Monday, January 09, 2006

Good Morning Dave

HAL: I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do

The future is upon us and once again the fantastic becomes merely mundane.

Implants turn humans into cyborgs
Radio frequency identification chips replace house and car keys

Cyborgs have stepped out of science fiction and into real life with a small but growing group of tech aficionados who are getting tiny computer chips implanted into their bodies to do everything from opening doors to unlocking computer programs.

Amal Graafstra and his girlfriend Jennifer Tomblin never have to worry about forgetting the keys to her Vancouver home or locking themselves out of Graafstra's Volkswagen GT.

And the scary thing is Hal was Canadian just like these folks are.

See my Gothic Capitalism for more on cyborgs, zombies, robots etc.

And the right wing journal Reason has zoned in on this debate as well in their January issue;

Who's Afraid of Human Enhancement?
A Reason debate on the promise, perils, and ethics of human biotechnology Ronald Bailey, Nick Gillespie, Eric Cohen, and Joel Garreau (1/9)

And here are some more references.

Cyborgs

Cyborgs 'R' Us

Cyborg - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Cyberpunk Project

Haraway_CyborgManifesto.htmlA Haraway essay first published in 1991. Donna Haraway, "A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century," in Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature (New York; Routledge, 1991), pp.149-181.

Cyborgs.html Cyborgs, Trickster, and Hermes: Donna Haraway's Metatheory of Science and Religion

John RR Christie - A Tragedy for Cyborgs - Configurations 1:1

MS. GUIDANCE Cyborgs and other machinic adventures in space


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My Fan Club

I have a fan club on the right; The Third Edge of the Sword.

Who like Herr Patels, and WK when they disagree with me cannot rise to the occasion with much more than invective aand name calling like 'idiot', 'moron' and in the case of Abassador Kosh at TTEOTS I am apparently 'insane'.

Given my opponents and their politics this is all high praise indeed. Since I must be saying something right to upset them.

In the case of the juvenile cretin that is TTEOTS he took umbrage with my article on Edmonton Strathcona and the two way race. Obiously he had too much coffee and too many amphetamines and thus misconstrued my comments to say I thought the NDP would win. Which I did not say. I said Edmonton Strathcona is a two way race between the NDP and Conservatives.

In The Third Edge of the Sword 2 days ago
Eugene Plawiuk is being slightly insane again this week talking about the NDP winning Edmonton-Strathcona from popular incumbant (and former drinking companion of yours truely) Rahim Jaffer.
I further said that if you read the CBC web discussion on Edmonton Strathcona you will see there is a movement a foot to oust Rahim as a failure as a riding MP. True fact that.

His comments are not worthy of reprinting here. He manages a particular offesnsive homophobic and childish slander of Svend Robinson accusing him of pedophilia which just goes to show that this dweeb has nothing in particular to offer to anyone visiting his blog. He is a perfect example of a waste of a good liberal arts education.

Its a good thing that Rahim has quit having this guy as his 'drinking buddy'.

A final note I wonder what it is that compels some folks to engage in name calling, foul language and tossing insults around when it comes to dealing with ideas they don't like. Clearly debate is not one of their strong points (assertions are not debate) and the argument for their side is so weak that this is all they can muster.

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Sunday, January 08, 2006

CSL Pollutes Canadians Pay For Clean Up

Early, very early, yesterday morning Paul Martin got the media together, groggy not quite all there, bleary eyed and announced that the Liberals will clean up the pollution in the Great Lakes. Martin announces $1-billion water cleanup

But what he didn't say was that a lot of that pollution was a direct result of his shipping company CSL and their dumping of iron ore pellets into the Great Lakes. So now he is going to have us pay for his corporate screw up.

Sweeping It Under

Our grimy great lakes: The dirty secrets of the Canadian shipping industry’s cleanup practices

BY Alex Roslin

The dirtiest job on the ship was understandably the one Jim Macdonald dreaded most. During his years as chief engineer for Canada Steamship Lines (CSL), aboard carriers including the CSL Tadoussac, Macdonald oversaw the offloading of 25,000 tons of iron ore at the Port of Hamilton on each journey. Now 70 and retired, Macdonald recalls his voyages aboard the 730-foot-long Tadoussac—how, in the late 1980s, the Tadoussac would head back to the far end of Lake Superior to pick up a fresh ore load at Thunder Bay. After a short catnap while the vessel eased through the locks of the Welland Canal, it would be time to clean out the ship. This meant dumping into the water tens of thousands of marble-sized ore pellets that didn’t make it off at port







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Conservatives Lied About Tax Breaks

Uh oh here is a blatant example of the Conservatives lying to the media and of course the people of Canada about supporting the Liberal Tax Breaks. Courtesy of NDP Finance Critic Judy Wasylycia-Leis

"When Reality Check called the Conservatives before Christmas to inquire about the costs of their tax cuts, the party's media representatives confirmed, on two occasions in fact, that a Harper government would keep the reduction in the tax bracket for low-income earners... Now, however, a policy spokesman with the Conservative campaign called back to say the party will be keeping the reduction only for the 2005 tax year should they assume office." (CBC.ca, January 5, 2006)



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Kate/SDA Is Pro Union

Will wonders never cease? In this war of all against all, red in tooth and claw, anybody but the Liberals election, Kate from SDA on her CBC blog actually, said nice things about a union. About a labour union. You know those nasty left wing NDP supporting unions.

Though to give Kate the benefit of the doubt her blog article is not at all like Laurie Hawns recent conversion to working class struggle.

Laurie Hawn CPC candidate for Edmonton Centre who suddenly infused with the spirit of Joe Hill has rallied to the side of unionized Federal Corrections Officers. In his case it's not real solidarity, just election opportunism against his opponent, the Corrections Officers boss Anne McLellan.

Actually Kate's article is well stated As I have blogged during the Liberals rush to extend the ban on hand guns they conveniently forgot the border guards that they have left unarmed and under staffed. The latter is the real crux of the problem, and Kate recognizes that as well. And has the photos to show it to boot. It gives new meaning to the Liberal policy of open borders.

And just to really get her goat the only party that has called for increasing border patrols, and opposed the Liberal handgun ban has been, not the Conservatives but, the NDP.

Strengthen border controls – including arming customs officers at the border.

Nice to have Kate on the side of the Angels for once.

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Another Tory for Layton

On CBC weblog forum yet another of their Blogging Tory's has recognized that in order to really defeat the Liberals that the strategic vote must go to the NDP.

True left-leaning Liberals should vote NDP

As this election gets closer the sane and rational members of right wing end of the blogosphere will realize this is there only real option if they want to defeat PM.

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This Headline Says It All

Layton to champion working families

VANCOUVER -- New Democratic Party Leader Jack Layton pledged on Saturday to renew his push for a federal anti-replacement worker law, as he pledged to defend the interests of Canadian workers in the next Parliament.

“We will stand up for working people. We’ll fight for laws that put working people at the head of the line in front of the banks. We’ll work for pay equity and for fair wages. And we will try once again to bring in laws that get the so called replacement workers out of the picture in national legislation.”

Layton accused Prime Minister Paul Martin of lacking leadership by failing to support an NDP bill that would have protected Telus workers, who were on strike mainly in B.C. and Alberta, fighting for their jobs.

On Saturday, a long list of labour leaders attended Layton’s rally including Jim Sinclair, president of the B.C Federation of Labour; Paul Moist, head of the Canadian Union of Public Employees; Ken Neumann, Canadian director of the United Steelworkers and Tom Dufresne, president of the International Longshore and Warehouse union and Bruce Bell, president of the Telecommunications Workers Union.

In a fiery, and much more aggressive speech than he has generally delivered, Layton portrayed the NDP as the only party that is truly ready to stick up for working families. “We’re going to stand up for our seniors with better long-term care and better homecare and some help with prescription drugs,” Layton said, playing on the theme of the Conservative campaign, Stand up for Canada. “We will stand up for our kids - with better child care, by taking on poverty, by giving students some help. We will defend public, non-profit health care and keep the profiteers out.”

Nor did Layton spare the Conservatives, accusing them of wanting to increase taxes on low income Canadians and team up with premiers of Alberta, B.C and Quebec to speed up the spread of private for-profit health care.


Take that Buzz


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Cosh Slanders Chavez Again

While on Colby Cosh's page where I found the Ukrainian Christmas challenge, I found this;
No doubt this is just another one of those "blatantly inaccurate hitpieces" cooked up against Hugo Chávez.. -6:07 pm, December 6


Well Yes Colby it is. And as a self described free lance journalist (sic) I would have thought you would have at least checked your sources about this slander against Chavez, which falsely purports to prove he is Anti-Semitic. See my Chavez is NOT an Anti-Semite which was published four days before your comment.As I said there and will say again a simple google of the story would have found my comment as well as others on this topic including the biased source it came from.

You must have really been tired when you posted this and just didn't have the energy to do your journalistic duty. Tired, falling asleep at your keyboard, yeah must have been, cause you even got your posting date wrong -6:07 pm, December 6,
You meant January 6 of course cause unless you have a time machine the link you posted was from January 5.

Poor tired old Cosh just didn't have the energy to actually write something to prove his point. He was too tired after debating Dru over at Dominion about his article on Chavez being another Stalin.

Which is par for the course for those on the right who will use anything to denounce Chavez cause they just hate him cause he is Left.


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Torys Can't Calculate

I don't know what happened between the invention of the abacus and the scientific calculator but somewhere between the begining of the election and yesterday, despite a strategy of daily campaign announcements, the Conservatives do NOT know how much their tax cuts will be nor do they have a costing for their campaign promises.

This quote is from two days ago while today on CTV Question Period (CTV Question Period: Panel weighs in on leaders' election debates 10:19) John Reynolds said the same thing, again, verbatim;

Reality Check
Under a Conservative government, taxes will be dramatically lower – billions of dollars lower – than under the Liberals. That’s a fact. Details on our entire fiscal platform will be released along with the entire Conservative platform in the near future.
"That's a fact"? What fact,they haven't given us any numbers only empty promises. All they can say is 'trust us'. Well why should we? When they can't tell us if their tax cuts are $32 billion or $49 billion. Boy if they can't even account for that discrepency how can they claim to be more accountable than the Liberals.


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Ban Handguns From Cops


Here is another reason to ban handguns from cops on the beat.

See if we use the least iota of logic we would comprehend why we need to ban cops from carrying guns. It goes like this; cops carry guns, bad guys carry guns, cops get bigger guns, bad guys get bigger guns, cops get SWAT teams, bad guys get assault weapons (see Assault on Precinct 13, the original not the remake). Cops shoot to kill, 12 year old dies carrying toy pistol.

My former NDP MLA Gordon Wright (RIP) was a damned fine defense lawyer in the Rumpole school of law, he always refered to Rumpole's the Golden Thread.

The presumption of Inn-o-cence is the golden thread which runs through the history of the law. A man is innocent until he is proved guilty. Better that ten guilty men should go free than one who is not guilty should be convicted. For to convict the innocent is to spit in the face of justice.
( John Mortimer)

Well Gordon had an answer for gun control enthusiasts that was wry and particularly Albertan, if not downright libertarian for a New Democrat; when asked about gun control he would say first you have to disarm the cops. Very Rumpoleian of him. He used the British Bobbie as his example, and argued that gun crimes in England got worse once Boobies were armed.

Now I can already hear the screaming and gnashing of teeth out there in the blogosphere from the liberals and conservative law and order types.

But ask your self why is it so hard for the Reform/Alliance/Conservatives to call for a gun ban?

They at least understand this irrefutible logic, if you ban handguns you have to go all the way and disarm the Constable On Patrol. That way you would have effective non violent community policing. Besides last time I checked the Constable On Patrol was now armed to the teeth, with a good heavy billy club, tasers, pepper spray and a shotgun in the trunk of the car if not mounted to the dashboard. So why do they need to carry handguns?

You see the police live in a culture of paranoia and you know what they say about the paranoid; just cause they are paparnoid doen'st mean someone isn't out to get them. As a military arm of the state they live in the ultimate Zarathustrian dualistic universe. There are simply good guys and bad guys. Us civilians as they call us must be protected by the good guys from the bad guys, unless we turn into bad guys ourselves. We really can never be trusted is the police logic. And you want to give these socially sanctioned authoritarians with a paranoid complex guns? I think not.

When I was younger the COP on the beat on Whyte Avenue never carried a gun, he would patrol the street and check the doors of businesses to make sure they are secure. Today cops drive around, armed to the teeth looking for trouble.

Lets return to community policing, put more cops on the beat, get them to know their neighbourhood, have them work on a regular basis out of community league centres and community centres not cop shops. And have them walk around without handguns. This would reduce tensions and create a positive anti-gun culture.

If you aren't willing to disarm the cops you ain't serious about banning handguns

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