1. “Bioethical” violations such as birth control
2. “Morally dubious” experiments such as stem cell research
3. Drug abuse
4. Polluting the environment
5. Contributing to widening divide between rich and poor
6. Excessive wealth
7. Creating poverty

Seems like the distinctions between the last 3 were created just to round out the list to 7. Does excessive wealth not create poverty? Either way, I think 4 - 7 make sense. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to start going to confession any time soon (even if I was Catholic).

The U.S. plans for an attack on Iran envision to sacrifice the Fifth Fleet in order to justify a nuclear retaliation. This is not a hypothetical scenario, but a real option being discussed within the U.S. Joint Chief of Staff cabinet. According to our sources, admiral William Fallon made clear that if such an order was given, he would refuse to follow it and would hand in his resignation along with the entire Centcom headquarter’s. So far only the Navy and Army’s superior officers’ resistance has prevented the neoconservatives and the Air Force to launch the operations.

www.voltairenet.org/…

If you are in Ottawa, Canada, and would like to attend, the conference details are below. The event is open and free to the general public .

QUESTIONING BOUNDARIES: The Political Economy of Access, Control and Representation

Carleton University, Arts Faculty Lounge, 2017 Dunton Tower
Friday, February 29, 2008 @ 8:30AM - 4:30PM

8:30AM Breakfast

8:45AM Opening Remarks

9-10:30AM Intellectual Property Rights and New Technologies: Pills, Pirates and Sex Dolls

• An inquiry into factors influencing Canadian policies related to pharmaceutical patents
  Jason Wenczler, Political Economy
• Noise Annoys: Pirate Radio and the Distribution of Music in the Digital Age
  Jim Dooley, Political Economy
• Marxxxist Alienation: Sexual Anthropomorphism of Realdolls™ and Construction of Man
  Elizabeth Record, Political Economy
• North American Integration and Copyright Policy: The Case of Canada
  Blayne Haggart, Political Science
• Discussant: Eliot Che, Political Economy

10:45-12:15PM Blurring the Lines: Globalization, Dissent and Democracy

• The Internationalization/Transnationalization of the State and its Relation to Low-Intensity Democracy: The Case of Haiti
  Ray Silvius & Neil Burron, Political Science
• Networks of Power: The World Water Council in Global and Local Contexts
  Emma Lui, Political Economy
• Spatial Strategies in the Policing of Protest: The Liberal Democratic State and the Contestation of Public Space
  Andrew Crosby, Political Science
• Imagining the Diasporic Link: The Franco-Algerian Media Dialogues on the 2005 Emeutes in France
  Irina Mihalache, School of Journalism and Communication
• Discussant: Daniel Tubb, Political Economy

12:15-1:15PM Lunch

1:15-2:45PM From within Canada: Identity and Public Policy

• Reading Global Genders: Mapping gender-based struggles in the global geographies of local marginality
  Michael A. Lithgow, Mass Communication
• Travelling third class: regulating the transport of farm animals in Canada
  Michelle Barrett, Political Economy
• National Identity Examined: A Study of the Quebec Nation
  Rachel Ariey-Jouglard, Political Science
• A Prosperous Uncertainty: The Canada Border Services Agency, risk management, and the not-so new political imagination of spatially-bound identity
  Christopher Alderson, Political Economy
• Discussant: Benjamin Christensen, Sociology

3:00-4:30PM Left Side of the Story: Labour, Welfare, and Workplace

• Networks of Struggle: Towards Dynamic Place-Based Unions in the Era of Work-Well-Fare
  Matthew Lymburner, Political Economy
• From Disabled to Dispossessed: CPP Disability Benefits and the Decline of Social Citizenship Rights in Canada
  Mary Rita Holland, Public Policy
• Gazing Back Into the Closet: Theorizing about Queer Women in the Workplace
  Lesley Vaage, Canadian Studies
• Resisting and Reinforcing the ‘Entrepreneurial City’: Labour’s Contradictory Role in the Upcoming 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver
  Mathew Nelson, Political Science
• Discussant: Berrak Kabasakal, Political Economy

4:30PM Wine & Cheese

Sponsored by: Dean of Graduate Studies and Research; Dean of Public Affairs; Departments of
Geography, History, Law, Political Science, and Sociology and Anthropology; Graduate Students’
Association; Institute of Political Economy; School of Public Policy and Administration.

Directed by Jim Klein and Marcy Olson, Taken for a Ride tells a story that’s been told before. But their use of archival footage, GM’s own film propaganda and interviews with the people who ran the assassinated rail-car systems makes the film a potent piece of environmental and political activism.

This passionate message was posted by “niggaz4ever” on fotolog.net (Sao Paulo, Brazil)

The posted item highlights the issue of Brazilian clear cutting for the production of beef.

In Spain there is little or no mention of this sort of news.

It’s 6 billion hectares!!! How can it be kept quiet?

“Revolta”
malditos comedores de carniça, essa foto mostra outra cidade de outro estado de outro pais,,,,,,,,, e outro otario pos-fogo…….. talvez nós não dassemos tanta importancia se existissem outros planetas e esta foto não fosse em um lugar que ainda chamo de meu lar….6 bilhões de otariosss carniceiros

Not having any training as a scientist, I wonder how one might go about connecting social behavior to genes in a way that would be scientifically rigorous. These studies have all been conducted with adults in the short-term, not with a fetus that has grown into an adult over the long-term. Establishing the existence of a gene prior to socialization, and not its content, and then concluding that these genes account for our political behavior seems highly spurious. How would we determine the causality - what is shaping what - between our environmentally-influenced social values and our seemingly fixed genetic makeup?

The documentary itself raises the possibility Local Exchange Trading Systems (or LETS), which are interest-free local credit networks that function on the basis of trading time spent on work. I won’t go into detail about it here, but you can read more.

Unfortunately, I’m not well-versed enough in the specificities of the monetary system to comment on the accuracy of the film’s claims. But I’ve included it below in case there are people who would like to comment on it. There are a number of questions from the video that I find interesting:

1. Why do governments choose to borrow money from private banks at interest when the government could create all the interest-free money it needs, itself?
2. Why create money as debt? Why not create money that circulates perpetually?
3. How can a monetary system dependent on perpetually accelerating growth be used to build a sustainable economy?
4. What needs to change to have a sustainable economy?

Needless to say, I don’t have any answers (yet). Check out the documentary below - it’s running time is 47 minutes.

There are several lessons to be taken from this event. The first is that even powerful financial institutions can be vulnerable at points they have not even considered. Nick Leeson, though similar unauthorised transactions, caused the collapse of Baring Bank, one of the world’s oldest financial institutions. Second, large banks can be considered so important for the economy that a portion of their risk is made public. Although French President Nicolas Sarkozy has said there will be no bailout for SocGen, I will not be surprised if some sort of backdoor assistance is offered. Third, this $7.3 billion did not simply disappear. As the futures in which Kerveil was investing were heading south, sellers were seeking buyers. How often did Kerveil step into that fray and alleviate the potential losses of another player in the market? Essentially, SocGen subsidised other market participants to the tune of $7.3 billion.

*Requires free account.

The link above, in my opinion holds some powerful ideas that defeat any carcass counter debate to try to salvage the great ICON, Sheppard Fairey’s OBEY GIANT “reputation”.

Perhaps Obey’s humble beginnings with his sticker street campaign had no hidden agenda but it certainly has evolved and blossomed to become something that resembles a multi-national.

The idea that “the medium is the message” has been altered to serve something closer to “I’m a capitalist monster and nothing can hold me back because I believe, and most importantly, my fans believe my lies”. The bottom line has become, “The money is the message”.

* Source: Art For a Change

OBEY is now a multi-million dollar industry whose focus is on clothing and any other item that can hold a logo. Shameless mass promotion and mass production (in sweatshop environments) has brought Fairey’s product to the mecca of mass consumption, to dance in the long corridors of Walmart.

I’m ashamed to share this so called graffiti platform with some one like Fairey but I don’t wish him harm and I don’t believe he should stop promoting creativity and design. When I see one of his “graffiti” posters in the streets of Barcelona, I feel that I’m looking at a brand like any other brand and I feel sad that kids believe the campaign is -the shit-. In that sadness my wish list simply includes a need for him to pull off that mask and reveal the true face of what is an industry. No more Punk references in interviews, no more art talk and hiding behind the word graffiti, no more putting a spin on the “art” that is essentially a slightly altered stolen image that then is calls his own.

* Source: Art For a Change

If you’re a capitalist rock star then be it. If you’re a pop artist, then be a pop artist and say you’re a pop artist. Reference with skill and be humble because, I know, as a professional artist, that Obey’s artistic and creative skills are limited. I always felt uncomfortable when I saw Sheppard’s work and as a kid, I could never put my finger on it. The link above put it all in perspective for me.

However, the article also states that Canada has been attempting to stop the distribution of this information, so we’ll see where things go from here. Yesterday, there was a clip on NBC about this issue:

Of course, FT goes on to contend that the triple-A rating doesn’t mean much these days. Nonetheless, I think the credit rating threat due to increased social spending indicates that something is amiss, to put it lightly, in the world economic system. And there have long been debates over whether credit rating companies should have such power in exerting such massive influence in the course of international economic affairs.

It seems as though the lessons of history have not had any effect on this segment of the US judiciary. The abhorrent justifications for the enslavement of Africans during the periods of colonialism and the imprisonment and genocide of ethnic groups in WWII seem to have been forgotten. They too were judged as “less than human.”

Halsman set up his New York studio and using the 4 x 5 format, twin-lens reflex camera that he had designed in 1947, he prepared to capture one of his most memorable photographs. He suspended an easel, two paintings by Dali (one of which was “Leda Atomica”), and a stepping stool; had his wife, Yvonne, hold a chair in the air; on the count of three, his assistants threw three cats and a bucket of water into the air; and on the count of four, Dali jumped and Halsman snapped the picture. While his assistants mopped the floor and consoled the cats, Halsman went to the darkroom, developed the film, and reemerged to do it again. “Six hours and twenty-eight throws later, the result satisfied my striving for perfection,” wrote Halsman.

The photograph is spectacular. However, there are still a few things that bother me about the “authenticity” of the image. For example, the shadow of the canvas seems not to be exactly as one would expect. Even so, this is art at its finest.

Saul Williams’ most recent album, The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of Niggy Tardust, has been released online in a high-bitrate mp3 format, giving consumers the choice of downloading the album for free, or paying 5$ for it. Which would you choose? The album’s producer, Trent Reznor, says that out of the 154 449 people that downloaded the album, 28 322 paid the five dollars. That’s 18.3% of downloaders paying up front. Since that works out to just over $140 000, I wonder if that is considered by him to be a success.

Williams’ last album sold 34 000 copies, according to Ars Technica. While that works out to $408 000 if the average album sale was $12, there is still little information on how much Williams would have received out of that total. Data from one analysis indicates that Williams could have received about 39% of his album sales when sold in CD format through Amazon. That works out to about $159 000 (without considering the possibility that most of the sales were made in brick and mortar stores like HMV). So, without even taking into consideration the non-economic benefits of Reznor’s new music sales model, the amount of income generated for the artist is pretty close to the traditional sales format.

That has to make you wonder whether all the bluster about how online ‘illegal’ downloading hurts music sales, is more a problem of accessibility and quality than it is about piracy.

This is a small story that illustrates the ’surprises’ scientists keep stumbling upon just when their arrogance has them believing they’ve got it all figured out.

Note: Apart from the aggravating arrogance of their positions, I think the pretense to ‘Truth’ denigrates what it is that makes science exciting: the search for theories that work to explain phenomenon. These theories are constantly being challenged by new observations that then require new explanations.

On the international stage, Yvo de Boer, the UN climate chief has accused Canada of being hypocritical in its stance on climate change. But, does Canada even remain a player in addressing global climate issues?

Elsewhere, a recent speech from Pope Benedict states: “It is no accident that [atheism] has led to the greatest forms of cruelty and violations of justice.” And here I was thinking that it was the opposite.

“Piggy” Adbusters Promo:

“Stop Shopping” by the Stop Shopping Gospel Choir: