Friday, January 19, 2007

Israel Lobby Opposes Free Speech

Union motion to debate Israel brings 'hate into the classroom': B'nai Brith head
OSSTF's Toronto district approves debate request by 2 teachers
A decision approving a request by two Toronto high school teachers to have a union debate on whether to condemn Israel's treatment of Palestinians has come under fire by human rights groups. It was approved by the Toronto district of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation, and is being opposed by B'nai Brith and the Jewish Defence League.

B'nai Brith is part of the Israel lobby, which regularly calls for the Canadian State to censor or arrest those who oppose the State of Israel. Pressure like this led to the successfull lobbying effort to censor the play about Rachel Corre.

B'nai Brith and the Jewish Defence League had described an earlier motion as propaganda and said it could easily morph into racism. The teachers' union shot back that the lobby groups were engaging in what amounted to a bullying campaign aimed at stifling free speech.

And the Jewish Defense League is not a human rights group but a known terrorist organization. Kettle, pot, black.

Once again any legitimate criticism or debate about the State of Israel and its aparthied program in the occupied territories is deliberately mislabeled Anti-Semitism.


Those who live in glass houses.....

Four Jewish youths who were arrested in Paris are suspected of a racially motivated crime against a truck driver originally from Mauritius. The incident occurred on Sunday in the Marais district, a major Jewish hub of Paris. According to a French police source the youths belong to the Jewish Defense League.

Eight Palestinians abducted; no international outrage.



Also See:

Israel

Zionism


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Thursday, January 18, 2007

Poll Trolls

Ah there is joy in big blue Blogging Tory land, an online poll has put the Harpocrites in the lead on the environment.

"Who do you think would do a better job of protect
18-01-07, 4:23 am @ Small Dead Animals
Another poll going horribly blue .......

Enviroment Poll
18-01-07, 4:22 am @ I am (also) Canadian
Online of course - Who do you think would do a better job of protecting the environment?Conservatives 3339 votes (41 %)Liberals 2246 votes (27 %)NDP 1517 votes (18 %)Other 1137 votes (14 %) Total Votes: 8239


Ahem, attention, this is an ONLINE poll which means it is about as reliable and valid as well an online poll. It gets trolled and partisans click and vote, since there is no restrictions on voting more than once. It's a Troll Poll.

Nothing more to see here, lets move on.

See:

Environment




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Education As Birth Control

It is an empirical fact that education for women is liberation, which is why patriarchal cultures discourage and or restrict it and force women to abandon it for marriage or child rearing.

Perhaps more importantly when considering the effect of sex ratio imbalances, Naz et al also found that for unmarried women, the relationship between education and fertility was negative. That is, increasing levels of education for unmarried women lowers fertility amongst that group. The potential effect of changes in sex ratios on the ‘marriage market’, fertility and employment


In this study we contrast two South Indian villages which offer women very different employment opportunities. Many women in Village I roll beedis, which are crude hand-rolled cigarettes. The structure of beedi work was designed to meet the needs of the beedi contractor, but inadvertently it has provided women with substantial autonomy. In Village II very few women work for pay. We argue that these different employment opportunities affect women's autonomy, which in turn influences important demographic outcomes. More precisely, we argue that greater autonomy will increase contraceptive use among women who want no more children. We find strong support for this hypothesis. But, because there are few competing employment opportunities in Village II, women in that Village have received substantially more education than those in Village I. This higher level of education is also associated with greater contraceptive use. Thus, overall, the level of contraceptive use does not vary greatly between villages. More generally, this study shows that fertility decline occurs, and that low fertility can exist, in very different settings.Women's Work, Autonomy, and Birth Control: Evidence From Two South Indian Villages

"Love, work and knowledge are the well-springs of our life. They should also govern it."

- Wilhelm Reich



Lack of education leads to increased single parent families, which restricts womens abilities to gain employment or further education hence autonomy. In an advanced capitalist country like America drop out rates are effected by class more than race.


It is estimated that about 2,500 students drop out of U.S. high schools every day.

Census data have revealed that about one out of every three children born in the U.S. these days is the child of an unwed mother. The data from the Barna survey also show that nearly one out of every four adults (23%) who has never been married has children living in their household. Overall, one out of every six households (17%) with children under 18 is headed by an adult who has never been married.

Black and Hispanic youth are more likely than non-Hispanic whites to drop out of high school. In 2004, 7 percent of non-Hispanic whites ages 16 to 24 were not enrolled in school and had not completed high school, compared with 12 percent of blacks and 24 percent of Hispanics. The high rate for Hispanics is in part the result of the high proportion of immigrants in this age group who never attended school in the U.S. Asian youth, with a dropout rate of 4 percent, had the lowest dropout rate among all racial and ethnic groups in 2004. Child Trends DataBank - High School Dropout Rates

Oregon is the latest state to consider action in a nationwide movement to raise graduation requirements after a speech Microsoft Corp. chairman Bill Gates gave to the nation's governors in 2005. Students were leaving high school with diplomas, Gates said, but without the skills needed to succeed in college or the workforce.
High schools raise diploma requirements

Muncie Community Schools analyzed graduation data further by gender. Broken down by sex, 63 percent of Central's black males graduated, with zero percent dropping out, compared to 67 percent of white males graduating, with a dropout rate of 8 percent.

Eighty-one percent of black females graduated, with no dropouts, compared to 83 percent of white females graduating with a 3-percent dropout rate. (Figures don't add up to 100 percent because they don't include students from the Class of 2006 who have remained in school rather than graduating or leaving.)

Poverty and race are indicators that a student is at risk to drop out, but the socioeconomic class of Muncie's black students at both Central and Southside high schools could be different from other schools across the state, Supt. Marlin Creasy said.

"Muncie has a middle class black population and that's reflected in the student body," Creasy said, adding that, more than race, poverty is the "biggest indicator" of a potential dropout. Central has no black dropouts




See:

Women

Feminism

Contraception


Birth Control


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Thank God for SSM


Canadian marriage rate plateaus: StatsCan

Thank god for Gay Marriage it meant that actual marriages in Canada last year did not just plateau but would have declined without them.


Canada gay-wedding central

And the truth finally comes out, the Christian Right Wing admits that marriage is not sacred just another contractual obligation like any other business dealing.

"Why, why is Canada issuing marriage licences to people from another country? We wouldn't issue a business licence to a company that had no intention of staying in the country." said Brian Rushfeldt, executive director of the Canadian Family Action Coalition

And more and more folks recognize that marriage is an 'institution' and has nothing to do with sex or freedom to love ....In fact the biggest decline in marriage can be attributed not to SSM but to common law relationships, which were finally recognized, after the State recognized no fault divorce and divorced itself from the Church as moral law maker.

Marriage no longer the norm for American women

More people are saying I don’t
Low marriage rate reflects changing relationships, more cohabitation

In the absence of a reasonable period of courtship in which the couple get to know each other, and conduct a protracted evaluation process, marriages are liable to be incompatible, and unstable. Early marriages are also more likely to end in divorce.

"This gradual rise in the average age at first marriage is largely due to couples cohabiting and delaying marriage

Actress Sushmita Sen doesn't believe marriage is a prerequisite to share bed with a person one loves. “For me marriage is a mutual trust between friends. Tying a knot just for the sake of it is not marriage in its true sense. If I trust someone fully, the relationship is no less than marriage,” said Sushmita. She said she had no problem with living in a relationship. “Marriage is not a must for having sex. I have no problem with living in a relationship with someone who I trust fully and giving birth to his child.”

But the good news is....

About 95% of U.S. residents have premarital sex by age 44, according to a Guttmacher Institute report published Tuesday in the January/February issue of Public Health Reports, the AP/Chicago Tribune reports (Crary, AP/Chicago Tribune, 12/19).

And in some cases it's a good thing that some institutions did not get married, Mon dieu.

“Vive la Frangleterre”: 1956 Anglo-French Marriage proposal uncovered



See

Whose Family Values?

Marx on Bigamy


Paul Goodman


Libertarianism

Five Things Feminism Has Done For Me

Gay Marriage

SSM

Same Sex Marriage


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Land claim


Well this settles it...9000-year-old artifacts found on occupied land in Caledonia, Ont. And the artifacts and remains of a village did not include a golf course, or suburban housing.

See:

Caledonia




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Wednesday, January 17, 2007

MADD Mad


I wonder what Conservative Senate House Leader and Secretary of State Marjorie LeBreton who is on the Board of MADD had to do with this. But wait she approved the Conservatives doing the same thing to Garth Turner.
Just another case of blaming the whistle blower. And the corporation and its board justify ripping off customers by turfing the founder and keep doing business as usual.


The founder of MADD Canada was voted off of two of the organization’s key committees following a public spat over the way it raises funds.

John Bates, who established Mothers Against Drunk Driving and was awarded the Order of Canada for his work with the organization, says he feels betrayed.

“I am getting old. I am nearly 80 years old and I put an awful lot of money and energy into this — and I have been there since the very beginning when it was almost expected to drink and drive,” said Bates, who believes he is being punished for speaking out about what he calls the organization’s questionable fundraising techniques.

Bates accused MADD of spending 81per cent of all money raised on fundraising and administration costs — leaving only 19 per cent to run the programs donated dollars are intended for.



See

LeBreton


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War On Women-Iraq

It does not matter who did this, it was done by men against women. It was a deliberate attempt to intimidate women from being active in public life. So much for the liberation of women in Iraq. So much for Bush's surge, all it has produced is a surge of ethnic cleansing and attacks on women. Foward to the past, backwards to the future.

Scores killed in Baghdad university



The bombs were exploded as students and staff
left the university [AFP]

Nuri al-Maliki, the Iraqi prime minister, has said "terrorists and Saddamists" were behind the bombing at al-Mustansiriya University.
At least 65 people were killed when a car and a suicide bomber exploded outside the University on Tuesday.
More than 100 people were injured in the blast, mostly students and staff leaving the university.
Al-Maliki said: "They [those responsible] carried out an ugly crime against humanity targeting the innocent students of Al-Mustansiriya University."
An official at the university said: "The majority of those killed [in the explosion] are female students who were on their way home."




































See

Unemployment Breeds Terrorism

Iraq

Feminism


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Nazanin Fateh Update


As reported here earlier last year the fate of Nazanin Fateh, who was to be hung in Iran for defending herself from rape, became a one woman cause for Canada's Miss World, who also shared Nazanin's first name. Nazanin Fateh got a new trial and while she is not going to face death she must now pay blood money.

According to Etemaad Newspaper in Iran, three out of the five judges in Nazanin's retrial have ordered that dieh "blood money" be paid to the family of the man who was killed, although the other two had recommended Nazanin's unconditional freedom.


This trial took place on January 10th, 2007 (20th of Dey 1385 in the Iranian calendar). The five judges that reviewed her case determined that the act was unintentional and was indeed a case of self-defense. As a result she was exonerated from the charge of murder, however the court also has ruled that disproportionate force was used by Nazanin while trying to defend herself and her 15-year old niece. Accordingly they have asked Nazanin to pay "dieh" retribution (blood money) to receive a pardon from the family of the deceased before she can be released from prison.

Nazanin's lawyers, Shadi Sadr and Mr. Mostafaei, intend to appeal the payment of blood money but since this may take several months, they also have requested bail so that Nazanin may be released from prison immediately. The court has set bail in the amount of 400,000,000 Rials (over US$40,000).

At this point, because Nazanin's family is very poor and unable to make payment of the bail or blood money your generosity is urgently requested to secure Nazanin Fatehi's freedom as soon as possible. The Nazanin Fatehi Trust fund has been set up. See Donations page.


See:

News Scoop: Nazanin Fateh

Feminism


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Dion's Corporate Welfare For Big Oil

The Tories hate all things Liberal. Well almost. They cut various social programs they identified as Liberal much to the detriment of Canadians.

One Liberal program they didn't cut was corporate welfare for Big Oil. But today
John Baird identified that subsidy program as being current Liberal Leader Stephane Dions fault.

Which may mean that as a sop to the NDP, the Tories may very well cut the program. But no need to shed a tear for Big Oil, like Dion the Tories will offer corporate welfare in the form of tax cuts for clean energy strategies
, like using nuclear power.

See:

Tar Sands

Energy


Big Oil

Corporate Welfare





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Alberta Tar Sands & US Energy Security

CBC Canada News Now is reporting that they have obtained the minutes of a secret bilateral meeting of Big Oil and both the U.S. and Canadian governments a week prior to George Bush's State of the Union Speech last year when he declared that the U.S. was addicted to Middle East oil.

It took place in Houston prior to the State of the Union speech and prior to Harper announcing Canada was poised to become an Energy Super Power.

And Big Oil and its Big Government pals all agreed that in order to decrease Amercian dependence on 'foreign oil' it needed to increase it's reliance on Alberta, the tar sands in particular. You see under NAFTA we are partners, not a foreign power. And the minutes called for a five fold increase in tar sands start up operations in the next few years.

Which puts today's announcement from the Conservatives on increasing the use of nukes in the tar sands as an alternative energy source in an interesting light. It would solve one of the expenses of start up operations.

See:

Tar Sands

Energy


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