statism watch

A government scientific board recommends an international climate bank – big surprise, the UN has already been pushing for this. By putting together a report tailored for Copenhagen, these clmate mandarins are doing nothing but staying on message and laying the foundations for an institution which would do little to curb real environmental problems. In fact, observers such as Energy Probe chief Lawrence Solomon have stated that the current carbon exchange system has done the exact opposite, creating intiatives for Western states to export pollution causing industry to the third world.

Flashback: G8 Summit: Rich nations to pay green tab | Ontario unveils cap-and-trade legislation | Economic stabilization may rely on carbon economy, economist says | Climate panel presses for federal cap-and-trade system | Obama, Gore, tied to Chicago carbon exchange | U.N. ‘Climate Change’ Plan Would Likely Shift Trillions to Form New World Economy | U.N. Environment Head Wants Global Warming Tax | Time to emulate Roosevelt’s New Deal and create green jobs | EU calls for global carbon trading system to fight climate change | Harper ready to harmonize with U.S. on climate change | Harper Govt. to push North American carbon market plan with Obama | B.C. carbon tax kicks in on Canada Day | Every adult in Britain should be forced to carry ‘carbon ration cards’, say MPs | CEOs call for ‘aggressive’ action on climate change

Der Speigel
August 31, 2009

German climatologists are pushing for the creation of a “world climate bank” which would allow industrialized countries to purchase emission rights from less-developed nations. The revenues would enable poor countries to finance environmentally friendly economic development.

A new study by advisers to the German government has revealed that industrialized nations must radically reduce their CO2 emissions if they want to reach the internationally agreed target of limiting global warming to 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels. The climatologists are proposing setting up a “world climate bank” to allow countries to trade emission rights.

According to the German Advisory Council on Global Change (WBGU), Germany would have to halve its CO2 output compared to current levels by 2020 and cut emissions to zero by 2030 if it wants to remain on track. “These findings are as surprising as they are shocking,” WBGU executive Hans Joachim Schellnhuber said about the report, prepared ahead of December’s international climate summit in Copenhagen. The German government has up until now been planning much less ambitious cuts.

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In a ‘high-risk’ group? Pregnant? Native? Better line up now, if we’re to believe the Canadian medical industry’s house organ. Or – wait and take your chances with a runny nose, which is about all most H1N1 sufferers will experience. Those taking the vaccine are also taking a gamble – is the risk of degenerative neural disease and paralysis worth it?

Update (2009/9/2): The health minister insists that the vaccine is on schedule and the presence of adjuvanting agents will not affect delivery timetables.

Flashback: Swine flu jab link to killer nerve disease: Leaked letter reveals concern of neurologists over 25 deaths in America | Canada to order 50.4 million H1N1 vaccine doses – with adjuvant additive | Genetically modified Swine Flu hybrid may provide vaccine yield solution | Washington Post: Swine Flu Vaccine Will Contain Mercury | UK Government Swine Flu Advisor On Vaccine Maker Payroll | Fast-tracked swine flu vaccine will be safe, officials insist | Swine flu: How scared should we be? | Top Epidemiologist Slams Swine Flu Fearmongering | Legal immunity set for swine flu vaccine makers | Lessons of 1976: swine flu, fear, mass vaccinations, wasted millions | ‘Accidental’ Contamination Of Vaccine With Live Avian Flu Virus Virtually Impossible | Officials investigate how bird flu contaminated vaccines in Europe

CBC News
August 31, 2009

Canada’s approach to vaccinating people against swine flu is too slow to protect the most vulnerable, an editorial in Monday’s Canadian Medical Association Journal says.

Health Canada has chosen to include an adjuvant — a substance used to stretch a vaccine’s active ingredient and boost immune response to the serum — in the Canadian version of the vaccine against the H1N1 virus. Using an adjuvant requires a slower, more thorough licensing review process but ultimately allows more people to be immunized.

This approach is slower than providing the vaccine without adjuvant to high-risk groups to allow them to be immunized quickly, as the U.S., Europe and Australia are doing, Dr. Paul Hébert, editor-in-chief, and Dr. Noni MacDonald, senior editor of public health, said in their editorial.

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A victory for reason and the constitutional protections for speech!

Flashback: Cyberbullying verdict turns rule-breakers into criminals | Felony hacking precedent not set in case of Myspace cyberbully | Myspace terms of use could become fulcrum for destruction of online anonymity in precedent setting case

Kim Zetter, Wired
August 31, 2009

The judge who oversaw the Lori Drew cyber bullying case has released his final ruling explaining why he overturned her misdemeanor convictions.

U.S. District Judge George Wu had tentatively ruled in July to acquit Drew and throw out the three misdemeanor convictions against her, with the understanding that the ruling would not stand until he issued a written decision.

The latter was filed late Friday.

Wu ruled that Drew could not be guilty of violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act for merely violating a website’s terms of service.

Wu said the government’s interpretation of the CFAA was unconstitutionally vague. Letting that interpretation stand would ultimately have given prosecutors the power to criminally prosecute anyone for violating a website’s terms of service, Wu reasoned, and “would convert a multitude of otherwise innocent Internet users into misdemeanant criminals.”

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Flashback: A Stock Market Rally Engineered by Government | Central bank of Canada stands ready to inflate currency in response to strong loonie | Federal deficit hits $7.5B in April-May | Bank of Canada declares recession over | Cost Of US Bailout Hits A Whopping $24 Trillion Dollars | Second wave of economic crisis coming, international regulation necessary Brown warns | Budget officer ‘can’t tell’ if stimulus plan working | G8 leaders see no early end to stimulus | Central Bank of Canada ‘considering’ regulatory changes, ‘continuous private liquidity creation’ | TSX sinks below 10,000 on World Bank outlook | Flaherty looks for way to end stimulus | ‘Reduced pace of deterioration’ indicates economy on the mend: Flaherty | Soaring loonie adds to anxiety over economy | Federal deficit to top $50B | Bank of Canada poised to print money to buy bonds | G20 deal part of ‘unprecedented’ response to crisis: Harper | Stimulus needed now, Bank of Canada says | Optimistic central bank expects speedy economic rebound | Harper government plans deficits as deep as $30 billion | Jim Flaherty Urging Greater Federal, International Control over Canadian economy | Deficits ‘essential,’ Harper says | Flaherty lauds Keynesian global ‘economic stimulus’ strategies

CBC News
August 31, 2009

News that Canada’s GDP expanded by an underwhelming 0.1 per cent in June was enough to send a chill through financial markets Monday, as both the loonie and the Toronto Stock Exchange took a tumble.

The benchmark S&P/TSX Composite Index was one per cent lower, down 109.76 to 10,868.21, at closing.

Statistics Canada released data showing the country’s gross domestic product increased by 0.1 per cent in June. But the first monthly output increase in almost a year wasn’t enough for investors to get excited, as economists had been expecting a 0.2 per cent gain.

“The strength and sustainability of the recovery remains an open question,” BMO economist Doug Porter said.

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Don’t like the way the state is starving out the ethnic minority population? Incensed that Tamils have been herded into concentration camps? Feel like speaking out about it? There’s an ‘anti-terror’ law for you. Anti-terror laws are being used in much the same way in North America – against Canadian and US citizens in manufactured ’stings’ designed to create the impression that Al-CIAda hides under every bed. The purpose? To placate the population into standing down while an invisible prison, a neo-feudal state of new legal regimes, TASERs, cameras, and environmental taxes is erected around them. ‘Anti-terror’ laws – indefinite detention, secret evidence, rendition – are for you. Whether or not Canadians realize it yet.

Flashback: Tamils languish in Sri Lankan camps | Sri Lanka has ‘nothing to hide’ yet detains, deports Bob Rae enroute to observe camps | Oppressive anti-terror laws stay despite end of Sri Lankan civil war, Canadian embassy defaced by govt supporters | UN chief flies into Sri Lanka as Tamils herded into camps | Quarter of a million Sri Lankans face two years in camps | Tamil Tiger leader killed, insurgency crushed: officials | Tamil protesters blockade Gardiner expressway to highlight Sri Lankan plight | Cars moving, but Toronto Tamil protest questioned | UN satellite imagery attests to shelling of Tamil ’safe zone’ | Tamil civilians slaughtered as army shells ‘no-fire zone’ | Seventh Tamil suicide by self-immolation to protest Sri Lankan genocide | Sri Lankans protest genocide at Toronto’s Union Station

CBC News
August 31, 2009

A Sri Lankan court has sentenced a prominent Tamil journalist to 20 years in prison for violating anti-terrorism laws by criticizing the government’s conduct of the war against the Tamil Tigers.

J.S. Tissainayagam wrote articles in 2006 and 2007 accusing government forces of shelling a town to drive out its population, and alleging Sri Lankan authorities withheld food and other essential items from Tamil-majority areas as a tool of war.

The government has accused Tissainayagam of inciting violence with his writing in the now-defunct Northeastern Monthly magazine and accepting funds from the rebel group, whose formal name is the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

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The NAMA proposal referenced below is Ireland’s answer to the debt monetization being undertaken by other countries – toxic assets would be purchased with government bonds and held by the new institution. And if you disagree with the NAMA proposal and believe monetizing debt destabilizes the currency? The threat of IMF intervention in the sovereign Irish economy is always there to be dangled over legislator’s heads.

Flashback: US govt considers becoming bank shareholder | UK government takes control over Lloyd’s bank | Greenspan backs bank nationalisation | Bush outlines radical plan to part-nationalise bank | US considers following British example of taking stakes in banks | New World Order: Global co-operation, nationalisation and state intervention – all in one day

Henry McDonald, The Guardian
August 31, 2009

Government could take majority shareholding in struggling banks under new scheme but finance minister rules out nationalisation

The Irish government is prepared to become a majority stakeholder in the country’s banks covered by its proposed rescue scheme for the republic’s crisis-hit banking sector.

Ireland’s finance minister Brian Lenihan told parliamentarians that the state may take majority stakes in the banks if they need additional capital. This will happen after their loans are transferred into the state’s National Asset Management Agency, he said.

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What’s the big deal? Police robbery is now perfectly legal, no trial or conviction required for the seizure of property. These men need to be commended for their forward thinking.

Flashback: Crown complained of lack of Toronto police support in drug squad case | CBC releases Toronto drug squad probe report

David Bruser, Toronto Star
August 31, 2009

Montreal police had suspicions about Toronto drug squad members before charges were tossed

From left to right, Raymond Pollard, Steve Correia, Richard Benoit, Ned Maodus, Joseph Miched and John Schertzer. (Ron Bull/Toronto Star)

Seven years before Toronto drug squad officers were charged with shaking down suspects, a senior member of the Montreal Police force sent a “red flag” complaint about the behaviour of two squad members.

A Toronto Star-CBC investigation has revealed that in late 1997, two members of the now infamous Central Field Command Drug Squad travelled to Montreal to work a case but made police there suspicious with an alleged single-minded focus on gaining access to a suspect’s safety deposit box.

Today the dramatic and costly case against the Toronto drug squad officers see-saws yet again when prosecutors try to revive charges thrown out by a judge in 2008. The charges were tossed because the Crown took too long to bring the case to trial.

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Flashback: Ottawa denies altering public’s ECopyright Consultation submissions | Security guards stop MPs, students from distributing fair use flyers at Toronto copyright townhall | Can The Public Be Heard On Copyright Issues? | Copyright Consultation Launches: Time For Canadians To Speak Out | Third stab at copyright law ‘reform’ to kick off with consultations | Time to slay Canadian file-sharing myths | Canadian copyright lobbyists leaned on “independent” researchers to change report on file-sharing | Think tank plagiarizes, pulls report on Canadian piracy | Obama Administration Claims Copyright Treaty Involves State Secrets | Latest Round of Closed-Door ACTA Copyright Negotiations Wrap Up | Digital rights groups sue for access to secret ACTA treaty | Critics waging a cyber offensive to fight copyright changes | Canadian Industry Minister lies about Canadian DMCA on national radio, then hangs up | The Canadian DMCA: Check the Fine Print | Government ready to drop copyright bomb | Transparency needed on ACTA | Revamped copyright law targets electronic devices | New Attempt to Align Canada’s Copyright Act with USA Coming Soon | Canadian DMCA To Be Introduced Tomorrow Morning?

Alison Outhit, Exclaim!
August 31, 2009

Writer, broadcaster and musician Charlie Angus is a former member of punk pioneers L’Étranger and Juno-nominated Grievous Angels. An outspoken NDP critic on copyright and Canadian cultural policy issues, Angus was commended by the Toronto Star in 2006 as one of the ten most effective opposition members of Parliament.

What do you think is the purpose of the current consultations?
Even a government as thick-headed as the Conservative have realized that they’re going to get their fingers burned if they try to push through copyright reform without consulting the vast majority of people who are going to be affected by it. The previous bill, C-61 was bordering on ridiculous in its attempt to blur the line between criminal counterfeiting and legitimate personal use. The bill was dead on arrival because [to give it effect] you’d have to police every internet use, every home use and it’s simply not feasible. I think they learned that simply relying on corporate lobbyists to dictate copyright just isn’t realistic in the 21st century.

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Jim Flaherty: Banking czar? That about puts the last nail in the coffin of the Harper cabinet’s purported conservatism as they nationalize control of the highest echelons of the economy in this country. This is just the next logical step down the road to the centralization of economic control and rule by council that’s been discussed ad nauseum in the international press for months: Flaherty is following orders. And the author represents this move as sticking to the status quo? It says right in the article the US and UK are considering this new arrangement as well! And Flaherty may just as well have handed full control to the Bank of Canada, any Finance Minister is going to go with the suggestions produced by this unelected economic council anyways.

Flashback: Boost Bank of Canada powers: Carney | Geithner lambastes US economic watchdogs resistant to planned transfer of powers to Federal Reserve | Canada is now on the national securities regulation bandwagon | Central Bank of Canada ‘considering’ regulatory changes, ‘continuous private liquidity creation’ | US Treasury Secretary Geithner defends plan to step up oversight | Obama Regulatory Reform Plan Officially Establishes Banking Dictatorship In United States | Obama unveils overhaul of financial system oversight | Federal Reserve To Be Given Sweeping New Powers | ‘New world order’ needs better economic grounding: Carney | Bring in a Canadian securities regulator: Flaherty’s handpicked business panel | Flaherty appoints business leaders to economic advisory council | Jim Flaherty Urging Greater Federal, International Control over Canadian economy | Flaherty calls for mandatory IMF surveillance| Private Federal Reserve Makes Power Grab as Bush, McCain Urge Congress to Approve Plan | Treasury’s Plan Would Give Fed Wide New Power | Financial ’super cop’ role for Fed

Kevin Carmichael, The Globe and Mail
August 31, 2009

Keeping Canada out of financial trouble is my responsibility, minister says

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, who has spent the past six months thinking about whom to entrust with overseeing the country’s financial system, finally found the answer staring back at him in the mirror.

As the United States and other countries debate giving more authority to central banks and other regulatory agencies, Mr. Flaherty Sunday said he is sticking with his current approach to systemic oversight, which brings together the heads of the Bank of Canada, the federal banking regulator and other key authorities on a regular basis to compare notes. The decision means a previously obscure grouping of senior officials – the Financial Institutions Supervisory Committee – will be thrust into the spotlight as Canada’s answer to the pledge the federal government and its allies in the Group of 20 made to correct regulatory failings that contributed to the financial crisis.

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The Toronto Star picked up the phone and called Alex Jones? +1 for doing their job and taking note of one of the fastest growing social protest movements in the US, by name, and in a balanced manner. Incidentally, this journal has read reports that some do not understand the poster, or view its message as confused. Let StatismWatch be your guide to meme interpretation: The Joker is a villain. The explicit message is – Obama (or, if you prefer, his policies) are villainous. If you’re not sure why one earth one might think that, there’s a small selection of this most recent administration’s calumny documented below. He’s backed and run by Wall Street and it’s hard to see much daylight between his policies and those of his equally villainous predecessor. Perhaps Alex Jones’ movie The Obama Deception makes the case best. Watch it here for free.

Related: Bill would give president emergency control of Internet | Bush’s Search Policy For Travelers Is Kept | Guantanamo’s closure window dressing – overseas CIA ‘black sites’ to stay | Obama administration: Guantanamo detainees have ‘no constitutional rights’ | Obama Administration Claims Copyright Treaty Involves State Secrets | Obama tries to kill lawsuit challenging wiretapping program, fails | Dismay at Obama plan to leave 50,000 US troops in Iraq after 2010 | US Democrats Introduce Public National Service Bills | Obama administration tries to kill Bush e-mail secrecy case | Is Obama a closet conservative? | Obama backs Bush: No rights for Bagram prisoners | Activists ’shocked’ at Clinton stance on China rights | After Obama praises torture ruling, civil liberties group appalled | Obama takes heat for third cabinet appointee that hasn’t paid taxes | Pass stimulus or watch out, Obama warns | Obama calls for ‘dramatic action’ on stimulus package | CFR-Brookings to Dominate Obama Strategy | Obama appoints architects of economic collapse, financial globalism to economic team | Obama, like McCain, surrounds himself with elite CFR, Brookings powerbrokers | Sitting US Congressman: Expect shift towards world government under Obama | Change should be more than a slogan

Danielle Wong, Toronto Star
August 30, 2009

A viral “Obama Joker” poster campaign last month calls for people to put up as many posters of U.S. President Barack Obama as Heath Ledger’s villainous character from the Batman epic The Dark Knight as possible in public and to post videos on YouTube.

If you’re offended by the startling images of U.S. President Barack Obama smeared with clown makeup posted around Toronto, American libertarian radio talk show host and “alternative news” blogger Alex Jones says brace yourself.

“People are getting more aggressive because they realize being nice isn’t getting them anywhere,” said Jones, 35. “This is just the beginning.”

The self-proclaimed “freedom lover” from Austin, Tex., who runs American website infowars.com, launched a viral “Obama Joker” poster campaign last month, calling for people to put up as many posters of Obama as Heath Ledger’s villainous character from the Batman epic The Dark Knight as possible and to post videos on YouTube.

While Canadians have been known to be more moderate in critiquing their political leaders, the in-your-face poster campaign appears to have caught on around the city, with the placards plastered along University Ave.

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