Canadian jobs...gone · Wednesday March 7, 2007 by colin newell
TORONTO — As many as 700 workers at Air Canada’s Vancouver maintenance facility will lose their jobs because of a decision by Delta Air Lines Inc. to move work on its jets to China to take advantage of cheaper labour costs.
Air Canada Technical Services (ACTS), a division of Air Canada parent ACE Aviation Holdings Inc. said today that Atlanta-based Delta, has decided to terminate its contract and relocate airframe work on about 100 wide-body Boeing 767 jets.
Cheaper labour costs huh?
My wife was in a series of meetings in Vancouver not too long ago that included neo-con guest-speakers from the likes of the Fraser Institute (Conservative think-tank run by rich old businessmen…), British Columbia Liberals and other high-rollers.
This was at a time when the Liberal government in B.C. just finished gutting the apprenticeship programs – figured we didn’t need apprenticeship programs anymore. Right.
Various neo-cons were getting up and rah-rahing the Liberal party for their right-thinking… no pun intended.
Then one of my wife’s bleeding-heart left-leaning fuzzy thinker friends stood up and said…
Sir. How did you get here today? By plane you say? Indeed. Now, as your jet is screaming down the runway… thousands of pounds of airplane and thousands of pound of thrust… defying the laws of gravity… Would you rather have a B.C. certified and Federally certified journeyman aviation mechanic maintaining that aircraft or some minimum wage hump from some third-world outsourced back-water? Well?
There was a modest round of applause for the fuzzy-thinker.
And it is my point exactly: We need to be careful that we do not give away too much…
before there is nothing left.
Another day older and closer to... · Monday March 5, 2007 by colin newell
Ok. Do not really want to harp on this too much. But this animation pretty much sums it up.
Recent reports suggest that the Bush administration is considering using nuclear weapons against Iran. The very fact that nuclear weapon use is being discussed as an option—against a state that does not have nuclear weapons and does not represent a direct or imminent threat to the United States—illustrates the extent to which the Bush administration has changed U.S. nuclear weapons policy.
The last time a nuclear weapon was used against another nation was… well heck. You know the answer. It was the U.S. against Japan – and some analysts point out that the war was pretty much won by the U.S. – you know, it just seemed like a good idea at the time to let this thing off over a civilian target just to see what would happen.
Anyway – the past is gone. Back in 2007 for a moment.
Check out this marvelous animation on the folly of bunker busting technology.
Another day older and still radioactive · Monday February 26, 2007 by colin newell
According to The London Sunday Times, Israel is planning to use nuclear bunker busters to destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities.
The report says that Israeli airforce squadrons at Hatzerim and Tel Nof Airbase are training to use low-yield nuclear “bunker-busters”.
Some of Iran’s facilities have been built underground (read: Underneath hospitals and schools) and would thus be difficult to hit using conventional weapons. No kidding!
Targets would include the uranium enrichment facilities of Natanz, a site near Isfahan where gas for the enrichment process have been stored underground, and a heavy water reactor in Arak.
“As soon as the green light is given, it will be one mission, one strike and the Iranian nuclear project will be demolished.” said a source. The tactical nuclear weapons would only be used if conventional weapons were “ruled out” and if the United States “declined to intervene”, the article continues, based on “senior” military sources.
Ok. Everyone shout with me: “God help us all!”
The instantaneous human casulties would be in the order of tens of thousands. Within days, the body count could be in the hundreds of thousands. Prevailing winds would carry fall-out hundreds, if not thousands of miles into Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, Kazkhstan, Turkey and beyond.
Military analysts say that disclosure of the plans could be intended to put pressure on Iran to halt enrichment (which Iran says is for peaceful purposes), prod the United States into action or soften up world opinion in advance of an Israeli attack, according to the report.
soften up World opinion huh? I am going to need a lot more softening than this. Nukes have not been used against civilians since the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs of WWII – and there are still survivors suffering from those original attacks.
If I were a space alien (and I clearly am not a space alien…) I would be asking: If the following countries have nukes, then why can’t… you get the picture…
The Global Nuke Club
United States
Russia
China
France
Israel
United Kingdom
India
Pakistan
Is it because the above countries are all benign, harmless, peace loving and generally little or no threat to their neighbors?
Somehow, I do not think that this is the real issue.
You decide.
Still don’t think we are on the eve of destruction? Read here
Comment [2]
Canada - sane and more free... · Saturday February 24, 2007 by colin newell
The top court in Canada has ruled against the constitutionality of security certificates. article
Basically, the certificates allowed the Federal government of Canada to detain, without charge, non-citizens of Canada pretty much… forever.
Not only that, the detainees have no access to their accusors, legal representation, the evidence or… well… anything.
Nice. No. Not nice.
It’s not Canadian to treat people this way – Canadians or not.
We don’t do it. When we see 15-century style laws like this, we challenge them.
This kind of nonsense might fly in 21st century America but it doesn’t here.
And the last time I checked, we were a separate country.
Meantime, the U.S.A, which has gone totally insane in their economy-draining quest to find the perfect spook is slowly introducing a new form of X-Ray technology to gaze beneath the clothing of its law abiding citizens. link
In our daily (monday-friday) coffee roundtable at my place of employ, we have some pretty lively debate.
One misguided drinking companion (a loudly acknowledged ultra-rightwing christian neo-con) said: “If ya got nothing to hide… ya won’t mind showing us what ya got…”
My feeling is: A steady erosion of personal freedoms in the name of protecting us from some imaginary threat is bad for society.
That is my opinion and I welcome your comments.
