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Because Magic, taught as fact, in the curriculum is AWESOME!
Further breaking news: The Edmonton Public School Board will also remove Soylent Green Recipe Book from the Foods curriculum.
How does feculence like this happen in my school system?
“An Edmonton teen and her mother have filed a complaint with the Human Rights Commission over a high school sex education class delivered by a religious-based group. Last year, Emily Dawson, 18, took part in a two-day class delivered as part of the Career and Life Management course at McNally High School. The teenager says she was shocked by what she heard.
“Basically shaming the girls and making them gatekeepers and meanwhile making it sound like the boys had no impulse control,” she said.
The Edmonton Public School Board used the Pregnancy Care Centre to conduct the course. The centre is affiliated with Care-Net, an American based anti-abortion movement. Both groups focus on advocating abstinence from sex.
How many other little “whoopsies” does the EPSB have up its sleeve? The NRA about the value of gun control and firearm safety? Exxon on Environmental Stewardship?
What the crap?
First, lets establish what our Experts in Christian Misogyny are advocating. From Care.net –
“Care Net promotes and supports sexual abstinence until marriage among youth through its LifeWise Program. LifeWise services are available free of charge to churches, schools, and any youth-serving organizations. Care Net will also partner with parents to provide neighborhood programs in homes or at Care Net’s facility on the east side of Madison.
Care Net works to end abortion, not primarily through political action but by building a culture where every woman receives all the support she needs to welcome her child and create her own success story. By empowering women and men to make courageous, life-affirming choices, Care Net and our affiliate pregnancy centers end abortions every single day.”
Well, isn’t this just a “Grade-A” glistening block of bullshit on display. They also run Pregnancy centres to hoodwink traumatized women and baffle them with religious bullshit and obstruct them while they attempt to obtain a legal medical procedure.
What a charming bunch of folks, god bless their hearts, we are dealing with here.
So, let’s take a look at the facts of the matter just to show exactly how full of shit our christian care.net friends are and the poisonous message they brought into the Edmonton public school system.
From:
The Failure of Abstinence-only Education: minors have a right to honest talk about sex. – Published in: Sexuality and the Law Symposium, Columbia Journal of Gender and Law Vol. 15, No. 1, pp. 12-62, 2006.
“Abstinence-only sex education is anything but educational. At best, it deprives students of the knowledge necessary to manage their own sexual health. At worst, it is dangerous to minors and to the public health. As the Waxman Report concluded, “[s]erious and pervasive problems with the accuracy of abstinence-only curricula may help explain why these programs have not been shown to protect adolescents from sexually transmitted diseases and why youth who pledge abstinence are significantly less likely to make informed choices about precautions when they do have sex.”18 In a society that purports to value children, the state should foster healthy, informed minors who are equipped to manage their sexual health responsibly. At the very least, the state should not encourage or support educators and programs in misleading children and promoting false, dangerous, and potentially injurious practices.”
~~~~
“In light of the potential health risks associated with these curricula, abstinence-only education cannot be justified as intending to serve any significant state interest. While the government may have an interest in encouraging abstinence in unmarried youth, its current policy is being pursued at the expense both of truth and public health. Importantly, there is no evidence that providing comprehensive sex education promotes increased sexual behavior or dilutes the message that abstinence is a preferable choice, as proponents assert.250 Furthermore, the government’s singular focus on abstinence represents an educational policy that is inconsistent with the democratic educational objective of preparing adolescents to make responsible, informed choices.”
More on efficacy of Abstinence only versus comprehensive sex education.
“Using figures from 1995-2000, Advocates for Youth (www.advocatesforyouth.org) reports that the HIV rate for Americans 15-24 is five times that of German youth of the age. The U.S. teen syphilis rate is six times higher than the Dutch; the chlamydia rate is 20 times that of French teens; and our teen gonorrhea rate is a whopping 74 times higher than the Dutch.
European programs that provide uncensored sex education and promote condom use are the reasons for this success. Contrary to what one might expect, European youth have fewer sex partners than Americans do and begin sex slightly later than Americans. What is alarming, however, is that America has the largest percentage of girls who have sex by age 15.
The U.S. also has the highest teen birth rate among 28 developed countries. According to a UNICEF study, less than 10 per 100,000 teenage girls in Korea, Japan, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and Sweden gave birth in 2001, whereas 52 American teens per 100,000 did.”
More on the failure of Abstinence Only Education – Here, Here, Here, here… Let us conclude then that our dear Christian Misogynists are the engineers of the fail-train; happily throwing more coal into the fire as they move full speed ahead and with Jesus and Ignorance at their side, they are unstoppable.
We should get back to Kelly and Emily and their experience with these professional dispensers of mendacity.
Kathy Dawson says she tried to pull her daughter Emily out of the class for the second day. But she says the school informed her that Emily had to take the class in order to pass her course. So she joined her daughter in the classroom. A single mother, Dawson said she was shocked what students were told about families like hers.
“Well, that our children are prone to depression, suicide, juvenile delinquency,” she said.
The remarks also surprised her daughter. “It’s not something that you hear every day where you’re getting bashed for being in a single-parent home.”
Kathy Dawson was also upset the class appeared to focus on values instead of science.”
See. Seeeeeeeeee?!? This is what happens when you let this sort of religious malevolent altiloquence into the secular classroom. Shaming single parent families, fuck-ya god hates you – and lets not forget about the eternally burning homosexuals…
“I have a friend that is a lesbian and she was asking what would happen if she didn’t want to stay abstinent and then the educator said, ‘We’re not here to talk about that,’” Dawson said.
Yes, telling young children that they’ll burn seems a little out of place in Canada (and the norm for secular societies), so we’ll just ignore your question instead. The nice people at Care Net are so full of love, tolerance, and compassion.
Full marks to Kathy Dawson for taking action to get these people out of the school system.
The Alberta Human Rights Commission has now accepted the Dawsons’ complaint.
“I’m training up my kids to respect science and demand science in their education,” Kathy Dawson said. “So this is a long haul, and I’m fully prepared to take it all the way.”
This is pretty much a slam dunk. Is religious bunk allowed in the classroom? Yes/No If the answer is yes, then the leaders of secular school board will have some explaining to do.
The EPSB took action –
the EPSB wrote that it had a registered nurse observe one of the presentations unannounced and found the information “met our standards and expectations on every level” but that it would still look for new presenters for the next year.
“Having said that, we’ve heard a lot of concerns expressed from the public over the last several days about guest speakers invited to present on the topic of sexual health education,” the board wrote.
“We are asking our schools in the fall to use different presenters so that we can continue this conversation, and focus on meeting the needs of students and parents.”
Well the school board doesn’t have its head entirely up its ass. Woo!
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I get email:
From the Sandyhook Promise –
Dear Friend,
“The person who killed my precious son Dylan carried 10, 30-round, large-capacity gun ammunition magazines into Sandy Hook Elementary. 300 rounds. He deliberately left the smaller-capacity magazines at home.
In approximately four minutes, he shot 154 bullets, killing 20 children and 6 educators. Five of those bullets hit my son, and in an instant, Dylan was gone.
But in the time it took the shooter to reload, 11 children were able to escape. If magazines were reduced to one-third the number of rounds available that day, just think how many more could have survived. Perhaps my son would still be alive.
Right now in New Jersey, the clock is ticking for Governor Chris Christie to decide whether or not to sign a bill into law that would reduce the size of ammunition magazines to 10 rounds – and opponents of common sense reforms from across the country are pressuring him to veto it. We need your help today to make sure Governor Christie signs this common sense, potentially life-saving bill into law before the June 30 deadline.”
Reduce the size of the magazines?
Let me ironically restate that in bold lettering – Reduce the size of the magazines? (???)
One hundred and fifty four bullets and twenty-six deaths later the people in the US are talking about reducing the size of magazines? How ridiculously absurd is this plea?
How is this even a thing? Don’t even start to talk to me about incrementalism – how many more berserk white dudes killing scores of people does it take for the US to wake the frak-up and institute gun control?
Gaaa!
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Oh Canada! Producer of so much oil and making strides to export it to other countries just had its first jump in gasoline prices. One question to contemplate is that rather than exporting oil to other countries wouldn’t it be nice to stabilize the domestic market supply and give Canadian consumers a break at the pumps? Wouldn’t a steady rate of return and a Canadian public that doesn’t hate your guts be a good thing?
“Sorry Canada-friends!”, says the Oil Industry there are bottom lines to fatten up – the door to fuck-right-off is on your left please use it at our convenience, plebs!
Oh, and the usual excuses about market instability. I really enjoy paying for market jitters and financial speculation.
“McTeague blamed jitters and excessive financial speculation over instability in the Middle East for “distorting” fuel prices.
Meanwhile, he noted, actual supply for crude has never been better.
I love the fresh pungent smell of oligarchy in the morning.
“Laura Lau, a senior vice-president portfolio manager with the Brompton Group specializing in natural resources, said the markups are a direct reflection of international headlines. The risk premium for oil has soared, even though the unrest hasn’t stopped crude from flowing.
“We could see some relief, but it depends on what happens in Iraq,” Lau said. “If it escalates, we’ll probably see it go up. If it’s resolved or the intensity comes down, we could see oil and gasoline prices come down.”
She noted that no shortages have been reported so far, although oil companies in the region have begun to withdraw nonessential staff following the violent siege of northern Iraq’s Baiji refinery by Sunni militants.
“So could oil production be reduced? Yes,” Lau said. “But right now, it’s more the threat of it than the actual reality.“
This just in, lone Donkey in Iraq pisses on Pipeline – Corrosion could destroy Iraq Oil forever! Oil Barons in North America: Raise the prices, call it “market-forces” and let’s get to work acquiring that 5th yatcht, STAT!!!
Comments on the CBC article nail the BS surrounding the gas gouging:
“These price hikes are pure BS. Only 6% of the oil used in the North America comes from Iraq. The 2 biggest sources are 28% Canada and 16%Saudi Arabia. Then we have Mexico and Venezuela at 11% each with 27% coming from various sources. So to say the price of fuel is rising (in North America) because of a conflict in Iraq is a lie.”
Of course if it is a profitable lie for the right people then it isn’t really a lie then, is it?
Bonus Round!
Profitability above all!
Graph (1) above: as experience has shown, Americans love a good fairy tale. In the case of U.S. involvement in Iraq we have been fed a long series of substantially unrelated rationales from political ‘liberation’ (1990-1991) to WMDs (weapons of mass destruction) and democratization (2003 – 2006) and now on to ‘re-stabilization.’ Left unstated are economic interests like oil company profits, munitions sales and contracts for rebuilding what the U.S. has destroyed. Graph (1) illustrates the relation of oil prices to oil company profits. Wars against oil-rich nations raise the price of oil to the benefit of international oil companies. What do one million dead and four million displaced human beings matter when profits are to be ‘made?’ Source: Reuters.
Today’s Red Pen of Justice edition is brought to you by the clueless parvanimity of Neil Macdonald. Mr. Macdonald has many important opinions on Rape Culture and, shockingly enough, they are completely out-to-fucking-lunch-brain-gone-fishing, wrong.
“For people my age, the freedom to get drunk or high and then have sex with someone was a right guaranteed by the sexual revolution of the Sixties.”
Oh!! So you valued have available female fuck-toilets to bang when you were getting crunked in name of peace, luv and rock and roll. Wow, funny how the ‘sexual revolution’ that gave dudes more peentacular access to women is lauded while the current battle for female bodily autonomy and consensual relations is slandered.
One paragraph in and you need a machete to cut through the misogyny. Awesome!
“Heaven knows that much of the world, beginning with Islamic societies, still discourages or forbids such behaviour. Oh, and also Yale University.”
Ah yes, because Islamic religion and Yale are completely the same.
Idiot.
Islam is all about protecting women’s modesty from the phaser-like dick beams that emanate from Islamic men. Women’s bodies drive Islamic men around the jizz-tastic bend (tru-fax!!) therefore its into the gunny sack for Islamic women and most of their rights. No misogyny here, move along, move along please.
Yale is attempting to ensure that people are not unwilling participants in sexual and social encounters within their institution. Here is what the Yale Policy says:
“Sexual activity requires consent, which is defined as positive, unambiguous, and voluntary agreement to engage in specific sexual activity throughout a sexual encounter. Consent cannot be inferred from the absence of a “no”; a clear “yes,” verbal or otherwise, is necessary. Consent to some sexual acts does not imply consent to others, nor does past consent to a given act imply present or future consent. Consent must be ongoing throughout a sexual encounter and can be revoked at any time.
Consent cannot be obtained by threat, coercion, or force. Agreement under such circumstances does not constitute consent.
Consent cannot be obtained from someone who is asleep or otherwise mentally or physically incapacitated, whether due to alcohol, drugs, or some other condition. A person is mentally or physically incapacitated when that person lacks the ability to make or act on considered decisions to engage in sexual activity. Engaging in sexual activity with a person whom you know — or reasonably should know — to be incapacitated constitutes sexual misconduct.”
Whoa. You go Yale! Treating people with bodily autonomy and safeguarding their rights. Let us see what McShitstain, err… Mcdonald thinks about a treating people with dignity and respect…
“A person who is incapacitated by alcohol or drugs cannot by definition consent to sex, and is therefore a rape victim if sex occurs. If both parties are drunk, presumably, it would be up to Yale administrators to decide who was the rapist and who was the victim. This may all sound beyond the realm of common sense, but it is real.”
Do take note and sample the fine airs of special pleading that is happening here. The only case mentioned were both parties are drunk. McShitstain, you and other entitled man-children like you can fuck right off forever. If both parties are drunk then no action between either is predicated by the rules set out. This isn’t rocket science – the default action when consent is in question is to back off and not do anything.
Did you feel that that? As a matter of fact, I felt it – a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of man-bonerz suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced.
TL;DR – Your entitled man-attitude and fucking stiffy does not trump women’s right to be treated as a human beings. I feel like I’m giving shit-stains a bad name by associating them with you… Onward turd-lord!
“American universities are under serious pressure by federal authorities to do something about the “campus rape culture,” as some call it – 55 U.S. colleges and universities are currently under investigation for failing to protect students from sexual harassment or assault.”
Protecting your students from rape? GTFO! The nerve of some schools trying to provide a safe environment for their students. It must be a communist plot or even worse – a socialist one. And why is protecting students a bad thing? How is a raging sac of bollocks like yourself even allowed near a keyboard when it comes to this issue is completely beyond me.
“Alarmed at the growing perception that they’re becoming havens for rapists, the schools are coming out with codes of sexual behaviour that go far beyond criminal law.”
Good. Good, good, goodly-good. Because the law isn’t doing enough to combat the sexual abuse and harassment in our culture. This is what setting the bar higher looks and feels like – sorry about the bruise on your forehead, asshat.
“Therefore, if a college administrator thinks that you more likely than not violated a lengthy, highly detailed set of sexual rules, you’re not just expelled, you may also be shamed in the media as a sexual predator and stained for life.”
But, but, but, the ‘peen was meant to run FREE! Oh woe! The onerous burden of consent you must really know how Atlas feels eh? The president of Shitistan just called, he wants you to stop ruining his country’s good name…
We are not done with you yet, douche-nozzle in training. How dare you compare the shaming of sexual predators with victims of rape. How the ever loving frack do you do this? Have you discovered some sort of dark energy that requires you to have your head firmly embedded in your ass?
“Presumably, the government has decided that the need to avoid further traumatizing victims trumps an accused’s right to question the accuser. The intent behind all this is laudable. I say that as the father of a daughter who just graduated from university. But what the universities are doing is also frightening, and I say that as the father of a son who is going into his senior year.”
Shorter Douche McAsshat: My male right to a woman’s body is being violated, changing behaviour to make people aware of boundaries and personhood infringes on my right to be a dude.
“Not only are universities all over America substituting their administrators for police and courts, they are attempting, with the best of intentions, to parse and regulate human behaviour down to the least gesture and syllable.”
Overcoming patriarchal constructs is HARD, dipshit. If it was a walk in the park, unlike now because of your whinge-baby-mantrums dressed up as a noble defence of the status-quo keep getting in the way of progress, we’d be over the idea that consent is some sort of weird idea requiring two Rosetta stones and the wisdom of the ancients to decipher.
“[…]”
“Alas, this is not a public debate that encourages critical writing.”
You don’t say.
“After a White House task force declared in April that one in five women on campus has been sexually assaulted, and that only 12 per cent of sexual assaults on campus are reported, Dr. Mark Perry, an economics prof at the University of Michigan, ridiculed Washington’s math by using actual sexual assault figures from three schools.”
Too bad Dr. Mark Perry screwed up the analysis.
“Another key fact Perry’s analysis misses is that colleges only track certain types of sexual assault in their numbers. Typically colleges only report assaults that occurred on campus and/or assaults in which the accused perpetrator was also a student at that university. So, again, we expect the numbers tracked by a university to be smaller than the number of assaults their students actually experience and report to local police.
The take home point is that the number tracked by the college would only be a fraction of the assaults that George and Mark are using as a comparison. The mismatch doesn’t mean the prevalence figures are wrong — it’s that they have compared a select group of cases that are tracked by a university to a wider group of assaults that their students experience and report to local police.”
Whoops – hate to deflate your confirmation bias Neil.
“Conservative commentator George Will, a sober analyst if there ever was one,[…]”
As long as you’re into mostly irrelevant arch-conservative altiloquent drivel. His level of poisonous bullshit is an post unto itself. See the Michigan Chronicle for rebut of his asinine diatribe.
“[…] then cited Perry’s critique in a column, suggesting that colleges, with their extra-legal sexual conduct rules, and their “trigger warnings” about offensive languages in textbooks, and their campus speech codes, are treating students like fragile hothouse flowers, rather than preparing them for the world.”
Ah yes, the real world where, you know, patriarchy and misogyny are the gold standards and you just need to abide by them. Treating Patriarchy as some sort of inevitable force of nature is bullshit Neil, stop it.
“Four U.S. senators promptly blasted Will as an antique who trivializes and legitimizes sexual assault, perpetuating myths created by victimizers.”
See, we do have progress in society.
“There was similar blowback last year, when journalist Emily Yoffe had the temerity to suggest that while sexual assault must be punished young women might also want to avoid getting blind drunk Yoffe quoted Anne Coughlin, a professor at the University of Virginia and an expert on feminist jurisprudence, as saying more or less the same thing. Those who believe there is a rape culture on American campuses have called that “blaming the victim.”
Because blaming the victim totally doesn’t happen… Neil saying shit like this that puts you into multiple facepalm territory, your ignorance is dangerous and you should stop spreading it around.
“But every parent should certainly consider this: If the complications of human sexuality and its often ambiguous mating dance defy consistent definition by the intellectual candlepower of entire university faculties, what advice should you give children who might still be in their teens as they head off to college?”
What, exactly, is ambigious about consent? If you have it great, if you don’t, stop proceedings immediately. If you’re not sure, stop proceedings immediately. My God, the epic complexity of this notion – we need more SCIENCE on this one dudes…
“his would be mine if my son or daughter were ever to ask: If you feel the need for a sexual adventure, seek it off campus, where police have expert investigators and courts guarantee your rights. Due process, in other words.”
Because expert investigators and the courts are always so darn sympathetic to the victims of rape. I have no words for the sheer amount of stupid you’re doling out in your ‘advice’.
“And avoid sex with fellow students, period. It’s just too risky nowadays.”
Because changing the misogynistic ground rules of society is much much much MUCH too hard, so take your balls on go your own way. If this perchance helps exclude your type of thinking from the next generations gene pool, I think we can call your strategy a win for everyone.
RPOJ out.
It has been educational as of late watching and following threads where the deluded try to defend their belief in magic. People with more patience and experience than I, when it comes to dealing with this level of supernovae-grade ignorance, carefully deconstruct the mendacity and obfuscation and gently tell the believers *exactly* how and why they are wrong. But today, is not the day for subtle deconstruction.
Let’s just cut to the chase today.
Religion – Just Say No.
Dear Religious people,
Have you thanked your local atheist today? If not, you should because atheism and by extension secular society, is saving you from the immoral loopy shit your bronze age beliefs demand. The latest demonstration of how immoral and barbaric religion is comes to us from the Sudan. (read more about Mariam at Al Jazeera)
“Mariam Yehya Ibrahim, a Sudanese mother, doctor and Christian, has been sentenced to flogging and death unless she recants her Christian faith. She is 8 months pregnant and has a two-year-old son. Please, join the international community in asking Sudan not to execute her for being a Christian.”
Wow.
You “go hard” there Islam – the religion of peace and friend to women across the globe.
“Ibrahim is charged with adultery on the grounds that her marriage to a Christian man from South Sudan is considered void under Shari’a law, for which the penalty is flogging. She’s also charged with apostasy, or abandonment of religion, for which the penalty is death.”
Well you can see the problem here, obviously, that if you decide to change from one fatuous belief system to another, the penalty is death. Funny we don’t hear about these sorts of things in North America. You can thank god that the United States wasn’t founded as christian nation – if it was, this sort of egregious crime against humanity would be common place in the lower 48 all the time.
You know why it isn’t? (hint: rhymes with ‘Fecularism’)
The very secular foundations of society that the christian right is chipping away at are the very same foundations that are preserving the “not-allowing-stupid-religious-shit-to-go-down” haven that Americans inhabit.
Witness the fucking evilly deranged face of theocratic rule and tell me that this is what you want for your society? Getting a little closer to god gets you a little closer to barbarity. How depraved must one be, in the pursuit of a religious based society, to somehow think that theocratic rule is good?
“Mariam is the daughter of a Christian woman and Muslim man. She was raised Christian after her father left. However, Sudanese law mandates that children born to Muslim fathers are considered Muslim.
The fact that a woman could be sentenced to death for her religious choice, and to flogging for being married to a man of an allegedly different religion is abhorrent.”
This does NOT happen in modern secular society.
Your pious objections to secularism are noted; you can now sit the fuck down and shut the fuck up and think about the good that secularism has done for you and your freedom to believe in vacuous mythology of your choice. Maybe, just maybe, instead of campaigning for and electing people with ‘good christian values’ you could decide to support someone that is defending your very (comfortable) way of life, here in reality, where it matters.
Continue to erode the secular aegis at your own peril.
Lastly, get off your damn knees, stop praying, and go do something useful for once – sign the petition to save Mariam’s life.
It sucks when your government is an entity devoid of anything resembling a spine. *sigh*
The Alberta government is so deeply in bed with big oil its shite and piss are black. So, rather than looking at an example of how to screw your citizens over, take a look at a country that got it, and continues to get it right; Norway. It makes me spitting mad that we couldn’t even get a fractional raise in revenue for the people of Alberta (The Royalty Review), all the while Norway has 165,000 thousand dollars socked away per person for its retiring population. You fucking old people (and you fucking young greedy capitalists) who can’t vote anything other than Tory in Alberta, enjoy working past 65 and as an extra sweet bonus we’ll save you a spot working at McDonald’s until your body and mind are well and truly done. Savour the sweet capitalist freedom to work yourself to death, I know I will.
My bitter vitriol aside, onward to the article that got this party started:
“Like parts of Canada and the United States, Norway has a very lucrative oil and gas industry. But unlike Alberta and Alaska, Norway chose not to use its resource wealth immediately to pay for hefty tax cuts or social programs. Instead, the Scandinavian country squirrelled its money away in a fund for future generations, a decision that is paying enormous social dividends.
Today, less than 25 years since its inception, that nest egg has grown into the world’s most valuable sovereign wealth fund, worth about $850 billion – more than $165,000 per Norwegian citizen, according to an SWF Institute report. It is the envy of the world, funding initiatives ranging from infrastructure improvements and green energy projects to public pensions.
Meanwhile, the Alberta Heritage Fund, which is 14 years older, is worth about $17 billion. The Alaska Permanent Fund sits at $50 billion. Even combined, they represent a fraction of the wealth Norway has amassed, and which it will be able to draw on long after its oilfields run dry.
Farouk al-Kasim on Norway’s Oil Policy and Wealth.:
“They did not have a clear enough policy for how to manage petroleum resources when they were starting out,” he said. “Norway concluded that if you don’t have a policy up front, and if you don’t have a consensus on that policy, that human nature would tend to favour individual interests rather than coherent national interests.”
In 1971, shortly after the Ekofisk discovery, the Norwegian parliament drafted legislation that came to be known as the country’s “10 Oil Commandments.”
“These 10 Oil Commandments form the basic policy on which Norway has managed its petroleum resources ever since,” al-Kasim said. “And the politicians not only agreed on this document, but they agreed not to debate it in elections and the third miracle … that they kept their promise.”
He was an instrumental force behind the Norwegian government’s decision to establish a national oil company, StatOil, and an independent industry regulator.
The government also legislated that Norway’s participation, through Statoil, in all future discoveries should be no less than 50 per cent. Al-Kasim says that stipulation was actually welcomed by international oil companies, who remained keen to partner with Statoil.
“They were guaranteed recovery of their investment,” he explained. “And on top of that, they received a very reasonable interest on their investment …. There was virtually no risk at all, so the oil companies were quite happy going along with this formula.” (Source CBC.ca)
Gaa! It’s so awesome my province is so frakking high on capitalism. I found the 10 Oil Commandments from the Norwegian Governments website. So get a pencil and paper you feckless-amoral-conservative-corporate-bootlicking-lickspittles and look at how you establish resource policy that benefits the people of nation and not just corporate coffers.
The standing committee on industry in the Storting (parliament) produced what has since been known as the “10 oil commandments” in 1971. These principles have subsequently been significant for the direction and shape of Norwegian petroleum policy. Veteran industry observer Bjørn Vidar Lerøen checks out their impact.
The committee framed its commandments in keeping with a government desire to develop an oil policy which ensured that the natural resources on the NCS benefited the whole community.
First commandment
National supervision and control must be ensured for all operations on the NCS.
Coment
This principle can be regarded as fulfilled. The government wanted to manage and control the business. When creating Statoil and the NPD in 1972, the Storting established a tripartite model comprising central management, administrative and commercial functions.
These three instruments of this model were the Ministry of Industry – replaced by the Ministry of Petroleum and Energy in 1978 – the NPD and Statoil respectively.
In 1984, the Storting resolved to split Statoil’s cash flow through the creation of the state’s direct financial interest (SDFI) in the petroleum industry. The company kept the job of managing the state’s licence holdings and selling its oil and gas.
Two new state-owned companies were founded when Statoil was listed in 2001 – Petoro to manage the SDFI portfolio and Gassco to operate the gas transport network from fields on the NCS. Statoil is the main technical service provider to the latter.
Changes have also happened to the NPD, with the Storting voting in 2004 to separate off the safety department as the Petroleum Safety Authority Norway (PSA).
The audits conducted by this agency take full care of the desire for national management and control of all operations on the NCS.
Second commandment
Petroleum discoveries must be exploited in a way which makes Norway as independent as possible of others for its supplies of crude oil.
Coment
When Ekofisk was discovered in late 1969, most Norwegians thought it would make them selfsufficient in oil for 15-20 years. But it soon became apparent that resources on the NCS far exceeded Norway’s own needs.
The country accordingly became a major exporter of crude oil, and is now in the process of becoming an even bigger source of gas exports. Norway will be independent of oil imports for the foreseeable future.
Third commandment
New industry will be developed on the basis of petroleum.
Coment
Offshore operations on the NCS have led to the development of a large and strong Norwegian petroleum industry, which currently employs some 200 000 people.
Norway has secured a position among the world leaders in important technologies such as drilling, major offshore projects, subsea solutions and multiphase flow in pipelines.
Norwegian oil and gas technology has also become a substantial export commodity.
Fourth commandment
The development of an oil industry must take necessary account of existing industrial activities and the protection of nature and the environment.
Coment
Oil and gas have made Norway one of the world’s richest countries. This wealth has been counterbalanced by a high level of domestic costs. Through 40 years as an oil nation, its industrial structure has also undergone profound changes.
Petroleum revenues have allowed Norway at times to pursue a counter-cyclical economic policy which has made the country unique in relation to comparable nations.
Reserves of more than NOK 3 000 billion have been accumulated in the government pension fund – global, and Norway has also been able to respond to the recent world financial crisis with measures which have ensured low unemployment and reasonable income growth.
During Norway’s years as a petroleum producer, climate and the environment have come to attract much greater attention. Being a major oil and gas nation while also seeking to lead work on improving climate and the environment has often proved a demanding combination.
On the other hand, Norwegian petroleum production can be described as among the cleanest in a global context.
Fifth commandment
Flaring of exploitable gas on the NCS must not be accepted except during brief periods of testing.
Coment
This principle has been indicative for resource management, and complying with it has meant that environmental concerns are met while creating substantial value.
Sixth commandment
Petroleum from the NCS must as a general rule be landed in Norway, except in those cases where socio-political considerations dictate a different solution.
Coment
This proved a difficult commandment to fulfil. The oil and gas pipelines for first two developments on the NCS, Ekofisk and Frigg, had to go to Germany and the UK, with landfalls at Emden, Teesside and St Fergus.
This was because the deepwater Norwegian Trench lies between the fields and mainland Norway. So crossing this feature in 360 metres of water with the Statpipe gas line during the early 1980s marked a major breakthrough.
That installation went to Kårstø north of Stavanger. Later gas pipelines have come ashore at Kollsnes, Nyhamna, Tjeldbergodden and Melkøya, while oil lines run to Sture and Mongstad.
A network more than 7 000 kilometres long gives Norway the world’s largest underwater gas transport system.
Seventh commandment
The state must become involved at all appropriate levels and contribute to a coordination of Norwegian interests in Norway’s petroleum industry as well as the creation of an integrated oil community which sets its sights both nationally and internationally.
Coment
This principle is perhaps the one which has been most fully implemented, as confirmed by Norway’s role as a leading oil and gas nation. (See under the first commandment above.)
Eighth commandment
A state oil company will be established which can look after the government’s commercial interests and pursue appropriate collaboration with domestic and foreign oil interests.
Coment
This commandment was complied with immediately through the creation of Statoil, which became an important element in the Norwegian model of oil industry governance. However, major revisions have occurred along the way (see under the first commandment above).
Unlike a number of other oil nations, Norway was never tempted to pure nationalisation. Competition on the NCS ensured the participation of the world’s leading technology specialists.
Ninth commandment
A pattern of activities must be selected north of the 62nd parallel which reflects the special socio-political conditions prevailing in that part of the country.
Coment
“Special socio-political conditions” were interpreted as both domestic and foreign policy concerns. From the start, Norwegian politicians appreciated that petroleum operations in the far north could be sensitive, primarily in relation to Russia.
A number of commentators argued that the far northern NCS should be reserved for Norwegian oil companies.
After four decades of negotiation, the biggest issue – the boundary between Norway and Russia in the Barents Sea – is now heading for a resolution.
The domestic policy dimension related to the desire that northern Norway should share in the value creation provided by its own resources. Development of the Snøhvit gas field with a pipeline to Melkøya outside Hammerfest represents a paradigm shift for the region.
Debate on opening areas of the Norwegian Sea off Lofoten and Vesterålen to oil activity has exposed something of the vulnerability of these northern waters to pollution threats.
The environmental movement has warned of a tougher fight against petroleum operations in these areas than they pursued earlier over the activities further south on the NCS.
Tenth commandment
Large Norwegian petroleum discoveries could present new tasks for Norway’s foreign policy.
Coment
Former foreign minister Thorvald Stoltenberg – father of current premier Jens Stoltenberg – once formulated the challenge as follows: “We must ensure that oil policy is given a foreign policy dimension, and [vice versa].”
That might sound like something which goes without saying, but nevertheless represented an important acknowledgement of the position.
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