God kills a baby penguin every time a business, union, nonprofit, band, or any other sort of organization makes a facebook GROUP when they should be using a PAGE.
Two baby penguins when one of the aforementioned organizations make a personal profile under the org’s name and tries to use it as a public page.
One year in purgatory for every stuffy CEO, union leader, politician, or other leader who says “nobody I know uses facebook, it was difficult enough when they made us use email.”
end rant.
As of just a couple hours ago, Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that the second Gaza Flotilla will soon be set to sail, despite numerous setbacks in port.
If you pay any attention to the news at all, you might remember last year’s raid on the six ships of the Gaza Freedom Flotilla. The Israeli military carried out an operation that left nine activists killed and dozens of others wounded.
The Canadian boat in this year’s flotilla, the Tahrir, can be followed on Twitter in English and French for all their latest news. I’ve been glued to the updates (as much as I can be and still get work done), with my heart in my mouth, at once frightened for the folks who have showed tremendous courage in taking on this mission, and also wishing I were there with them.
The leaders of Canada’s federal parties have not endorsed the Tahrir and its mission – Official Opposition Leader Jack Layton has said that it’s not an initiative that’s supported by the NDP, and that the party instead wants to call for an end to the blockade through the United Nations. Meanwhile, interim Liberal leader Bob Rae has said that a blockade-breaking mission isn’t necessary to get aid to Gaza, and that there are clear avenues through agencies such as the Red Cross.
If this mission were simply about delivering aid, Rae’s criticism would have merit. The point here, though, is that the Israeli blockade is illegal, and this mission is hopefully another opportunity to remind the world of that fact.
I appreciate economists like Jim Stanford for going against the ideological grain of their discipline. Mr. Stanford is especially skilled at making economics more accessible for the average person in general, and progressives in particular. I feel like his book Economics for Everyone should be on (as per its title) *everyone’s* required reading list.
For Canada Day, Jimbo treats us to a portrait of Corporate Canada. (via The Progressive Economics Forum) He points out that 50 companies account for about two-thirds of the after-tax profits generated by all corporations in Canada.
For my favourite part of the data crunching, pay attention to the profit-per worker column in the table below.
Source: Jim Stanford's calculations from Globe & Mail's Report on Business “The Top 1000,” and Statistics Canada data.
Jimbo observes:
the resource producers had very modest employment: just 82,000 in total. This means that the resource industry is the pinnacle of “exploitation” (measured loosely by after-tax profits generated per worker). On average, each worker at those 17 companies generated a stunning $325,000 in profit for their employers – compared to a comparatively stingy $75,000 per worker in the financial sector. Of course, it is not just workers that the oil companies and other resource firms are exploiting: it is the planet, too.
“Ireland, as distinct from her people, is nothing to me; and the man who is bubbling over with love and enthusiasm for “Ireland,” and can yet pass unmoved through our streets and witness all the wrong and the suffering, the shame and the degradation wrought upon the people of Ireland—yea, wrought by Irishmen upon Irish men and women, without burning to end it, is, in my opinion, a fraud and a liar in his heart, no matter how he loves that combination of chemical elements he is pleased to call Ireland.”
– James Connolly, Irish socialist and leader in the 1916 Easter Rising
@esooze in Cape Breton 