You are currently browsing the monthly archive for December 2005.
Wednesday December 7, 2005
Western Producer
By Adrian Ewins
Saskatoon newsroom
While farmers struggle to break even on their returns from the market, agribusiness corporations are reaping record profits, according to a new study by the National Farmers Union.
Jim Stanford
Facts from the Fringe
The Liberals were long criticized for padding their budget forecasts, to disguise the true extent of Ottawa
Column # 549
Paul Beingessner
In mid-January, the Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities, Saskatchewan Association of Urban Municipalities and the University of Regina will be hosting a conference to examine the nuclear industry and the potential for further development of this industry in Saskatchewan. The press release promoting the conference attributes the following description to SARM president Neal Hardy: “This conference will look at all aspects of the nuclear energy industry, from mining and processing, to power generation and disposal. There are many different perspectives on the issue, and we want to explore what is best for all the people of Saskatchewan.”
SUMA president Don Schlosser sees it as an issue of economic development and job creation. He wants to see an “informed and open public discussion.” U of R vice-president Allan Cahoon wants the discussion over all energy options to be objective and based on science.
It all looks pretty good at first glance - a conference where many different perspectives are examined, where there is informed and open public discussion and where these discussions are objective and based on science.
There is only one thing wrong with this picture. Read the rest of this entry »
[For the latest news and analysis on Bolivia's presidential election, where the leftist MAS (Movement Towards Socialism), led by indigenous coca farmer Evo Morales, leads in the polls, check out the Democracy Centre's Blog from Bolivia.]
On the eve of polls that could give South America its first indigenous head of state, Evo Morales talks about his gas nationalisation plans
Alfonso Daniels
Sunday December 18, 2005
The Observer
On a barren landing strip in Bolivia’s mining heartland of Oruro, hundreds of people, including miners carrying dynamite charges, stir at the sight of an approaching small plane. It’s a stampede by the time it lands, as the crowds rush down the slope to greet an emerging heavy-built man. He is Evo Morales, a 46-year-old Aymara Indian, leading candidate in today’s presidential elections and leader of a left-wing revolution that may soon engulf most of South America.
Do you have a passion for proofreading? Can you do website updates in your sleep? Are you happiest when you’re dragging your tongue across an envelope? Do visions of mailing address labels dance in your head at night? Would nothing please you more than helping to plan a successful fundraiser?
And — most important — are you excited about alternative media and willing to put in a couple of hours here and there to help it flourish?
Then this is the opportunity you’ve been waiting for….
Federal party is short on solid policies and democracy.
By Murray Dobbin
December 16, 2005
TheTyee.ca
Voting Green? Not so much.
If the polls are accurate about 4 percent of Canadians, possibly more, will vote for the Green Party in this election. (Last time around it was 4.3 percent, a historic high). Exactly who votes Green and for what reasons is still unclear as no one has done a publicly available survey to answer the question. But the motivation is not monolithic. There are protest voters, disgruntled NDP voters, Red Tories appalled at Stephen Harper, and Liberals angry at Paul Martin’s policies but not willing to go to the NDP. And then there are those who vote Green positively, because they assume that the Green Party of Canada is more or less like the Greens of Europe: democratic, socially and economically progressive and strong defenders of the environment.
In fact, all these categories make the assumption that the Green Party is at least, well, Green. They should take the time to be sure. In the last election I wrote, based on the policy platform on its web site, the party was right wing on social and fiscal policy and also pointed out that both the Sierra Club and Green Peace rated them below the NDP (and in most categories, below the Bloc) on environmental policies. Unfortunately, little has changed. Some things are actually worse.
‘There’s a war out there and we have to win,’ says Sally Pipes, the head of San Francisco’s Pacific Research Institute and an alumna of Canada’s Fraser Institute, another right-wing think-tank.”
Advocates of two-tier health care prepare to take on medicare, confident that now they can win, Thomas Walkom reports
The Toronto Star Nov. 26, 2005. 11:45 AM
THOMAS WALKOM
NATIONAL AFFAIRS WRITER
VANCOUVER
Mark A. LeVine, History News Network, 7 December 2005
Imagine if Sunni insurgents decided to face down the greatest power on earth with a human chain of non-violent resistance. Or if Hamas threw human shields rather than human bombs at Israel.
This is the kind of movement that the four members of the Christian Peacemaker Teams currently held hostage in Iraq are trying to build, and it’s precisely the model that the peace movement should have, but didn’t, take as its strategy for challenging the Bush Administration and its imperial ambitions after the invasion. Instead, less than a dozen CPTers have stood virtually alone against 150,000 “coalition forces” and an equally violent and unscrupulous insurgency–a scandal whose reflection on the movement is every bit as devastating as Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo are for the US army.
by Lyn Duff
San Francisco Bay View
At least 15 residents were killed and dozens wounded by United Nations troops during incursions in the zone of Cit
Wherein the king entices his enemies into the Valley of Unwanted Elections and springs a most vicious Liberal ambush…
by John Conway
prairie dog
Paul Martin set the trap, and Harper and Layton sprung it on themselves. (Duceppe doesn’t really care very much, since he is set to sweep Quebec no matter when the election occurs.) Martin wanted an election. He didn’t want to wait until 30 days after the final Gomery report, as he promised. The first Gomery hit sank the Liberals briefly in the polls, but they quickly recovered. They might not have recovered so quickly after the second hit, especially if the economy begins to sag. With current poll results comparable to the last election, with the economy doing very well, and with a large surplus allowing a blizzard of spending announcements, Liberals were in fact very eager to go now. Harper and Layton gave them what they wanted. Dumb, very dumb.
