If I were a betting man, I would have slapped down a c-note that Ford’s administration would go off the rails within two years. Even during the election it was clear that Ford’s buffoonish populism – attacks on public sector workers, combined with a …
Continue readingAuthor: redbedhead
RedBedHead: One More Reason To Like The Beatles
Still recovering from some Toronto Film Festival fun and getting back to work but thought it worthy to post this little cultural tidbit. The first thing is that it’s weird that a show contract and rider are being auctioned to a private bidder. It’s …
Continue readingRedBedHead: I Refuse To Read 9/11 Memorial Coverage
If you’re reading this right now you are doing something that I have refused to do: read any coverage or analysis of 9/11. I am boycotting the wall to wall coverage – the pull-out specials in the newspapers, the live coverage of ceremonies at ground ze…
Continue readingRedBedHead: European Revolt Against Austerity Picks Up Steam
Strikers in Italy resist austerity.
It seems apparent that European politicians somehow missed out the economics class where they explain how massive cuts to public spending in the middle of an economic contraction makes things worse. They also miss…
Continue readingRedBedHead: Killing The Bob Rae Myth
Watching the Ontario election you’d think that there was nothing of much import going on in the world. Why else would there be so little difference in the platforms of the three major parties in this election? For instance, you’d never know that a majo…
Continue readingRedBedHead: Capitalist Alienation Made Me Hang From Hooks
Ophelia by John Everett Millais, founder of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood
In the first part, we discussed how primitivist body decor is driven by the anti-modern impulse to restore something that has been lost – a sense of purpose and organic conne…
Continue readingRedBedHead: The Meaning Of Face Tattoos & Penis Piercings
While summer isn’t yet officially over, we know in our hearts that it’s pretty much done. The kids are back at school – as are some of us – it’s already getting cooler and Labour Day has come and gone. So, in the interest of easing you all into fall …
Continue readingRedBedHead: Libya’s Rebels: Yesterday We Tortured Them, Today We Arm Them
There’s no doubt that NATO, primarily the UK, France and the US, inserted themselves into the Libyan uprising as a means of gaining control over the course of the Arab Spring. In the case of France, it’s clear that expanding the control of Libya’s oil …
Continue readingRedBedHead: Turkey’s Snub & The Decline of Israel
Israeli blunder: Turkish ship Mavi Marmara as it’s being attacked by Israeli
commandos during attempt by flotilla to deliver aid to the Gaza Strip.
It was just over 20 years ago that I first became politically active around the first war against Ir…
RedBedHead: Remember When The CAW Was A Militant Union?
Ah, it’s nice to reminisce about the good old days sometimes, isn’t it? Since we’re on the verge of Labour Day Weekend, let’s hop into the Way Back Machine for a few, shall we, and review some find old chestnuts from when the Canadian Auto Workers used…
Continue readingRedBedHead: Libya: France Gets Oil Contracts, Arab Dictatorships Get To Back Slap
Yesterday saw the “Friends of Libya” carve-up conference in Paris where everyone sought to get in on the reconstruction and oil contract action. Besides the announcement that $15 billion in frozen Gaddafi funds would be released to the National Transit…
Continue readingRedBedHead: Capitalism Is Killing The Advance Of Healthcare
The scientific advances of the last century – and even of that last ten years – have been dizzying. The ability to turn ordinary skin cells into stem cells that can become any type of cell in the body; organ, limb and face transplants; gene therapy – a…
Continue readingRedBedHead: Did NATO Kill The Libyan Revolution?
What do you say when a dictator is overthrown and the news shows pictures of people celebrating? That’s easy, right? You feel good that the world is a slightly better place. But, then, what do you say if the dictator wasn’t fundamentally defeated by th…
Continue readingRedBedHead: Afghanistan: USA Busted Trying To "Cut & Run"
Remember all that macho b.s. that G W Bush (and Stephen Harper) said about not “cutting and running” in Afghanistan? We were gonna fight to the end – for truth, justice and the American Way. And remember how Harper and his cronies took the piss out of …
Continue readingRedBedHead: Did Layton Shift NDP To The Right?
I have a lot of time for Thomas Walkom – ever since way back in the 90s, when the Days of Action movement was heading into full swing and Walkom took to quoting the German revolutionary socialist Rosa Luxemburg. Most of the time and on most issues I f…
Continue readingRedBedHead: Is Curing Cancer Bad For Business?
Ten years ago when the first full human genome was sequenced after a mammoth 14-year effort and a $3 billion effort, we were promised a bounty of cures for the diseases that afflict is. But things haven’t turned out quite that way and, in many ways,…
Continue readingRedBedHead: Newsflash: Math Analysis Proves Global Capitalism Controlled By Tiny Minority
Ladies & gentlemen, meet the “power ball” – a graphical
representation of the concentration & centralization of capital
This research is interesting. Some math theorists at ETH, a science & technology university, in Switzerland took a lo…
RedBedHead: After Jack: Three Bad Ideas & One Good One For The NDP
The weeklong outpouring of mourning, love and solidarity after the passing of NDP Leader Jack Layton has now subsided. The sense of optimism that Jack insisted upon and the hunger for change that he not only represented but fanned to flame with the fun…
Continue readingRedBedHead: Steve Jobs’ Biggest Success: Sweatshops & Fat Salaries
The other day I mused on the simultaneous outpourings of sadness and loss over Jack Layton & Steve Jobs and what each of them represented. As I noted at the time I am a Mac Head and a bit of a technophile/gadgetphile. Having had a few days to think…
Continue readingRedBedHead: The Politics Of Immortality
If we grant that aging is, like other pathological conditions, a matter of molecules out of place – though perhaps considerably more complex than “simple” and singular diseases like cancer or diabetes, then we have to grant that it is also potentiall…
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