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Friday, September 07, 2007
Begging Us to Do Their Work
Berlin begs Ottawa to stay past 2009
Stung by a thwarted terrorist attack and facing their own ugly parliamentary debate over the war, German leaders are begging Canada to avoid withdrawing troops from Afghanistan in early 2009 as scheduled.
"I want to say how much we appreciate what Canada is doing. We know that, for instance, about 100,000 Canadian soldiers lie in the European soil, [soldiers] that fought in two world wars begun by Germany. And it was never a question for Canada to defend our common values where it was needed," Eckart von Klaeden, Chancellor Angela Merkel's foreign-policy spokesman, said in an interview yesterday.
"Canada is a really important country as a role model for others. It would have consequences for the whole alliance and for the whole Western world if Canada would leave Afghanistan."
In both Canada and Germany, the Afghan mission faces intense pressure from the public and from opposition parties supporting shaky governments. Germany, like Canada, is in the midst of a debate over the nature of its commitment. But both parties in the German coalition government, the left-wing Social Democrats and the conservative Christian Democrats, have declared that troops should stay for at least 10 years, and the Social Democrats are arguing that the number of troops should be increased.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper said recently that Canada's 2,500 troops would not stay beyond the current February, 2009, deadline unless there is a parliamentary mandate, which would probably be impossible in the current minority government.
NATO leaders, meeting in Ottawa yesterday and facing withdrawals from the 37-nation Afghanistan mission by Canada, the Netherlands and several other nations, urged Canada to "stay the course."
In the war-plagued south, the loss of Canada and the Netherlands would leave only Britain and the United States, and NATO would be forced to press other nations, which have so far refused to enter this more intense battle, to send their troops into the line of fire.
This has created an air of crisis in Germany, whose 3,500 troops are mostly engaged in non-combat work securing the relatively peaceful north of Afghanistan.
Germany has more soldiers on the ground then we do. Their soldiers stay up in the safe north while ours are in the south fighting off the Taliban. How dare they ask anything of us. We should be the ones asking them to help us! Maybe if they got themselves in gear back in '01 we could have chased the Taliban out once and for all. Instead we're worrying about '09 when most of the NATO coalition will be pulling out.
Posted by Leah Dowe on September 7, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (39) | TrackBack
Thursday, September 06, 2007
Un-Chartered Waters: The Ontario Election Education Debate
The Ontario election campaign has been red-hot for weeks now, ever since PC leader John Tory proposed that non-Catholic religious schools be brought into the public education system. Proving the "P" in PC holds great sway with Tory, this big-government solution would see Queen's Park educrats meddling in the business of independent educators throughout the province. While gaining little bandwagon support for his policy of massively expanding the public education bureaucracy, poor John has also been forced into the Stockwell Day position of having to invent creationism policy on the fly.
Meanwhile, the big-government Premier, Dalton McGuinty, took the opening provided by Tory and slammed it shut with his own big mouth, by demagoguing not against Tory, but against separate schools themselves! His advisors forgot to remind him that he spent his very own youth in the Catholic School system - a point that Andrew Coyne uses to spin off into his evisceration of McGuinty in yesterday's National Post.
What I can't understand is this: why has no one come out in support of Charter schools for Ontario? It seems so obvious, yet everyone seems to be hung up on the Catholic School funding issue, and whether the origin of the universe is something that all kids really need to agree on by the age of 18.
Calgarians, I ask for your input: how have your experiences been with Charter schools? And are they as pleasing to conservatives in practice as they are in theory?
Posted by Neil Flagg on September 6, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (38) | TrackBack
CBC versus Mulroney versus Trudeau?
Mulroney slams Trudeau as lacking moral fibre to lead
Last Updated: Wednesday, September 5, 2007 | 11:40 PM ET
CBC News (nameless journalist?) fisked by Mac...
Brian Mulroney has stepped back into the public spotlight to promote his memoirs — and accuse former archrival Pierre Trudeau of having lacked the moral fibre to lead.
Archrival? That’s pretty strong language considering Trudeau retired in June 1984 and Mulroney was elected for the first time in Aug 1983. Mulroney's rival was John Turner.
In an interview with CTV on Wednesday, the former Conservative prime minister reached back over 60 years to chide Trudeau for his antiwar activism as a university student, saying his refusal to serve in the Second World War rendered him unfit to provide moral leadership.
So 60 years have passed. Does that mean we should forgive Hitler as well?
Mulroney's memoirs are to be released Monday.
I expect it’ll be an interesting book... Maybe I’ll leave a few hints for Mrs. Mac to make Christmas shopping easy for her?
When he retired in 1993, Mulroney was one of the most reviled prime ministers in Canadian history. The late Trudeau, who retired as Liberal prime minister in 1984, is accorded more respect and admiration than Mulroney by Canadians in opinion polls.
This is the paragraph which I object to the most. Talk about revisionist history! Trudeau was also one of the most reviled prime ministers in Canadian history. Trudeau retired because he knew he would never be re-elected. Since the day he retired, the Liberal propaganda machine has working overtime, trying to beatify Trudeau. Despite this, Trudeau was chosen #1 on the Beaver’s 10 Worst Canadians of all time list. Mulroney was #4.
In the interview, Mulroney blamed Trudeau for scuttling the Meech Lake accord, a 1990 pact aimed at securing Quebec's signature on the Constitution. He then launched into a diatribe about what he called a lack of moral fibre shown in Trudeau's opposition to the Second World War.
With the Meech Lake Accord, Mulroney was trying clean up the horrid Constitutional mess Trudeau left behind... and Trudeau did scuttle Meech.
"[Trudeau] is far from a perfect man," Mulroney said.
You’re absolutely right, Mulroney... Trudeau did more damage to this country than any other Prime Minister and we’re still recovering from his “Just Society” which was patently unjust!
'Cheap and shoddy' shot at Trudeau
Well, if anyone would know cheap and shoddy shots, it’s the CBC...
"This is a man who questioned the Allies when the Jews were being sacrificed and, when the great extermination program was on, he was marching around Outremont [Montreal] on the other side of the issue." '
Yet Canadians elected this wanna-be communist and allowed him to warp our Canadian values, even to the point of repatriating our Constitution so he could screw it up as well.
Mulroney acknowledged that many Quebecers were opposed to the war and that Trudeau was a rebellious young man at the time. But he noted that one million young Canadians chose to fight the Nazis, knowing that theirs was "the most evil machine ever known to man, trying to exterminate the Jews, everybody knew that.
As a fellow Quebecer, Mulroney understands the nature of the Quebecois and although he was but a child during WWII, many of the political figures who he befriended during his younger years (like John Diefenbaker and Daniel Johnson) were there during WWII and I expect they influenced him.
"Pierre Trudeau was not among them. That's a decision he made. He's entitled to make that kind of decision, but it doesn't qualify him for any position of moral leadership in our society."
Exactly... but Trudeau’s pacifism and his socialism exactly suited the counter-cultural backlash which followed WWII. His carefully crafted charisma wooed the “Me Generation” and they voted for him en masse.
Trudeau's eldest son, Justin, declined to comment on Mulroney's assessment of his father, who died seven years ago this month.
I should care what another Trudeau thinks? Meh!
Historian and Trudeau chronicler Stephen Clarkson was surprised that Mulroney dredged up the old complaint about Trudeau, whose refusal to serve in the war was used against him during the 1967 Liberal leadership contest.
Let me get this straight... a historian is surprised someone mentioned historical facts in a memoir? Does that make sense to anyone??
"He's sort of scraping the barrel if that's the worst he can say.… It's kind of cheap and shoddy."
Evidently, this historian isn’t getting the latest Liberal bulletins. The “buzz word” to describe Conservatives these days is “mean-spirited”.
Clarkson said Mulroney appears to be unaware of more damning revelations about the young Trudeau, uncovered in a recent book by Monique and Max Nemni. According to the book, the youthful Trudeau admired fascist dictators, including Hitler, held anti-Semitic views and supported Quebec independence.
Knowing how long it takes to publish a book, chances are these recent revelations hadn’t been revealed when Mulroney wrote his memoirs.
Moreover, Mulroney's charge is not strictly accurate, Clarkson said, pointing out that most people did not know about the Nazis' systematic extermination of millions of Jews until after the war.
I’m sure over a million Canadians volunteered for WWII for no reason whatsoever. For a historian, Clarkson seems rather "liberal" with his facts.
Trudeau "haunted" Mulroney throughout his years as prime minister, Clarkson said, and Mulroney always seemed to be trying to prove he could do better than Trudeau on the unity and constitutional files, the economy and foreign relations.
Ahhh... so not only is Clarkson a historian, apparently he’s also a political expert! Guess what, Clarkson? Quick history review of Trudeau’s record:
*on unity (hello FLQ and the War Measures Act)
*on the Constitution (replaced Diefenbaker’s excellent Bill of Rights with his flawed Charter)
*on the economy (first PM to used deficit spending)
*on foreign relations (Reagan hated Trudeau as did most world leaders)
I doubt Mulroney could have done worse than Trudeau!! Perhaps instead of saying Trudeau “haunted” Mulroney, it would be more accurate to say Trudeau “cursed” Mulroney by leaving the country teetering on the brink of bankruptcy, top-loaded with Liberal appointees and in the midst of a full-blown Constitutional crisis. The current pack of Liberals don't hold a candle to Trudeau... but they worship him and that's frightening.
Cross posted at EnigMac and Jack's Newwatch!
-Mac
Posted by Enigmac on September 6, 2007 in Media | Permalink | Comments (54) | TrackBack
Canada is Far Too Accommodating
There is an ongoing debate in Canada surrounding the issue of integration vs. accommodation when it comes to new immigrants. When people immigrate to a new country, there is usually an expectation that they alter their ways somewhat to integrate into the new society and culture. In Canadian society, however, we seem to be far more accommodating than other countries when it comes to immigration, and in my opinion, we accommodate too much and immigrants integrate too little.
Today we see just one more example of how Canadian society has become far too accommodating.
Rightfully, current electoral laws require that all voters prove their identity before being allowed to vote. However, Elections Canada has unfortunately made an exception to those rules to accommodate Canadian Muslims.
Despite heavy controversy over face coverings at the polls for the last Quebec provincial election, federal election officials say Muslim women will not have to remove their niqabs or burkas to cast their ballots in three federal byelections in Quebec on Sept. 17.
According to Elections Canada, women wearing niquabs or burkas will still be required to bring a piece of identification with a photo. However, of what use is that photo id if Muslim women are not required to show their face? Just how are we supposed to verify their identity? Why do we make the exception?
Unfortunately, the problem goes much further than this specific example.
Consider the incident earlier this summer when Paramount Canada’s Wonderland awarded compensation to a Sikh man after he complained he was discriminated against for refusing to take off his turban and wear a helmet to drive a go-kart. The insanity is mind boggling how the amusement park was required by law to require all riders to wear a helmet for safety and insurance reasons, yet someone would accuse them of infringing on a religious right to wear a turban and actually be awarded compensation as a result of their accusation.
To make matters worse, the Ontario Human Rights Commission is now seeking an exemption for Sikh’s from the provincial helmet laws. If they succeed, and a Sikh gets injured while riding a motorcycle or go-cart without a helmet, the Ontario government is opening itself up to being sued for permitting an unsafe practise. And guess who will end up paying for these legal settlements? Furthermore, it is our public health care system that will pay for their medical treatment.
And the madness doesn’t end there.
Every December, we read about Christmas trees being removed from public spaces out of fear the display of a Christian icon may offend other religions. After public outcry, the Christmas trees are often, but not always, replaced. Most people say that seeing symbols of another culture does not offend them, but the removal of their own religious symbols will anger them greatly. So why do we do it?
Many people are quick to blame the immigrants for asking too much of our society, and certainly they must accept some of the responsibility. However, are the immigrants really the whole problem? Isn’t our society just as much to blame for being too liberal and bending over to their ongoing requests? If our society, judges and politicians didn’t have a history for giving in to these types of requests, immigrants wouldn’t feel they have a right to continually challenge our existing ways.
Some people call this progress. I just call it sad.
When we see people making changes to our culture that we disagree with, we must continue to be vocal in our opposition. Welcoming new immigrants is important, but our heritage and identity are important too, and we should never feel guilty for proudly standing up for our traditions.
Cross-posted at www.exactlyright.ca.
Posted by Dave Hodson on September 6, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (48) | TrackBack
Paying for Garth Turner's premium advertising campaign
Garth Turner, MP for the riding of Halton in Ontario, is on the first leg of a tour of western cities. Making stops from Manitoba to British Columbia, Turner, now a Liberal after being ejected from the Conservative Party last year, is making scheduled speeches on the ineptitude of the Jim Flaherty, Stephen Harper, and the Conservatives in general.
Garth Turner has been adamant that this tour is not a drain on the taxpayers, but that it is "no cost". That claim might require some rethinking.
Preceding Garth Turner is a wave of envelopes addressed to people in the ridings in which Turner will be stopping. Each envelope, addressed to the family at the address and not just to "Occupant", contains a flyer.
Nothing personal. No letter. Just a flyer, double-sided, one side with an image of Flaherty and an announcement of Garth Turner's impending arrival and where he can be seen and heard, and the other some bit of anti-Conservative partisan writing by Garth Turner.
Now here's the weird thing. The envelope doesn't have a stamp, but bears the name of one of 15 Liberal MPs. We know the identities of two of them because people who have received these flyers have contacted me -- they are Liberal MPs John McCallum and Massimo Pacetti. We know there are 15 or 16 in total because Garth Turner admitted on his blog that that many MPs had volunteered to help.
And how are they helping?
Mail that is delivered without a stamp is called franked mail (frankus is Latin for "free"). Consistent with long-standing British tradition, mail addressed to an MP, or mail originating from an MP, is delivered by Canada Post free of charge. And so this channel of communication between every Canadian and any member of parliament is available to everyone, regardless of ability to pay.
Well, when I say it's free, I lied. Canada Post in fact passes the cost, equivalent to first class postage, to the House of Commons, where our tax dollars settle the outstanding debt.
But franked mail is not all that common. Most of the time, MPs use "10 percenters". A 10 percenter is a flyer or a response card, anonymous in nature, delivered free of charge (that is, the House pays for it) into a riding. The only limitations are that the flyer cannot be grossly partisan and that only 10 percent of the households in the riding can receive them. They would be delivered into particular postal codes, for example.
The idea of a 10 percenter is to provide MPs the ability to conduct surveys. Nowadays, 10 percenters are used for more partisan purposes. All the parties do it -- Liberal, Conservative, and NDP.
Garth Turner's flyer certainly looks like a 10 percenter. The great thing about a 10 percenter is that delivery cost is one-tenth that of franked mail. It's just bulk mail that the postal worker drops into every box on his or her run, no sorting required.
So why take an anonymous flyer and stuff it into an envelope and incur the cost of mailing it to a specific person?
- Maybe the flyer was too partisan to be a 10 percenter.
- Maybe Garth Turner wanted to deliver into more than 10% of the households.
- Or maybe anonymous and random delivery wasn't good enough, and Turner wanted these flyers to go to specific people, like retirees who could listen to his argument that their retirement was destroyed by Jim Flaherty and the Conservatives.
But regardless of the goals and the strategies, we are faced with the obvious problem. Franked mail is expensive. Far too expensive for mass anonymous email campaigns like this. Franked mail is for one-to-one personalized correspondence. How many of these letters went out? A hundred to each city. A thousand?
Remember that this tour wasn't supposed to cost us anything. But what it looks like instead is that fifteen Liberal MPs have been using their franking privileges to deliver cheap flyers the most expensive way possible. The cost of this bit of mail spamming is still unknown, but assuming thousands of flyers were mailed directly to the homes of individual Canadians, it might be considerable. And that does not sound like a "no cost" tour to me.
More images available here and here at Angry in the Great White North
Posted by Steve Janke on September 6, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (22) | TrackBack
Evolution: Dalton McGuinty Doesn't Understand His Own Government's Curriculum
Maybe Education Minister Kathleen Wynne should brief Dalton McGuinty on what the Ontario government's high school curriculum actually says.
According to the CBC's John McGrath (transcript posted by Warren Kinsella):
"Mr. McGuinty today called it [evolution] today, science and that it's part of the Ontario curriculum and it has to be taught."
Evolution has to be taught? Well, no, actually. Evolution is part of an optional course in the Ministry of Education curriculum.
Evolution is taught in Strand 4 of Grade 12 Biology. See curriculum, pp. 10, 33, 40-41.
Grade 12 Biology is not a mandatory course. See Diploma Requirements, pp. 8-9.
Mr. McGuinty's own government has been updating and revising the science curriculum, but evolution will still be taught as part of an optional course, not a compulsory course.
Which leads to these questions:
Why would Dalton McGuinty (according to John McGrath) say that evolution "has to be taught" when in fact evolution is part of a course that is optional for students to take?
If Dalton McGuinty plans to change the curriculum to make it mandatory for all high school students to be taught evolution, then why did he wait four years to say so?
Posted by Guy Giorno on September 6, 2007 in Canadian Provincial Politics | Permalink | Comments (13) | TrackBack
Wednesday, September 05, 2007
Canada expels Sudanese diplomat
I think this news didn't get reported as it should have been:
"The Honourable Maxime Bernier, Minister of Foreign Affairs, today announced that Canada has decided to expel a diplomat from the Embassy of Sudan in Ottawa in response to the Government of Sudan’s unwarranted expulsion of Canada’s chargé d’affaires"
Posted by Winston on September 5, 2007 in International Affairs | Permalink | Comments (20) | TrackBack
Ahmadinejad's New Theory
According to his mathematical calculations, the US would never attack Iran. Read it all right here:
Ahmadinejad has 'proof' US won't attack
Originally posted at Ranting Owl
Posted by Leah Dowe on September 5, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (11) | TrackBack
Afghan assessment
On the same day as the Montreal Gazette editorializes on Stephane Dion's Afghanistan policy, concluding it is "hare-brained," Globe writer Christie Blatchford assesses the growing "stink of failure" over the mission, a stink that also emanates from the Tories, she says. She writes:
Canada, I fear, has lost its collective stomach for this exercise. It's too tough, too hard, too damn slow, and the cost - 70 lives down and, as an Ottawa-datelined story I read yesterday jauntily noted, "and counting" - is too great.
She concludes:
Where failure itself is often honourable, failing to stay the course is not, and that's what's in the air.
Posted by Terry O'Neill on September 5, 2007 in Canadian Politics | Permalink | Comments (29) | TrackBack
Front burner
According to today's Ottawa Citizen, "Canadians are now expressing alarm about climate change in greater numbers than in any developed nation except France, according to a poll released yesterday."
Ironic, given the fact that Canada will likely be among the biggest net beneficiaries of a warmer earth.
Posted by Terry O'Neill on September 5, 2007 in Current Affairs | Permalink | Comments (16) | TrackBack
Tuesday, September 04, 2007
DISASTER ZONE: The Naomi Klein Onslaught Begins (Again)
Hello Shotgun readers! After accepting an invitation from Matt and Kevin last month, this is my first post as a contributing blogger here at The Western Standard. Some of you may have come across my own nascent blog over the past few months, Flaggman's Canada, which launched in February 2007. Brief bio: Toronto born and raised; Toronto business owner; married with one kid and another on the way; blogger and writer as an unpaid hobbyist, indulging my youthful dreams of future journalistic glory. A conservative in nearly all areas of life, except when the word "Progressive" is attached. Favorite online activity: exposing the hypocricy, dangerous ideology, and outright lunacy of the hard left (a pathological group I've never understood), and the apathetic soullessness of the soft left (the culture that has surrounded me throughout my life).
Naomi "No Logo" Klein is back. Cue "Mansbridge One-on-One"! Bring us the Globe & Mail weekend centre-spread! Prepare for the book launch party live on CP24! The author of 2002's 500+ page anarchist bible/doorstopper is preparing for this month's release of "The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism", in which she soils another 500+ pages trying to convince us that free-market economists (with a particular hate-on for Milton Friedman, who due to his recent death is no longer able to defend himself) have allowed the evil corporate world to have their way with the world’s disaster zones at their most vulnerable moments, forcing former utopias (Baghdad, New Orleans, 1970s Chile) into becoming part of some sort of Chicago-school-inspired world capitalist conspiracy. Skeptical, are you? Don’t be…she’s got…ENDNOTES! From today’s Toronto Star:
The 560-page argument, which also deals with the privatization of post-communist economies in Poland, Russia and China, the reliance of the Israeli private sector on security-related entrepreneurship and other subjects, is bolstered by nearly 70 pages of footnotes, citing more than 1,000 sources.
“I expect the release of the book to be a battle. And the endnotes are my body armour,” says Klein, who will further defend her thesis during a public interview Thursday at the UofT’s MacMillan Theatre.
“When you are introducing ideas that are new and in some cases quite radical, you need major backup if you want to reach beyond a small section of the population. Hopefully, the people who don’t need as much convincing will bear with me because if the book were more anecdotal and less carefully sourced it would make it that much easier for the people who want to get me.”
Defensiveness, narcissism, and paranoia, all on display in just two block quotes. Without this holy trinity, what would a socialist writer have left? And without the hypocricy of the latte-sipping Bloor West Village-dwelling self-hating internationalists, what reason would the rest of the country have to hate Toronto?
Posted by Neil Flagg on September 4, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (69) | TrackBack
Rue Brittania
According to a small recent item in one of my local free papers, the Celtic Shoppe in Windsor, Ontario has run into a snag with the Canada Food Inspection Agency. The British-themed store imports specialized groceries that are only available in the United Kingdom. In February, the CFIA and Canada Customs seized a shipment of groceries to the shop on the basis that there was no French labeling on the groceries. (The local paper, The Windsor Star, hasn't recently written on the store's problems, so I don't know the other side of the story.)
The store's online petition, asking the CFIA to overturn the ruling, claims that other local ethnic stores are awash with imported products that have neither French nor English labeling. If this is so, the store has a valid beef . Alas, not the sort that you'd combine with kidney to make a pie.
Posted by Rick Hiebert on September 4, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (13) | TrackBack
A Point-ed question
UPDATE: The Vancouver Sun has now raised the 'nation' issue in its lead editorial today.
In light of the controversy two years ago over Gov.-Gen. Michaelle Jean's dual citizenship--a controversy that focused on the question of which nation she would be loyal to in the event of a showdown between Canada and France--I wonder if the same question might not now be asked of B.C.'s new lieutenant-governor, Steven Point.
Mr. Point has had a distinguished career as an aboriginal leader, a lawyer, professor and judge, and will likely make a fine lieutenant-governor, serving as an inspiration for B.C.'s native Indians and helping move forward the B.C. Liberal government's reconciliation program.
But, as the premier's press release says, Mr. Point was once the elected head of the Skowkale First Nation [emphasis added] in B.C.'s Fraser Valley, and was also tribal chair of the Sto:lo Nation [there's that word again].
To hear some of B.C.'s more outspoken aboriginal leaders tell it, this "nation" concept is very serious stuff. For example, they consider treaty talks between their leaders and the representatives of B.C. and the federal government to be negotiations between three equal partners. Is this what Mr. Point thinks? If so, then I think we are entitled to ask with which "nation" -- Canada or the Skowkale -- he places his foremost loyalty.
Mr. Point has already served as a provincial court judge and commissioner of the B.C. Treaty Commission, so I have little doubt that his loyalty to the Crown is uppermost. Nevertheless, I would like to see him address this interesting and potentially important question.
Posted by Terry O'Neill on September 4, 2007 in Canadian Provincial Politics | Permalink | Comments (7) | TrackBack
No More Illusions
Michael Ledeen performs an invaluable service; “No More Illusions”...
"For three decades, Iran has made war on the United States and unabashedly told the world that it seeks the destruction of the United States, all the while — directly and by proxy — murdering and imprisoning Americans. For three decades, Iran has brayed that “Death to America” is the alpha and the omega of its revolutionary designs. And for three decades, the United States — under Democratic and Republican administrations — has pretended it just isn’t so."
Posted by Winston on September 4, 2007 in Current Affairs | Permalink | Comments (17) | TrackBack
Freedom marches on
Is the fact that the tenure of the Conservative government in Ottawa coincides with an improvement in Canada's "economic freedom index" merely a matter of correlation or is it a telling example of causation?
In other words, did the Tory government's modest tax reductions and cuts to government, combined with its greater commitment to free trade, lead to the country's higher standing? Or was it just a coincidence? Maybe someone at the Fraser Institute could hop onto the Shotgun and answer this for us.
Posted by Terry O'Neill on September 4, 2007 in International Affairs | Permalink | Comments (11) | TrackBack
Demos Down Under
Prime Minister Stephen Harper leaves Ottawa at 10:55 p.m. Eastern time tonight for Sydney, Australia to attend the big APEC conference. As this story makes clear, he and the other world leaders will be greeted by demonstrators protesting against: 1. George Bush, 2. Global warming, 3. Human rights abuses in China, and 4. Nuclear proliferation.
What?! Nothing about the the neo-liberal, corporatist free-trade agenda?
Posted by Terry O'Neill on September 4, 2007 in International Politics | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack
Chinese weapons for Taliban
Chinese weapons are being used extensively against the coalition forces in southern Afghanistan:
"... these included Chinese-made surface-to-air missiles, anti-aircraft guns, landmines, rocket-propelled grenades and components for roadside bombs."
Posted by Winston on September 4, 2007 in Current Affairs, International Affairs, Military | Permalink | Comments (66) | TrackBack
Monday, September 03, 2007
More Hot Air Coming From Toronto
It seems that every passing day provides another reason I am thankful I do not live in Toronto! It's a little slice of the Soviet Union, right here in Canada, where politicians love to tell us what we should and shouldn't do.
It is currently fashionable in Toronto to look down on anything remotely connected to the automobile. Therefore, the city is now considering a tax on gas stations and big box stores. Here and here are a couple of articles on the topic.
City politicians feel that because gas stations sell fuel for cars, they are enabling residents to drive their cars, which in their mind, is an evil act. It doesn't matter that driving cars is a perfectly legal activity, that politicians themselves drive around in cars, or that the poor public transit in Toronto is an inadequate alternative to the automobile; Toronto politicians feel that businesses selling gasoline should be forced to pay the city increased taxes to offset the costs of driving.
Cesar Palacio, a Toronto councillor from Ward 17, went so far as to say that gas stations in general are "obnoxious uses that do not fit well in local neighbourhoods." My, aren't we arrogant! I think that paying Councillor Palacio is an obnoxious use of tax dollars.
Perhaps Mr. Palacio did not consider that people will continue to drive their cars, with or without gas stations in their local neighbourhoods? However, I'll bet that most residents do not share Mr. Palacio's opinion, and would prefer to have the convenience of having gas stations nearby. I also wonder if Mr. Palacio considered the competitive disadvantage he would be creating for gas station operators in his City? However, it should be great for station operators located on the north side of Steeles Avenue!
As far as big box retailers are concerned, Councillor Palacio says "these stores aren't environmentally friendly and they encourage car usage." Therefore, according to Mr. Palacio, they should be charged higher than typical commercial property tax rates for providing their customers with large parking lots.
Councillor Paula Fletcher took the madness even further by saying the City should ban the big box stores completely.
Perhaps Ms. Fletcher did not consider that if you ban big box stores, people will simply get in their cars and drive outside the city limits to do their shopping, thereby causing even more pollution and giving business to other municipalities? A brilliant plan indeed!
People shop at big box stores because they like them. They offer more selection and better prices than many smaller stores selling similar merchandise. Furthermore, by offering more items under one roof, shoppers don't need to drive to as many different stores, which may even offset the pollution generated through travel to these stores.
Toronto politicians are a unique breed, and I only hope that we can keep them confined to the Toronto city limits.
Cross-posted at www.exactlyright.ca.
Posted by Dave Hodson on September 3, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (23) | TrackBack
How You Can Help
In response to those who asked how they can contribute to Boomer's Legacy here you go:
The address where you can send donations is on the homepage.
Posted by Leah Dowe on September 3, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Medical scare du jour
The headline reads: "Heart surgeries more dangerous for women, study indicates"
But paragraph four reads: "Though experts said no definitive conclusions can be drawn from Swahn's study, they agreed the idea that women might need different treatment compared to men should be studied further."
So why is this completely speculative news of such import that the CBC has highlighted it on its main page?
And, anyway, is it just me, or do two of every three medical stories of this type deal with some sort of danger to women? You'd almost think that it is men who outlive women by an an average 4.9 years, not the reverse.
Posted by Terry O'Neill on September 3, 2007 in Current Affairs | Permalink | Comments (17) | TrackBack
Boomer's Legacy
I've been following this story ever since I heard of Maureen Eykelenboom's plans to create a charitable organization in her son's name to help Afghan children. Mrs Eykelenboom is the mother of Cpl. Andrew James "Boomer" Eykelenboom, who was killed in Afghanistan last year.
After a year of effort, the charity, Boomer's Legacy foundation, will become a reality. The foundation is designed to be administrated by a committee of soldiers who will decide where the funds go. This is what Mrs Eykelenboom said about it,
"This is grassroots," Maureen Eykelenboom said in an interview yesterday from her home in Comox, B.C. "If our soldiers see a need in a village, they can go to that fund and fulfill that need."
You can read more about the foundation here.
Originally published at Ranting Owl.
Posted by Leah Dowe on September 3, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBack