Live after US left Irak
By · CommentsHe spoke from the same Oval Office setting used by Bush in 2003, when he told the world America had no alternative but to flush out Saddam Hussein’s putative weapons of mass destruction. The WMDs never turned up — and the war turned out far worse than Bush had fathomed, unleashing a civil war and rampant terrorism. Now, with the U.S. combat role officially ended, though the fighting is actually far from over, Obama has found a face-saving way to draw down U.S. troops without running out on Iraq. He is cleaning up the mess he inherited while making progress in stabilizing that country.
Today, all eyes have shifted from Iraq’s unnecessary war to Afghanistan, the war that 9/11 begat a decade ago. Canada sat out the Iraq invasion, but answered the call for help in Afghanistan, a war that Obama has made his own. Canadian troops, like American soldiers, have paid a heavy price in the Kandahar region. The U.S. President stressed that Afghanistan is a war America and its allies, including Canada, cannot win alone. Outside forces can help rebuild and stabilize, but they cannot determine the outcome.
The lesson of Iraq, if there is any to be learned, is that Iraqis must ultimately determine their own future, solve their own squabbles, and fight their own battles.
It is little different in Afghanistan. Now, Obama’s exit strategy in Iraq is being applied to Afghanistan, but with a difference. One trillion dollars and 4,400 soldiers combat deaths later in Iraq, the U.S. has learned again the limits to military power and the importance of diplomatic influence, economic strength and collective action. America and the world cannot do for Iraqis, or for Afghans, what they alone must do for themselves.
“They are not weak or ineffective forces. Now they are there both to serve as a deterrent to any kind of outside interference in Iraq and serve as a potential reinforcement to an Iraqi government if it needs it.”
The brigades’ advisory-and-assistance role means they will help provide both Iraq’s civilian and military agencies with intelligence and equipment support for counterinsurgency operations. In fact, that continues a role they already switched to months ago, well before Obama’s formal August 31 deadline.
“What we have seen since really June is that it is Iraqi forces which basically lead and take over virtually all of the missions,” Cordesman says. “That was when U.S. forces left the cities and populated areas in Iraq and that in many ways was a de facto withdrawal from active combat that occurred months ago, not in terms of this formal deadline.”
Ticketmaster Tweaks Ticket complaint
By · CommentsTicketmaster has announced that it intends to “do a better job” explaining those universally-detested “convenience” fees. They telegraphed this on Twitter — on a Sunday — maybe because there isn’t much to see here.
The number one complaint by music fans (who tend to agree on little) is the additional cost which are disclosed late in the ordering process when you have more invested in closing the deal.
Ticketmaster’s fees are divided between Ticketmaster, venues, promoters, artists, managers, tour managers, etc. on a sliding scale depending on how the deal is structured. They aren’t trivial: As the illustration to the right shows, this fee can add 45 percent to the cost of the transaction.
This new system is not totally transparent because Ticketmaster doesn’t explain the exact breakdown of the fees between the various stakeholders in each transaction. (As Azoff tweeted, “The fees don’t go to TM. Only a portion do.”) If transparency is the point, why not tell fans where these fees are going?
That’s not all. When you select a certain number of tickets from the dropdown menu, Ticketmaster does not update its prices to include the total price and fees for all the tickets, but instead, keeps listing the single ticket price. To that charge, Azoff tweeted in response last night that Ticketmaster “can’t boil all fees down to a per ticket fee until we know how many tix are bought and shipping method chosen, so it has to happen later.”
Ticketmaster as much as acknowledges that it’s ridiculous to list the fees separately, saying in its blog post, “You will begin to see many of our clients move to truly all-in pricing, because they know it sells more tickets and makes you happier.”
We understand that the bit about the shipping method, but why not reveal the fees as pertain to single versus group purchases earlier in the process? Ticketmaster charges a flat per-ticket fee now, so it has nothing to hide on this front other than the way those fees add up.
Breastfeeding mom to pursue complaint
By · CommentsA Saanich mother who was asked to cover up while breastfeeding on a bus said she’ll halt her human-rights complaint only when she’s sure the incident won’t happen again.
Olena Russell was asked to cover up by a B.C. Transit driver on a bus in downtown Victoria more than three weeks ago. B.C. Transit says an apology is in the mail, and drivers have been told that breastfeeding is permitted on buses in accordance with the B.C. Human Rights Code.
But Russell said she’ll pursue a B.C. Human Rights Tribunal complaint process until she feels certain no similar incidents will happen.
Russell was breastfeeding her baby daughter, Kaia, when she got on to the bus, ahead of her husband. The driver told Russell’s husband that she needed to cover up.
In the discussion that followed, the driver said it was at his discretion whether Russell could breastfeed on the bus — something the stay-at-home mom said she knew wasn’t true thanks to her involvement with a breastfeeding and infant nutrition support group through La Leche League of Canada.
“I was really surprised, disappointed. I have two children and three years later, I’ve never had anybody say anything to me,” said Russell, who also has a three-year-old son, Kasian.
After getting off the bus, they walked for a few minutes before getting on a second bus. Russell said she was again breastfeeding, but this time the driver didn’t seem to mind.
The couple began filing a pair of complaints — first a letter to B.C. Transit, then an official complaint to the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal that Russell said she’ll post Monday.
B.C. Transit spokeswoman Joanna Linsangan said the transit company received Russell’s letter on Wednesday and mailed out an apology Friday, along with a pair of bus passes for the month of August.
B.C. Transit has investigated the incident and issued a letter to all operators reminding them to abide by the Human Rights Code.
The code bars discrimination based on sex, which includes pregnancy and breastfeeding. This means mothers have a legal right to breastfeed in public places and makes asking them to cover up discriminatory, according to a Ministry of the Attorney General publication.
No Job no clue for live
By · CommentsFirst that everything, imploro, does not go to obvious jokes of autocompasión. It does not say: “I am in forced vacations, jajajaja”. The others will pretend that them cause grace, but he is not chistoso, créame. When they ask to him what walks doing, it admits that it is without work and that it does not find anything. Sure the idiot whom she has to the front will feel discomfort before the answer and will try to be saved with a drawer phrase: “Ah, good, but is resting at least”. Asúmalo with dignity, if right unemployed person even remained when he does not have fiancèe nor he saved the sufficient thing to go away of stroll and to escape of his inactive routine.
It is a situation that some illustrate saying: “The hunger with the desire was joined to eat… and with the lack of silver “. The grandmothers express it of another way, as ordinary as wise: “One “cagao” and with the water far”. Weeks one and two are not so serious. In my case, I made returns of bank, I sent last leaves of life, I called to my complete listing of contacts and I met with all those that I could, for “greeting them” and requesting to them of step that warned to me if they knew of some work. They are that type of encounter that one initiates with: “Uy, finally was let see”; and it finishes with: “It is not lost”. What lie.
It gives to the midnight seeing The Film me Zone Intenté to make all those things that before I did not do by “lack of time”. I sat out to read a book. I found ingenious hidalgo, Don Quixote of Mancha. I animated myself to open it by the amused old title page of a fat one on a donkey and of a anoréxico horseman with armor. I started: “In a place of Mancha…, of whose name… to decide ” zzzz…, zzzz…, zzzz to me…. What dream. The 11 in the morning became the 11 from the dawn, because he was earliest than it could raise after trasnochar seeing repeated chapters of the Simpsons and one to me that another program on relations of pair in The Zone Film, eróticos cases of the real life (I realized that Cinemax entered the same wave).
Possibly a call to 10 woke up to me in the morning and I delivered my better attack to clarify the voice and not to sound to just raised, but it is an impossible task; all realize: “ You were sleeping”, ask. It resisted to me to accept it: “Nooooo, for nothing…”. The subject becomes a nightmare as of week three. It is like carrying out that film in which every day is repeated of identical way to the previous one. The back hurts to me as much of sleeping; I feel shame to see me total light of the day in messy hair pajamas and; I bathe before my brothers arrive from the University or the work; now they are the 2 of afternoon and it is called on to me have breakfast-to have lunch requesting an address; I wash the stoneware so that in my house they create that at least that I do; I watch (any old series, because Caracol TV decided of foolish way to end Parents and Children); it is at night and arrive my parents; he salutes to me with coldness and watching to me as if outside a parasite, a leech that feeds itself on its blood; my mamita yes to me continues calling “king” and until it serves food to me, although it knows that I did not do anything in all the day; it is the midnight and there I am, again, seeing The Zone Film.
In that new and strange world, that turns out to be my my own house, I realize detail that had let pass inadvertent. The store of the district is seen by day very different. My brother, when he arrives to study, in front of feels like per hours the computer. My sister, when she returns to work, speaks without stopping by telephone as if still she was 15 years old. It thought that my parents no longer discussed, but I discovered that they continue it doing newspaper. By days, my grandma was my my better friend the days are debilitating (because, in serious, she produces fatigue not to do anything). I hope with anxieties the weekend to leave with some friends and friends. I try that they invite to me. They return the uncomfortable conversations about what I am doing, etc. I approach the women because I cannot offer to them, not even, an aromatic one. The weekend finishes very fast and returns Monday… and Tuesday… and Monday. It seems a joke of my.
She was always available for me. We had so much in common: without sentimental work nor commitments and right it finished returning from small trip, so that she was all mine. But it did not last. She needed a space for her own social life, with her older friends . It requested to me that it did not call more and said to me that was a “intense one”. I decided that it was not going to let to me win of the situation. It was the moment for making exercise, to retake the guitar classes that never I initiated with judgment. It was Monday, again, and although already it had lost noon raising me to 11 of the “dawn”, was not behind schedule to begin to all along take advantage of free del that now arranged.
It was then when I received the call that hoped: it would begin to work the other week. Hardly it had understood the potential that had my “vacates” and of a little while to other they snatch my hours and hours to me of free time. I was convinced that, in any case, it was at the correct time for including certain habits in my life, although would return to the intense rate of work. I in the morning listed to the alarm-clock for the 8, with the firm intention to rise to trotar. Before laying down to me, I took hold another book, this time something more relative, than already it had read before:
“Many years later, as opposed to… firing squad, colonel Aureliano… “zzzz…, zzzzz…, zzzzz… Damn it is, I remained slept. Again, they are the 11 of the “dawn”.
Workers Complaint
By · CommentsHow would you feel if you got robbed but couldn’t report to the police unless you had first confronted the robber and asked for your wallet back?
That’s how construction worker Raul Aguilera described his battle for unpaid wages against a former employer under British Columbia’s employment standards enforcement system.
“This is ridiculous,” said Aguilera, 44, who came to Canada from Mexico as a skilled worker in 2000 and now lives in Toronto. “It puts the whole burden on workers. The process is hard and frustrating.”
The bill — the subject of a one-day public hearing Tuesday — mandates workers to first confront the employer before filing a complaint on disputes such as working conditions, owed wages, wrongful dismissal, vacation and overtime pay.
It would also allow employment standards officers to facilitate settlements, currently a responsibility of trained Ontario Labour Relations Board adjudicators.
The changes are part of the province’s employment standards modernization strategy to reduce the 14,000 workers’ claims in backlog.
But critics fear the “mandatory self-enforcement” approach would adversely affect all Ontario workers, especially those in low-paying temp jobs and newcomers with language barriers.
“You don’t reduce backlog by creating more barriers to discourage complaints,” said Fred Hahn, president of the 230,000-member Canadian Union of Public Employees in Ontario.
Aguilera, an installer, worked for a Vancouver construction company in 2005 and was owed $600. He spent days to study the labour ministry’s self-help kit before he learned to calculate the amount of unpaid wages and completed the complex complaint form.
To show ministry staff his attempt to resolve the dispute, Aguilera called and faxed his employer, but to no avail. Finally, he went to the boss’ work site.
“He refused to pay me and just started pushing me really hard. I was afraid. I just left,” recalled Aguilera, whose case was finally accepted by the ministry after he detailed the confrontation.
Yufen Wu, a nanny from China, was owed two months of salary and overtime pay by a Burlington family of seven. She was immediately terminated in October after her boss was notified of a complaint she filed earlier.
When she called the family to recoup the unpaid wages, she was contacted by police and threatened with harassment charges.
“This bill would give employers even more power and make it worse for workers,” said Wu.
The labour ministry proposes to exempt certain workers from mandatory self-enforcement: young workers, live-in caregivers, people with language barriers or a disability, workers afraid to contact the employer or when the employer has closed or gone bankrupt.
“How do you decide whose English is not good enough and who is not afraid to confront the employer?”
Why Summer Vacation Won’t Make You Happier
By · CommentsFrom an informal and highly unscientific survey of friends and colleagues, I can report that the reasons for not feeling happy after returning from vacation include: the flight home (red-eye to New York); realizing what they just did to their credit-card balance; getting back to work; wondering if they should have gone somewhere different; sharp memories of kids fighting constantly in the back seat of the rental car; and sadness that the next vacation will not arrive for months, typically around the end of the year, making them wonder over and over, How am I going to hold out until then?
I, in contrast, not having taken a vacation this year and with none scheduled, am positively euphoric compared with these dour souls: I have something to look forward to and a world of possible destinations to fantasize about.
Anecdotes do not equal data, as scientists say, but in this case the anecdotes about vacations failing to give us a post-trip mood boost match the results of years of research. Studies point to an inescapable conclusion: “Generally, there is no difference between vacationers’ and non-vacationers’ post-trip happiness,” as the authors of a recent paper in the journal Applied Research in Quality of Life put it. One interesting exception is the period just before taking a vacation, when about-to-be travelers report feeling happier than nonvacationers, possibly because the anticipation puts them in a good mood.
But the holiday aftermath is a different story, and a glum one. One small study in 2008 used text messages from vacationers during their holidays to assess how happy they were, and then compared these real-time missives with how people recalled their holiday moods once they’d returned to real life. Vacationers were, overall, happier on holiday than in their normal lives. So far, so good. But once home, they stank at remembering how happy they had been while away, consistently recalling higher levels of happiness than they had reported at the time. That suggests two things: we will ourselves to recall being happy on vacation (if we weren’t happy, why did we just spend all that money?), but by comparison real life feels grimmer. Another small study, from 2004 in the Annals of Tourism Research, measured the effect of a vacation on post-vacation mood more directly, having people fill out a questionnaire that assessed their levels of happiness right before going on holiday and then when they returned. (Nontravelers also filled out the questionnaire, with results confirming that about-to-be vacationers indeed experience an anticipatory high.) The carry-over effect of a vacation on happiness was so small, the best the researchers could report was that vacations are “not causing individuals to feel any worse off than before traveling.” I don’t think we’ll be seeing that sentiment on tourist Web sites any time soon. (“Come to the Caribbean: you won’t feel any lousier than you did before vacationing here!”)
Why? For one thing, holiday trips are not 24/7 bliss. There are missed flight connections, disappointing hotels, bad food, and illness. Looking back on all that, once we’re back home, can understandably put a dent in our happiness.
Although scientists generally find no correlation between length of a vacation and post-trip contentment, there is one argument in favor of shorter vacations. Say you get 10 days of vacation a year.
Result: vacationers were happier before their trips than were nonvacationers, confirming the anticipation effect or suggesting that people able to take trips might have more happiness-boosting characteristics (good health, money, friends and family to travel with) than nonvacationers do.
G20-related police complaints on the rise
By · CommentsComplaints filed against police for their actions during the G20 summit are mounting — but the number is still not as high as expected after a weekend in which more than 1,000 people were arrested.
Between June 27 and July 3, the provincial Office of the Independent Police Review Director received 164 complaints, compared with an average 80 per week, said spokeswoman Rosemary Parker.
The arm’s-length agency created last year to deal with complaints against police doesn’t have “enough resources” to determine what portion of those are related to the G20, Parker said.
However, some people who may be intimidated by the process of lodging a complaint with the provincial office are turning to the Canadian Civil Liberties Association. It has received more than 75 complaints from people caught up in mass arrests.
“We are finding that people may be intimidated by the process, by the amount of information they need to provide to make a complaint, and some are worried that if they file a complaint the police will get mad at them,” said Des Rosiers. The group helps individuals file a complaint or get legal advice, she said.
Most complaints lodged with CCLA came after a meeting last Tuesday at Christie Pits Park, where people were urged to take action through legal avenues.
Natalie Logan, 21, was among those attending. She said she was arrested while taking photos at The Esplanade on Saturday evening and detained for 14 hours.
Logan plans to send her complaint to both the complaints office and the civil liberties group. She delayed doing so, she said, because she wanted to ensure her account was as neutral and accurate as possible. “I want to keep this issue upfront and not let it fizzle away with time.”
In the mean time, she urges people to speak out: “It’s important for people to stand up and denounce police misconduct, and filing a complaint is the best way to do so. It’s a service to your community to do so.”
Latest BP Oil Spill Lawsuit
By · CommentsCompanies that provided fireboats following the explosion aboard the Deepwater Horizon oil rig have been named in a lawsuit. The complaint, filed by fisherman and others whose incomes have been impacted by the BP oil spill, claims the fireboats flooded the doomed rig, causing it to sink and damage the well a mile beneath the surface of the Gulf of Mexico.
Seventeen companies are named in the lawsuit, including Seacor Marine and Diamond Offshore Drilling. According to a Business Week report, the suit seeks compensatory and punitive damages on behalf of all commercial fisherman, charter-boat operators and other businesses affected by the spill; property owners whose land was fouled; and oil workers who lost work because of the U.S.-imposed halt in offshore drilling.
According to Business Week, the complaint further alleges that the fireboats should have used their “dynamic positioning systems” to hold the Deepwater Horizon in place while fighting the fire with industry-approved methods, which would have prevented the sinking and the oil spill.
The lawsuit has been filed in U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Louisiana (New Orleans).
In other oil spill news, federal officials have decided to allow pressure testing of the containment cap that was installed over the leaking well last week to continue for now. This despite the appearance of bubbles and seepage in four place around the gusher. According to The Washington Post, the Obama Administration is allowing BP to keep the cap shut off for the next 24 hours while engineers try to determine the severity and consequences of the problems.
The well was shut off last week, and oil has stopped flowing in the Gulf of Mexico for now. However, over the weekend, BP and the government were at odds over whether to allow the well to remain shut off. BP wants it to stay capped until relief wells – the only permanent way to end the spill – are finished sometime in the next month.
However, the government was pushing BP to open the well up and continue efforts to siphon the oil and collect it in containment ships on the shore. It would take at least a few days to get those ships reconnected, and oil would have to be allowed to flow freely into the sea while that occurred. Federal officials took this stance after pressure readings on the cap weren’t as high as expected. This could be an indication that there is a leak somewhere else in the wellbore, or deep down in bedrock, which could make the seabed unstable. The well would need to be reopened to ensure no further damage is done
Oil spill who to blame
By · CommentsThe beaches in Alabama are as white as sugar, wide, and very beautiful. The chemical makeup of the sand on the beaches is quartz. To think of what is happening to the beaches makes us very sad and apprehensive. But what is happening to the sea turtles, our beloved pelicans that are so ugly but soar so gracefully, and all the seabirds really breaks our hearts.
Then there is the human element. From the agony of the loved ones who had family members who perished with the devastation on the oil rig to the oil rig workers, from the roughnecks to the roustabouts, from the members of the management team of BP who were inflicted with terrible injuries to the many small business owners who will never recover from the effects of this catastrophe, from the property owners who depend on the income from individual condominiums to make financial ends meet to many others, the list goes on and on. This accident will go down in history as the worst ecological and environmental episode ever!
The primary responsibility for all of this death and destruction falls in the lap of a good company from one of our staunchest allies, Great Britain. There are other companies that are complicit, if that is the right word, but BP is the primary company of responsibility. The other companies are Transoceanic Exploration, Halliburton and some smaller suppliers. The U.S. government has, and continues to show, disdain for the efforts and lack of urgency BP has exhibited. Based on the recognized magnitude of the problem, the financial implications for BP, and the public relations nightmare created by this cataclysmic occurrence, how can anyone think that BP is not doing everything in its power, with the best technology available, to bring this man made rupture in the Gulf’s subsurface to finalization?
It is true that deepwater oil exploration technology is suspect, as evidenced by today’s events. But the oil companies are drilling in areas of such incredible depths that technology is being created as they go. The oilrig that exploded was capped at 5,290 feet, and the drill was another 17,000 feet below that. But since so many of the areas where oil is abundant and easily recoverable in the United States have been eliminated from oil exploration that the only place left is the oceans surrounding our country. Other nations of the world are drilling in the Gulf, and foreign exploration will continue.
Many people have blamed the Obama administration for its meek response to the problem. Others have talked about the restrictive demand of the environmentalists as being a component of the problem, and all have talked about the overall intransigence of British Petroleum. The critics are all right in their thinking, and I don’t have enough space to discuss each charge. But one thing is clear from the governmental standpoint. Politics pervades our entire life. We can’t even escape it when we have a national catastrophic event such as this.
Obama has talked about “kicking ass,” and the politicians have already initiated a criminal investigation. There will be time for all this political posturing once the situation is under control, and it will be. Now is the time for all parties to focus on stopping this calamity and trying to kick the ass of the only party in this drama that can stop it is really stupid.
The millions upon millions of gallons of oil hemorrhaging into the Gulf of Mexico every day is a crude reminder of the many ways humans are fouling the planet. As forests are cleared, cities and suburbs paved and expanded, as the air and sea warm and become increasingly polluted with cancer-causing chemicals and garbage, and with species dropping like flies, the planet’s health is being challenged in ways that have not occurred in its entire 4.5-billion-year existence.
World Cup soccer could kill you
By · CommentsTake care when you’re watching the World Cup. It could be hazardous to your health – especially if you’re favourite team is facing a tough game or shoot out.
According to a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine watching a stressful soccer match more than doubles the risk of an acute cardiovascular event. And the study warns that in view of “this excess risk” men with known heart
The study examines the period from June 9 to July 9 2006 during the FIFA World Cup held in Germany and looks at cardiovascular events in patients in the greater Munich area. Heart attacks in 4,279 patients were assessed. And on the days of matches involving the German team, the study found the incidence of cardiac emergencies was 2.66 times than during the control period.
“Our results show a strong and significant increase in the incidence of cardiovascular events (including the acute coronary syndrome and symptomatic cardiac arrhythmia), in a defined sample of the German population, in association with matches involving the German team during the FIFA World Cup,” the study says.
“In contrast, the average daily number of cardiac emergencies during soccer matches involving foreign teams was well within the range of values obtained during the control period.”
In other words if it’s your team that’s in a tight spot during the World Cup you’re more likely to have a heart attack. “It is clear that watching an important soccer match, which can be associated with intense emotional stress, triggers the acute coronary syndrome and symptomatic cardiac arrhythmia.”
A British Medical Journal analysis also found there was a connection between watching the World Cup and heart attacks. The analysis found the risk of being admitted to a British hospital for acute myocardial infarction on June 30, 1998 – the day England lost to Argentina in a World Cup match that was decided by a penalty kick shoot out – was higher than other days. In fact 25 per cent higher than average for that day of the year. And it wasn’t just the day of the loss, but heart attacks continued for a couple more days. In total there were 55 more heart attacks than normal.