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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B.C.Ferries, Queen-of-the-North, ferry-sining, B.C.M.W.U, Hahn,

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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labour, labor, wealth, apprenctice, trades, unions, mining, commodities, value, Marx, capitalism, IWW

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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Warren Kinsella

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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Canada, equalization, Quebec, economy, state-capitalism, monopoly-capitalism, PQ, Liberals, BQ, Bouchard, Charest, neo-liberal, NAFTA, FTA

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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womens-rights, feminism, feminist,

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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Lloydminster, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Oil, refinery, Edmonton,

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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