The Proletariat Congress

The year is 1986, we’re near the the city of Tchernobyl, Ukraine, in one of the satellite states of the USSR. Today also happens to be April 25. All is calm, yet many live near a nuclear power plant, which supplies many with clean-burning electrical power, which is supposed to be more environmentally friendly than coal-fire plants. Each of the four reactors can create 1000 Gigwatts of power. On the same day, April 25, just before the evening shift came in, an order to meet peak evening demand came in, leaving the evening shift take handle it. Yet at 1:23:40, it took only seconds and limited knowledge of the state of the state one of the reactors to lead to one of the greatest nuclear disasters in history, rivalled only by Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Other places with problems in the same time period were Sellafield, Ireland and Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.Fast forward to the year 2008, a good 22 years after Tchernobyl, to Ottawa, where a minority government is getting a might to big for its britches. A childish regime that doesn’t like to play nice with others in the playground and will take the ball home when the others don’t let him play by his rules. This kind mentality pervades the political front in Ottawa, and the casualty today is the former Canadian Nuclear Safety president, Linda Keen, whose only mistake was doing her job. She was fired by the minority government for refusing to start up a reactor that produced medical isotopes, being more than 50% of the world supply.

There had been rumours about a shortage of these isotopes, though it’s easily attributed to media sensationalism; anything to make a catchy headline and an engaging byline. There was no impending crisis despite the media’s twist on the story. It was easy to see that this was for safety and if there really was a shortage, the safety watch dog would have done something to alleviate public concerns while the safety upgrades go under way.

The Nuclear Safety Commission is a quasi-judicial arms-length body in charge of overseeing nuclear safety in Canada. As the police are there to enforce the law of the jungle in our streets, the Safety Commission is there to ensure that we don’t get exposed to the ill-effects caused by a nuclear meltdown. They are an inpendant commission who carry out safety inspections and ensure compliance.

The reactor had been shut down during a routine inspection that found the facilities weren’t in compliance with an earlier safety report to have the reactor at Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd.’s shut down because it hadn’t added the cool pumps, which would help in avoiding meltdowns during seismic activity. The reactor had been shut down in November of 2007, and would have been reopened once the upgrades had been done, and at the time of the firing, one of the two necessary upgrades had been completed, with another one due shortly after it.

On December 11th, the AECL had met with a House committee to give an update on it, and had given an estimate of 16 days or so to complete the upgrade. Neither the minority government nor the opposition governments were listening to this. Against the Nuclear Safety Commission and Linda Keen’s orders, they passed legislation, permitting the reactor to be brought back online despite that the existing safety concerns surrounding the Chalk River facilities, and the fact that there is known low but still detectable seismic activity in that region.

This put her at odds with Natural Resources Minister Gary Lunn, one of the many spineless “Yes” men in the Harper administration, who love nothing more than making senior bureaucrats operate under the party banner. It should be noted that Harper has referred to Keen has that “Liberal appointee”, effectively bringing petty partisan politics into a ring where nuclear safety is tantamount to the industry where a single fault in a reactor is the difference between life and death, as history has shown us with Tchernobyl.

16 hours before Keen was expected to testify before a House committee about the reason behind keeping the reactor down, she was fired from her position, and all because she was doing her job and not bending over backwards to cater to a childish regime that doesn’t have the guts to speak to the media directly and prefers to act like a cowardly little bully, retreating when the big boys start to call the shots.

A clearly partisan move. An attempt to silence her and keep the media in the dark about the truth. Of course, this takes into account that the voting public lives under a rock with its fingers shoved in its ears. It’s too bad the Conservatives think this; they’d know otherwise, except they’ve lost their collective head, which is shoved 20,000 leagues up the ass they so willingly kiss.

PM defends firing of nuclear watchdog

Ousted regulator just doing her job

Concerns over nuclear safety

This entry is a guest article written by Brian Damage of demodulated blog.

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What’s in a name? Can a few proper nouns summarize the essence of a human being? If a man is only as good as his name does that man have the sole rights to its selective usage? Not according to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers who is the world’s regulating body for internet domain names.

Let’s back up that tractor a bit first. (beep beep beep)

Blogger and native Edmontonian Dave Cournoyer, aka Daveberta, is a vocal member of Canada’s Liberal party and a staunch opponent of the provincial Progressive Conservative party of which reigning Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach is a member. Dave recently registered the publicly and freely available domain name “edstelmach.ca” for fourteen bucks and pointed it to his blog. Shortly thereafter, with nary a warning shot, Dave was contacted by the Stelmach’s lawyers who demanded he desist in pointing this domain name to his blog and that he surrender the domain to the Premier at once, else the coyotes of litigation would git to howlin’.

Cournoyer, unswayed by these empty threats, merely pointed the domain to the Wikipedia article on Harry Strom, a former Alberta Premier who was criticized similarly to Stelmach as a good old farm boy whose reputation dwindled for being oblivious to the needs of the province’s flourishing urban centres. Threatening this indebted University of Alberta student due to his misunderstanding of the workings of the internet certainly bolsters such comparison.

Does Stelmach have the authority to unleash his stampede of thoroughbred lawyers on this poor kid in his jurisdiction? Well sure he does – it’s his got-dang right as a western Canadian. But that’s as far as he’ll mosey along, ah reckon.

The US Copyright Office, who regulates the ICANN, has this to say on the matter of copyright…

… on domain names:

“Copyright law does not protect domain names. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), a nonprofit organization that has assumed the responsibility for domain name system management, administers the assignation of domain names through accredited registers.”

… and on proper names:

“Names are not protected by copyright law.” and “Copyright does not protect names, titles, slogans, or short phrases.”

That’s right, it’s first come first serve in the Wild Wild Web. (otherwise translated for Stelmach’s benefit as “them dubyas”)

It seems that unless the very Right (if not Honourable) Premier might have to prove that he is either the world’s one and only Ed Stelmach, the supposely infringing use of his name detracts from his brand, the domain name disingenuously cuts his profits by impersonating his brand and thereby tricking customers, or that his name is the entirety of a catchy corporate slogan. (might I recommend, like George Costanza before him, the “by Mennen” tune?)

Ed Stelmach may as well hitch up and git along. Daveberta is making a stand and won’t be ponying up any time soon.

For more information on this topic I’ve blogged previously (here and here) about corporate bullying for domain names.

“Yeee haw, lit’s wrangle up this internet sumbitch!” – not actually said by Ed Stelmach

There are a number of ways one can submit their voter’s ballot in Canada. This was developed to allow for people to vote in absentia, whether they are out of their riding or out of the country. There are also ways for people to vote if they are unable to get to their riding’s polling station. Elections Canada makes it easy for voters to get the job done. Their website provides the information sought by the elector (or voter).

This ensures transparency in the system.

Or at least it should. The current system is no longer good enough for the minority Conservatives, who want to make life difficult for veiled Muslim women; to make voting more difficult for this group by violating their rights.

When voting in absentia, the voter must provide valid identification, but only to register to vote in absentia. The elector is required to submit the following:

• pages 2 and 3 of your Canadian passport, or a Canadian citizenship certificate or card; or
• a birth certificate or a baptismal certificate proving that the elector was born in Canada.

It doesn’t require valid photo ID if the elector was born in Canada. Yet the Conservatives feel the need to mandate that Muslim women not be allowed to vote while veiled. This is more than a small inconsistency given what is permitted and accepted by Elections Canada.

The Tories were furious over a decision by Elections Canada to allow Muslim women to vote with their faces covered by burkas or niqabs during three Quebec byelections in September.

“During the recent byelections in Quebec, the government made it clear that we disagreed with the decision by Elections Canada to allow people to vote while concealing their face,” Van Loan said.

“That is why … we committed to introducing legislation to confirm the visual identification of voters.”

So, let me get this straight, while an elector can vote in absentia without photo ID, a veiled Muslim woman cannot have her face concealed when she goes to a polling station in person, even if she does present valid photo ID?

Bill C-31, which was passed last spring, required voters to show one piece of government-issued photo ID — the most basic standard of voter identification — or two pieces without a photo before being allowed to vote.

But not while in absentia? Is it any wonder why people hate the Conservative government? This is the kind of sheer hypocrisy that will cause this minority government to implode on itself. If they’re going to change the rules, they need to initiate the change across the board.

Marc Mayrand of Elections Canada, explained that it was allowed for the veiled Muslim women to vote without having to show their faces as he accepted the photo ID (up to 2 if the woman didn’t wish to remove the veil) as valid proof of the voter’s identification. The current law also allows for the elector’s ID be verified by another registered elector in the same district. Though this is not required by the current law due to the methods used for electors to register to vote in absentia.

Tories introduce bill to ban veiled voting

Religion is stagnant; its individual core tenets and principles steadfast and unyielding to change and the evolution of societal norms in the 21^st century. It is inflexible and its followers are most resistant to change when that change is an front to their “moral principles” and what to them is morally acceptable. Stricter beliefs and intolerant leaders create intolerant followers and believers.

The faithful see their beliefs as the only way and the beliefs of others as heathen beliefs that will damn them for eternity. The faithful want to see their children given a proper ‘moral’ upbringing, even if it means forcing their beliefs on others as has been done for hundreds of years before some people said enough is enough.

One subject in the public school that has caused controversy other than mandatory prayer is that of the teaching of creation as an alternative theory (or intelligent design) along with the theory of evolution. At least in the US this has been an area of sensitivity for both religious and secular proponents. It hasn’t been cause for attention here in Canada, or at least in Ontario until opposition leader John Tory brought up the subject of faith-based school funding.

He has made an election promise to create a separate public system for parents who want to send their children to a religious school and it would be publicly funded. This move would violate the sacred boundary that separates church and state. A boundary that the provincial Conservatives have held no respect for, as former Ontario Premier Davis in 1985 reversed his 1971 decision regarding the full-funding of the Catholic school board.

It is already enough of an insult to the taxpaying public that we have to fund the separate Catholic school system along side the public system that is struggling under constant deficits and compounding funding problems brought on by the controversial school funding formula introduced originally by the Harris Conservatives as part of their ‘Common Sense Revolution‘ promise.

The last thing a modern secular society needs is more public funding for the religious agenda. We need a solid line drawn between the two. We cannot and should not endorse the use of public taxpayer funds for a religious education. To create a system based on this idea would be introducing a modern form of segregation.

Additionally, if the public were to fund such a system, what measures would be in place to ensure that the provincial mandated curriculum was followed by all schools and that all students got equal access to the same academic knowledge that their peers in the secular public system would get?

They teach evolution in the Ontario curriculum, but they also could teach the fact to the children that there are other theories that people have out there that are part of some Christian beliefs. It’s still called the theory of evolution. ~ John Tory

Why should the public pay for students to be taught Creation? Creation has no place in any classroom unless that classroom is one that teaches philosophy and allows for the debate. Creation has no scientific merit and as such, is untestable because it fails to meet the criteria that would allow for it to be tested as a plausible scientific theory. It should and always remain outside of the science classroom as it is a myth and myths have no place in the world of facts.

Theories in themselves do not have to be factual but they must have testable elements. Creation isn’t even a theory; to be a scientific theory, it needs to be testable based on the scientific method. Evolution is testable given the characteristics. Creation and Intelligent Design cannot be tested because there is no way to test for God.

If parents want this included in their child’s education then they should pay to send their child to a private school. If not then send them to the public school but don’t expect the taxpayer to foot the bill for your child’s religious education. Religion is a personal thing and it does not belong in the public school system.

Tory ignites creationism debate

EDIT (Sept. 6/07, 3:15pm) – A Conservative party spokeswoman, Ingrid Thompson, has issued a statement clarifying the remarks made by provincial Conservative leader John Tory. She has embellished on his earlier comment, explaining that schools that would teach creation in science class would become ineligible for public funding.

If there are schools that teach creationism in science class, they would not be eligible to be funded as part of this proposal.

She went on to add that all faith-based schools that want to qualify for funding would have to follow the Ontario curriculum.

Creationism in science class would disqualify schools for funding: Conservatives

Saying that schools that teach creationism in science class does not undo the damage that was done by John Tory and his endorsement of creationism as a teachable subject.