

And this Kingdom was ruled by a solar phallic prince who was crowned not by his father, David, but by his mother. Much to the chagrin of the patriarchs of the various semitic tribes, which included not just Jews but Arabs as well. As the Song says; Go out, O daughters of Zion, and gaze upon King Solomon, upon the crown with which his mother crowned him on the day of his nuptials and on the day of the joy of his heart.

His truimph was his communal, polygamous marriage to hundreds of priestesses of various goddess religions of the time, as well as marriage into a variety of Semitic ruling families of the twelve tribes.
There are sixty queens and eighty concubines, and innumerable maidens.

Solomon
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The first half of his reign was, however, by far the brighter and more prosperous; the latter half was clouded by the idolatries into which he fell, mainly, according to the scribes, from his intermarriages. According to 1 Kings 11:4, he had 700 wives and 300 concubines. As soon as he had settled himself in his kingdom, and arranged the affairs of his extensive empire, he entered into an alliance with Egypt by a marriage with the daughter of the Pharaoh.


This as well as his trade deals with the King of Tyre, created a stable peaceful state. One that had not existed previously. The Kingdom of Jeruslaem (NOT the State of Israel) prior to Solomon was at war with their neighbours, and each other. Sound familar.

In fact Solomon's importance is such that he is Shlomo in Jewish and Suliman in Arabic. Hence his respect by all in the region is still held today as children are named after him. Qur'anic account of Solomon


There was no State of Israel but there was a Palestine and a Palestinian peoples, they were Semites just like the Jews. There were twelve tribes, there was a Kingdom of Jerusalem, and that is what is defined as Israel in the Old Testament. Michael Coren a self professed old Catholic should know his bible, but being a demagouge he prefers to revise history for his own ends whic is historical revisionism to justify the continuing Zionist State's oppression of the Palestinian peoples.

See Jay C. Treasts interesting website The Song of Songs


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