Le Devoir
LES ACTUALITÉS, mardi 24 avril 2007, p. a3

Mont Orford: l’ADQ veut un moratoire

Robitaille, Antoine

Québec – Le dossier du Mont-Orford pourrait être un des premiers tests pour le gouvernement minoritaire de Jean Charest. En effet, l’Action démocratique (ADQ) a fait savoir hier qu’elle réclamerait que le gouvernement suspende le processus d’appel d’offres visant à privatiser une partie du parc national. Autrement dit, il faudrait «surseoir à l’ouverture des enveloppes de soumission», prévue pour le 15 mai à 15 h.

«Pour nous, c’est une victoire, mais pas celle qu’on espérait», a commenté le porte-parole de SOS Parc Orford, Claude Dallaire, hier soir. Lors d’une conférence de presse à Québec, hier matin, le groupe a réclamé des partis d’opposition qu’ils déposent une motion réclamant du gouvernement qu’il abroge la loi 23 – qui privatise une partie du parc- adoptée en juin 2006 sous le bâillon. M. Dallaire avait qualifié de «très intéressante» la rencontre qu’il avait eue avec M. Dumont la semaine dernière. «Mais il ne nous avait pas parlé de cette idée de surseoir à l’appel d’offres», a-t-il dit hier, un brin surpris.

Le critique de l’ADQ en matière de parcs et de faune, Claude Roy, a expliqué qu’il est préférable de parer au plus urgent, c’est-à-dire d’obtenir un moratoire sur l’ouverture des soumissions. L’ADQ pourrait donc déposer dès le 9 mai (lendemain de l’ouverture de la session parlementaire) une motion qui demanderait un «moratoire». «Ça va nous donner le temps en chambre de pouvoir discuter de ce dossier-là sans que ça passe comme du beurre dans la poêle», a déclaré Claude Roy à Radio-Canada.

La Presse
Santé, mardi 24 avril 2007, p. A19

La malbouffe dommageable, même à l’occasion

Bérubé, Stéphanie

Manger un hamburger dégoulinant de gras ne fait pas de tort, une fois de temps en temps? Pas si sûr…

Une équipe de chercheurs canadiens s’est intéressée aux effets de la consommation occasionnelle d’aliments très gras. Elle a conclu qu’un seul repas gras a des effets sur le rythme cardiaque et la pression artérielle.

Plus de 30 volontaires, tous des jeunes dans la vingtaine, en excellente santé, ont mangé des déjeuners très gras ou, au contraire, contenants très peu de matières grasses. Un déjeuner chez McDonald’s d’un côté; des céréales avec du lait écrémé, des barres de céréales et du yogourt sans gras de l’autre. Les deux menus contenaient le même nombre de calories.

En effet, les économistes se percoivent eux même comme incapable de communiquer avec le public, ils croient que leur public n’a pas changé depuis 15 ans (ainsi que les réalités qu’ils prétendent expliquer), que leur recherche est inutile pour le business ou les industries, que la profession est largement représentée par un corps  professionel d’hommes blancs (ce qui limitent la variété des perspectives et contraint l’économie à demeurer une science occidentale servant à expliquer ses propres réalités , donc reproduire le même modèle).

Blackwell Synergy – Am J Economics & Sociology, Volume 66 Issue 2 Page 267 – April 2007 (Full Text):

To summarize the survey results, respondents express a strong weighted opinion with moderate to strong degrees of consensus on the following:
 • Agreeing that the quality of research by economists varies significantly.
• Agreeing that economists are ineffective in communicating with the public.
• Agreeing that economists are writing for the same audience as 15 years ago.
• Disagreeing that economic research in nationally recognized journals is useful for individuals in business or industry, or for teachers of college-level principles of economics courses.
• Agreeing that economic research in nationally recognized journals is useful for professional economists engaged in research and for graduate students studying economics.
• Agreeing that mathematical exposition, author recognition among economists, and school or business affiliation are factors used by editors and reviewers at nationally recognized journals for determining what to publish.
• Agreeing that a “good-old-boy” network in the economics profession influences which articles are published in nationally recognized economics journals.

Statistically significant differences of opinion across economists’ backgrounds for certain propositions also suggest:
• Female economists generally perceive the profession’s predominantly Caucasian male composition as an influential factor in shaping economists’ preferences for what topics are appropriate to study and how they are actually studied. Consequently, female economists generally perceive no spillover benefits from producing research on those topics.
• Nonacademic economists generally believe that economic science has not improved its explanatory capacity over the last several years; therefore, economic research is published for reasons other than scientific contribution and thus does not generate spillover benefits.
• Full professors of economics who are actively engaged in publishing, particularly those in doctoral-granting departments, generally believe that economic science is improving in explaining behavior and events. As a result, they generally believe publishing in nationally recognized journals generates spillover benefits.
• Status as a reviewer for a nationally recognized economics journal is perceived by nonacademic and/or junior academic economists as important for an individual’s chances that his or her work will be published in that journal. Full professors generally have an opposing view.

Blackwell Synergy – J Urban Affairs, Volume 29 Issue 2 Page 109 – May 2007 (Full Text):

CONCLUSION In this article we apply spatial analysis, as articulated by Tickamyer (2000) to the study of GCs within the context of urban inequality. The purposes of the article are threefold. First, we show that the spatialized sociology of inequality, based on Tickamyer’s framework and in conjunction with the political economy of place, can serve well as a theoretical foundation in examining the process of gating within the context of urban inequality.

Next, we argue that GCs contribute to urban inequality by reproducing social stratification and introducing a new layer of place stratification. Furthermore, incorporating analysis from the political economy of place we arrive at the conclusion that there are structural forces at work in American cities, which resemble a “gating machine.” Tickamyer (2000) specifies three modes in the application of space to the analysis of inequality. The first mode is related to the definition of spatial units and the incorporation of systems of social inequality within those units. Our analysis of the juxtaposition of household stratification and labor market divisions with GCs shows that GCs seem to reproduce these systems of social inequality. Similar to the process of residential segregation, the process of gating adds a spatial dimension to social differentiations, reproducing social inequality as place stratification. In addition, by combining several layers of differentiating social factors, e.g., race, income and specific family composition, GCs introduce a new layer of social and spatial differentiation. The analysis along the second mode suggested by Tickamyer (2000) reveals that the sources of advantages for GCs are in the supposed security from crime that these communities offer, in the protection of property values, and in the higher sense of community. We show that the results from a set of empirical studies are quite ambivalent as to whether or not GCs in fact offer these benefits to their residents. Nevertheless, more and more people from diverse backgrounds are attracted to residence in GCs. As a result, it seems that their future is quite promising: we can expect that more and more GCs will be built.

This conclusion is supported by our analysis of Tickamyer’s third mode: who controls the natural and built environment? Studying GCs through the prism of the political economy of the place (and borrowing from Logan & Molotch, 1987), we introduced the term “gating machine”; the combination of the interests and actions of local government, of real estate developers, of the media and the consumers suggest that there are structural conditions in place, which will secure the future proliferation of GCs. We interpret the consolidation of the “gating machine” as support for positing the permanence of GCs in the spatial organization of cities. Simmel writes: “Spatial relations not only are determining conditions of relationships among men, but are also symbolic of those relationships” (Simmel & Wolff, 1985). The quote reveals the dialectic of space: on the one hand, by the specifics of space we can read into the specifics of social relations, being those of exclusion or integration, hostility or cooperation, anonymity or cohesiveness, etc.; on the other hand, prior social relationships already embodied in space influence and structure new sets of social relations. It is important to look more closely into the spatial forms and patterns of the city because they can tell us what type of social relationships are forming right now, hence are likely to influence the future of the city. Given the specific characteristics of GCs as contributing to the privatization of space, they do indeed seem likely to permanently contribute to the continuous fragmentation of cities and to urban inequality.

“La banque britannique Barclays a annoncé lundi vouloir s’emparer de sa concurrente néerlandaise ABN Amro pour quelque 67 milliards d’euros (102,4 G$), créant le deuxième établissement bancaire européen.”

C’est pas pour faire un commentaire fichtrement marxiste, mais voici une preuve encore flagrante de l’augmentation de la concentration du capital financier. Quand on pense que Barclays et ABN ne feront qu’une seule banque!… C’est comme dire que toute les banques canadiennes étaient réunies sous le même chapiteau.