No We Can't

Montreal Simon: Ignatieff and the Coalition that Won't Die

Michael Ignatieff had a chance to do the right thing, and stand up for the rights of poor Canadians, women, and children.

But instead he sold us all out. He'll blow Stephen Harper and "swallow hard" for the price of a meaningless amendment
...

He didn't even have the
guts or the decency to ask for changes to Employment Insurance, so many
more Canadians could be eligible for benefits, instead of being driven
into poverty and misery. Now there are two Conservative Parties in Canada: Harper's LibCons, and Ignatieff's ConLibs.

Where Plates Collide

Mega Geophysics: Where Tectonic Plates Meet in a Volcanic Pool

Jack Layton is now the real leader of the Opposition

James Laxer: Jack Layton Is Now The Real Leader of the Opposition: Ignatieff Plays Hamlet

Meanwhile, Jack Layton has become the real leader of the opposition. He showed courage when he reached out to the Liberals to form a progressive coalition that could provide Canadians with the leadership they need to cope with the economic crisis. He tried the option of working with the Liberals. Michael Ignatieff has walked away from that option. Layton has retained his integrity and his clear understanding of what the country needs. Progressives now have one party and one party only available to them: the NDP.

A Designer's Portfolio, 16th Century Style

CR Blog » Blog Archive » A Designer’s Portfolio, 16th Century-Style

Slums of the world

Riveting narrated slideshow of the world's slums: The Places We Live - Boing Boing <view

Zombie Hello Kitty cake

Zombie Hello Kitty cake - Boing Boing <more pics...

Fueling the cycle of hate

Yigal Bronner and Neve Gordon: Fueling the Cycle of Hate < read me

Israeli soccer matches were suspended during the assault on Gaza. When the games resumed last week, the fans had come up with a new chant: "Why have the schools in Gaza been shut down?" sang the crowd. "Because all the children were gunned down!" came the answer.

Feb Budget 2009: Billoins in new housing spending, but not for those who need it most.

Wellesley Institute | Fed budget 2009: Billions in new housing spending, but not for those who need it the most < read the whole post!

LESS HELP FOR THOSE THAT NEED IT THE MOST: The driveways and decks tax credit is up to three times bigger than the entire investment set aside for lower-income Canadians who are suffering the most. An even bigger concern – virtually the entire $2 billion in affordable housing investments will have to be cost-shared with the provinces and territories following negotiations.

Why the Coalition should topple the Cons

Montreal Simon: Why the Coalition Should Topple the Cons < read the whole post.

It spews money in every direction to try to buy votes. It depends too much on shared funding from cash-strapped municipalities, its tax cuts are peanuts that will cost us dearly later on. It does almost nothing to encourage a greener economy. And it continues this foul Con government's war on Canadian women, with nothing for childcare spaces, and an assault on pay equity.

But its most catastrophic
omission is that it it fails to adequately reform the Employment
Insurance system and prepare it to cope with the enormous tide of human
misery that could be coming its way. Because as I pointed out yesterday
EI in Canada these days is completely inadequate.

Cuts
in the early 1990s mean barely half of the country's unemployed today –
and fewer than a quarter in Toronto – are eligible for benefits. Those
lucky enough to qualify often get far less than poverty-level incomes.
And for almost everyone scrambling to find work as the economy
crumbles, benefits run out too soon.

And
if more people don't become eligible, and benefits are increased,
millions of Canadians could be forced into lives of grinding poverty,
welfare rolls could swell, and our whole safety net could collapse.
















But its most catastrophic omission is that it it fails to adequately reform the Employment Insurance system and prepare it to cope with the enormous tide of human misery that could be coming its way. Because as I pointed out yesterday EI in Canada these days is completely inadequate.

Cuts in the early 1990s mean barely half of the country's unemployed today – and fewer than a quarter in Toronto – are eligible for benefits. Those lucky enough to qualify often get far less than poverty-level incomes. And for almost everyone scrambling to find work as the economy crumbles, benefits run out too soon.

And if more people don't become eligible, and benefits are increased, millions of Canadians could be forced into lives of grinding poverty, welfare rolls could swell, and our whole safety net could collapse.

Silent as the Tomb: Another American-Backed Slaughter Ignored

Silent as the Tomb: Another American-Backed Slaughter Ignored | Chris Floyd Online - Empire Burlesque - High Crimes and Low Comedy in the American Imperium < Read the full post.

Before taking office, Barack Obama was chided -- in certain quarters, at least -- for his long silence on the slaughter in Gaza. Of course, as we noted here the other day, the main reason he stayed mum on the subject before his inauguration was that he was in complete accord with George W. Bush's stance on the American-backed massacre of civilians.

However, there is another horrific, American-backed slaughter that Obama has been silent about for even longer -- throughout his entire presidential campaign, in fact, and continuing into his presidency. We speak, of course, of the ghastly Terror War "regime change" operation in Somalia, where American bombs, American weapons, American training, American money -- and American death squads -- aided the military forces of the Ethiopian dictatorship in its brutal invasion and murderous occupation of the long-shattered land. [For more background, see this, especially the links at the bottom.]

Genocide, from the World's Biggest Victim Industry

Smoking Mirrors: Genocide, from the World's Biggest Victim Industry. <read the full post

In present time they are engaged in exterminating a population before the eyes of the world. They forced 700,000 of these people off of their land via the cachet that they garnered according to this highly questionable event. Since then, for sixty years they have been diligently exterminating these people and stealing more and more of their land. This is a fact.



Recently they launched a military strike against these people for political gain. The party in power was losing the support of their own people so they needed to do something that would regain them political support for the upcoming election. They succeeded in this event. They also succeeded in destroying what little was left of the other countries manufacturing capacity. They also destroyed their livestock and food supplies. When concerned people around the world wanted to donate to these people, who are homeless and without food, the BBC decided not to run a public service video because the appeal might be considered as anti-Israel. Yes… the BBC refused to run the appeal for this reason. This is because pro-Zionist Mark Thompson is a director at the BBC. Marcus Agius, a senior independent director at the BBC is married to a Rothschild.



Things are very, very bad in Gaza. Here is a listing of some of the Israeli war criminals with their pictures.



During this vicious act of genocide the Israelis used DIME… depleted uranium …and white phosphorus on women and children and anyone else who happened to be nearby. Now they are blocking an appeal for the survivors of the devastation that they caused.



The argument has been given that the attack was to stop rockets being launched into GAZA. Few, if any rockets were launched into GAZA during the ceasefire which was broken by Israel. Its right there on CNN, go watch it. Israel committed these atrocities to influence an election and because they are psychopaths who enjoy causing human suffering. This is how they entertain themselves.

This budget won't lead Canada out of a recession...

James Laxer: This Budget Won’t Lead Canada Out of Recession: Ignatieff Should Defeat It

Depending on how you interpret the budget, the government is committing itself to direct new spending of about $10 billion to $12 billion, on infrastructure and housing, over the next two years. Some of this depends on matching provincial and municipal funds, which may never materialize. Much of it depends on how much the government actually spends, a crucial matter since the Harper government has left most of the previous infrastructure money it promised in earlier budgets unspent. At most, the new direct spending by the government amounts to about $6 billion a year.

These numbers may sound big. In fact, they are puny. The Canadian Gross Domestic Product totals about $1.5 trillion a year. Six billion dollars a year amounts to just over one half of one per cent of our country’s GDP. Economic announcements and forecasts tell us that Canada is on track to lose hundreds of thousands of jobs over the next six months. The Conservative government’s planned spending would create, at most, about sixty thousand short-term jobs.

The various tax measures in the budget will be equally ineffectual in stimulating the economy.

Video - Gerard Kennedy speaks in suppor of U.S. Iraq war resisters in Canada

Hell, Upside Down: Liberal MP Gerard Kennedy speaks in support of U.S. Iraq war resisters in Canada < watch me!

I'm so hungry after reading this...

Virgin: the world's best passenger complaint letter? - Telegraph

Dear Mr Branson

REF: Mumbai to Heathrow 7th December 2008

I love the Virgin brand, I really do which is why I continue to use it despite
a series of unfortunate incidents over the last few years. This latest
incident takes the biscuit.

Ironically, by the end of the flight I would have gladly paid over a thousand
rupees for a single biscuit following the culinary journey of hell I was
subjected to at thehands of your corporation.

...

Is a government elected based on deception legitimate?

Danielle Takacs: Galloping Around the Golden Horseshoe: Is a Government Elected Based on Deception Legitimate? < read me for the whole post.

Excerpts:

I’ve seen a lot of talk about how a Liberal-NDP coalition would lack legitimacy in the eyes of the public, but I think an honest look of the whole picture should ask as well is what kind of legitimacy does Stephen Harper have? In the real world if you applied for a job based on a falsified resume and the people that hired you found this out, you’d be fired in an instant. And the company probably wouldn’t start a whole new job search, they’d probably go to their next choice of applicant and ask if he/she was still available to take on the job.
While politics isn’t the business world, since Stephen Harper used the
CEO metaphor in a very stretched attempt to frame the Liberal platform
as irresponsible (he said if Stéphane Dion were a CEO he would be fired
for his platform), I’d like to run with it for a minute to lay the
stage for the context we face this week in Parliament. Let’s say
Stephen Harper was made CEO of a major Canadian company in January of
2006 but at least in theory remained accountable to a board of
directors (MPs) and occasionally shareholders (the electorate). So he
starts off making some bizarre and costly decisions that sap up a good
portion of the company’s revenue arguing that “target markets” will
love it and that profits (surplus) remain high anyways so there’s no
reason for the board to worry. Besides Harper says “who needs profits,
that just means we are over-charging consumers”. And so this continues
for a couple years and while many on the board grumbled that he was
driving the company into a ditch as profits were finally starting to
steadily decline in 2008, they were comforted that he would face a
review by shareholders. When the shareholder review came Harper spends
most of his presentation railing against his main competitor to replace
him as CEO arguing that he’s proposing all sorts of crazy schemes and
that while the other guy would ruin the company, Harper would bring
large profits and continued success. So Harper wins the review and
carries on. However, his first major act following the review is to
propose to cut the salaries of all the majority of board members that
he deemed disloyal. The majority of the board finally revolts but then
Harper cancels all board meetings for 7 weeks and vows to come back
with a real plan this time to rescue the company and at that time the
board can vote on whether he gets to continue as CEO. Right after he
cancels the board meeting Harper pronounces that the profits he said
the company was going to have won’t pan out after all, instead the
company is billions in the red, but he hopes the board can forgive that
oversight because “no one could see it coming” (despite the many
warnings Harper received BEFORE his review). So in that situation what
should the board do when they have their vote of confidence?
...
But I do believe we’ve once again seen a cover-up of the deficit by
some of the same people that did it in Ontario and we can’t let that
slide easily. My honest belief is that Stephen Harper went into the
election knowing the books were a mess and hoped he would get a
majority so that the public would never find out and he could just
cover it up like the Ontario PC’s did. He had access to civil service
forecasts none of the oppositions parties did, I’m sure he knew more
than he let on. Yet he portrayed an image that the Canadian economy and
government finances were in sound shape when literally days after the
election he was singing the opposite tune. For that I feel this was a
government elected based on deception and since Harper wasn’t given the
majority he wanted, it’s the duty of the majority of the House of
Commons to hold him to account. It’s the duty of Stephen Harper to do
everything he can to ensure he enjoys the confidence of a majority of
MPs the public elected and so far he’s done the opposite of what’s
necessary to do that.

Rents drop across the USA

http://finance.yahoo.com/real-estate/article/106480/Rents-Drop-Nationwide-as-Vacancies-Spike

The economic crisis has opened up opportunities for apartment
tenants. The inventory of vacant apartments is expanding, and rents are
dropping quickly in major metros across the country.

For renters
with leases about to expire, it's time to negotiate. Landlords are
working extra hard these days to keep units filled.

Of course, your ability to hold on to an apartment—especially a
luxury unit—depends on how secure you feel about your own job.
Americans lost about 2.6 million jobs in 2008 (mostly in the final
quarter of the year) and are likely to lose millions more this year.
They are losing money on stocks and other investments and are cutting
back on costs by downsizing and moving in with family members or
roommates as they hunker down for a deep recession.

Landlords, as
a result, are forced to offer discounts to fill vacancies. Apartment
vacancies spiked in September after the collapse of Lehman Brothers and
the eruption of the financial crisis.

Bombing in Darfur

U.N. confirms deaths in Darfur bombing raid - Yahoo! News

KHARTOUM (Reuters) – A bomb attack by Sudanese government planes on
a town in southern Darfur killed and wounded civilians, peacekeepers
said on Sunday in the first independent verification of civilian
fatalities.

The joint U.N./African Union UNAMID force said it did not know how many were killed when the jet fighter dropped at least two bombs on rebel-held Muhajiriya on Saturday.

Sudan's armed forces were not available for comment.

Air attacks in Darfur are forbidden under a 2006 peace deal and U.N. Security Council resolutions.

The raid followed more than a week of clashes and air attacks in and around the south Darfur town that have amounted to some of the worst violence in a year, said analysts.

The clashes have also added to tension in the build-up to an expected
ruling from the International Criminal Court on whether to issue an
arrest warrant against Sudan's president on charges of war crimes in Darfur.

Israel promises to defend its war criminals

Israel promises troops legal backing over Gaza war | Reuters

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - International calls to investigate Israel over
alleged war crimes in the Gaza Strip prompted Prime Minister Ehud
Olmert on Sunday to promise military personnel state protection from
foreign prosecution.

On 60 Minutes - 13 minutes - Growing Number Of Israelis, Palestinians Say Two-State Solution Is No Longer Possible

Time Running Out For A Two-State Solution?, 60 Minutes: Growing Number Of Israelis, Palestinians Say Two-State Solution Is No Longer Possible - CBS News < watch me!

The aftermath in Gaza - photos and videos

Gaza Horror: Updated Large Photo Gallery of Gaza Massacre by Israel - read me/view me.

WARNING: graphic content, war crime victims.

Tony Benn to BBC "If you won't broadcast the Gaza appeal then I will myself"

YouTube - Tony Benn to BBC "If you wont broadcast the Gaza appeal then I will myself" < watch me!

Disaster Emergency Committee
Gaza Crisis
PO Box 999
London, England
EC3A 3AA

Highest levels of pharmaceuticals ever spewing forth in India

World's highest drug levels entering India stream - Yahoo! News

PATANCHERU, India – When researchers analyzed vials of treated wastewater taken from a plant where about 90 Indian drug factories dump their residues, they were shocked. Enough of a single, powerful antibiotic was being spewed into one stream each day to treat every person in a city of 90,000.

And it wasn't just ciprofloxacin being detected. The supposedly cleaned water was a floating medicine cabinet — a soup of 21 different active pharmaceutical ingredients, used in generics for treatment of hypertension, heart disease, chronic liver ailments, depression, gonorrhea, ulcers and other ailments. Half of the drugs measured at the highest levels of pharmaceuticals ever detected in the environment, researchers say.

75% of Canadians believe Harper is doing a poor job of dealing with the economic crisis

Harper not trusted to handle economy: poll

Few Canadians have faith in the ability of Prime Minister Stephen Harper's government to address the economic crisis, suggests a poll released Wednesday.

It found just one in four Canadians believe Harper's government is doing a good or very good job of dealing with the crisis

Apple pays for shoddy workmanship on original ipods

Apple coughs up $22 million for damaged Ipods - The Inquirer

The full cost of the settlement, which of course allows Apple to get away without admitting it did anything wrong, is expected to be $22.5 million

Obama 'is no Martin Luther King'

Al Jazeera English - The Obama Presidency - Obama 'is no Martin Luther King' < read me!

During the presidential campaign, when asked if Martin Luther King were alive today, who would he support, Obama replied that King would not be supporting anyone, but would be out in the streets protesting.

Ricky - new UK horror comedy

Cult Movie Worship: Lesbian Vampires And Winged Babies Take Flight

This week, get a glimpse at the turmoil between lesbian vampires and their hunters in a new UK horror comedy, and Ricky (the flying baby) finally gets to take off.

Lesbian Vampire Killers
Hunting down lesbian vampires isn't all pillow fights and soft fanged kisses. Sometimes you gotta get your hands dirty. Dread Central has a few stills from this British comedy horror including stills of The Descent's adorable MyAnna Buring on the job. Lesbian Vampire Killers will be released on March 20, 2009 in the UK, and hopefully we'll get more news about possible US dates.

Corportate Tax Cuts in Canada Make No Sense

Why Corporate Tax Cuts (in Canada) Make No Sense | Excited Delirium <read me!

And that gets me to my point: with so much foreign ownership of the Canadian economy, what’s the point in cutting corporate taxes? When we cut corporate taxes, all we do is enrich the treasuries of other countries. We need to find creative ways to fund our own economy and future, thank you very much.

Israel admits using white phosphorous

stageleft:. life on the left side : Israel Admits Using White Phosphorous In Attacks On Gaza < read me!

Virtual Gaza

Challenging the Commonplace: New Site: Virtual Gaza

Virtual Gaza is an independent, civic media initiative established by a collective of scholars, media activists and Palestinian residents of Gaza in response to the Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip in December 2008-January 2009.

Gaza in Ruins

Gaza in Ruins « Red Tory v.3.0 < watch me, read me.

Clearly, this wasn’t a “defensive war” but rather, a savage and
vindictive retribution — in other words, collective punishment against
the people of Gaza.