The Shotgun Blog
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Saturday, August 04, 2007
Canada's Mission in Afghanistan
I've been trying to allocate one post, at least, per week on the Canadian mission in Afghanistan and show gratitude to the troops serving overseas. They're actually trying to protect Canada's national interests and help Afghanis live a better and secure life. It's important to let them know they have our full support, regardless of our political affiliation.
Vandoos take over in Afghanistan while some of the servicemen expressed their disappointment over the anti-war sentiment of some in Quebec:
"You want to provide security and help people improve their lot, while back home people aren't very receptive to that. They say you're just off to kill people."
Shocking... And this is one of the many reasons that the rest of us must show overwhelming support and gratitude to the troops serving in Afghanistan. Let them know they have our support by writing a nice message. It's the least you could do, so plz do it!
Posted by Winston on August 4, 2007 in Current Affairs, Military | Permalink | Comments (247) | TrackBack
Friday, August 03, 2007
Body Language
This image gives you a chance to look into the real power structure of the Iranian regime. Interesting body language.
Click on the picture to enlarge. Cross-posted
Posted by Winston on August 3, 2007 in Current Affairs | Permalink | Comments (60) | TrackBack
Headhunt
CP via Toronto Star: Top Tory to head search for CBC execs
This is on the replacement for CBC editor-in-chief Tony Burman, who retired July 13. The story is missing one important piece of information. The hiring is not done by Egon Zehnder International and Tom Long. The final decision rests with the CBC's executive vice-president's office. I've been told the key here is Richard Stursberg, executive vice-president of CBC Television, a Liberal loyalist.
Here's an August 1 news release from Friends of Canadian Broadcasting on outsourcing the search to replace outgoing CBC President Robert Rabinovitch--his term ends in Nov.--using Egon Zehnder International. Friends, a Canadian content watchdog, is okay with it.
"I'm thoroughly impressed with the way the government is handling the appointment process. It is a step in the right direction," says Ian Morrison of the watchdog group Friends of Canadian Broadcasting. "This kind of thing never happened when Rabinovitch was hired unilaterally by the government."
Note: I've a story in the current issue of the Western Standard on the search for Burman's replacement, titled "Subtle silence."
Posted by Kevin Steel on August 3, 2007 in Media | Permalink | Comments (47) | TrackBack
Thursday, August 02, 2007
Eyebrows raised
In the Toronto Star about Dalton McGuinty's announcement of a $39 million vaccination program: Girls to get cancer vaccine, you'll note the picture and caption: "Toronto physician Dr. Jenny Blake, shown with daughter Allie DePetrillo, 16, takes issue with a paper that questions the merits of the anti-HPV vaccine." Jenny Blake and her daughter don't appear in this story. Blake is over here in this story:
The paper "that questions the merits of the anti-HPV vaccine" is the Canadian Medical Association's Journal's "Human papillomavirus, vaccines and women’s health: questions and cautions." (Also, I found a few interesting YouTube links at the bottom of this Global Research article chronicling some of the controversy in the U.S.)
The Star story notes:
Merck Frosst, which manufactures Gardasil, has been lobbying government officials both in Canada and south of the border about the need for school vaccination programs.
When the federal government first announced $300 million for a national vaccination program, eyebrows were raised because a former aide to Prime Minister Stephen Harper is a registered lobbyist on behalf of Merck Frosst Canada.
Fair enough, I say. Let's look at these lobbying connections. But are any eyebrows being raised when Liberal McGuinty makes a similar announcement? After all, Jason Grier, former executive assistant to Ontario's health minister George Smitherman, is a registered lobbyist for Merck, according to this (pdf) April 29 Ottawa Citizen story (on the Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Canada site)
This is a health program, and so there is a very direct connection between lobbyist, program and minister in this provincial angle. Funny the Star should fail to mention this; instead it refers to the older controversy about the Conservatives.
Posted by Kevin Steel on August 2, 2007 in Canadian Provincial Politics | Permalink | Comments (32) | TrackBack
Public Service No. 1
Toronto Star: Exposé makes lawyer Public Enemy No. 1 on Philip Slayton's Lawyers Gone Bad: Money, Sex and Madness in Canada's Legal Profession:
"Inside, Slayton highlights some of the key themes in his book: unethical business practices, bill padding and a lack of regulation."
Actually, the Star appears to have used the wrong headline. Public enemy? Lawyers, in this situation, are not the public. They are the special interest being exposed. Sounds like Slayton's doing the public a service, though I haven't read the book. At any rate, after I read the criticisms of the various bar associations, the one line that came to mind is "The lady doth protest too much, methinks." Busted.
Posted by Kevin Steel on August 2, 2007 in Books | Permalink | Comments (65) | TrackBack
Wednesday, August 01, 2007
"The worst Canadian"
And the winner is . . .
Here, the founding father of Trudeaustan (HT: PGP).
Posted by Russ Kuykendall on August 1, 2007 in Canadian Politics | Permalink | Comments (94) | TrackBack
"Toronto the Dump"
(Cross-posted from Burkean Canuck)
So, I'm sitting in my barber's chair, and he starts in about all that ails his city, Toronto. He gets through the wackiness of what city regulations require every time a Toronto resident wants to improve his property and, as a result, his street and neighbourhood by setting an example and encouraging the "keeping up with the Joneses" effect. My barber gets to how onerous household garbage disposal is, now, and how nothing is too little trouble to be an imposition on Toronto's garbage collectors. In Toronto, the recyclables must be separated from other waste and, then, into glass, plastic, paper, newsprint, and boxes, and non-recyclables into dry and wet. And this wrinkle: not only must the corrugated cardboard boxes be broken down, flattened, and tied, but the square footage, er, metre-age, must not exceed thus-and-so, or the collector can refuse to throw it into the back where it's compacted. My barber observed that in Montreal, the garbage collectors still pick up whatever's put out to the curb, in whatever state -- no refuse refused.
And then, Nick the Barber makes this observation. Twenty years ago when he visited Chicago, he gave the relatives a hard time about how dirty Chicago was and how clean his home city of Toronto was by comparison. Now, the Chicago relatives brag about how clean their city is compared to that dump, Toronto! How in Chicago the streets and sidewalks are spotlessly clean, but in Toronto there's trash lying around all over and the sidewalks are speckled with chewing gum carcasses. And, no panhandlers on Michigan Avenue, Chicago -- unlike on Toronto's Yonge Street or Bloor where one is accosted by panhandlers once or twice each block. (This, even though the Safe Streets Act is still in force in Ontario).
Chicago is, um, "my kind of town." But it's not just Chicago that looks better than Toronto. Manhattan is no longer known for the stink of garbage rotting curbside in the hot, summer sun, or for muggers in Central Park. Manhattan streets and sidewalks are free of trash or any signs of chewing gum remains.Central Park is filled to overflowing with families, strollers, and dogs on leashes. Not long ago, I walked around Central Park and from Midtown down to Greenwich Village and on -- maybe sixty blocks -- and I encountered exactly "zero" panhandlers! "Start spreadin' the news."
"Toronto the Good"? Nope. I hereby christen thee, "Toronto the Dump."
Posted by Russ Kuykendall on August 1, 2007 in Municipal Politics | Permalink | Comments (86) | TrackBack
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
PS I love you
National Post: Too much government
According to a study released last week by the federal Treasury Board, since the cutbacks of the mid-1990s, the federal civil service has ballooned nearly a quarter, from 195,000 to 250,000 direct employees -- not including Mounties, the military or those who work for arms-length agencies and Crown corporations.
CTV: Public sector pays better than private: report
In 2002-2003, the average salary of workers in the core public service was $53,000, increasing to $73,400 when factoring in benefits. . . In the private sector, the average salary was $38,885.
Ottawa Citizen: Mental health leaves in PS soar
According to the study, about 4.3 per cent of the federal government's 200,000 unionized workers--nearly 8,500 in total--were on disability in 2002.
Though that proportion hasn't changed markedly since the mid-1990s, the number of public servants citing disabling depression and anxiety nearly doubled to more than 44 per cent in 2002 from 23.7 in 1991.
There you have it. There are too many public servants, they're way overpaid, and many can't handle their jobs.
Posted by Kevin Steel on July 31, 2007 in Canadian Politics | Permalink | Comments (17) | TrackBack
Guantanamo is better than freedom
"Guantanamo cell is better than freedom, says inmate fighting against release" reports UK's Times Online:
An inmate of Guantanamo Bay who spends 22 hours each day in an isolation cell is fighting for the right to stay in the notorious internment camp.
Ahmed Belbacha fears that he will be tortured or killed if the United States goes ahead with plans to return him to his native Algeria.
The Times has learnt that Mr Belbacha, who lived in Britain for three years, has filed an emergency motion at the US Court of Appeals in Washington DC asking for his transfer out of Guantanamo to be halted. He was cleared for release from Camp Delta in February and his lawyers believe that his return to Algerian custody is imminent.
Mr Belbacha says that if he returns to Algeria, he faces the threat of torture by security services and murder by Islamist terrorists.
WoW, if Islamist terrorists prefer Guantanamo to their own Islamic countries, then it really speaks volumes. Doesn't it?
Posted by Winston on July 31, 2007 in Current Affairs | Permalink | Comments (86) | TrackBack
Monday, July 30, 2007
Progress is being made in Iraq, NYTimes admits
The New York Times ran a potentially seismic op-ed piece today by Michael O’Hanlon and Ken Pollack of the left leaning Brookings Institute.
These two authors have just returned from a trip to Iraq, and they saw what everyone else has seen – noteworthy progress in the wake of the troop surge.
Also, New York Times correspondent John Burns was interviewed by Hugh Hewitt and Mr. Burns noted the progress that has been made on the ground since the troop surge kicked in.
Posted by Winston on July 30, 2007 in Current Affairs | Permalink | Comments (27) | TrackBack
Sharia hate crime
Before me is a recent report that a student at Pace University in New York City has been arrested for a hate crime in consequence of an alleged dumping of the Quran. Nothing repels me more than the burning or desecration of books, and if, for example, this was a volume from a public or university library, I would hope that its mistreatment would constitute a misdemeanor at the very least. But if I choose to spit on a copy of the writings of Ayn Rand or Karl Marx or James Joyce, that is entirely my business. When I check into a hotel room and send my free and unsolicited copy of the Gideon Bible or the Book of Mormon spinning out of the window, I infringe no law, except perhaps the one concerning litter. Why do we not make this distinction in the case of the Quran? We do so simply out of fear, and because the fanatical believers in that particular holy book have proved time and again that they mean business when it comes to intimidation. Surely that should be to their discredit rather than their credit. Should not the "moderate" imams of On Faith have been asked in direct terms whether they are, or are not, negotiating with a gun on the table?
Read it all.
Posted by Rob Huck on July 30, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (25) | TrackBack
Operating in silence
Well, that's certainly a good name for a cover-up, Operation Silence. You can read about it here in Tehelka and the Globe and Mail: Recording of Air India bombing confession allegedly surfaces 22 years later. See also Vancouver Sun: Bomb-maker's family given funds monthly
Though Singh says he is financially "stretched," the retired Laurentian University math professor has for years sent a monthly cheque to the family of Inderjit Singh Reyat because he believes the convicted B.C. bomb-maker is "our Nelson Mandela."
h/t Prime Time Crime
Posted by Kevin Steel on July 30, 2007 in Crime | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack
Sub mission
Just renewed my subscription to The New Criterion. I really enjoy the magazine. The reason this time around I went with the 2-year sub is because an artist friend of mine and his wife dropped by a few days ago on their Albertans-drive-thru-B.C. holiday. One morning while toodling around the house, my friend glanced down and saw the title of this article on the cover of the June issue: Why the art world is a disaster. So while breakfast was being prepared, he started reading. That was it. He got stuck into the whole stack of back issues and ended up taking them with him for campfire reading. His wife just rolled her eyes and said, "Oh great, more stuff" [in the van]. And I thought, you know? I think I have just been taking this magazine for granted. It's a voice of dissent and clarity. What would I be missing if it wasn't there?
It's stating the obvious, but it's worth repeating when just about everybody reads online and much of the time for free: subscriptions keep magazines alive. So if you like a magazine and can afford it--even if you read it online--consider subscribing. Yes, there's self-interest here. I hope you enjoy and subscribe to the Western Standard.
Posted by Kevin Steel on July 30, 2007 in Western Standard | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBack
Sunday, July 29, 2007
Douglas Murray on Neo-Conservatism
We definitely need more people like Douglas Murray, author of Neo-Conservatism: Why We Need It
This speech is almost one year old but still relevant and fresh! You'll like it...
Posted by Winston on July 29, 2007 in Current Affairs | Permalink | Comments (23) | TrackBack
Support the troops
Thank goodness that Canadian top commander's convoy was left unscathed during the recent suicide attack in southern Afghanistan.
We owe all our brave troops a big 'Thank You' and every one of us, regardless of our political affiliation, can write them and thank them for their service. They're doing an awesome job over there and it is necessary to express our gratitude for their sacrifices.
Let them know they have our full support! They deserve all support and respect they can get from us here at home. Writing them is the least one can do though...
Posted by Winston on July 29, 2007 in Current Affairs, Military | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack