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Saturday, March 15, 2008
Damned for telling the truth
From today's Vancouver Sun:
Tom Happynook, president of the Nuu-chah-nulth Tribal Council on Vancouver Island, called his comments "despicable."
MacKay, the Bulkley Valley-Stikine MLA, made the comments during a meeting of the select standing committee on children and youth. "I don't believe for a moment that every child that went to a residential school was abused," he said.
So, what exactly is "despicable" here? Given that what MacKay said is undeniably true--that many, many aboriginals did benefit from the residential schools (I've talked to them myself; and the old Western/Alberta/B.C. Report famously reported this some years ago), and given that it is also demonstrably true that not all children in the schools were abused (unless one counts the very act of their enrolment as "abuse")--then what's despicable must be the MacKay's failure to embrace the simplistic, self-serving ideology of victimology adhered to by many Native leaders and their non-Native enablers.
Can a human-rights complaint be far behind?
Posted by Terry O'Neill on March 15, 2008 in Current Affairs | Permalink | Comments (48) | TrackBack
Embrace the warming
You gotta love Colby Cosh's op-ed in yesterday's National Post, outlining the contents of a quietly released federal government report that identifies the benefits Canada would enjoy in a slightly warmer world.
Western Standard readers might recall my June 2007 cover story on exactly this subject.
But, of course, given the fact that this year is turning out to be colder than average, maybe it's still to early to get excited about longer growing seasons, better recreational opportunities, lower heating bills, etc.
Posted by Terry O'Neill on March 15, 2008 in Current Affairs | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBack
Obama's Mother and Father Met in Russian Class
An interesting tidbit from this article in The New York Times:
In a Russian class at the University of Hawaii, she met the college’s first African student, Barack Obama.
While, of course, plenty of people have learned Russian over the years - and it's a fine language - surely I'm not the only one who finds it interesting that a woman described as a "fellow traveller" met a member of a communist-inspired movement in a Russian class in 1960?
Elsewhere, the Times describes her as an "idealist" and a friend describes her as someone who, "cared about the core issues" and, "was not afraid to speak truth to power." Euphemisms like that can only be hiding a red-tinged past for Senator Obama.
Posted by Adam T. Yoshida on March 15, 2008 in International Politics | Permalink | Comments (46) | TrackBack
Friday, March 14, 2008
What's Next on Wright?
Over at the Campaign Spot, Jim Geraghty quotes a Republican source as speculating that there's more to come on the Jeremiah Wright front:
One Republican strategist told me this afternoon he cannot imagine that the Clinton camp doesn't already have something in this vein. This strategist is speculating, but he's been around the block a few times
I agree. Not for anything that I know - as my critics will attest to, I don't know very much - but because Obama just appeared in person on MSNBC, CNN, and Fox News in the space of three hours. Presidential campaigns time media appearances carefully - and conduct themselves in a certain way. You don't throw your guy on all three cable news networks on a moment's notice on a Friday night unless you're in something approaching a blind panic.
Though, I don't think that Hillary even needs more footage of Obama at these services to stick the knife in. Imagine the following ad, perhaps coming from a 527:
FADE IN: A frozen image of Jeremiah Wright speaking.
NARRATOR: Jeremiah Wright has been Barack Obama's pastor and mentor for two decades.
(The image begins moving)
WRIGHT: No! No! No! Not "God Bless America" - God Damn America!
CUT TO: A still black and white image of Barack Obama in a happy pose, seated. The camera zooms in.
NARRATOR: Obama was married by Wright. His children were baptized by him. He has attended his church regularly for twenty years. The title of his second book is a quote of Wright's.
CUT TO: Wright, speaking.
WRIGHT: ...for killing innocent people, God Damn America!
CUT TO: The same picture of Barack Obama. NARRATOR: God Bless America or God Damn America: Your Choice. (Quickly) Paid for by (name of random 527)
For that matter, given that there are apparently DVD's of this stuff, they don't need to find Obama in the crowd the day when Wright shrieks "God Damn America" - they just need to find him somewhere and splice the footage together. After all, it'll keep the story in the news and, though they'd be sputtering with rage, what are Obama's supporters going to say?
"Hey, that's not fair! Obama wasn't there the day that he screamed "God Damn America" - he was just there all of the other days that he shouted racist lies. Oh, and he gave him $25,000 the other year. But that's it."
Posted by Adam T. Yoshida on March 14, 2008 in International Politics | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBack
Don’t blame Americans; it’s Spitzer who can’t distinguish between sin and crime
In an opinion piece in The Jewish Daily, Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz defends Eliot Spitzer. He wrote:
Spitzer has sinned, but it’s our sex obsession that’s criminal
When Eliot Spitzer was my research assistant in the 1980s, he was a young man of great brilliance, high integrity, conservative demeanour and enormous promise. It pains me deeply to see him brought down so far, and so quickly, by private sexual misconduct...
The laws criminalizing adult consensual prostitution — especially with $5,000-an-hour call girls — are as anachronistic as the old laws that used to criminalize adultery, fornication, homosexuality and even masturbation. These may be sins, but there are no real victims, except for family members...
Yes, Eliot Spitzer can be charged with hypocrisy for prosecuting prostitution rings while patronizing prostitutes himself. The voters would have had every right to hold his hypocrisy against him had he run for office after completing his term. They could have considered the recklessness of his conduct in evaluating his ability to perform his public functions. But forcing him to resign constitutes an abuse of the political and criminal processes, an abuse that would only be compounded by using vague criminal statutes to prosecute him for federal crimes for which no one is prosecuted...
As a nation we must learn how to distinguish between sin and crime, between activities that endanger the public and those that harm only the actor and his family. The criminal law should be reserved for serious predatory misconduct.
I agree with almost every word Dershowitz has written here, but it is Spitzer who needs to learn to distinguish between sin and crime – not average Americans. I’ve posted recently about the non-crimes Spitzer has prosecuted. The list includes the non-crimes of price gouging, insider trading, music industry payola, prostitution and many others.
Spitzer and Dershowitz should both read Lysander Spooner’s classic “Vices are not Crimes.”
Here’s the opening paragraph of this essay:
Vices are those acts by which a man harms himself or his property.
Crimes are those acts by which one man harms the person or property of another.
Vices are simply the errors which a man makes in his search after his own happiness. Unlike crimes, they imply no malice toward others, and no interference with their persons.
In vices, the very essence of crime - that is, the design to injure the person or property of another - is wanting.
It is a maxim of the law that there can be no crime without a criminal intent; that is, without the intent to invade the person or property of another. But no one ever practises a vice with any such criminal intent. He practices his vice for his own happiness solely, and not from any malice toward others.
Unless this clear distinction between vices and crimes be made and recognized by the laws, there can be on earth no such thing as individual right, liberty, or property, and the corresponding and coequal rights of another man to the control of his own person and property.
For a government to declare a vice to be a crime, and to punish it as such, is an attempt to falsify the very nature of things. It is as absurd as it would be to declare truth to be falsehood, or falsehood truth.
Posted by Matthew Johnston on March 14, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (12) | TrackBack
Was Omar Khadr tortured?
As an update to my post on the new Angus Reid survey on Canadian attitudes toward Omar Khadr (with a link to the Western Standard exclusive by Terry O’Neill entitled “The case against Khadr”), CBC News has just reported that:
A U.S. military judge ruled Friday that the American government must reveal the names and notes of those who interrogated Canadian Omar Khadr after he was captured in Afghanistan in 2002. The Toronto-born teenager has been detained at the Guantanamo Bay military base, facing charges of throwing a grenade that killed one American soldier and injured another. His lawyers claim interrogators used torture to pressure him into making self-incriminating statements.
Read the full article here.
Posted by Matthew Johnston on March 14, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (24) | TrackBack
One thing I doubt we'll be calling either Clinton or Obama . . .
. . . is President of the United States.
Posted by D.J. McGuire on March 14, 2008 in International Politics | Permalink | Comments (8) | TrackBack
How can you call this man anti-American?
(Non-photoshopped cover of the current issue of Rolling Stone magazine. Article here.)
You wouldn't call Luke Skywalker anti-American, would you?
Previous Shotgun post on Obama here.
Posted by Terrence Watson on March 14, 2008 in Humour | Permalink | Comments (30) | TrackBack
Wilson the Worst
Did you notice who was among the MPs who voted against Canada's staying in Afghanistan until 2011? None other than that oleaginous conman Blair Wilson, he of the many resume fabrications, business failures, alleged bad debts and election-expense improprieties. One wonders if he has deluded himself into thinking his vote was based on principle.
Posted by Terry O'Neill on March 14, 2008 in Canadian Politics | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBack
'Total ownership of our human condition'
The story you are most likely NOT to find in the Globe and Mail.
Posted by Terry O'Neill on March 14, 2008 in Religion | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBack
Thinly veiled racism
Not all criticism of Israel is rooted in anti-Semitism, of course; nevertheless, "Jews worldwide are facing a new form of anti-Semitism disguised by hatred toward Israel, in addition to more traditional forms of anti-Semitism, a new US report said Thursday."
Posted by Terry O'Neill on March 14, 2008 in International Affairs | Permalink | Comments (13) | TrackBack
MSM gets Iraq wrong, again
I'm guessing the news about a new Pentagon report regarding Saddam Hussein's ties to terrorism has reached the Great White North. I'm also guessing most have heard only the MSM spin that said report says Saddam never had anything to do with al Qaeda. I'm finally guessing some (if not most) would agree with the MSM spin.
Posted by D.J. McGuire on March 14, 2008 in International Politics | Permalink | Comments (14) | TrackBack
Can We Call Obama Anti-American Now?
Shall we take this moment to take stock of the evidence that Barack Hussein Obama is, in some fashion, fundamentally anti-American and therefore a threat to the people of the Western world?
Let's briefly review what we know about Barack Hussein Obama.
1) He was raised by a mother who was described by her own friends as a "fellow traveller" and who expatriated herself and would later, when asked by her husband to go to business functions in Indonesia where Americans would be present, angrily denied that they were "her people."
2) Frank Marshall Davis, who Obama describes as a mentor in his autobiography was a member of the Communist Party.
3) Obama refuses to wear a flag pin because, he claims, true patriotism consists of opposing the Iraq War. The corollary to this, of course, is that Obama must therefore believe that people who support the war are not "true patriots," a position which is, to say the least, odd.
4) One of Obama's friends is William Ayers, a man who unsuccessfully attempted to blow up an Army dance and, when asked about this terrorist activity after September 11th, said, "I don't regret setting bombs; I feel we didn't do enough."
5) His wife infamously recently claimed that the fact that her husband was doing well in the Presidential election made her feel proud of America for the first time in her adult life.
6) He belongs to a radical Church whose Pastor - a man who he is close to and who provided the title of his second book - says that we should sing "God Damn America" instead of "God Bless America" and says that America got what it deserved on September 11th.
All of this, I should add, is leaving aside the Moslem issue, his connections with radical Palestinians, and so forth. I'm not even getting into the Islamic doctrine of al-Taqiyya, which permits the faithful to conceal their true faith from infidels. I am simply offering facts here, not suppositions.
What do we know, then, about Barack Hussein Obama?
We know that he's the child of a mother with radical and seeming anti-American views. He was mentored by a communist and claims that "true patriotism" consists of trying to ensure that America loses wars. He likes to hang around with unrepentant terrorists. His wife has never been proud of America in her whole adult life. The man who married him, whose Church he has attended for two decades, and who baptized his children hates America.
Can we trust this man to defend our civilization? Should we?
Posted by Adam T. Yoshida on March 14, 2008 in International Politics | Permalink | Comments (53) | TrackBack
Limiting the Charter
A federal court ruled that the Charter of Rights and Freedoms does not apply to Taliban members captured in Afghanistan. This is surprising. And a little troubling.
Documents like the U.S. Constitution make either an explicit or implicit claim about people. Not "citizens" or "members" in this or that group, but about people in general (Objectivists might call them people qua humans, or something like that). The preamble doesn't limit itself to U.S. citizens, it speaks about all human beings all over the world. The rights to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness are supposed to be blanket, natural rights that all of us have in virtue of the mere fact of being human.
But the Constitution, in spite of its universalist language, binds only those who represent it and the various official offices of power in the U.S. The Constitution is not binding on the Prime Minister of England or Canada, for instance. They are subject to the terms in the Constitution when they are in an American jurisdiction, but they do not have to uphold it in their own jurisdictions.
This is why (mis)treatment of detainees by the U.S. government in Guantanamo is at least prima facie contrary to the Constitution. And why, you might think, Canadians who have captured Taliban soldiers are required to treat them in accordance with the Charter. The rights afforded us in the Charter and the U.S. Constitution are not contingent on our membership in anything other than the human race. They are contingent on you being dealt with by someone sworn to uphold those rights, but, other than that, it seems strange to think that it matters whether you're a member of the Taliban, or Polish, or a woman, or anything else, for that matter.
Posted by P.M. Jaworski on March 14, 2008 in International Affairs | Permalink | Comments (8) | TrackBack
Meet the woman who brought down Spitzer
Ashley Alexandra Dupre claims to be “Kristen,” the woman at the centre of the prostitution scandal that forced New York Governor Eliot Spitzer to resign last week.
At a glace, Ashley seems infinitely more likeable than Spitzer – and things look good for her. The aspiring singer is expected to sell her story for millions. I’ll bet we’ll even hear a #1 music single from her soon.
But for poetic justice, I won’t be happy until I see a reformed Ashley Dupre in a Martha Stewart Living commercial promoting Stewart's new line of wedding dresses.
Martha Stewart, the 65-year-old business magnate, was, of course, one of the many victims of Spitzer’s overzealous prosecution of alleged securities violations.
Here’s a great description of Spitzer’s campaign against Stewart that led to her imprisonment:
“It was quite clear that the then Attorney General of NY State [Eliot Spitzer] knew she [Stewart] didn’t do anything other than what her broker told her to do. [Stewart sold shares of ImClone.] She wouldn’t take a deal to put him in jail so they retaliated. Just the thing one needs for one’s resume when planning a run at the big house in Albany. He even trumped-up the charges further by adding Fraud because she took the step, under the law, to declare her innocence. For declaring her innocence, he charged her with Fraud. Legal scholars around the country were shaking their heads at this and the fact that Spitzer was using White Papers about the economic impact of Mutual Funds as the connection that would make Martha Stewart an insider … which she wasn’t.”
The Globe and Mail reported in January 2007 that “Spitzer invoked seldom-used state laws to attack abuses in industries whose primary regulators had seen no offences or overlooked them.”
Let’s hope these seldom-used corporate governance laws are used even less often in the absence of the so-called "Sherriff of Wall Street" – and that the minor offences to the labyrinth of business-stifling regulations are once again overlooked.
And let's hope Ashley finds a nice fella and settles down.
Posted by Matthew Johnston on March 14, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack
Dollars for babies
The Action Democratique du Quebec is working up a family policy to give parents of a third child $5,000. This aggressive policy is aimed at increasing the current reproduction rate of 1.6 children per family to two children per family, and is mostly a response to a new report that shows French slipping amongst Montrealers into the minority.
The ADQ is also encouraging the Liberals to rethink their policy of allowing 10,000 new immigrants into Quebec.
Forget the immigration policy for a second and focus on the family policy--is this a good idea? Consider the kind of family that would have a third child for the $5,000 bonus. We probably want more children, but doesn't it matter that the reason some families will have for having a third kid is the money, rather than a genuine desire to have another little boy or girl?
Don't we want to avoid creating incentives for parents who become parents for all the wrong reasons to have more children? Wanting the Quebec population to grow is fine. But wanting it at the cost of having children raised by parents who are motivated to do it because of a payoff is not.
Posted by P.M. Jaworski on March 14, 2008 in Canadian Provincial Politics | Permalink | Comments (7) | TrackBack
In Kandahar until 2011
In a rare show of solidarity (or a desire on the part of an effectively leaderless opposition party to avoid an election), the Liberals and Tories managed to outmuscle the rest of the House voting 198 - 77 in favour of extending the mission in Afghanistan until 2011.
This, in spite of the clever chant by protestors -- "End it, Don't Extend it" -- as well as fierce NDP opposition to continuing the mission in Afghanistan.
Posted by P.M. Jaworski on March 14, 2008 in Canadian Politics | Permalink | Comments (7) | TrackBack
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Most Canadians support a ban on trans fat, but "the Remnant" remains
In a Western Standard exclusive on the Calgary trans-fats ban, reporter Cheryl Mitchell asks an important question: “Calgary's health police have decided that Calgarians are too dumb to make their own food choices. Are they?”
Well, I don’t think so, and neither does Mitchell. And, for what it’s worth, Stockwell Day, Minister of Public Safety, is even on our side. He called a federal NDP proposal to ban trans fats the “usual approach to massive government intervention in our lives.”
But we’re in the minority. According to a recent Angus Reid survey “Canadians overwhelmingly support banning trans fats.” Here are the key findings:
» 84% support a trans fat ban in schools and restaurants
» 73% think it is OK for government to take action against trans fats because they pose a health risk for Canadians
» Support is equally high across the country, and along various demographics
Only 19% of respondents supported the statement that “a ban on trans fats would be unacceptable, because governments should not tell people what they can eat.” Let’s call these people “the Remnant,” a term coined by Alberta Jay Nock.
In the article “Whither the Remnant,” Butler Shaffer wrote:
Decades ago, when I first read [Albert Jay] Nock’s essay about “the Remnant” – an essay written in 1936 – I dismissed it as a form of millenarian thinking. But as Western civilization reveals its weakened foundations in the form of rapidly expanded state violence, his words have become more relevant. An “obscure, unorganized, [and] inarticulate” group of individuals, the Remnant, said Nock, need to be supported because “when everything has gone completely to the dogs, they are the ones who will come back and build up a new society.”
Read more about “the Remnant” here.
Posted by Matthew Johnston on March 13, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (32) | TrackBack
Talk about a special interest
Legislators love to trumpet their ability to deliver a sizeable chunk of the taxpayers money towards their own voters (whether they asked for it or not). Down here, they even coined a tasty phrase for it: "bringing home the bacon."
Well, when it comes to the Audacity of Hype, the "bacon" ends up far closer to home than most would expect.
Posted by D.J. McGuire on March 13, 2008 in International Politics | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Harper sues the Liberals
To me, the most interesting part of Prime Minister Stephen Harper's statement of claim, in his libel suit against the Liberal Party of Canada, are the pages detailing the declarations made by Chuck Cadman to various reporters and interviewers in response to questions about whether the Tories had offered him anything to vote to bring down the Paul Martin government.
Given repeated opportunities to tell the media that the Tories had attempted to bribe him -- as later alleged in the new book Like a Rock -- Cadman said the same thing over and over: that all that was offered him was the chance to get a Tory nomination, unopposed, and some special election-expense considerations. He never once even hinted at the alleged offer of a $1-million insurance policy. This is entirely consistent with Harper's statements.
I think the Liberals are in pretty serious trouble here because, under Canadian libel law, they have to prove the truth of their accusations. And, folks, there ain't no proof, only a second-hand recollection from Cadman's widow.
Posted by Terry O'Neill on March 13, 2008 in Canadian Politics | Permalink | Comments (21) | TrackBack
Report on CCF human rights tribunal panel discussion
The Canadian Constitution Foundation (CCF) hosted a panel discussion on March 11th on “Human Rights Tribunals: Protecting Rights or Censoring Speech?” Jeff Kerr, U of A law student and Vice-President of the U of A CCF has provided this report on the event for Western Standard readers: "This Tuesday the Student Chapter of the Canadian Constitution Foundation hosted a panel discussion on the role Human Rights Tribunals are playing in the political realm both in terms of being used as a means to protect human rights and as a tools to regulate political speech. The panel featured Lorne Gunter from the Edmonton Journal and the National Post, Dr. Darren Lund, associate professor of Education from the University of Calgary (Dr. Lund was a complaint in a major human rights complaint arising out of Red Deer against a local pastor who published a letter condemning homosexuality in the Red Deer Advocate) and also Shirish Chotalia, Q.C, a former member of the Human Rights Commission.
The panel began by outlining the basic arguments both for and against the role Human Rights Tribunals play within the political and social realm. Dr. Lund argued that the Tribunals play a critical role in providing the tools necessary for minority groups who may be on the receiving end of hate to challenge such discrimination and create safe communities. He noted that often the traditional tools, such as police protection or anti-defamation lawsuits are not always enough to make communities safe. Moreover, he challenged the argument that it is possible to simply depend on the free market of ideas to challenge hate speech asserting that often such speech emboldens those who would commit acts of intolerance. In the view of Ms. Chotalia, the Human Rights Commission stand at a point of transition. Expressing concern that such Tribunals might create a chill and an unhealthy level of political correctness, making it difficult to have honest discussion about the relationship between human rights and multiculturalism. She noted that there is a perception that support for multiculturalism is often viewed as synonymous with support for human rights but that this was not always the case. However, she contended that the Human Rights Tribunals are an important tool in order to safe guard Charter values. Finally, Mr. Gunter stated his opposition to the role the Tribunals were playing noting that they create a situation where the standard of proof is considerably lower than it would be in a court of law. Moreover, the resources of those brought before the Tribunals are typically less than those provided to the complaint by the State. He argued that often the Tribunals are used by special interest groups to pressure the government into using to go after opponents.
In the Question and Answer period and discussion that followed, a major area of debate concerned what the necessary standard of proof should be before a Tribunal, or any organ of the State, could declare speech to be in violation of another's rights. Dr. Lund argued that direct violence or defamation should not be the sole consideration but that the emotional impact on members of minority communities ought to be considered. His position was in contrast to those who argued that before speech could be criminalized or penalized, it must be demonstrated that such speech had an actual role in the causation of harm."
Posted by Western Standard on March 13, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (20) | TrackBack
Have you ever given your crazy uncle over $22,000
Barack Obama is trying to distance himself from his long-time church pastor (he retired last month), effectively likening the minister to a crazy uncle.
Trouble is, the Obamas donated $22,500 to the minister's church last year.
I've asked this of my American readers, so I thought I'd ask up here, too:
Anybody ever give more than $22,000 to their crazy uncle?
Posted by D.J. McGuire on March 13, 2008 in International Politics | Permalink | Comments (10) | TrackBack
Conservatism in a Hurry
She compares my philosophy with that of Tom Flanagan, Prime Minister Stephen Harper's former Chief of Staff, who is a champion of what he calls "incrementalism."
Writes Delacourt: "Flanagan’s a go-slow, transformation-by-stealth fan, while Nicholls thinks Conservatives should just pursue their agenda with full enthusiasm, a la Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s. Clearly Harper seems to favour the Flanagan approach, but it’s worth reading Nicholls’ tract to see what would happen if Canada decided to go conservative in a hurry. "
"Conservative in a hurry" - that's me.
Posted by Gerry Nicholls on March 13, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (16) | TrackBack
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Ferraro Was Right
While some might say that it takes one affirmative action candidate to know another, I don't see how there's any denying that Geraldine Ferraro was absolutely right when she said that Barack Hussein Obama is where he is today more or less entirely because of his race.
Let's get real for a minute here, folks. Do you really think that, if instead of Barack Hussein Obama, he was Barry Harold O'Brien he would even be a United States Senator, let alone a candidate for the Presidency?
Hell, do you think that - if he was a white Irish-American - Obama would have been the President of the Harvard Law Review? Who knows? I certainly don't. His sterling record of legal accomplishment doesn't exactly suggest that he was one of the nation's outstanding legal minds - surely a prerequisite for being the President of the Harvard Law Review most of the time, other factors notwithstanding.
It's a question worth asking, given how little Obama has actually accomplished. His career is mostly an extended list of places that he's been - it's very light on the things that he's actually done.
Indeed, read closely, Obama's entire career path seems to have been paved by his living his life surrounded by guilty white liberals who, like his supporters today, are enchanted by the idea of Obama as a refined black man. I'm free to note this on the grounds that I am not guilty, white, or liberal.
Leave aside his Red past. Leave aside the Moslem issue. Leave aside his radical liberalism. Leave aside his relative inexperience. The core question, which Ferraro was groping towards but couldn't quite ask is this: can America (and the world!) afford an affirmative action President?
Posted by Adam T. Yoshida on March 12, 2008 in International Politics | Permalink | Comments (38) | TrackBack
Ex-lovers weren't paying attention
The Transportation Safety Board has finally made public its long-awaited report into the sinking of the Queen of the North. As the Globe and Mail reports, "The only two crew members on the bridge when the Queen of the North sank were too engaged in a personal conversation to notice the ferry was heading straight for a prominent island..."
Although it doesn't shed any light on what exactly the two ex-lovers were talking about, this TSB video recreation of the sinking, using real voice recordings and real radar records, is very interesting.
Posted by Terry O'Neill on March 12, 2008 in Current Affairs | Permalink | Comments (18) | TrackBack
Angus Reid on surveillance cameras and privacy
SURVEILLANCE CAMERAS
Canadians Back the Use of Surveillance Cameras, Dismiss Privacy Concerns
Majority wants to follow Toronto’s plan to install over 10,000 security cameras in transit vehicles
[TORONTO – Mar. 12, 2008] – The vast majority of Canadians support the widespread use of surveillance cameras and most take no issue with the potential breach of privacy this entails, a new Angus Reid Strategies poll has found.
KEY FINDINGS
» 69% of Canadians support the use of surveillance cameras to fight crime
» Seven-in-ten want more cameras in local transit systems and public spaces
» 63% say security is more important than privacy when it comes to surveillance cameras
» In Ontario: 80% think heavy investment in TCC cameras is justified; but 25% think Toronto’s plan sets negative precedent for encouraging breach of privacy in the name of safety; 37% think TTC’s plan too expensive and not necessarily effective
-30-
Posted by Matthew Johnston on March 12, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (9) | TrackBack
Oddly familiar
So, while one political party splits itself in half over trivial matters, the other has settled on a vastly underrated nominee. I could swear I've seen this campaign before.
Posted by D.J. McGuire on March 12, 2008 in International Politics | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Hillary - Child Abuser
Hillary Clinton is promoting her foreign-affairs credentials by trumpeting her experience in dangerous hot spots around the world as First Lady. For example, she says that in 1996, she went to a Bosnia combat zone where she was exposed to possible "sniper fire." Oh, and by the way, 16-year-old First Daughter Chelsea came along, too. Wouldn't that qualify as , um, child abuse? This is the same First Lady who reportedly assaulted her husband when she found out about the Monica Lewinsky affair. Isn't that, um, spouse abuse? Someone should ask Hillary again whether we need stronger laws in America to deal with domestic abuse...
Posted by Grant Brown on March 12, 2008 in Current Affairs | Permalink | Comments (8) | TrackBack
Eliot Spitzer resigns
David Anderson with The Anderson Governance Group, in an interview with BNN this morning, said about the “narcissistic” Eliot Spitzer that he used his power without “scale or humanity.” He also accurately said that public company directors and officers became afraid to take normal business risks for fear of Spitzer. As Attorney General of New York, for instance, Spitzer would prosecute honourable public company directors and officers for “technicalities” and then prevent them from using their D&O liability insurance to pay the huge fines he demanded, ensuring their personal financial ruin.
Eliot Spitzer announced minutes ago at a press conference that he will resign as Governor of New York effective Monday, March 17th for his involvement in a prostitution ring. I will raise a glass tonight in honour of the long list of victims and ruined lives caused by Spitzer’s anti-capitalist crusades.
UPDATE:
Prominent libertarian and editor of LewRockwell.com wrote that "...it is disturbing to see the central government bring down the governor of a state for unconstitutional victimless crimes." This is a valid point, and one Shotgunners have discussed, but Spitzer prosecuted people mercilessly for these same "unconstitutional, victimless crimes." While there is no virtue in schadenfreude, there is value in showcasing Spitzer statist political record and his hypocrisy.
Spitzer set out to persecute business and financial leaders... to stop the motor of the world. I'm deeply relieved that his efforts have been, at least temporarily, diverted.
Posted by Matthew Johnston on March 12, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (33) | TrackBack
The Nicholls Manifesto
I have written a short political tract called The Trudeau Empire Has Fallen and it Can't Get up: Why now is the time for the Canadian conservative movement to win the War of Ideas.I am hoping this little manifesto will help other Canadian conservatives learn from the experience I gained after fighting in the political trenches for 22 years.
The booklet talks about how to package a conservative message and about how to get around the roadblocks we face.
As an added bonus, it also includes my "Top Ten Political Guerrilla Warfare" tactics.
Posted by Gerry Nicholls on March 12, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack
Narveson: Cooling it on Warming
All the hot air surrounding global warming needs a little cooling down. There is no solid evidence that global warming is anything other than a minor irritant. In fact, the real, bona fide scientific evidence suggests that global warming will heat the Earth a staggering 0.1 degree Celsius. That's enough to, uhm, do nothing about.
Which is exactly what politicians should be doing about global warming--according to Jan Narveson in his latest column titled "Cooling it on warming"--nothing.
An excerpt:
"A public policy that imposes draconian restrictions on all of our lives in order to bring about a result like that is, to put it bluntly, completely irresponsible. But essentially all the nations in the world are lining up in support of Kyoto. Even the Americans, who held out for quite awhile, are now agreeing that we must “do something.” Indeed, it is very difficult to find, anywhere in our history a comparable level of irresponsibility in reaction to a supposedly scientific finding.
Rationally speaking, and on the contrary, what we "must" do is nothing. We should certainly sign off from any Kyoto- or Bali-type measures. We should pipe down and return the whole subject to the scientists. Many years down the road maybe something will have happened with enough shape to justify some sort of policy--though I doubt it. Weather and climate are just too complicated, and contributions to it by forces that are far, far beyond human control are just too obvious." Read More...
Posted by Western Standard on March 12, 2008 in Western Standard | Permalink | Comments (37) | TrackBack
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Illegal immigrant left for days in Arkansas jail without food or water
FAYETTEVILLE — A woman being held as an illegal immigrant spent four days forgotten in an isolated holding cell at a courthouse with no food, water, or toilet, authorities and the woman said.
...
Bailiff Jarrod Hankins put her in the cell to await transport to jail, and she was forgotten. Because of heavy snow, few staff members were in the courthouse to hear her cries and pounding later Thursday or on Friday and through the weekend.
Torres-Flores wasn't found until Monday morning when Hankins opened the door. She was treated at a hospital and allowed to go home.
...
The cell had two benches, a metal table and a light that Torres-Flores could not turn off. She slept using a shoe to cushion her head, she told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, with 14-year-old daughter Adriana acting as an interpreter.
"She was feeling like she was going to die," Adriana said. "She had to use the bathroom on the floor."
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Torres-Flores' trial is set for April 1, and she faces deportation by federal immigration authorities.
Hat tip: Lew Rockwell's blog.
A previous Shotgun post on the treatment of illegal immigrants can be found here.
UPDATE:
The New York Times version of this story can be found here.
“Everybody is backing away from it as fast as they can,” [Torres-Flores' immigration lawyer] said. “Frankly, that’s how they treat Hispanics down here. They treat Hispanics like cattle, like less than human.”
Posted by Terrence Watson on March 11, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (38) | TrackBack
Gracie's Legacy: Remembering A Newfoundland Conservative and Nationalist
This past weekend marked the fifth anniversary of the passing of a great Newfoundlander, Mrs. Grace Sparkes.
I first Met Gracie Sparkes on April 6 2001 at the Hotel Newfoundland in St. John's, NL. Gracie and I were both attending the Newfoundland Provincial Conservative leadership convention. I was 21, Gracie was 93; some might think we wouldn't have much in common to talk about. Not so; We talked for hours. I felt like I knew the Newfoundland of which she spoke -- the one she remembered. It's the place my grandfather, great uncle, and uncles told me about. It's the political culture, spirit, and work ethic that makes Newfoundland so great. It's the spirit that remains but which has faded and been bruised at times.
Grace Sparkes contributed so much to Newfoundland and Labrador in community groups, sports, journalism and education. There is a good biography of Gracie here.
For me, it was her patriotism and ardent belief in a free Newfoundland that made her a hero of mine. I first remember seeing Gracie in documentaries where she recalled how she stood up to a corrupt confederate tyrant by the name of Joe Smallwood, who was premier of NL for 23 years. She did this as a candidate in four elections -- two provincial, two federal, but she also did it by never letting anyone who met her forget what we lost thanks to Liberals like Smallwood.
Please understand -- to this day Smallwood remains a polarizing figure - he's loved by some, hated by others. His apologists seem to agree with the Smallwood saying that the greatest gift God ever gave to Newfoundland was Confederation. He usually elaborated by pointing to the quick paced influx of government money into Newfoundland and Labrador. Most of his contemporary opponents concede quite a bit in the face of this -- admitting that Confederation meant a lot more in services and support for many in rural Newfoundland and Labrador. Gracie, however, reminded people of the cost. She also pointed out that even the supposed "blessings" may have cursed and tainted our democracy.
She reminded those she met that the Dominion of Newfoundland was in a state of transition in the 1940s. She reminded them that half the Newfoundlanders were worried enough about Canada's reputation for taxation and other sacrifices to come even then to vote against Confederation. She reminded them that we had a chance to be masters of our own house and controllers of our own resources. She reminded them of the lies Smallwood and others told about what Canada was about in order to get that bare majority. She reminded them of the nasty Smallwood tactic of downplaying the significance and place, abilities, and capacities of an independent Newfoundland and independent Newfoundlanders.
Perhaps more than all of that reminding she asked a question -- was the quick influx of cash really worth it? What has it done to us? What has it done to our psyche?
One doesn't need to be a separatist or anything close to it to understand Gracie's sharp reminders or tragic laments about the "pseudo democracy" she said she witnessed in the 1940s and 1950s and what it has caused. Gracie wasn't a separatist herself -- she was just a proud and intelligent Newfoundlander who saw shades of the once much less tainted political culture of her nation, Newfoundland and longed for its return in the Canadian context.
She watched the Canadian welfare state rot set in and I don't think she liked it. She remembered a day and an era when something other than alternating promises of government spending motivated tens of thousands of hard working independent Newfoundlanders to vote for something more. . . something far more important than any "economic development" scheme or any pension or welfare or EI cheque . . .
It wasn't that Gracie didn't believe that Canada could work; It wasn't that she wasn't a believer in basic compassion. It was that she knew that government was never meant to be the religion some assumed it to be. This federation and the province of Newfoundland and Labrador will prosper to a much greater degree, together and united, as soon as government once again becomes smaller, better and closer to the people. She may never have won an election, but Gracie and others from her generation and political culture were proven right in the end.
The residuary legatees of the Peter Cashins and Ches Crosbies and Gracie Sparkes are the real free Newfoundlanders. Just because they rarely meet a politician equal to their enterprise, just because they rarely see a name on the ballot, of any stripe, that doesn't represent more of the same old Smallwood rot, it doesn't mean they aren't around.
We're still around. Some of us have had to leave home. We believe in hard work, you see. Some are working in Grand Prairie, others are on the Hibernia rig, others still are fighting for democracy in Afghanistan. What's more, as time goes on, the assumption of inferiority that Smallwoodites wanted to maintain is losing its steam. More and more those Newfoundlanders and Labradorians who once considered their own province the sick cousin of Confederation taken under the wing of compassionate uncle Ottawa see that lie for what it is. We know there's another way and that the government money distracted us from the stuff that counts. We know this in part, thanks to Gracie . . .
Posted by Liam O'Brien on March 11, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Angus Reid and the Western Standard on Omar Khadr
CANADIAN IN GUANTANAMO
Canadians Remain Divided on Whether Ottawa Should Help Free Omar Khadr
Majority believes Khadr should face justice in Afghanistan instead of Guantanamo
[VANCOUVER – Mar. 11, 2008] – Ottawa’s decision to steer clear from intervening to secure the release of a Canadian prisoner in Guantanamo continues to split public opinion, a new Angus Reid Strategies poll has found.
KEY FINDINGS
» 41% want government to help free Khadr from Guantanamo; 41% disagree
» 51% believe Khadr should be tried in Afghanistan; 31% disagree
» 48% think Khadr should be considered a child soldier, not a war criminal
The three opposition parties currently represented in the House of Commons have called on the government for action to help get Khadr out of Guantanamo, and also support considering him as a child soldier. Their constituents agree with both views. Almost seven-in-ten NDP supporters, 59 per cent of Liberals, and at least 46 per cent of Bloc and Green supporters want Khadr to be tried as a child soldier. Conversely, only 37 per cent of Conservative Party supporters agree.