Support Bill-Us or the terrorists win

Mr. Entwistle let no beneficiary, real or imagined, go unmentioned:

"A national champion capable of progressing a strong innovation agenda ... a national champion that could serve key public sector components like security, like health care, like education."

The security theme is one he returned to again and again. "Do you think, for example, that Washington would countenance an AT&T or Verizon being sold [to] a foreign entity?" he asked in an interview. "You look back to 9/11 and some of what hit the newspapers afterwards, in terms of the government accessing phone records from Verizon."

So if the feds don't allow Telus to buy BCE, it's the terrorists who win?

I've parsed this every way I can and it seems in context the only possible interpretation is that Canada should allow the Bell/Telus merger in case the government ever needs to engage in a massive program of illegal wire-tapping of Canadians.

The sudden onslaught of anti-Verizon rhetoric from Entwistle is interesting, because up until very recently Verizon was an all but controlling partner for Telus with the maximum stake allowed under Canadian ownership rules. Product lines and services were being harmonized and it was clear to us that only foreign ownership rules kept them from taking over completely.

Verizon got out a couple years ago, at the same time all the American Telcos started divesting of their Canadian telco participation. Now apparently they're the enemy, in the straw man threat that our only choices are to allow the Bell/Telus unholy union or let Bell and eventually Telus be bought by foreigners.

Don't expect any challenge from the press to this false choice. Aside from Decloet's muted criticism and Reguly's pointed critique of Canada's wireless competitive environment compared to Europe's, the Globe and Mail is rapturous. Lot's of circumspect enthusing about 'synergies' and 'efficiency's'. This, for those who haven't learned business press speak, means 'Yay! We can eliminate thousands of Canadian jobs! Yay!'

The greater political negative for this deal might be the significant job losses that would undoubtedly ensue as the two competitors streamlined to take advantage of all the synergies that a merger can bring. They would not need as many call centres, phone stores, billing operations or service staff when operations overlapped, especially in markets where both companies have big wireless operations. Thousands of jobs could be affected at two of Canada's largest employers, and this could create enough fallout to erode political support.

Of course there is no requirement that a business deal should be rejected on the basis of job cuts - especially by regulators whose mandate is to protect competition rather than jobs. And there may be a good argument that long-term viability is ultimately better for the companies and for their workers, creating a vibrant market player with less debt and more ability to grow and innovate.

So easily does the Globe and Mail our national paper of record dismiss the elimination of thousands of Canadian jobs - behind a firewall naturally - with some stale social Darwinism and pious 'it's for their own good' rhetoric. The only real concern is over the political fuss the bloodbath would create.

This deal would be bad for workers and consumers.

In federal politics only the NDP seem even remotely concerned about this development with both the Liberals and Conservatives signalling their support.

Update: Check out The Progressive Economics Forum for a thoughtful piece on the unchallenged economic fallacies in the entire neo-liberal approach to utilities.

First, was it not just a year ago that both BCE and Telus was going to convert to income trusts. Then when income trusts rightly got shot down, the game was private equity. Now it is mergers. It seems that senior management are obsessed with ploys that play to the financial markets, in order to boost share prices and therefore justify their massive salaries, rather than actually running a good company. I cannot speak for Bell, but Telus is all marketing campaign (a successful one featuring cute animals) but notoriously bad customer service.

Alberta Government posts $8 and a half billion dollar surplus, claim poverty ahead of public service contract negotiations

And so, the long tradition of Alberta's Conservative government low-balling revenues by billions of dollars a year continues. The stale tactic of claiming poverty to try to keep from having to share the wealth continues.

We have the spectacle of the government underfunding the school boards - they still haven't gotten back the inflationary cut in funding from the last budget - and refusing to get involved in the inevitable clashes between school boards and teachers. Criminal irresponsibility as official government policy.

We have starved municipalities forced to play hardball with bus drivers and paramedics - in a job market where employee retention is purely dependent on employee satisfaction.

We have a government that fetishized paying off the debt, the debt the same governing Progressive Conservative Party created in the first place, and smugly touting the shell game where they simply exchanged a fiscal debt for an infrastructure debt. An infrastructure debt that will end up being much more expensive now that costs for fixing it are sky-high.

And we have the same clueless government confused and concerned as to why the same old standard malign neglect is getting them so much flack lately - but not enough to change their ways of course.

Finally we have an Alberta public that may or may not be finally ready to give this democracy thing every other province is talking about a try.

Memo to Bell employees

Start fighting back now.

In a sane country run by a government that cared even remotely in the idea of the public good, the CRTC would quickly put the kibosh on an idea as obscene as the proposed Telus/Bell merger. This is Canada however, and Federal Industry Minister and market ideologue Maxime Bernier never met a huge conglomerate he didn't love. This has all the uncertainty and suspense as the preordained conclusion of the Alberta Oil Revenues review.

Seriously, I feel like I'm the guy who already survived a night in the house of horrors, running from an axe murderer who escapes and then sees a whole other group of co-eds deciding to party there despite what happened to all those other kids.

No! Don't go in there! The soulless telecom executive will eat your soul and turn your skin into a power tie!

Really folks, CEP members, telecom workers - trust me on this. Start fighting back now.

AGT and BCTel were publicly owned utilities with huge publicly financed and built telecom infrastructures. They were sold for pennies to private interests and ultimately merged into Telus.

Telus, a nonsense syllable word created by marketing staff was first seen on the side of a phone company van in an X-Files episode shot in Canada. A phone company employee gets horribly killed by a swarm of killer bees while climbing a telephone pole.

When AGT and BCtel merged into Telus, management made it clear that they wanted a new contract substantially weaker than what the more militant labor environment in BC had secured for BCtel employees and closer to what employees in Alberta had been able to eke out. Ultimately after years of refusing to bargain in good faith - as ruled by the CIRB the federal labour board - Telus locked out their employees and ground them down till they were forced to take a contract worse than either of the originals had been.

They frequently told their employees how much better the offer was than what employees at Bell got. Expect to be told the exact opposite if the Bell/Telus merger goes through.

And to be clear, this will be a merger the way the Alliance/Progressive Conservatives was a merger. With one side getting swallowed by the other.

My good friend Matthew, who stood on the line with me, has been tearing his hair out over this stuff.

And check out Telus' attempt to wipe out history by claiming ownership of video shot by picketers and news stories about the 2005 labour dispute.

Suspended for critical thinking

Kieran King is the kind of student schools, teachers and principals should be praying for. He's high achieving, engaged, and most importantly a critical thinker. When he hears something in class that intrigues him he does his own independent research on the subject.

That's where the problem started. After a classroom discussion about the horrifying dangers of 'the reefer' King did his own research and discovered what basically anybody who takes even a minimal amount of time doing the research discovers; marijuana is less addictive and less dangerous than alcohol and cigarettes.

Let's just repeat that: marijuana is less addictive and less dangerous than alcohol and cigarettes.

If we're being honest and accurate and looking at the preponderance of verifiable facts as opposed to moralistic spin then we are forced to conclude that marijuana is less addictive and less dangerous than alcohol and cigarettes.

But pointing out these simple facts is a crime against orthodoxy, in a school it is a crime against the rightful authority over reality of the academic powers that be.

WINNIPEG — It started months ago when Kieran King's high-school class heard a presentation about the dangers of drug use.

Kieran, a 15-year-old Grade 10 student in tiny Wawota, Sask., population 600, thought the presentation lacked credibility, so he did some research on the relative health risks of alcohol, tobacco and cannabis.

When he told some of his fellow students that cannabis seemed the least hazardous of the three, he set in motion a series of events that led to a school lockdown, a threat assessment involving the RCMP, a suspension and failing grades on his exams.

The premise of the school authorities seems to be that any independent thinking that results in conclusions contrary to the approved consensus - let's call this goodthink - is dangerous, possibly criminal and to be demonized and stamped out. So the principal falsely conflates pointing out conflicting facts and an opposing opinion with 'promoting drug use' - lets call this, oh, say, badthink.

Badthink of course is morally wrong and possibly criminal, even if it has the facts on it's side it's still badthink. Those are just the wrong facts.

On the plus side of all this, the students at Parkland High in Wawota Saskatchewan have been given an excellent example of the unhinged extremes that power structures will resort to when somebody calls naked Emperor on their deliberate cognitive dissonance. Probably the most important and useful lesson of their academic careers.

Five Miles to the Gallon

This is PR as performed by monkeys with learning difficulties. I can see so many ways this could go horribly, horribly wrong for Harper, beginning with Stockwell Day in a Nascar track suit and extending to flaming wreckage and death.

And that's just to what's left of the Conservative Party's brand value, something could happen to the car too.

Sold out from under us

Quietly, behind closed doors the corporate elites continue the Deep Integration agenda, setting about making binding changes to the very concept of sovereign national rights. Without input or debate, our ability to use democratic government or the courts to protect us from corporate excess is being wiped out with the stroke of a pen.

Read this excellent Tyee piece if you haven't already.

Eugene provides some background.

Doctor Who returns!

Starting in less than three hours, CBC brings back the relaunched Doctor Who for his third season of science fiction adventure.
The longest running Science Fiction show ever, the original run of the series lasted almost thirty years. The clever science fiction explanation that the alien hero could cheat imminent death by 'regenerating' and changing every cell in his body allowed multiple actors to play the role while keeping all it's long rich history.

The relaunch two years ago accomplished the almost impossible task of pleasing both old school fans of the original series run and new-comers who had never encountered the Doctor or his mysterious blue box before.

I confess, I'm catching the BBC run and I'm already ten episodes into the season just starting on CBC tonight. Don't look at me like that, I'll also be watching it on CBC and buying the DVDs - I already have season 1 and 2 - so I don't feel particularly guilty for my lack of patience.

All you need to know is that this is in some ways the strongest season yet, Freema Ageyman is no replacement for Rose Tyler and wisely doesn't try to be, giving us with Martha Jones a worthy companion for The Doctor. Played with note perfect understanding of the character, David Tennant presents the first serious competition to Tom Baker's position as the most archetypal Doctor.

The premiere tonight is a killer piece of grand scale Science fiction, there are some great episodes in the weeks ahead particularly, spoiler warning of course - really, fair warning, the return of a character on the same scale of pay-off for the long time fans as last season's episode featuring Sarah Jane and K-9. Another gift to the old school fans in a story that will grip people who have no idea how big a deal it is to the history of the show.

Enjoy some great SF designed to appeal to both kids and adults.

It's going to look odd in the history books.

Hillary Clinton is beginning to look more and more inevitable, if she wins it will result in this odd entry in future textbooks:

Bush
Clinton
Bush
Clinton

When schoolchildren decades even centuries from now (He typed hopefully.) open their textbooks, or scroll down them or get them injected directly into their parietal lobes they will likely find this odd column.

They will see that for the better part of thirty years, more than a generation, America, a country conceived in violent opposition to the very concept of hereditary aristocracy was run by two families.

All of this, of course, assumes that anyone is around to write any history books. Bush still has 582 days left.

Blood in the water - the Premiers turn on Harper

Dalton Mcguinty claims that Radiation levels in Lake Ontario, which are three times higher than in lakes NOT surrounded by ten nuclear power plants, pose no health threat.

A Greenpeace report released last week found levels of tritium in Lake Ontario, which is flanked by 10 nuclear reactors, were three times higher than levels in Lake Superior, which has no reactors.

The report also criticized Canada for having regulations for tritium concentrations 10 times less strict than the U.S. and 70 times less strict than Europe.

McGuinty said he was confident the federal government would take charge if anything was wrong.

Step two, we've set the groundwork by putting the responsibility on the feds, now for the quick turnaround previously prepared...

"Sometimes I'm a little bit concerned that the Great Lakes have slid to the back of environmental concerns," McGuinty said in an interview earlier this week.

"It's really important that we keep the Great Lakes water quality on the national agenda."

McGuinty called on Ottawa to spearhead a meeting of Canadian and American federal, provincial and state officials, which he said would go a long way toward better protecting a resource that's being taken for granted.

"What I'd love the federal government to do is take on the whole idea of a national clean water summit," he said.

"It is a tremendous resource, it is something that people around the world recognize as being a kind of crown jewel of the North American ecosystem and we have to continue to work together to protect it."

You have to kind of admire blame in-fielding like that. Are there any Provincial Premiers east of Alberta who aren't in all but open revolt against the federal government at this point?

This says that Harper's autocratic style can't hide incompetent pandering from the leaders being shafted by it. It also says they think he's a safe target. These are political ninjas under their friendly smiles, remember. Rising to the top of party and provincial parliamentary politics requires the instincts of a hungry wolverine.

And the same ability to sniff out changes in the wind.

A Liberal minority then - a fragile one in 2008. Hopefully this time they don't make Martin's mistake, and Joe Clark's before him - and now Harper, of thinking a minority can govern with no friends.

A glimpse of the future

The president has said that Gen. Petraeus' September report will be "a very important moment." That would be true, if we could trust the general and the ambassador and the rest of the administration to honestly assess the situation. But looking at the facts on the ground, deceiving the American people about them, and making decisions based on those deceptions, has been the White House's M.O. for the entire run of the war. What makes anybody think the administration is suddenly going to change come the magical moment in September?

The Bushies are nothing if not consistent, so it's all but guaranteed they are going to obfuscate, spin, cherry-pick, and deceive. So Democrats -- and everyone who really cares about the troops -- need to immediately and preemptively start taking on the administration's table-setting spin. That way, the public will be inoculated against the full-blown BS campaign sure to come this fall.

Bush and Cheney are never going to leave Iraq willingly. If they were the kind of men who could be trusted to judge the facts honestly in September and act accordingly, we wouldn't be in the mess we're in right now.

The battle of September has already begun.

Sunday Linkblast - June 17

• 'Salivating media' to blame for violence
  Protesters ask if they would have got any attention at all without violent images to focus on.
  
  
• Vatican turns on Amnesty International
  Campaign for abortion rights for rape and incest victims draws angry response.
  
  
• Weekly editorial cartoons
  From Bob Geiger.
  
  
• Pretty White Girl Syndrome
  The only crime victims who matter.
  
  
• Worker's turn to demand concessions
  The market favours workers now and suddenly all the free market fetishists sound like hardcore interventionists.
  
  
• Bush in Europe
  Car crash is a polite way to put it.
  
  
• The sad state of the American Left
  Out of touch and ineffectual.
  
  
• Prostitution laws protect rapists and murders
  And leave vulnerable women out in the cold.
  
  
• The latest group to turn on Bush
  His own far right base turns on him over immigration.

Masterminds, maniacal villains and magnificent bastards

The anarchic spirit of cinema in the late 60's early 70's found expression in stories of malcontents, clowns and rogues. Most were characters rebelling from within the system, or diminishing it's power by simply making it look ridiculous. Altman's M.A.S.H. is a perfect example.

But a strange mutant strain of movies celebrating the master criminal is part of the same movement. Films about the villain who regards the status quo as his hunting ground and the traditional heroes of police and government as prey became a mini-movement, creating some spectacularly strange film classics.

The Assassination Bureau featured a suavely dangerous young Oliver Reed as the leader of an international band of assassins with a bizarrely moral belief in the redemptive power of murder. The marvelous Diana Rigg, Mrs Peel from the Avengers, plays a reporter trying to expose him. She challenges him by asking him to make himself a target of his own murderous crew - a challenge he happily accepts believing his organization needs a shake-up. Thus begins a cheerfully nihilistic race across across Europe as assassin battles assassin with guns, poison and bombs. Oliver Reed is perfect as Ivan Dragimoff and Telly Savalas makes a great sinister and oily villain.

The Abominable Dr Phibes and Dr Phibes Rises Again are campy and surreal phantasmagorias each featuring a scarred and expressionless but wild-eyed Vincent Price. In a series of increasingly elaborate murders Dr Phibes seeks vengeance on the doctors he blames for the death of his beloved wife. Decades before Se7en, The Abominable Dr Phibes originated the idea of a serial killer basing a series of murders on a biblical theme, in this case the plagues of Egypt. The highlight is probably the death by unicorn and its blackly hilarious aftermath. The sequel Dr Phibes Rises Again follows a band of disreputable rouges on a quest to the dessert to find the secret of immortality with yet more grotesque deathtraps set by Dr Phibes - each more diabolical than the last. Both movies can be found in the affordable Midnight Movies DVD series which has allowed me to indulge my Vincent Price obsession without going broke. You can find the movies separately or in one double-sided disc.

Danger: Diabolik is a minor masterpiece of over the top camp and surreal action. Like a 60's James Bond film on a whole lot of acid. Diabolik is a sinister master criminal in a one against all war with the police, the government and the mob. He steals millions just so he can make love to his beautiful girlfriend on huge piles of cash in his vast underground headquarters, pulls off elaborate crimes just to make the authorities look foolish and wages war on other criminals and the state itself. He's cool, brilliant and cheerfully murderous. A nifty extra feature of this surprisingly affordable DVD is a documentary by comic book artist Stephen R. Bissette who argues convincingly that Danger: Diablolik, adapted from an Italian comic book is the most successful comic book adaptation to date.

There have been other cinematic celebrations of villainy, but the only thing in recent years to really approach the level of charm and nihilistic glee of the villainographies of the 60's and 70's was the short lived TV series Profit.

Profit featured Adrian Pasdar as a psychopathic shark in a suit climbing up the corporate ladder and keeping just one step ahead of a hapless supporting cast trying to stop his murderous rise to power. Profit was a bizarre, surprisingly perverse TV offering that encouraged identification with it's homicidal anti-hero. It was deeply odd, suspenseful and subversive TV. So it was cancelled after only one season of course. It could have gone longer but the last episode in the set works as an ambiguous coda to the whole story.

Saturday morning

So our trip last weekend and the 24 hours of Greyhound travel it entailed finally caught up with me about Thursday and I've only been up to working and sleeping for a few days. I've caught up on some sleep and I should be back to spitting vitriol on this blog soon - the snark is guttering not blown out.

I'm probably going to start indulging in my cultural review vice to Holmes like, retain my interest. You'll see the occasional movie and book review from my own odd perspective. I'll probably activate AdSense too, on a trial basis. I've ignored it hitherto, but I'll give it a shot and if it annoys me I'll cancel it.

Some of you only come here for the withering sarcasm directed at any and every political figure who does something to make me snarl. This will of course continue as long as stupid people come to positions of power, IE: forever.

I need coffee now. In prodigious amounts.

You asked for it Steve

REGINA – If Prime Minister Stephen Harper wants a legal fight over the federal equalization formula, Saskatchewan and its NDP government will give him one, Premier Lorne Calvert said Wednesday.

The province will mount a legal challenge under the Constitution, arguing that Saskatchewan is being treated unfairly by the equalization program.

The day after

The way people talk, Kevin Taft just led Alberta's Liberals into the promised land.

Purely coincidentally, the day after losing Calgary Elbow the government announced tonight that the province would be ponying up about $40 million in flood disaster relief. It' a decent down payment, but it's gong to take more.

Doreen Barrie, a political scientist at the University of Calgary, said Stelmach may even have to consider something as drastic as rent controls -- which he previously rejected -- to deal with the city's housing crisis.

"There's no more time for subtlety. He needs to attack these problems," she said

Blame it on the floods wiping out basement suites and making the Calgary housing crisis even worse if you like Ed, just stop carrying water for the Landlord's lobby and follow the recommendations of your own damn task force.

Elbow was a significant win but not as much of a shock as some have suggested. In 2004 Calgary went from solid Tory blue to three big ridings going Liberal.

There were several close shaves too. Calgary Buffalo, Calgary Elbow's downtown neighbor is the home of most of Alberta's richest boardrooms, but the people who actually live here are the biggest population of renters and people living from paycheck to paycheck in Calgary. In 2004 Harvey Cenaiko only beat the Liberal by about 600 votes. This was while he was still a cabinet member and the fading radiance of King Ralph still held sway.

Harvey has to be worried about 2008 and considering there's no future for him but the backbench under Stelmach he's joined Bronconnier's jeremiads against the government.

This isn't the start of something it's something that first appeared in the 2004 election gathering steam. The media talked a lot about how the three Calgary losses and depressed Tory numbers province wide were a wake-up call for the government then too. Somebody seems to have slept through it.

Another myth dispelled by this by election is that the NDP and Greens are simply vote splitting Liberal support - the bland assumption that these votes are somehow the natural possession of the Liberals aside, in Elbow at least the vote splitting on the right was more significant than that on the left. More fodder for proportional representation though.

Most of the Alberta PCs are already insisting this all is just a bump in the road, and certainly no serious urban/rural divide. Some are sounding warnings from within. Check out this comment from prominent party insider Ken Chapman to a post I did back on June 3:

It would be a good thing to end the one party state in Alberta. It would be good to end the one city- state we have had too. Calgary has come to think it is Alberta and that happened during Ralph Klein's reign.

Alberta is more than Calgary and while that city is a very important part of the province - it is only part of the province.

A fact too often lost in how the province has been run and ruled as of late.

Calgary Elbow may elect a Liberal. Good on them if that is the way they see their best interests being served. Democracy matters.

It is a by election! So it is not a safe bet to presume this vote an is an indication as to how they want to see the province governed, or if it represents a trend overall.

Calgary Elbow going Liberal is not any surprise in a by-election that is about 1 year away from the next general election. It is a low-risk way to send a message.

The real surprise of Calgary's discontent was way back when Calgary Varsity went Liberal at the 2004 provincial election. That discontent was expressed during Ralph's reign and immediately after Murray Smith went to Washington.

Question is will we PC's "get it" and realize that Alberta needs an urban agenda that deals with the growth and needs of the two big cities.

We don't need just a Calgary and a Rural Agenda...as has been the fact under Klein.

There's some good points in his whole comment and on his blog and he's a voice for a certain amount of progressiveness within the Alberta PCs, but the Calgary VS Edmonton nonsense is pure smokescreen and leftover cynical manipulation from the PC leadership race and I think Ken probably knows it. If there had been a by-election in Edmonton as well as Elbow and Drumheller we wouldn't even be talking about Calgary alienation today, we'd be talking about urban alienation.

Leave the old fashioned Battle of Alberta rhetoric to the Flames and the Oilers. There are people getting screwed by their landlords in Edmonton too.

Because it's also a class war split. The richer polls in Elbow like Mount Royal split by a handful of votes or went Tory - a lot of Conservatives stayed home. The renter and wage slave polls went Liberal in a big way.

Ultimately of course, we're simply talking about one right wing party challenging another. The Alberta Liberals bring no real ideological differences to the table, simply a promise of greater competence and a recognition that times have changed.

Real change in Alberta isn't what Taft and the Liberals are promising. They think overall the system is working pretty well, it just needs different people in charge, IE them.

The myth of conservative America

As the report points out, conservatives have done a masterful job of getting the mainstream media to echo their talking point—found, for example, in a recent commentary by Heritage Foundation president Edwin J. Feulner—that America is a conservative nation.

But the numbers don't back them up. On issue after issue, not just during the 2006 elections but even when conservatives were at the height of their political power, public opinion sides with progressive stances on issues rather than conservative stances.

"Progressives are on the rise and are driving the political debate," Robert L. Borosage told reporters during a conference call today. The conservative movement has had its chance to deliver on its promises but is fundamentally unable to do so, "and, as the report shows, the public gets it."

The Americans understood Iraq better 63 years ago than they do today

From an Army guide for American GIs stationed in Iraq in World War II:

• NEVER discuss religion or politics or women with Moslems.
• Don't stare at anyone. Remember the fear of the "evil eye".
• Knock before entering a private house. If a woman answers, wait until she has had time to retire.
• If you see grown men walking hand in hand, ignore it. They are not queer.
• You can usually tell a mosque by its high tower. Keep away from mosques. [Emphasis in the original] If you try to enter one, you will be thrown out, probably with a severe beating.
• There are four towns in Iraq which are particularly sacred to the Iraq Moslems: Kerbala, Najaf, samarra, and Kadhiman. Unless you are ordered to these towns it is advisable to stay away from them.
• Moslems here are divided into two factions something like our division into Catholic and Protestant denominations -- so don't put in your two cents when Iraqis argue about religion.
• There are also political differences in Iraq that have puzzled diplomats and statesmen. You won't help matters any by getting mixed up in them.

• American success or failure in Iraq may well depend on whether the Iraqis (as the people are called) like American soldiers or not. It may not be quite that simple. But then again it could.

Who are you going to believe...

...me, or your lying eyes.

The watch was NOT stolen right in front of your eyes - oh, and we've always been at war with Eastasia.

Some people saw what was coming

It's February 2003 with the shock and awe just weeks away and Janeane Garofalo faces off with a Fox News rodeo clown masquerading as a journalist. She knows what she's walking into but makes a game attempt to be a voice of simple reason from a member of the reality based community.

Four years on it's useful to remember the droning swamp of misinformation and propaganda the American media was then - and still is today. The way the Americans were suckered into war with actual suppression of information. The simple facts that the rest of the world was hearing that weren't even reported on CNN or the other major networks much less on Fox.

It's useful to remember the seething hatred directed at any voice that spoke in opposition and against any American who dug deeper and pointed out the facts being ignored. Remember the White House Press Secretary saying people had to 'watch what they said.'?

In light of what we know now, about this White House's utter contempt for the constitution, the rule of law and basic human decency this was an early and telling slip of the mask.

The difference between a real think tank...

...and a PR firm and ideological cheerleading squad like the Fraser Institute, is that actual thinking sometimes goes on.

The C.D. Howe Institute will never be mistaken for a bastion of lefties and bleeding hearts. It's a conservative market oriented organization that nonetheless can be surprisingly unrestricted by ideological filters - as compared to the Fraser Institute which reliably takes the doctrinaire right wing position on any and every issue.

Consider C.D. Howe's withering takedown of the Harper government's inaction on climate change as exhibit one.

Guest Workers, Guest Slaves

Canada's business elite are salivating at the prospect of importing guest workers in the thousands. Guest workers give all the advantages of vulnerable immigrants without the pesky rights of basic citizenship. In Alberta in particular the idea of cheap, union free labor you can threaten with 'the immigration' if they get too uppity is causing stiffies in board rooms all over the province.

The Lakeside Packers dispute of 2005 showed the outright contempt and dehumanizing racism and violence an Alberta employer was prepared to use against a mostly African immigrant workforce. Imagine the same kind of employer on a large scale with guest workers with no citizenship, limited legal rights and marginal oversight.

Even the US State department felt compelled to describe the darker corners of Australia's guest worker program as out and out slavery.

Employers not prepared to pay for experienced Alberta unionized labour should ask the government to increase immigration if they want a larger workforce. Workers should be citizens with the rights and legal protections of citizens.

Including the right to join the same unions.

Byelection night

The Conservatives took Drumheller in a runaway blow-out. The polls in Calgary Elbow, my riding's next door neighbor, are currently trending Liberal with Craig Cheffins maintaining a small but constant lead over Brian Heninger as I write this. Thanks Eugene for the poll update site - it's crack for a politics junkie.

A Tory loss in Elbow would embolden a lot more people to turn on them. It would also highlight the urban/rural split beginning to become the signature paradigm of the Stelmach years.

Update: 9:53 PM, with 75 of 77 ridings reporting and Cheffins beating Heninger by 45 polls to 30 and by almost a thousand votes - I'll call it if nobody else will.

Kevin Taft is a very happy man tonight.

Update 2: The Toronto Star piles on.

Sympathy for Paris

I swore I wasn't going to do this.

Paris Hilton is a foolish pampered young woman with arrested development, half lidded, medicated eyes, the best cosmetic surgery that money can buy and a grotesque and entirely unearned sense of entitlement.

The latter explains what some have decried as unseemly schadenfreude over her recent travails, justly I think. This silly spoiled little girl doesn't deserve the reputedly hellish conditions of LA's horrific jail system.

Nobody deserves them, but thousands of people spend time there every year, the overwhelming majority of them permanently trapped at the opposite end of the socioeconomic spectrum from Ms Hilton.

The case of the aristocratic Ms Hilton is instructive as an object lesson, both that the rich think that they are above the law and that they currently still aren't. There as been a surprisingly thin sliver of human history where this has been the case, it shows every sign of drawing to a close again but I would argue it's worth preserving.

Remember the root of the word privilege is simply 'private law'. Law for the rich and law for the rest of us.

That a spoiled, heavily medicated young heiress should suffer an unspeakably traumatic experience in order that the message be delivered that the law applies to everybody may be just the price you pay so that the blind equality of justice and the rule of law itself continue.

I'm feeling far more schadenfreude about the jailing of Scooter Libby and the hopefully impending conviction of Conrad Black than I am over the perils of Paris, but she makes an effectively populist symbol of the very concept of privileged immunity.

The American public appears to have gone into one of their soured vengeful moods towards privilege. Other celebrities may want to consider the benefits of a low profile or the expatriate life.

This is the mood that sent Marie Antoinette to the guillotine.

Republican candidate for forced birth

Senator Sam Brownback would make abortions illegal for rape victims.

Tory youth abandon the Tories

Holy crap.

Dissatisfaction within the party is starting to spill into the public. The entire nine-member executive of the Tories' youth wing recently resigned over Mr. Stelmach's policies. "PC Alberta will continue its slow death march, to the beat of a rural drum and tired, stale policies," outgoing president David McColl wrote in a letter to a Calgary newspaper.

The signs of a Tory apocalypse coming continue to mount up as the Alberta Progressive Conservatives are abandoned by their own youth wing. The Alberta Social Credit Party youth wing was probably looking a little anemic by 1969 too.

Back from Saskatchewan

I'm back from my weekend away - it was the 65th wedding anniversary of my girlfriend's Baba and Gedo. We were in the small but quite charming town of Ituna Saskatchewan, which had about 30 yard sales going the day we arrived and is holding their first annual polka festival at the end of the month. I'm sorry we missed it, I can't get enough oom pah pah.

A great time was had by all, with lovely people, some of whom I had met some that I was meeting for the first time. There was a lot of great food and drink, sun, conversation and fireside late night singing from the family's pro quality songstress Samara Yung. You'll hear the name again, she's going to be big.

We're back in Calgary now, we've spent almost 24 hours since Friday on Greyhound buses and are still a little fragile. Back to work tomorrow.

While I was gone, the world kept turning. The courts stepped into the void left by government irresponsibility both in Canada and the States. Harper's rigid control over the Canadian conservative coalition and the Conservative caucus continued to unravel and self described economic right winger Stephane Dion continued to tap dance away from the previously sacrosanct 2009 deadline in Afghanistan that the Lieberals piously beat Dippers over the head with.

Oh and there may be standing puddles of water out in the open on Mars. Holy crap.

Mid-week Link Blast - June 7

I'm off to my girlfriend's family reunion for the weekend and back Monday so you lot are getting your linkblast early this week. Keep the interweb tubes flowing while I'm gone.

• Wanking while the world burns
  G8 cosmetic climate deal worth precisely dick
  
  
• Peter Mackay: sniveling little shit
  Really why would anyone believe a Mackay promise either verbal or written anymore?
  
  
• A disconcerting enemy
  Peter Hitchens confronts the cognitive dissonance between propaganda and reality.
  
  
• There was a class war and we lost
  Linda Mcquaig explores the bleak truth - why did we get so scared of being accused of engaging in class war that we let the rich win it?
  
  
• Comic book politics
  What if a super powered masked hero decided fighting for justice meant a President who lied his way into the White House and America into an unjust war had to die for his crimes?
  
  
• 'Getting drunk and pregnant is my unique story.'
  Canadian writer with delusional case.

Fraser Institute planning immigrant bashing conference

With a line up of speakers seemingly picked from Canada's biggest islamophobes and what looks like an agenda of fear-mongering and gross over simplification, the right wing Fraser Institute is holding a 'Conference on Immigration Policy, Border Controls and the Terrorist Threat in Canada and the United States' in Toronto at the end of June.

By 'the Terrorist Threat', they make it clear in their press release that they mean Islamic terrorism specifically and perhaps even solely. They seem to show no interest in state sponsored terrorism, home grown terrorism, white racist terrorism, anti-abortion terrorism - any terrorism that isn't brown in other words.

Among the featured speakers are the Globe and Mail's Margaret Wente and Ezra Levant - Ezra, did I miss the Western Standard's apology to Maher Arar and his family for the vicious campaign of vilification and innuendo your magazine subjected them to? Somehow I don't think so.

The conference will be held June 28 - 29, 2007 at the Sheraton Centre Hotel in Toronto. Mark it on your calendars. I think if I lived in the area I might be politely and peacefully picketing such a racially charged conference featuring so many of the Canadian right wing's usual suspects.

Maybe not entirely politely.

Telus uses You Tube takedown notice to suppress worker criticism

Claiming ownership of news reports about 2005's lockout and even personal videos filmed by union members on the picket line, Telus has apparently tried to wipe any and all criticism of the company from YouTube.

This is the same company that blocked it's internet customers from accessing a pro union website during the lockout. No, I'm not kidding.

Among the clips included in the current Digital Millennium Copyright Act takedown notices filed by Telus were worker filmed videos of Telus hired security goons assaulting picketers and this 2005 CTV news report featuring picketing workers expressing disappointment about being lied to about outsourcing and a Telus executive promising the outsourcing of customer service to the Philippines would end with the lockout.

Telus customer service calls are still being transfered to the Philippines today.

Update: Telus can get into serious trouble for this kind of thing.

Hat tip to Chironboy

Did I say that out loud?

"I can tell the member opposite what we will not do. We will not do what the Liberal leader did to the member for Thunder Bay—Superior North.We will not throw a member out of caucus for voting his conscience. There will be no whipping, flipping, hiring or firing on budget votes as we saw with the Liberal government."

-Peter Mackay, Tuesday, May 15, 2007

"He (Bill Casey) knew the consequences of his action."
-Government Whip Jay Hill, June 5, 2007.

Hat tip to Apply Liberally

A worker owned Dow Jones and Wall Street Journal???

snrk...heh...BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!

The bidding for Dow Jones has become a lot more interesting.

Billionaire investor Ron Burkle is interested in exploring a bid for Dow Jones (nyse: DJ - news - people ) in conjunction with the company's in-house union, the Independent Association of Publisher’s Employees, the union said Tuesday.

...

On Monday, the union, which represents more than 2,000 Dow Jones employees, or about a quarter of the staff, announced it was searching “for alternatives to the News Corp. bid” and was working with two other unions, the Newspaper Guild and the Communications Workers of America.

This much irony should be illegal...

Iraq parliament takes another step towards kicking out Americans

Following a surprise vote for a legislative petition calling for the Americans to leave last month, the Iraq parliament has now taken yet another step towards making America's decision for them.

The parliament today passed a binding resolution that will guarantee lawmakers an opportunity to block the extension of the UN mandate under which coalition troops now remain in Iraq when it comes up for renewal in December. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, whose cabinet is dominated by Iraqi separatists, may veto the measure.

The law requires that any future extensions of the mandate, which have previously been made by Iraq's Prime Minister, be approved by the parliament. It is an enormous development; lawmakers reached in Baghdad today said that they do in fact plan on blocking the extension of the coalition's mandate when it comes up for renewal six months from now.

The American people don't want American troops there, the Iraqi people don't want American troops there - Hell, at this point the troops certainly don't want to be there... Who besides Bush and Cheney, who are now talking openly about a long-term occupation measured in decades, still want to be there?

Will the Americans allow their puppet government vote away the occupation? Will they actually leave if told to?

Bob Geldof: Stephen Harper is blocking Africa Aid

Apparently our aid pledges are now just as vague, long term and open to interpretation as our climate promises. Rocker and African aid campaigner Bob Geldof accuses Canada of stinting on aid dollars and blocking an international funding commitment.

Geldof said Canada's aid contribution of $160 million falls far short of the $623 million it needs to contribute this year in order to fulfill that pledge.

He also said Harper promised in January 2006 that Canada would maintain the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) average for international aid -- which is 0.46 per cent of gross national income.

"The OECD is the overarching body that everyone agrees should monitor their economies, all the governments agree on that. Point in fact, Canada is way behind the OECD average which is 0.46. Canada is about 0.3," said Geldof.

"So you have one of the richest nations on the planet deliberately breaking their word and thereby killing the poorest."

Harper said the allegations are "false." Without elaborating, he said Canada is on the right track to honour a pledge to double aid to Africa by 2010.

I still remember watching Geldof on TV around the time he was knighted, when he happened to run into then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher at a public awards meeting.

With reporters clustered around them and cameras whirring, Geldof grilled Thatcher on why the UK government was dumping tons of butter into the sea in a market support scheme while people were starving in Africa. Thatcher responded snippily while searching for an exit 'They can hardly eat butter Mr Geldof.' In fact as Sir Bob quickly pointed out, people can survive on butter oil alone for quite a long time when there's nothing else to live on.

Thatcher shot him a look of pure hatred, mumbled that it wasn't that simple and dashed for an exit.

Khadr's case thrown out

The Military Commissions Act was written and enacted in a rush by Republican lawmakers well aware they were about to get their asses kicked to the curb by the American people.

That it was a rush job can be seen by the fact that even a hand picked team of military judges didn't feel able to ignore the fact that the Act covers unlawful enemy combatants only - and not a single Guantanamo prisoner including Khadr has yet to be so designated.

Of course this means that Khadr's time in Gitmo will simply be longer - although the Americans have made it clear that even if anyone at Camp X Ray is actually found not guilty they are still subject to detention without appeal 'for the duration of hostilities' in the war on terror - IE: forever.

Australia actually stood up for their citizen David Hicks, but the Khadrs are brown and unsympathetic and the Harper government has been too busy accusing political foes of being 'pro-Taliban' to protect a child soldier who was fifteen when he was captured.

The gulag continues.

The sickening truth about the American healthcare system

Many more stories are collected in a newly published book called Sick: The Untold Story of America's Health Care Crisis, by Jonathan Cohn. A woman in California called Nelene Fox died of breast cancer after she, too, was turned down for a bone marrow transplant by her insurance company. In Georgia, a family whose infant son went into cardiac arrest were forced to take him to a hospital 45 miles away on their insurance carrier's orders. He survived, but suffered permanent disabilities that more prompt treatment might have averted. In New York, an infant called Bryan Jones - whose case was trumpeted all over the local media at the time - died of a heart defect that went undetected because his insurance company kicked him and his mother out of hospital 24 hours after his birth, too soon to carry out the tests that might have spotted the problem.

America's health system offers a tremendous paradox. In medical technology and in the scientific understanding of disease, it is second-to-none. Since doctors are better paid than anywhere else in the world, the country attracts the best of the best. And yet many, if not most, Americans are unable to reap the advantages of this. In fact, as The New York Times columnist Paul Krugman has argued, the very proliferation of research and high-tech equipment is part of the reason for the imbalance in coverage between the privileged few and the increasingly underserved masses. "[The system] compensates for higher spending on insiders, in party, by consigning more people to outsider status --robbing Peter of basic care in order to pay for Paul's state-of-the-art treatment," Krugman wrote recently. "Thus we have the cruel paradox that medical progress is bad for many Americans' health."

Having the system run by for-profit insurance companies turns out to be inefficient and expensive as well as dehumanising. America spends more than twice as much per capita on health care as France, and almost two and a half times as much as Britain. And yet it falls down in almost every key indicator of public health, starting, perhaps, most shockingly, with infant mortality, which is 36 per cent higher than in Britain.

Meanwhile the insurance industry and big pharma, gird themselves for battle with Michael Moore's new film.

Larry Flynt hunting hypocrites in DC again

Larry Flynt is hunting hypocrites in DC again, just as the famous DC madam is threatening to reveal her whole client book if charges against her don't get dropped. Somebody somewhere is aready counting Larry's money - it should be an entertaining summer.

The Real Terminator

There are very few inherently evil technologies. Terminator seeds would have to qualify on an ethical basis as well as one of simple species survival.

This is commerce as crime against humanity.

And so far only one Canadian party - with members sitting in parliament - seems to have come to terms with that simple fact.

NDP tables ban on Terminator seeds and technology

OTTAWA – Today the NDP’s agriculture critic, Alex Atamanenko (British Columbia Southern Interior), announced the tabling of a Private Member’s Bill to ban “terminator technology,” making a commitment to sustaining Canadian farmers and the farming industry.

“It is time to make a commitment to our farmers and to the international community that terminator seeds will not be allowed to take root in Canada,” said Atamanenko. “We all share the conviction that Canada should join the ranks of countries like India and Brazil, whose governments have already legislated bans on this technology in order to protect their farmers.”

The Terminator Seed Ban Act is designed to protect the right of Canadian farmers to save seeds by banning the release, sale, importation and use of Variety Genetic Use Restriction Technologies (V-GURTs), more commonly known as Terminators, which genetically engineer seeds to be sterile after the first harvest. The promoters of this technology do not make the claim that there will be any agronomic benefits to farmers.

“The only goal of those who promote the use of Terminator technologies is to prevent farmers from saving and re-using seeds, thereby forcing them to buy seeds on the market each season,” said Atamanenko.

Since 2005, the federal government has been working against global consensus on banning Terminator seeds. It does not recognize the current moratorium and says it will assess the technology on a case-by-case basis – a position which has been rejected by the UN Convention on Biodiversity.

“The international community would rejoice if Canada were to pass this law. We have an opportunity to bring the world a major step closer to eliminating this detestable technology,” concluded Atamanenko. “Judging by the 1,400 letters that my office has received, and which continue to arrive daily, Canadians are spelling it out loud and clear to this government – BAN TERMINATOR!”

Hat Tip to Vive le Canada

End of an Era?

Back in November, when it seemed like the Alberta Progressive Conservative leadership race was down to a choice between Jim Dinning or Ted Morton, I opined that the only choice the Tories really had was 'where to take the bullet, urban or rural.' When Stelmach came up the middle the PCs chose urban.

When Dinning lost, the Calgary Conservative MLAs, who had backed him to a man, showed every sign of panic. My riding's MLA, then solicitor general Harvey Cenaiko made a hasty decision to promote the new Premier's son within the Sheriff's department. It didn't go well for him and he's no longer solicitor general. With no hope of ever leaving the back-benches in a Stelmach government Cenaiko has jumped on the angry Calgary bandwagon.

Full disclosure, I ran against Harvey in the last provicial election, an election which he won by about 600 votes - I got considerably less if you're wondering.

I've lived in Calgary during boom and bust. I vastly prefer bust. Like most people who actually live here and aren't working in an executive office, my standard of living has dropped like a rock - my paycheck gets pinched by rent and other cost of living prices more and more every month and the straining infrastructure and big city population pressure in a mid sized city environment is beginning to erode the city's very real charms. No wonder that many respond to indications the boom may be slowing with a sigh of relief.

People are angry and getting angrier. The Alberta Advantage always a slightly more exclusive promise than as advertised on the bottle, is cited now with a bitter ironic undertone. People in Calgary who wonder if their landlord plans to double their rent next month listened to Premier Ed and his country bear cabinet sneering at the idea of rent control and scowled.

When the Strom - sorry the Stelmach administration - blandly broke their promise of no strings funding for the cities, they expected no fall out. They were used to mayors who knew their place in the big blue machine and when to say 'thank you sir, may I have another.' Instead Mayor Dave 'Bronco' Bronconnier publicly and repeatedly ripped into the provincial government and the media joined him. And now according to the polls, so has the urban Alberta public.

Now the PCs stare into the starkly real possibility of losing Ralph Klein's old riding in Calgary Elbow.

Strange times in the one party state.

See: Ralph Klein's old riding

Sunday Link Blast - June 3

• McGuinty hints at Ipperwash transfer -
  Only sixty-some years after it was promised.
  
  
• Water Wars -
  Alison keeps an eye on the sellouts.
  
  
• Torture -
  Planned from the top from the start - and where did they get the term 'Enhanced Interrogations' from?
  
  
• Only criminals use WiFi -
  Facing five years for checking his e-mail.
  
  
• Weekly American editorial cartoon roundup -
  From Bob Geiger of course.
  
  
• Giuliani would be worse than Bush -
  Paranoid, authoritarian and contemptuous of civil rights. Don't go there America.
  

Girl in the War

Josh Ritter

What the hell does Rob have on Steve?

Keeping the most wing-nut elements of the base happy only goes so far to explain the grotesque and herculean efforts, going against every scintilla of the old Reform Party grass-roots rhetoric, that the Conservatives have gone to in an effort to save Rob Anders.

Considering how rigidly Harper has muzzled the Tory caucus's lunatic fringe, why the public display of crazed authoritarian vote rigging to save their king? Does Anders have Polaroids of Harper tongue kissing a bust of Pierre Trudeau?

Hat tip to Buckdog

Taco Day

Jean Grae lays down four minutes of raw pain.

Vote Caging is a bigger story than you think.

It's the pulsing black heart of the US Attorneys firing scandal and is the core of the Republican strategy of minority voter suppression. It's also a ticking time-bomb of a scandal for the Bush administration that the Democrats would have to be idiots not to be wrapping a big bow around right now.

Too crazy even for Fox

Canada's version of Anne Coulter, adorable serial stalker Rachel Marsden was fired and escorted out of the Fox News headquarters by the Fox security guards Bill O'Reilly keeps threatening people with.

She was too nuts for Fox News. Contemplate that thought and be awed.

UPDATE: In Ms Marsden's own words:

"Much has been made of my being escorted by FOX security to gather my belongings from the Red Eye office. As it was explained to me, this is standard procedure whenever someone leaves a show, regardless of their reason for leaving. I did so calmly, cordially and professionally, just as I have always -- without exception -- conducted myself in my career."

Where to start...?

"Who wants to get my kidney?" was an elaborate hoax

No, really.

Welcome Alberta Views readers

This post from April has been reprinted in the June issue of Alberta Views. A nifty magazine that puts the lie to the image of Alberta as a monolithic political mono-culture. Check it out if you haven't already - and not just for my deathless prose.

Welcome new visitors, feel free to spit on the mat and call the cat a bastard. Check out my archives, the various labels will lead you to articles grouped by subject matter and I'd like this to be a dialogue not a monologue so feel free to use the comment function.

Iraq disaster feeding Alberta boom

Naomi Klein points out that digging out and refining the sticky tar under the northern forests and prairies of Alberta wouldn't make any economic sense - if it wasn't for the bloody disaster of Iraq.

It is possible to turn Alberta's crud into crude, but it's awfully hard. One method is to mine it in vast open pits: First forests are clear-cut, then topsoil scraped away. Next, huge machines dig out the black goop and load it into the largest dump trucks in the world (two stories high, a single wheel costs $100,000). The tar is diluted with water and solvents in giant vats, which spin it around until the oil rises to the top, while the massive tailings are dumped in ponds larger than the region's natural lakes. Another method is to separate the oil where it is: Large drill-pipes push steam deep underground, which melts the tar, while another pipe sucks it out and transports it through several more stages of refining, much of it powered by natural gas.

Both techniques are costly: between $18 and $23 per barrel, just in expenses. Until quite recently, that made no economic sense. In the mid-1980s, oil sold for $20 a barrel; in 1998-99, it was down to $12 a barrel. The major international players had no intention of paying more
to get the oil than they could sell it for, which is why, when global oil reserves were calculated, the tar sands weren't even factored in. Everyone but a few heavily subsidized Canadian companies knew that the tar was staying put.

Then came the US invasion of Iraq. In March 2003, the price of oil reached $35 a barrel, raising the prospect of making a profit from the tar sands (the industry calls them "oil sands"). That year, the United States Energy Information Administration "discovered" oil in the tar sands. It announced that Alberta--previously thought to have only 5 billion barrels of oil--was actually sitting on at least 174 billion "economically recoverable" barrels. The next year, Canada overtook Saudi Arabia as the leading provider of foreign oil to the United States.