Politics

A blog post about consensus decision-making -
http://mollymew.blogspot.com/2008/02/cats-meow-issues-surrounding-consensus.html
with a link to a web forum discussion about this.

Remarks from the blog post author - 
The consensus model is "an open invitation for ... personal manipulation."  "It is also totally inappropriate where the issues being discussed are of any real importance and especially where there are real political differences that don't deserve to be argued into a false oblivion, only to resurface later (often at the very second when exhausted participants finally and mercifully exit the stage of the all too long meeting). In addition to this it gives huge power to salaried 'professional leftists' and those amongst us with no jobs nor family (and with exceedingly strong bladders ie coffee drinkers are penalized)."

After trying (unsuccessfully) to vote in the University Student Council (USC) elections from this computer, and posting a comment under Kota's reply, I considered not moving out of this chair. 

Ok, so feeling the need to be a responsible student, I sought out other voting options. I tried another computer in the library - "you are not enfranchised" (or something like that) was the result. So I went to the source, the University Community Centre. I figured I was in luck, there were two voting booths clearly marked. I sat down in the first one - which turned out to be completely offline. I snickered and muttered a suttle "figures". So I moved on to the second booth, which was... also completely offline.   read more »

There's a very concise interview with Chomsky @ alternet.org about the new South American Bank, headed up by the new left, and of course, about the failures of the IMF and World Bank. It's often hard to ask Chomsky questions that he then gives sizeable explanations (that just anyone can grasp) to in response. 

Chomsky on the fall of the IMF:

The IMF is in trouble now because it is losing its reserves. It was functioning on debt collection and if countries either restructured their debt or refused to pay it, they're in trouble. Incidentally the countries could legitimately refuse to pay much of the debt, because, in my opinion at least, it was illegal in the first place. For example, if I lend you money, and I know you're a bad risk, so I get high interest payments, and then you tell me at one point, sorry I can't pay anymore, I can't call on my neighbors to force you to pay me. Or I can't call on your neighbors to pay it off. But that's the way the IMF works. You lend money to a dictatorship and an elite, the population has nothing to do with it, you get very high interest because it's obviously risky, they say they can't pay it off, you say okay your neighbors will pay for it. It's called structural adjustment. And my neighbors will pay me off. That's the IMF as a creditors' cartel. You get higher taxes from the north.  read more »

Before deciding who your going to vote for in the upcoming USC election, if your voting please consider Ryan Gauss for USC president. 

Ryan Gauss did an amazing job at Kings with our student council.  He brought in Ralph Nader, David Suzuki, and Jack Layton.  He spoke out at city hall and the police service board against the sterotyping of students around what was dubbed 'project speakeasy' which targeted univeristy/college kids unfairly. 

I encourage people to vote for Gauss January 19th or 20th.   read more »

For second semester, PIRG-PHR re-news a promise to continue advocating for Palestinian human rights and social justice at UWO.  

We have a series of speakers coming to UWO, beginning with a talk by Marcy Newman titled 'Still Too Many Enemies: The Nahr el Bared Refugee Camp and Palestinians in Lebanon.'

When? 7pm, Tuesday, February 12, 2008  read more »

I had to be up bright and early this morning. Another Governance Task Force meeting to get to by bus, so I set my alarm and was lucky enough to hear it when it started to serenade me at 7:00 am. A quick shower and out the door so I could hoof it several blocks over to the Pond Mills SuperCuts. Usually I just buzz it myself (those of us on disability incomes could teach the city a thing or two about frugality), but I didn't want to address the GTF looking like I'd just joined the Marines.  read more »

There are some spooky stuff going in the Middle East and South Asia...

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/third-undersea-cable-reportedly-cut/story.aspx?guid=%7B1AAB2A79-E983-4E0E-BC39-68A120DC16D9%7D

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/01/31/dubai.outage/index.html  read more »

I’m tired. And I’m cold. Oh boy, am I cold. But it’s important to me that I get this out while I can still remember it. So, I’ll do that as best I can, and I’ll ask that you indulge me while I try to tell you this story. It’s going to be fairly long-winded I think, so you may want to grab some milk & cookies first… that’s always pretty good at bedtime…

<!--break--> Monday evening was Committee night down at City Hall. It was an unusually attractive night to be there, with lots of things being addressed which interest me. True, they were all going on in different rooms at the same time. And true, the proceedings were so hard to hear that sometimes I had to strain through my trifocals and try to lipread what was being said. And true, the noise at the back of the room and the noise coming from outside in the hall made the job of trying to follow along just a little bit more difficult. But that’s nothing new, and nobody’s in a hurry to fix it, so you learn to tolerate it.  read more »