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The Mail Bag
is cookin' with a wide variety of entries. Don't forget to check
the Mail Bag frequently for reader comment, event announcements and
interesting links.
Friday July 18, 2008
Hodge, Podge and Al Gore
A stew, a mess ... gee, do you zinc?
1)
Canada's role in privatizing the Internet ... 2) Video report of
Barriere Lake protest ... 3) Ottawa U. plays dirty ... 4) Vancouver
blackout a wake-up call for all Canadians ... 5) When a Jew is not one in Israel ... 6) Al Gore's well known secret
1) Today in the Mail Bag :
Canada's Internet hijacked by American interests
Viewpoint from Spain:
The cover of the June 2, 2008 "Fortune" magazine (which I get as a
freebie with my subscription to "Obama for President Magazine"... I
mean, "Time Magazine") says "THE BIGGEST DEAL EVER An inside look at
how Jonathon Nelson put together a $51 billion telco buyout. Read More ...
=====
2) VIDEO: Barriere Lake Algonquins Interviews
Footage taken for Rabble TV by Lia Tarachansky during the recent protests in Ottawa. The lady speaking in French at the beginning is Francine Dumas of ROCG, a well-known and dedicated Quebec/Ottawa social activist.
"No government is allowed to overthrow another government," says
the traditionally elected Chief Jean-Maurice Matchewan. But they
do it; regime change is the neo-con strategy of choice. Canadians
should be sick about this, and recognize it as a sign of worse things
to come.
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3) Ottawa U Plays Dirty to Stop Cinema Politica
... the school refused to fund an interpreter, neglecting its legal
obligation to do so. Then, upper administration announced that Cinema
Politica will be shut down as a result of human rights violations
resulting from the university administration's earlier avoidance of
responsibility.
Now there's an administration that would make good Guantanamo prison guards.
For background, visit Denis Rancourt's U of O Watch. This all began with the huge success of his Activism Course - Science in Society and the university's neurotic reaction to its non-run-of-the-mill content. For example, the first class of the fall semester in 2006 featured former Afghan MP Malaia Joya who said some things about Canada's involvement in her country that our government would prefer we hadn't heard.
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4) [Vancouver] Blackout offers leaders a wake-up call
Yet, underground, things are starting to seem
pretty much of the past century. Things are apparently so fragile a
"failed splice," whatever that means, can put us in the dark ages.
Glaringly, there was apparently no redundant system that would allow
this week's power failure to be quickly repaired -- or electrical flows
to be quickly redirected.
To be fair, this is a nationwide situation. No single person can be
singled out. A recent report by the Federation of Canadian
Municipalities estimates the country faces a "municipal infrastructure
deficit of between $60 and $100 billion, growing at $2 billion a year."
Not enough money from the province, complain the
cities. Not enough money from the feds, say the provinces. Looks
like there must be a huge number of Rapture Christians in our
governments who expect to be airlifted out once conditions become
unliveable.
You notice how no matter how bad things get, there's always money for war, war, and more war?
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5) Messianic Jews say persecuted in Israel
Israelis still fear 'convert or die' concept they
associate with Christianity - Israeli authorities attempt to close down
Messianic Jews’ houses of worship, revoke their citizenship.
Deputy Mayor Uzi Aharon, has been questioned on suspicion that he
instructed youths to collect the books from homes where they had been
distributed and told them to burn them. Aharon denies ordering the
burning. He says the books were collected from a neighborhood of mostly
Ethiopian immigrants who are easily persuaded by missionaries.
It would appear that the age old conundrum has
finally been settled by Israel - Jewishness is not a racial
designation, it is a religious one.
And it's not book burning if you get caught before you're able to light the match.
=====
6) Al Gore's well-known secret
Al Gore recently pooh poohed the idea of being a VP for the third time,
having been nicely set up by a Nobel prize to be the evangelist for the
gospel of the New World Order. Should his current efforts fail he also
has a sufficient gift of gab to become a TV evangelist, and he's
already founded and is Chair of Current TV
- which appeals prodigiously to the lowest common denominator, judging by the
look of the subject matter - so he's all set, no matter where Fortune
takes him.
He's also founder and Chair of Generation Investment Management,
a company that some people are saying intends to eventually control the
US economy and eliminate the middle class.
GIM doesn't try to hide its sinister nature:
We
buy high quality businesses and management teams whose securities are
attractively priced to deliver excess returns over the long-term.
How cutthroat is that, eh?
Gore calls it "sustainable
capitalism" and when GIM talks about its social values it's really saying that the frog was wrong, and it really might be great being green, because there's a lot of moola to be made in wind, solar and "other" renewable energies (ethanol first, probably, and nuclear energy next). Gore
personally acknowledges his only concern about nuclear energy is that
it's expensive (reduces the profit margin) and slow to get off the ground, and while he doesn't
totally discount its usefulness, he claims to be more interested in photovoltaics.
Now, at first glance, photovoltaics might seem like a healthier
alternative. It's just harnessing the rays of the sun, isn't it, while nuclear power needs uranium and look at all the
trouble that causes:
Is The Colorado River Becoming Radioactive from Upstream Uranium Mines? It All Depends On Who You Ask
Las Vegas Water Offical Warns Radioactive Levels Rising
Why Nuclear Energy is Not Green; Uranium Mining the Grand Canyon Environmentalism is about much more than finding an emission-free energy source.
Moncton wants N.B. to ban uranium mining
City council in Moncton, N.B., voted unanimously Monday night to call
on the province to ban all uranium exploration and mining in New
Brunswick. The councillors are particularly worried about uranium
exploration on the outskirts of the city.
Ardoch Algonquin fighting against Uranium mine
Statement on Uranium Mining
Nevermind,
Gore says he's not against nukes per se, and that he assumes all
the nuclear energy problems will be solved. Meanwhile, he's not
breathing a word about the environmental drawbacks of producing the
equipment needed for solar power.
Turns out that some companies are making the panels with cadmium. Consequently, as
much effort is going into soothing public nervousness over that as into the uranium worries.
Now this is where it really gets interesting. Guess where cadmium comes from.
Cadmium
metal is produced as a by-product from the extraction, smelting and
refining of the nonferrous metals zinc, lead and copper. Rather than
disposing of it as a waste, engineers have been able to utilize its
unique properties for many important industrial applications. cadmium.org
Guess where
Al Gore made a half million bucks and stands to make more as a result
of solar energy. Why there's a little old zinc mine on his property
that he collected royalties on,
and he is giving every indication of doing so again in the foreseeable
future, but this time he's publicly demanding from the mining company
respect for the local environment. Wonder why he didn't think of
that the first time. Oh, probably because he wasn't famous back then
for his interest in the environment.
Anyway, no doubt we'll be seeing more articles like this one in the future:
Exposure of Children to Lead and Cadmium from a Mining Area of Brazil (scroll down the page for English)
Gore, in his new book,
decries neo-con strategies that keep Americans afraid all the time, and
then proceeds to drive home a new terror - global warming. Even as many scientists make convincing arguments that it's merely a myth.
I've come to prefer the term "climate change", which is not something
we can "fight" since, if it's occurring, it's a natural phenomenon that
no amount of CO2
conservation will cure. My greatest frustration is that so many of the
industries
guilty of producing excessive CO2 are also guilty of polluting the
water supply, marine life, the ground soil, and the air with toxins.
And all they'll be slapped with is a carbon tax - if that.
No matter how it's sliced, "global warming" is a money-maker for which
the average Joe will pay in subsidies to corporations and in prices for
essential services and food staples. Not to mention that
manufactured "natural" disasters can be blamed on it as the numbers of
the world's poor are conveniently reduced through famine, floods,
disease, and being terminally uprooted.
Well,
we can't afford them anyway, not when there are wars to be fought so
that fortunes can be made. Who has the time, inclination or sensitivity
to be concerned about the human
condition? Probably not even Mr. Environment hisself, except in
platitudes and gestures, maybe.
Comments (1)
yayacanada
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