A brief note to show that I'm still alive

Area C:
This is the plot of land in the east end of Town that has been earmarked for huge development - 16,000 people in 20 years. Well a developer has emerged and said he wants to build 1600 houses over the next few years and wants his plans expedited by the election in November. Councillor McCaughey says he won't stand in their way! So how in hell are we going to fix the problems of such planning in 13 weeks? First off this development is in the middle of the land; who is going pay for the roads to get to this plot? Who is going to build the sewage treatment plant needed for the first 200 houses? Who is going to approve this plan when it will set the standard for the whole 1600 acres, by virtue of being the first to build? and are these questions going to be answered in 12 weeks?

Policing:
Now that Port Hope has told the County to get stuffed and will also provide the costs necessary to do a proper policing study perhaps the local paper can wake up and figure out that the reason why small urban towns have higher policing costs is because the rural areas are still freeloading. They get police grants and we don't. Compare apples to apples and it will be seen that rural police costs are rising faster than urban policing areas. Just look at the cost difference in Port Hope - Ward 1 versus Ward 2. Tell Dalton M to treat the urban areas fairly and perhaps Cobourg and Port Hope would be happy to participate in a County wide policing study.

Tax Increases:
If anyone in Cobourg wants to figure out why their taxes have been escalating perhaps they should look at the County levy. Now the empire builders, and Rome has nothing on these guys!, want to build a bigger building and pay for it with court rental fees from the old building.

Random Thoughts

The World Cup: Pity Rooney stomped on Rinaldo's private parts, the game might have gone another way. But when will the bloody English learn to kick a penalty?

The Municipal Election: I picked up nomination papers yesterday and am looking for helpers and money, want to help in any way email me at ben@eagle.ca I will be seeking to be the Budget Chief and will go up against Gil Brocanier.

The MidEast crisis: Terrible what can I say?

Stealing the mexican election, are we all just conspiracy theorists?

STEALING MEXICO: Bush Team Helps Ruling Party "Floridize" Mexican Presidential Election

By Greg Palast

Greg Palast is the author of the New York Times bestseller, " ARMED MADHOUSE: Who's Afraid of Osama Wolf?, China Floats Bush Sinks, the Scheme to Steal '08, No Child's Behind Left and other Dispatches from the Front Lines of the Class War."

Friday, June 30, 2006 -- GEORGE Bush's operatives have plans to jigger with the upcoming elections. I'm not talking about the November '06 vote in the USA (though they have plans for that, too). I'm talking about the election this Sunday in Mexico for their Presidency.

It begins with an FBI document marked, "Counterterrorism" and "Foreign Intelligence Collection" and "Secret." Date: "9/17/2001," six days after the attack on the World Trade towers. It's nice to know the feds got right on the ball, if a little late.

What does this have to do with jiggering Mexico's election? Hold that thought.

This document is what's called a "guidance" memo for using a private contractor to provide databases on dangerous foreigners. Good idea. We know the 19 hijackers came from Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and the Persian Gulf Emirates. So you'd think the "Intelligence Collection" would be aimed at getting info on the guys in the Gulf.

No so. When we received the document, we obtained as well its classified appendix. The target nations for "foreign counterterrorism investigation" were nowhere near the Persian Gulf. Every one was in Latin America -- Argentina, Venezuela, Mexico and a handful of others. See one of the documents yourself.

Latin America?! Was there a terror cell about to cross into San Diego with exploding enchiladas?

All the target nations had one thing in common besides a lack of terrorists: each had a left-leaning presidential candidate or a left-leaning president in office. In Venezuela, President Hugo Chavez, bete noir of the Bush Administration, was facing a recall vote. In Mexico, the anti-Bush Mayor of Mexico City, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador was (and is) leading the race for the Presidency.

Most provocative is the contractor to whom this no-bid contract was handed: ChoicePoint Inc. of Alpharetta, Georgia. ChoicePoint is the database company that created a list for Governor Jeb Bush of Florida of voters to scrub from voter rolls before the 2000 election. ChoicePoint's list (94,000 names in all) contained few felons. Most of those on the list were guilty of no crime except Voting While Black. The disenfranchisement of these voters cost Al Gore the presidency.

Having chosen our President for us, our President's men chose ChoicePoint for this sweet War on Terror database gathering. The use of the Venezuela's and Mexico's voter registry files to fight terror is not visible -- but the use of the lists to manipulate elections is as obvious as the make-up on Katherine Harris' cheeks.

In Venezuela, leading up to the August 2004 vote on whether to re-call President Chavez, I saw his opposition pouring over the voter rolls in laptops, claiming the right to challenge voters as Jeb's crew did to voters in Florida. It turns out this operation was partly funded by the International Republican Institute of Washington, an arm of the GOP. Where did they get the voter info?

In that case, access to Venezuela's voter rolls didn't help the Republican-assisted drive against Chavez, who won by a crushing plurality.

In Mexico this Sunday, we can expect to see the same: challenges of Obrador voters in a race, the polls say, is too close to call. Not that Mexico's rulers need lessons from the Bush Administration on how to mess with elections.

In 1988, the candidate for Obrador's Party of the Democratic Revolution (PDR), who opinion polls showed as a certain winner, somehow came up short against the incumbent party of the ruling elite. Some of the electoral tricks were far from subtle. In the state of Guerrero, the PDR was leading on official tally sheets by 359,369. Oddly, the official final count was 309,202 for the ruling party, only182,874 for the PDR. Challenging the vote would have been dangerous. Two top officials of Obrador's party were assassinated during the campaign.

Crucial to the surprise victory of the ruling party was the introduction of computer voting machines and the centralization of voter databases. Observer Andrew Reding of the Council on Hemispheric Affairs reported that ruling party operatives had special access codes denied the opposition.

Whether the US "War on Terror" lists will find a use in Sunday's election, we cannot know. But the use of American government resources to interfere in south-of-the-border campaigns is an open secret. The GOP's International Republican Institute has run training sessions for the PAN youth wing, funded by US taxpayers through the "National Endowment for Democracy."

Foreign -- that is, American -- interference in political campaigns is a crime. That didn't stop Team Bush. However, when the theft of its citizen files was discovered, Argentina threatened to arrest ChoicePoint contractors until the company returned the tapes -- and Mexico's attorney general did in fact arrest the ChoicePoint data thieves to avoid his party's looking too much the stooge of its Washington patron. Whether George Bush gave back his copy, no one will say.

Wholesale theft is expected on Sunday in forms both subtle and brutal. How the US' purloined "counterterrorism" lists will be used, we don't know. We are certain however, that the Administration did not siphon off these Latin voter files to fight a War on Terror. It appears, rather, part of the Bush Administration's and GOP's hemispheric War on Democracy -- along a battle line which runs from Florida to Ohio to Juarez.