US media conglomerates get the red carpet...Canada's manufacturing workers...the back of the hand

Different strokes for different folks as they say.

If you live in this country it's impossible not to know of the thousands of auto workers in Oshawa, Ontario who will be losing their jobs as General Motors closes its truck plant next year. Thousands more in auto parts plants and various support industries will also lose their jobs.

Over 200,000 manufacturing workers mainly in Ontario and Quebec have joined the ranks of the unemployed over the last five years.

This past week Air Canada announced they were giving two thousand more workers "the axe".

There's talk of the economy of Ontario, for over a century Canada's economic "engine" tanking so much that in a few short years the province will qualify for "equalization payments".

You would think that the government of Canada would view this as a "crisis" that needs to be dealt with.

But oh no, Prime Minister Stephen Harper's government has decided to do...ummmm...errr...nothing.

Okay, they did do something.

In the 1990's then Liberal Finance Minister Paul Martin implemented massive cuts to the unemployment insurance system. Workers benefits were cut, qualifying periods were lengthened, and the amount of time the unemployed could collect EI benefits was shortened. They made it much harder for unemployed workers to access job training programmes.

They even renamed the programme "Employment Insurance" and so "UI" became "EI".

Because the programme wasn't paying out benefits, but workers and employers were still paying into the EI fund, a massive surplus was built up...to the tune of over $50 billion!

Everyone condemned what the Chretien/Martin government was doing.

Those on the left of the political spectrum i.e. unions, community and social action groups, the NDP and the Bloc Quebecois all argued that benefits for the unemployed should be improved given the massive surplus that was building up in the EI fund.

Those on the right of the political spectrum argued that nothing more should be done for the unemployed, but rather EI premiums for employers and employees should be cut.

When Stephen Harper's minority Conservative government came to power in 2006 at first they continued following previous Liberal policy.

However in this year's budget, they finally did something about the EI surplus. They pocketed it. Harper's government legalized the theft of the EI fund.

Recently, under pressure from the US Ambassador, California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, and all of the fat cat US media conglomerates who control Hollywood and the recording industry, Harper's government introduced Bill C-61, "An Act to Amend the Copyright Act".

This bill is the US media mogul's wet dream come true. It's a Canadian copy of the U.S. Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA)...only worse.

This bill criminalizes just about everything that the average person might do with digital media, opens the door to ISP "snooping" on your online activities and will result in massive numbers of lawsuits against internet users.

Over 28,000 law suits have been filed in the U.S., mostly against teenage kids for file sharing. Think our courts are clogged now?

The Conservative government is engaged in spin right now trying to say that citizen's "fair dealing" rights have been protected in this bill. Don't believe a word of it.

As soon as a corporation puts a "digital lock" on some media, your rights to fair dealing go out the window. Corporate digital locks are given legal priority over your fair dealing rights...just like the U.S. DMCA.

80% of the music industry is controlled by just four corporate conglomerates. Everything will be locked. You'll have no rights at all.

In case you haven't noticed, I'm a user of the free software GNU/Linux computer operating system. The movie industry does not supply software that will permit me to watch a legally purchased (but encrypted) DVD movie on my computer.

Right now, I can legally download software that allows me to "break" the lock so that I can watch the movie I just paid good money for on my computer.

Under this new law, viewing a legally purchased DVD movie on my computer will be illegal. Distributing the software that allows me to view an encrypted DVD movie on my computer will also be illegal.

Just about every other kind of "format shifting" will become illegal. If you want to open up your mobile phone so that you can use it with a different mobile phone provider that will become illegal. Want to move music that you've legally downloaded from a music service from one device to another? Illegal.

Parliament is in recess over the summer. They'll resume business on September 15th. Over the summer, contact your Member of Parliament. You can do so easily via the "Copyright for Canadians" website (click here).


The NDP is taking a strong position against Bill C-61 with MP Charlie Angus (Timmins-James Bay) leading a heroic effort worthy of Jimmy Stewart in "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington".

Liberal and Bloc Quebecois MP's in particular need to be leaned on. The Conservatives only need the support of one of these parties to push this monstrosity through the House.

And if you need more information, by all means visit the Copyright for Canadians website at http://www.copyrightforcanadians.ca

Save Our Net!

A new coalition has formed to deal with the ongoing bandwidth "throttling" by the major internet service providers in Canada called Save Our Net. (click on the link).

The Canadian Radio & Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) will apparently be holding hearings on net neutrality this coming September.

"Save Our Net" will be holding a number of events over the course of the summer.

Gotcha!

For months Canadian federal Industry Minister Jim Prentice has been trying to introduce a U.S.-style "Digital Millenium Copyright Act" under pressure from big U.S. media conglomerates, their puppets in Canada and the U.S. Ambassador.

Unfortunately for Prentice, (and fortunately for Canadians!) he's been up against some very active, informed and smart "netizens".

Chief among those smart netizens is Professor Michael Geist, Canada Chair of Internet and E-commerce law at the University of Ottawa.

This week Professor Geist exposed that Industry Canada computers have been used to edit Wikipedia entries concerning Minister Prentice's proposed "copyright reforms".

Public property is being used for partisan purposes.

It also shows that Prentice and/or his surrogates at Industry Canada are completely clueless when it comes to internet technology. Figuring out who owns the IP address of someone who has edited a Wikipedia entry isn't exactly rocket science.

And it is these same clueless individuals who will make decisions about both copyright reform and net neutrality. These decisions will affect how every Canadian is able to use the internet.

See Michael Geist's Blog

Microsoft ... Loves'm and leaves'm

The head honchos at the British Library must feel like they've been ship wrecked on love beach.

About three years ago, the British Library and Microsoft partnered up and announced plans to digitize 100,000 old out of copyright books. Wasn't Microsoft a wonderful corporate citizen?

The British Library acted as a so-called "independent" ally of Microsoft in their heavy-handed bid to get ISO (International Standards Organization) approval for their brand spanking new 6,000 page "Office Open XML" file formats.

(An even more broken version of this broken file format is used in Microsoft Office 2007).

Microsoft's committee stacking and general political interference in the ISO process worked and they got their broken file formats approved in February, helping them to perpetuate their Microsoft Office monopoly for a few more years.

The ISO's credibility in the tech community is now very close to zero.

Move the calendar forward to this month.

Microsoft has just announced that they are abandoning their digitization project at the British Library.

Microsoft just wants to be friends.

See:
Goodbye, British Library
Microsoft "Live Search" Blog
Alex Brown, the British Library and OOXML

The "virtual" union leader

The Globe & Mail had another interesting story today... this time by mining reporter Andy Hoffman.

Napoleon Gomez Urrutta, General Secretary of Mexico's National Miner's and Metalworker's Union lead a strike of 20,000 Mexican workers yesterday...from exile in Vancouver, British Columbia!

Napoleon Gomez Urrutia has been leading the National Miners' and Metalworkers' Union of Mexico while in exile on Canada's west coast for more than two years now, with help from modern technology.

"I keep running the union from here through video conferences, e-mails, phone calls and frequent visits from my colleagues," Mr. Gomez said in an interview yesterday.

The 62-year-old hasn't been able to return to Mexico because he is likely to face arrest on government charges of corruption and embezzlement, allegations he denies.

Across Mexico yesterday, union workers from steel mills to gold mines halted work.

The workers are protesting the government's failure to recognize the re-election earlier this month of Mr. Gomez as the union's general secretary.

The strike slowed or ceased production at several mining and steel-making operations, according to wire reports from Mexico.

See "Mexico's striking miners heed the call from B.C."

With our increasingly globalized economy, workers and unions need to find ways to make use of new communications technologies to defend their rights.

This is an excellent example.

A nation of retail clerks?

Globe & Mail Economics reporter Heather Scoffield reports today that with the decline in the manufacturing sector, Canada is rapidly becoming a nation of retail clerks.

Along with this shift from making things to selling things, Canadian workers are taking a serious hit in the wallet.

"On average, hourly wages for a typical manufacturing worker were $21.66, according to Statistics Canada. That's 46 per cent higher than the average hourly wage in the retail sector, where workers are typically paid $14.87 an hour. And retail employees are often part-timers, and work far fewer hours in any given week than factory workers. So the contrast in weekly wages in the two sectors is even starker.

In February, 2008, the average weekly earnings, including overtime, for factory workers was $950.84 a week, almost double the average weekly pay of $488.58 for retail employees."

And much like factory workers, North American workers on this new retail assembly line have to stand all day for half the pay!

The Giant Sucking Sound

Every year the business magazine “Fortune” ranks the top 500 corporations in the US by revenue (and in a later issue the top 500 non-U.S. corporations). You might think that looking at a bunch of numbers would only be of interest to accountants, but I find it interesting too. It reminds you of a few things.

On top of the list this year again...is the retail giant Walmart.

Walmart is of course famous for busting unions, treating workers like crap, charges of predatory pricing, squeezing suppliers, and extracting all kinds of planning and tax concessions from municipal governments so they can build big box stores on the outskirts of town while putting everyone on "Main Street" out of business.

On revenues of $378 billion, they earned $12.7 billion in profits.

Exxon Mobile (they named an oil spill after them!) came in second with just under $373 billion in revenue, but a whopping $40.6 billion in profits.

Number three spot went to another oil company...Chevron (the company that briefly named an oil tanker named after the current U.S. Secretary of State). They had revenues of over $210 billion and made $18.7 billion in profits.

Poor old fourth place General Motors lost $38.7 billion on revenues of $182 billion.

Way down the list at number 44 is a once little known company based in Redmond, Washington. They had revenues of "only" $51.1 billion. But, they made nearly $14.1 billion in profits! I'm talking about the company that Bill Gates built..Microsoft.

Aside from Exxon Mobile and Chevron, only General Electric ($22.2 billion), JP Morgan-Chase ($15.4 billion) and the Bank of America ($15 billion) made more dough than the boys from Redmond last year.

I'm not a mathematician and thankfully not an economist either. But I do know how to use a calculator. So I had a little fun with figures.

For every single dollar you spent on a Microsoft product, they cleared 28 cents in pure gravy!

On the other hand, "Union Buster's 'R Us" Walmart made a little over three cents on every dollar you spent there. (They didn't make it on me. I NEVER shop there).

Oil spillin' catastophe lovin' Exxon Mobile, made about eleven cents on every dollar you spent "putting a tiger in your tank". (Okay...I'm dating myself).

Chevron made about nine cents on the dollar and Conoco-Phillips made about seven cents profit on the dollar. Even that "into everything" company...General Electric made only thirteen cents on the dollar.

What's the secret recipe for being a global vaccuum cleaner that sucks up masses of cash instead of dust bunnies?

Go down to your nearest big box store and try to buy a PC without Microsoft's resource hogging Windows Vista operating system on it. Go ahead and try!

The license to use Microsoft's Windows operating system adds anywhere from $50-100 to the cost of your PC. It's a defacto "private tax" whenever you buy a PC.

If you poke around on line, you might be able to find some large computer manufacturers still selling machines with Microsoft's older Windows XP operating system on them. If you really really look hard, you'll find a few brave manufacturers selling machines with a free software GNU/Linux operating system pre-installed. But you'll need to be a real web sleuth to find them. (Here and here).

Recently, GNU/Linux operating systems have gained a bit of a toehold in a new class of portable computers. The micro notebook "UMPC" or "ULPC" class machines...like the One Laptop Per Child Project's "XO" computer.

Some of the "Intel Classmate" machines also run a GNU/Linux operating system.

The "Asus EeePC" (see my previous blogpost) has taken the world by storm. HP and others will soon be offering GNU/Linux based UMPC/ULPC class machines.

Even though this is only a tiny toehold for the community built operating system, Microsoft has decided to crush this movement before it gets out of hand.

Just this past week they've announced that they'll be making their almost obsolete "Windows XP Home" operating system available to manufacturers of UMPC/ULPC machines for about $30 a pop. The plan was to shelve this operating system next month, but for this class of machines they've put it back on life support.

They're even trying to dictate to hardware manufacturers what kind of machines they are "allowed" to put this discounted Windows XP Home on.

The OLPC project used to be really cool. The plan was to sell tens of thousands of these neat little GNU/Linux powered "XO" machines to education ministries in the developing world. The aim was to try to get the price down to around $100 per unit. So far they've managed to get it down to about $180.

But this week, Microsoft announced that it's officially got its paws into the XO project.

So the XO project will no longer be introducing techno-savvy kids in the developing world to software that they have the freedom to change and adapt to their needs. Instead they'll be stuck with an operating system that is "licensed and not sold"...that they are not free to change.

And so these bright geeky kids will never have the chance to develop software that's appropriate to local conditions. They'll grow up addicted to the Microsoft drug. It's electronic colonialism.

A few months back, Mandrivasoft, a small French company that distributes its own GNU/Linux operating system made a deal with the Nigerian education ministry to supply some Intel Classmate machines with Mandriva Linux pre-installed. Mandriva was going to supply the tech support for the machines.

But Microsoft went in through the back door and tried to derail the deal.

Microsoft will stop at nothing to preserve it's tax on computing.

Then there's Microsoft's second cash cow..."Microsoft Office". Microsoft has convinced hundreds of millions of computer users that they "need" this software.

They've even gone so far as to bully the International Standards Organization (ISO) into accepting it's broken file formats as "a standard" for the exchange of electronic documents. Two years previously the ISO had accepted without controversy the totally open and vendor neutral "Open Document Format" (ODF) as "the" standard for electronic documents.

Rather than deal with the technical merits of Microsoft's file formats (what they're supposed to do), they simply caved in to heavy-handed lobbying.

I feel totally confident in saying that 90% of computer users do not need Microsoft Office. If you say you "need it", you'll need to have a very good argument to convince me.

Instead you should be using the free as in freedom, free as in free beer "Openoffice.org" office suite. It's available for the Windows, MacOSX, GNU/Linux and Solaris operating systems.

Download it today and start using it. Kiss Microsoft Office goodbye forever and get off the treadmill of spending money on upgrades every time Microsoft introduces a new file format.

And if anyone sends you a ".docx" file, send it back!

If we can't turn off this cash sucking vaccuum cleaner, maybe we can at least put it on a lower setting.

The EeePC ...a tool for labour and social activists!

A few months ago, I joined the "UMPC" (Ultramobile Portable Computer) revolution.

What's a UMPC? It's an ultra small portable notebook computer.

In the case of the "Asus EeePC" UMPC it weighs just under a kilo which means you can easily carry it anywhere. It fits very easily into a small handbag.

That opens up some incredible opportunities for labour and social activists. Labourstart's Eric Lee posted an article entitled "Ultra-portable laptops and the unions: A revolution in the making".

The Asus EeePC comes with three USB ports, an SD/MMC port (for camera cards), audio in and audio out jacks, a VGA out port for connecting the machine to a computer projector or external monitor, ethernet port (for wired network connections) and a built-in Wi-fi card for wireless networking.

The "onboard" storage is not that much (a four gigabyte flash drive), but honestly you don't really need any more then that for mobile use. If you do, CDN$10 buys you a one gigabyte USB thumb drive.

The model I have cost me CDN$350. But for an extra $50 there is a model that comes with a built-in web cam.

You will not find Microsoft's bloated "Windows" computer operating system on the Asus EeePC. Instead, you'll find a customized version of the "free as in freedom" GNU/Linux operating system.

GNU/Linux combined with the use of a flash drive, makes the Asus EeePC the fastest booting notebook computer I have ever seen in my life!

As for user software, you'll find just about everything you'll need for mobile computing, most of it free software as well.

Need to do write a quick report, do a spreadsheet or a presentation? You'll find "Open Office" pre-installed on the machine. An office suite is something that you typically don't find pre-installed on most Microsoft Windows machines. That costs extra.

If you're wanting to surf the net, the world's best web browser is already there...Mozilla Firefox.

For e-mail, you'll find Mozilla Thunderbird...which also by the way handles RSS feeds. If you use webmail services like Gmail and Yahoo mail, you'll find shortcuts to get you there very quickly!

Are you a user of instant messaging services? You'll find "Pidgin" at your disposal. The difference is that Pidgin handles about half a dozen instant messaging services in a single software programme! It's not necessary to have a different instant messaging programme for each service that you use.

For viewing photographs you'll find "Gwenview", for listening to music and streaming audio you'll find "AmaroK"...which blows "iTunes" out of the water! If you need to do a quick interview, just plug in a cheap computer microphone and use the onboard audio recording software.

Configuring wired or wireless networking connections is a couple of mouse clicks away with the built-in software.

While most of the installed user software comes from the "free software" world, a few programmes don't. "Skype", the best known "voice over IP" software comes pre-installed. So where ever you are, you can always keep in touch as long as you've got an internet connection.

We unfortunately also live in a world where most of the streaming audio and video formats used on the web are proprietary. Support for these formats is pre-installed on the Asus EeePC. You'll also find support for proprietary plug-ins like "flash" and "java".

Other computer manufacturer's like HP are in the process of releasing similar types of UMPC's.

How does this help labour and social activists?

Let's say you're at a union rally and you want to send some photos off to other activists. You just pop the memory card out of your digital camera, insert it into your Asus EeePC's card slot, and providing you've got some kind of internet connection you can attach the photo to an e-mail message and send it on it's merry way anywhere in the world!

The beauty of it is that you can send full-sized photos...not the little wee photos you typically see on "camera phones".

Our struggles are increasingly global in nature. Imagine being at a rally and being able to view photos from a similar event in another city within minutes!

Voice-over-IP services like Skype can also handle video conferencing. Someone from another part of the world can speak to your event from another continent!

Unions that have enough money to equip their staff with notebook computers often "ration" them. For the price of a "standard" Windows-powered notebook, a union can equip several staff with EeePC's. And that does not include the cost of user software like Microsoft Office, security software or IT staff to maintain the machines.

Instead of having IT staff constantly "fixing" things that are broken, they can be more creative and do things that help strengthen the union's technological capabilities.

The EeePC has attracted so much attention that a global online community has developed around it. Just go to eeeuser.com

The GNU/Linux computer operating system (which makes UMPC's possible) along with the many community built user programmes are a product of the social activism of free software pioneer Richard Stallman. In 1991 Stallman authored the "GNU General Public License" which created the environment where free software could flourish.

While Stallman's original concern back in the 1980's was about creating social solidarity amongst computer users, most of us are concerned about building solidarity between workers and the community at large over a wide range of issues.

So Stallman's "free software activism" can help fuel everyone else's activism. And we've now got the little machines to help us do it!

More Bell Canada misinformation on net neutrality

Bell Canada, is in classic corporate spin master mode now that their so-called "traffic shaping" practices have been exposed for all the world to see.

Rule number one of corporate spin...confuse people!

Writing on his blog on IT World Canada, Mirko Bibic does an excellent job disecting Bell's corporate speak here. The comments from posters are also very informative.

He even goes so far as to suggest that a new nationalized company (what we in Canada call a "crown corporation") be setup to manage the telephone line infrastructure.

"We can give Bell a simple choice.

One option would be for this last mile infrastructure to be spun off into a separate company that would then become a crown corporation. Bell can even be given a contract to manage the services of this company for a 10 year period, after which it would be open to competition or to employees of this new crown corporation. With a separate corporate structure, Bell Canada would clearly no longer be able to allege that they “own” this infrastructure, or claim they can manage it any way they see fit.

Another option would be to allow Bell to retain ownership of this infrastructure, as long as they paid a rental fee at a fair price for the right of way, as well as returning any government subsidies — including interest over the last 50 years. We would be fair and only backdate this for 50 years, even though they have received privileges for far longer. It would be clarified that the Crown Corporation would still be created, and while historical right-of-way would be grandfathered, it would be this new Crown Corporation that would own any new last-mile infrastructure."

In the Canadian federal election campaign of 1972, New Democratic Party leader David Lewis ran a populist campaign against "The Corporate Welfare Bums". With all of the special rights of way that Bell Canada has obtained over the last century to lay it's cables, poles and other equipment, I think that Bell is the sort of corporation that David Lewis was referring to!

Rambling thoughts on receiving an e-mail hoax

E-mail has been around for about thirty years. E-mail hoaxes and "urban legends" have been zipping around the internet for almost as long.

If you've been using e-mail for the past decade or so, you can easily spot them. They're the messages that tell you to forward them to "everyone you know".

In the past they were usually about computer viruses for which there was "no known cure". Mind you it's been a few years since I've seen one of these.

There are 70,000 "real" items of malware circulating in the wild for the Microsoft Windows operating system. For the free software GNU/Linux and even the non-free MacOSX operating system, there are but a handful. It seems there might be a solution there.

I've seen e-mail hoaxes about supposed missing children. Again there are "real" missing children. Sometimes they are drafted as "child soldiers" in various civil wars around the world or they're sold into prostitution. Millions more die of starvation, disease and malnutrition. These children are all very real.

The most recent e-mail "hoax" that I received was about supposed HIV infected syringes being placed on the inside of gas station (filling station if you're in the UK!) pump handles.

Again, my "handy dandy bs-o-meter" was reading full scale.

So, upon receipt of this message, I quickly entered this info along with the word "hoax" into my search terms in Google Search. Naturally I found out that this was another in a long line of urban legends. In fact this one has been circulating around the net for seven or eight years. I wonder why it took so long for me to receive this particular hoax?

But again there is a very real HIV/AIDS problem in the world. In Africa HIV/AIDS has reached pandemic proportions and whole generations of people in villages, towns and cities are being wiped out. Millions are dying and those with the power to take action have done very little to stop the pandemic.

Stephen Lewis, former leader of the Ontario New Democratic Party, former Canadian Ambassador to the United Nations, most recently held the post of UN Special Envoy on HIV/AIDS in Africa.

When you hear Lewis speak, you can't help but notice the absolute sense of frustration and moral outrage at how little has been done in response to the crisis.

So the next time you receive a message that asks you to "send it to everyone you know"... don't. Do a quick "Google" to see if it's "real" or a "hoax".

More importantly, take a few minutes and give some thought to the "big picture" and what might be done about it.

Upon reflection, you might want to compose a message about these very real problems and send it to all of your friends. That would be very worthwhile.