The Shotgun Blog

Which reminds me - with the Conservatives holding their policy convention in a few short weeks, has anyone been contacted about blogger accreditation for the event? I understand the difficulties faced getting a Conservative party message through the filter of a hostile Liberal media, but when they ignore opportunities to circumvent it, one has to wonder how much sympathy they're entitled to.

Posted by Kate McMillan on January 28, 2005 in Canadian Conservative Politics | Permalink | Comments (18) | TrackBack

NORMAN'S SPECTATOR

From today's edition of NORMAN'S SPECTATOR, where the articles are hotlinked.

TOP STORY

Church told to butt out

The National Post/Ottawa Citizen front Elizabeth Thompson and Anne Dawson:

“The Roman Catholic Church should keep its nose out of the government's same-sex marriage legislation, Foreign Affairs Minister Pierre Pettigrew suggested yesterday.”

RUNNER-UP

Fraser backs up Gomery

The Globe and Mail’s DANIEL LEBLANC reports:

“Auditor-General Sheila Fraser and two opposition parties are throwing their support behind Mr. Justice John Gomery in his showdown with Jean Chrétien, leaving the former prime minister increasingly isolated in his efforts to oust the outspoken head of the sponsorship inquiry, sources say.”

ALL THE POOP THAT’S FIT TO POST

Most papers today report on yesterday’s ceremony at Auschwitz. The world needed more Canada then, but did not get it.

The Guardian also reports that the US and UK have agreed an Iraq exit strategy—as they say in the Queen’s English.

In French, the governing party is divided, which has a familiar ring. Le Monde fronts Chinese peacekeepers in Port-au-Prince, where I thought we were playing a role.

Speaking of which, The Washington Post reports no sign of Canadian election observers observing the Iraq election.

The Independent asks, “Is the world safer now?”—and you can probably guess the answer.

The Iraq election lead in Figaro and in the London Times. The New York Times scores an exclusive interview with President Bush.

Yesterday, I missed this interesting piece in the Times on NAFTA. (Hat tip to blogger Paul Tuns.)

The Los Angeles Times reports the FBI is extending its reach. Yikes.

The Daily Telegraph reports the spooks are also planning to spook the Brits who returned from Gitmo.

The Telly also reports that the Greatest Brit, unlike his Canadian counterpart, is still alive and kicking. Which is, I guess, what makes it news.

The Globe and Mail’s Doug Saunders—who kept me chuckling with his reports from Libya before and during Paul Martin's visit--distinguishes himself from the crowd again with his un-funny report from Auschwitz. (Memo to Ed: Have you looked into cloning this guy?)

In commentary, Jeff Simpson says Nova Scotia is a nice place to visit but it faces an uphill struggle in attracting immigrants.

Former ambassador Michael Bell is surprised at how well Mohammed Abbas is doing. He should be. Like most of his counterparts at Foreign Affairs, he swore by Yasser Arafat until nearly the bitter end.

Today, the boys and girls of Pearson won’t be happy to learn that Madame the Commissioner of Official languages is looking into French at our embassies abroad.

No surprise that Rick Salutin is dubious about Iraq’s elections and George Bush too, but, as usual, its dressed up in some faux-intellectualism for those who like this sort of thing.

The Globe editorial board is right to be dubious about George Bush’s fiscal fitness:

“Long-run deficits are far from benign. They raise the cost of capital, restrict economic growth and undermine the currency. Just ask Ottawa. The net result will be bad for the United States. It will also be bad for Canada and bad for the global economy, which depend heavily on a robust U.S. economy for their well-being.”

Paul Koring analyzes yesterday’s pre-figuring of our foreign and defence policy that somehow landed on the front page of the Globe.

The Gazbags like what they read. And, have no fear, Paul Martin says today to those who have doubts, there will be chickens in the navy and the air force pot too.

Joe Comuzzi is sweating same-sex marriage—I mean, what does a minister do when his conscience does not align with the Prime Minister’s fundamental beliefs political imperatives?

Judy Sgro’s accuser had a bad day. Ottawa released its guidelines for spousal support. The feds and Québec are close to a parental-leave deal.

I can’t wait to see if Québec mommies and daddies and baby diapers are asymmetrical—as the diabetes and cancer appear to be in le pays d'hiver--or are just like the rest of us in ROC?

Speaking of the health of Quebecers, Le Devoir reports that Jean Charest’s office has confirmed he and his family were invited to dinner chez Paul Desmarais at Manoir Richelieu on December 27.

While Charest has been shrugging off criticism of his government, Desmarais has been lobbying fiercely on the location of the new hospital planned for Montréal.

The Gazoo reports things are pretty ratty in existing hospitals, but what I’d still really like to know is what role Desmarais played in taking Jean Charest out of federal politics.

André Picard looks at Michael Decter’s health report. Here’s the lead in the Citizen and the Post, for comparison:

“Canadians must finally confront whether medicare's rising costs are too excessive and are bleeding funds away from other social programs, an advisory panel to governments has concluded.”

And what’s this?—The NDP government of Manitoba is appealing a court decision requiring it to pay for abortions? How do they think women got these clinics in the first place?

In BC, a Campbell aide has taken the high jump in record time. And Svend Robinson is on the come-back trail.

The former MP with a taste for expensive jewellery has even started commenting on judicial sentencing, if you can believe it, and he’s egging on the Madame Desfarges of Vancouver.

GOMERY:

You won’t read this in the Toronto Star and it’s buried in Kathryn May’s report in the National Post, but The Globe and Mail reports that opposition leaders and Sheila Fraser are lining up against removal of Judge Gomery. Big deal.

As I argued yesterday—and Susan Riley writes much better today in the Citizen—Stephen Harper is out to lunch in blaming Paul Martin for Gomery’s woes.

Besides, they’re missing the point.

The first objective of the former prime minister’s hacks and flacks and lawyers is to soften up Gomery and Bernard Roy before the three Jeans running the joint/dipping into the sponsorship slush fund--Pelletier, Carle and Chrétien--take the hot-seat.

In particular, the kick-assers would like the three Jeans questioned by Neil Finkelstein, who they hope will be an ass-kisser—given his deep links to the former PM’s closest confidants.

By the way, Finkelstein also worked for the brother of Chrétien’s lawyer when Ian Scott was the AG of Ontario in the Peterson government

You won’t find that in the columns of friendly journalists, such as Chrétien biographer and golf buddy Lawrence Martin, who's lending a helping hand in this classic “campagne de salissage” meant to remove Gomery’s jeans and leave him neutered.

Nor will you find it on the website of the Liberal kick-asser who claims to have destroyed Kim Campbell and Stockwell Day single-handedly and is leading the charge on behalf of Chrétien.

Bernard Landry is not being helpful, and he’s even saying Jacques Parizeau was half-right in his “money and the ethnic vote” speech. If you need any evidence of how badly Chrétien’s national unity strategy worked out in the end, here it is.

As to Paul Martin’s strategy, I see that Allan Gregg has finally figured out the health deal with Québec which, at the outset on CBC, he described as “clever.”

In the current Walrus, he’s now accusing the PM of creating no less than a “Frankenstein Federalism.” The Post and the Citizen pick up the story.

Aside from being totally out of his depth (Memo to Allan: immigration is an area of concurrent jurisdiction and has been since 1867), what’s truly amazing is that Gregg is donning the cape of Pierre Trudeau, the guy Joe Clark was fighting with his advice back then.

Which, come to think of it, is what makes him perfect for Peter Mansbridge’s weekly panel--in the tradition of Dalton Camp, the Toronto Star and Morningside.

Just so you know where I’m coming from, here’s the first column I wrote on the Gomery Inquiry, Michael Bliss’ review of a book in which I wrote about the Commission, and here's my column in today’s Vancouver Sun.

In the Citizen version of Kathryn May’s report, Marcel Masse—who was a public servant and later served as minister responsible for national unity—testified that, like his successor Stéphane Dion, he didn’t know about the sponsorship program.

Buried toward the end of the article, you’ll find more confirmation of the partisan political objective underlying the program that you won’t find elsewhere:

“Mr. Masse said Mr. Chrétien appointed him after the "close call" of the 1995 referendum to find out what went wrong and ensure it never happened again. He and six other ministers concluded the big mistakes were "lousy communications" to counter separatists' views and little federal presence in Quebec.

Their report recommended a new agency, which became the Communications Information Office, to develop and implement the government's communications strategy. It also called for a major buildup of the federal Liberal party in Quebec, picking new organizers, candidates and "winnable" ridings and urged the prime minister, ministers and MPs to be visible and visit Quebec more often.

He acknowledged it was "inappropriate" and unusual for a cabinet report to mix "partisan politics" with public policy but argued the government was "scalded" by the referendum and its mistakes were political.”

ODDS AND SODS:

Yesterday, the Supreme Court affirmed a man’s constitutional right to masturbate in his living room with the curtains drawn. Wendy Cox files the CP version from Vancouver, but she, too, does not clarify whether the ruling applies equally to women.

The Toronto Star beat the cops, whom it beats up on regularly in print, in court. Tonda Maccharles is assigned the unenviable grunt work of chasing the foreign policy review leaked by the Grits to the Globe. The Mayors want their Maypo gas tax.

In the Globe, the oil patch is anxious about the Martin/Williams spitting match.

In the Star, the two are meeting today in Ottawa with the premier of Nova Scotia the Hamm in the sandwich, and Susan Delacourt reports the Martinis are upbeat on the prospects for a deal.

With Parliament returning next Monday after its two- seven-week Christmas break, she also reports they’re bullish on winning the same-sex vote—notwithstanding BQ sabre-rattling.

Speaking of spitting matches, the English-language papers seem to have missed a fine one between two Québec heavyweights after the Liberal caucus meeting.

In the hair department, Liza would have had a tougher fight on her hands had she been up against Pierre Pettigrew of Paris.

Speaking of whom, the National Post fronts his novel definition of separation of Church and State:

“The Roman Catholic Church should keep its nose out of the government's same-sex marriage legislation, Foreign Affairs Minister Pierre Pettigrew suggested yesterday.”

In the underneath the hair department, Sheila Copps criticizes the current crop of politicians for not looking at the “big picture”—which I must have missed in today’s Post column.

As to Frulla, I think she’s met her match in Jean Lapierre, who’s been doing a fine job since returning to the floor of the Commons. But there’s a mini-sponsorship scandal brewing in this aquatics meet, and it bears watching—in both official languages.

Speaking of hair, Barbara Yaffe reports on the front page of the Vancouver Sun and in the Post that Belinda and Peter have confirmed they’re an item, though Belinda is taking a mature approach to the relationship:

"Maybe I should say, spending time together; dating is more of a teenaged word."

In the Star, Carol Goar says lefties are getting old. Chantal Hébert says so are Grits.

Richard Gwyn says Paul Martin reminds him of Joe Who—whom the Star scribe now admires. I must have missed a few columns.

The editorial board poops on striking doctors and is positive about Iraq’s elections which would not be happening had the Star’s advice been followed.

The National Post fights back against bloggers, by re-printing a first-rate piece from Slate. Peter Foster is unhappy that Ontario is raising its minimum wage.

The editorial board poops on Paul Martin for accusing the Cons of “racial profiling” by advertising in ethnic newspapers:

“The Liberals' latest propaganda tactic is a crude exercise in hypocrisy. In election after election, the Liberals have monopolized ethnic votes by pouring millions into multicultural projects, co-opting influential community leaders and bending immigration policies to reward their friends. If anything, Mr. Harper's approach is more enlightened: Rather than buying off multiculti constituencies with favours and cash, he is appealing to them on a substantive policy issue. In other words, he is treating them as sophisticated, independent voters, rather than as anonymous party-machine cogs to be bussed in to campaign events at the behest of local powerbrokers. Which approach should immigrants find more "offensive"?

First with the Reform Party, then with the Canadian Alliance and now with the Conservatives, the Liberals have smeared their opponents as anti-immigrant. Now that Mr. Harper's party is actively working to reach out to immigrants, the Liberals are scrambling to paint that, too, as a sign of bigotry. It's a shameful strategy that no Canadian -- recent immigrant or otherwise -- should fall for.”

Also in the Post, Bruce Garvey writes about Natan Sharansky--George Bush’s latest discovery, and a man whose views on the Mideast Garvey obviously knows nothing about beyond what he’s read in the spin coming out of the US.

Posted by Norman Spector on January 28, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Thursday, January 27, 2005

Three cheers for free trade

This post's for you Norm (Shotgun CanCon Czar) Spector.

Virginia Postrel writes in the New York Times (oops -- I  hope this still counts) about a paper by University of Toronto economist Daniel Trefler that illustrates that Canadian manufacturing saw a short-term dip in employment before recovering. Postel writes:

"Not surprisingly, the Canadian industries that had relied on tariffs to protect them 'were hammered' when those barriers disappeared, Professor Trefler said. 'They saw their employment fall by 12 percent,' he said, meaning one in eight workers lost their jobs. In manufacturing as a whole, the trade agreement reduced employment by 5 percent.

'Employment losses of 5 percent translate into 100,000 lost jobs and strike me as large,' he wrote, 'not least because only a relatively small number of industries experienced deep tariff concessions.'

... As painful as those layoffs were, however, the job losses were a short-term effect. Over the long run, employment in Canada did not drop, and manufacturing employment remains more robust than in other industrialized countries.

'Within 10 years, the lost employment was made up by employment gains in other parts of manufacturing,' Professor Trefler found.

While low-productivity plants shut down, high-productivity Canadian manufacturers not only expanded into the United States but further improved their operations. Along the way, they hired enough new workers to make up for losses elsewhere."

Furthermore, there were aslo increases in earnings and productivity and no increase in wealth inequality. No wonder Jean Chretien broke his free trade promise. What I don't understand is why conservatives -- and Conservatives -- don't do a better job explaining that the benefits of free trade are a result of policies that they fought for and implemented and that the Liberals initially opposed.

Posted by Paul Tuns on January 27, 2005 in Canadian Politics | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Iraq Election Coverage, By Iraqis

Friends of Democracy is up and running, posting election reports from across Iraq in both English and Arabic. Behind-the-scenes editing assistant, Michael Totten explains;

We have more than a dozen local Iraqi correspondents, at least one in each province, filing daily reports. These reports include news, interviews, quotes, photos, whatever they can get in a day. They aren't professional journalists. They are more or less ordinary Iraqis. Some of them you already know - Omar and Mohammed from Iraq the Model, for example. Others you don't know because they don't speak or write in English. Their reports are translated from Arabic before they are uploaded to the reports site.

My job isn't to edit the reports, exactly (they are published raw on a secondary site), but to run a blog on the main site which summarizes, excerpts, and links to the reports from the field. I'm also going to be excerpting and linking to essays and posts in the Iraqi blogosphere and - on rarer occasions - stories in the mainstream and Middle Eastern media. The idea is to let Iraqis themselves tell their own story of their own first free election.

The site is called "Friends of Democracy: Ground level election news from the people of Iraq" To the best of my knowledge there is nothing else like it anywhere out there, at least not in English. (We also have an Arabic site.)

If you have the time and the inclination, please give us a link.

Posted by Kate McMillan on January 27, 2005 in International Politics | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Words fail me

It's official: six federal prisons will spend taxpayer dollars to set up tattoo parlours.

Inmates will be trained to operate the tattoo services, which are designed to stem the spread of infectious diseases such as hepatitis C.

Correctional Service Canada officials say prisoners have long used odd objects to give each other tattoos, including pieces of old VCR motors and the casings from pens. They say there's no way to guarantee the cleanliness of such items.

The Union of Canadian Correctional Officers is opposing the move, warning in May 2004 that the proposed plan "poses unacceptable risks to security for [our] members, inmates and the community at large."

The union also said inmates use tattoos to display their membership in prison gangs, a tactic that could work against their re-integration into the community after they are released.

What? No one tattoos "Mom" on their arm anymore? The story doesn't mention it but the program will cost $3.7 million -- enough that you could have done useful things with the money.

Read on.

Posted by Steve Martinovich on January 27, 2005 in Canadian Politics | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack

We are not worthy, we are not worthy

Hey, we all make mistakes. Okay, so this is for any teachers out there who have been wasting their time over the last what? couple of decades? trying to raise the self-esteem of students at the expense of teaching other things. From the January issue of Scientific American: Exploding the Self-Esteem Myth. Some excerpts:

They found that self-esteem in 10th grade is only weakly predictive of academic achievement in 12th grade. Academic achievement in 10th grade correlates with self-esteem in 12th grade only trivially better. Such results, which are now available from multiple studies, certainly do not indicate that raising self-esteem offers students much benefit. Some findings even suggest that artificially boosting self-esteem may lower subsequent performance.

Even if raising self-esteem does not foster academic progress, might it serve some purpose later, say, on the job? Apparently not. Studies of possible links between workers' self-regard and job performance echo what has been found with schoolwork: the simple search for correlations yields some suggestive results, but these do not show whether a good self-image leads to occupational success, or vice versa. In any case, the link is not particularly strong...

...People who regard themselves highly generally state that they are popular and rate their friendships as being of superior quality to those described by people with low self-esteem, who report more negative interactions and less social support. But as Julia Bishop and Heidi M. Inderbitzen-Nolan of the University of Nebraska–Lincoln showed in 1995, these assertions do not reflect reality. The investigators asked 542 ninth-grade students to nominate their most-liked and least-liked peers, and the resulting rankings displayed no correlation whatsoever with self-esteem scores...

Ooops.

...How about teenagers? How does self-esteem, or the lack thereof, influence their love life, in particular their sexual activity? Investigators have examined this subject extensively. All in all, the results do not support the idea that low self-esteem predisposes young people to more or earlier sexual activity. If anything, those with high self-esteem are less inhibited, more willing to disregard risks and more prone to engage in sex. At the same time, bad sexual experiences and unwanted pregnancies appear to lower self-esteem.

If not sex, then how about alcohol or illicit drugs? Abuse of these substances is one of the most worrisome behaviors among young people, and many psychologists once believed that boosting self-esteem would prevent such problems. The thought was that people with low self-esteem turn to drinking or drugs for solace. The data, however, do not consistently show that low adolescent self-esteem causes or even correlates with the abuse of alcohol or other drugs...

Ooops.

...Take the bullying that goes on among children, a common form of aggression. Dan Olweus of the University of Bergen was one of the first to dispute the notion that under their tough exteriors, bullies suffer from insecurities and self-doubts. Although Olweus did not measure self-esteem directly, he showed that bullies reported less anxiety and were more sure of themselves than other children. Apparently the same applies to violent adults...

Ahem. At the top I singled out teachers and that was perhaps a little unfair. The notion that raising one's sense of self-worth is a cure for a plethora of social ills is one that is firmly embedded in the North American psyche. If this article is correct, we had better re-examine our dedication to the idea.

Posted by Kevin Steel on January 27, 2005 in Science | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack

NORMAN'S SPECTATOR

From today's edition of NORMAN'S SPECTATOR, where the articles are hotlinked.

TOP STORY

PM set to reshape foreign aid

The Globe and Mail’s MICHAEL DEN TANDT reports:

“The Martin government is poised to enshrine the army as Canada's pre-eminent military service, and sharply reduce the number of countries to which it gives foreign aid, while boosting international spending in areas where it believes it will have the greatest impact, sources say.”

RUNNER-UP

Canadian data labelled Arar

The Toronto Star’s MICHELLE SHEPHARD reports:

“Syrian Canadian Maher Arar was named on a terrorist watch list because of information received from Canada, says a U.S. State Department letter obtained by the Toronto Star.”

ALL THE POOP THAT’S FIT TO POST

Today, the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz is being commemorated.

Yesterday was a bad day for the Yanks in Iraq. And in California. And there's bad news coming for civil servants in Washington.

President Chirac spoke in favour of a new world tax at Davos. Tony Blair, meanwhile, says the world must unite--no, not against Chirac's tax attack.

In France, police are reported to be working 27 hours a week, though some say this is an exaggeration.

Global warming is worse than anyone thought. Iran is nearing the point of nuclear no-return. British patients will be permitted to see their health records.

A word of thanks today—Family Literacy Day--to the large number of literate readers of this press review who waded in on the question I posed yesterday.

Most who responded want both the news and more analysis from your humble and obedient servant; however, several people warned against this site becoming  “just another blog.”

As the saying goes, the—ahem—customer is always right even if they don't always click the button on the upper left of their computer screen. Still, I can assure all of you in cyberland that I’m not planning to sign up with the pajamadeen any time soon.

I will, however, be experimenting with the format of this press review, so let me know what you think as we go along.

GOMERY:

Yesterday, Liberals were defending the Inquiry, but not the man himself. Daniel Leblanc reports on the legal issues. Les Whittington does the honours in the Star.

At the hearings, Alphonso Gagliano’s chief of staff, Jean-Marc Bard, suffered repeated memory lapses related to documents showing that he was the link between Liberal MPs and the lolly.  So far, there’s no 18-minute gap to speak of. But we did learn that Alphonso Gagliano and Jean Lafleur, one of the big winners on the agency side of this affair, belonged to the same "cigar club." 

Oh, and it seems that Andre Ouellet also chomped a few. I can't wait to see the movie.

Bard, by the way, would be the fellow who replaced Pierre Tremblay, parachuted into the world’s finest public service from the Minister’s office to replace Chuck Guité as head of the sponsorship program.

In Ottawa, unlike most provinces, this is standard operating procedure—though the Tremblay example is more blatant than most.

Guité was “suggested” to the deputy minister as the right guy for the job, in a letter sent by Executive Assistant Warren Kinsella at the behest of his minister and mine, David Dingwall. I've written about the experience in this book.

Of course, Chuck was a natural. Though he was buried in the ranks in Tory Ottawa, he was the star of the 1995 referendum campaign. You remember—the one that came within a hair’s breadth of losing the country. Oh, and Dingwall was confident that he would not rat on those giving the orders.

Had Ran Quail told Kinsella and Dingwall to stuff it—as in retrospect he should have, and no doubt knew at the time he should have--he would have paid with his job.

As Privy Council Clerk Alex Himelfarb testified, Mr. Chrétien’s signature on the Treasury Board request was a signal to the bureaucracy not to get in the way. For the uninitiated in the ways of Ottawa, this is known as public service ethics.

Meanwhile, Stéphane Dion, the minister responsible for national unity, says he knew nothing about any of this—and I believe him. Kathryn May reports:

“Dion said he had no memory of the program's creation being discussed at Cabinet nor at the weekly meeting of Quebec ministers where he and Mr. Gagliano led discussions on the "hot issues" of the day.”…

In fact, when pressed as to how a Quebec minister responsible for national unity didn't know about a program aimed at Quebec, Mr. Dion said that "principle was never explained to me and I'm not sure that principle existed."

He said he would never have supported a program that focused on one province and didn't equally distribute money across the country. He added that he thought the program was useful in promoting cultural, sports and communities in a province swamped by American culture, but not in keeping the country together.”

Of course, on leave from his university post and with rucksack in hand, Dion was busy writing open letters in his own hand—rather devastating ones at that--to Lucien Bouchard.

Bard, however, says the sponsorship program was well known in Quebec—especially to that well-known statesman, diplomat and defender of Canada, Alphonso Gagliano.

As May—who’s progressively overtaking the Globe’s Leblanc as the must-read on this file--also reports today:

“Jean Marc Bard told the sponsorship inquiry yesterday that Mr. Gagliano, the minister responsible for Quebec, kept close tabs on the "political program" as a key weapon to fight separatism in the aftermath of the 1995 referendum. He said the program's goals were well-known in Quebec, where the bulk of sponsorship funds were spent.”

That would be the same Gagliano, by the way, whose responsibilities as the political minister for Québec included fundraising, organizing golf tournaments and electing Liberal MPs.

Meanwhile, too, staffers in the PMO were using the sponsorship slush fund to purchase autographed golf balls and $650 jackets. It’s amazing that Canadians never heard about the golf balls from the reporters embedded in the parliamentary press gallery who were doing twosomes and foursomes with Jean Chrétien in these years.

In the Globe today, one of those duffers—Lawrence Martin—comes to the aid of his former buddy and biographee.

Martin says the Chrétien team has badly wounded Gomery’s credibility, the judge has been the author of his own misfortune, and predicts that his guys will now move in for the kill.

The Globe and Mail editorial board, on the other hand, is eager to hear Jean Chrétien’s testimony:

“It will be instructive to hear him explain how his desire to raise the federal profile in Quebec could possibly excuse the funnel-ling of 40 per cent of the sponsorship budget of $250-million to communications firms known for heavy donations to the Liberal Party….

If Mr. Chrétien insists on using urgency as an excuse, he will have to explain why the problems in the sponsorship program persisted years after the 1995 referendum, when Quebec had turned its attention to more pressing concerns….

He may try to wash his hands of responsibility for any misspending and political direction of fees to Liberal-friendly agencies. Senator Jim Munson, Mr. Chrétien's friend and former spokesman, told the press that the prime minister is "not a micromanager. Obviously he didn't manage the program every day." It's not obvious at all. Chuck Guité, who ran the program from 1996 to 1999, has testified that Mr. Chrétien's office took a hands-on approach in deciding which events received funding, how much they received and which advertising firms should get commissions for transferring cheques….

Your turn, Mr. Chrétien.”

Yours truly wades into the debate in today's Le Devoir. The National Post and the Toronto Star editorial boards say let Gomery be Gomery. Both, in my estimation, are falling for the Chrétien crowd’s sucker punch.

After spending some time with Stephen Harper yesterday, I certainly did not come away with the impression that his primary goal in life is to clean up the longstanding system whereby political parties run their election campaigns. 

If the Opposition doesn’t smarten up and seize the initiative for the timing of court action--instead of blaming Paul Martin for the actions of the Chrétien crowd--I’m afraid Lawrence Martin may be right about the bully winning again.

SAME-SEX:

Of course, Harper has his hands full on another front—same-sex marriage. The Post’s Anne Dawson reports,

“Justice Minister Irwin Cotler gave his caucus colleagues an overview of his controversial same sex legislation yesterday behind closed doors and announced that he will formally introduce it in Parliament next week.”

In politics, it’s your friends who will kill you, and Harper could certainly use smarter ones than Ted Morton, who goes after the politically-outed law profs in today’s Globe. According to Morton, the Supreme Court,

“has become the preferred means of the "new" post-materialist left to bypass the democratic process and impose its preferred "progressive" policies by means of judicial fiat.”

You’d think the American-born professor would have noticed that the Right in his native land is using precisely the same methods to pursue policies with which he agrees.

Meanwhile, Paul Martin is pleading for caucus unity on same-sex; interestingly, he promises to use the notwithstanding clause to discriminate against gays and lesbians who want a church wedding. I wonder whether the permissible discrimination extends to the reception hall.

Martin’s accusing the Conservatives of “racial profiling”—what otherwise is known as targeted advertising. The Prime Minister obviously needs more rest, and should start by sleeping more often in his own bed at 24 Sussex.

Stephen Harper says Canadians support his position on same-sex. The Cons will be consulting Canadians on immigration.

Jim Travers serves up a fine piece on Martin and Harper; this one’s worth the price of the paper, or you can read it here.

Don Martin makes a similar point, but he’s more bullish about Martin branding Harper a bigot on same sex. Wait ‘til he sees the poll results in today's Sun, which confirms what all polls have been saying for some time--though most journalists haven't been telling you.

The results are not surprising: Harper’s position is more liberal than John Kerry’s—and identical to the one legislated by the Socialist government of France.

Frankly, some days I’m amazed that some of his crazier supporters aren’t squawking about curing homosexuals before an epidemic of pederasty breaks out, and all that sort of thing.

Speaking of which, the Montréal Gazette reports today that “a coalition of conservative Quebec Catholic organizations yesterday launched a postcard campaign to pressure federal politicians to vote against a bill allowing homosexuals to marry.

Calling their group SOS Mariage, the coalition warned same-sex marriage will lead to moral decay, cheapens the value of heterosexual unions, erodes the birth rate and promotes a laissez-faire society that opens the door to a wave of pedophilia, pornography, drugs and prostitution.”

As I was leaving Harper yesterday—okay, as I was being shown the door—the pollsters were coming in. Here and here’s what David told him.

It’s no wonder Harper’s looking confident and that the Prime Minister is sweating more than usual, and hasn’t yet given the speech the Globe editorial board drafted for him.

By the way, you don’t think Harper is working hand-in-glove with the Sun-chain—chaired by one of his predecessors—do you? Just asking.

DID BUSH BULLY MARTIN, OR IS IT ALL BULL?

Martin yesterday denied he was bullied by Bush, or at least he can’t remember. And, see if you can understand this explanation of what happened during the visit; I certainly can’t:

“Sources told the Toronto Star the verbal clash described by the Post may have resulted from a conversational mix-up in unscripted discussion between top Canadian and U.S. officials. Prime Minister's Office insiders said Martin was surprised when the topic was raised and Bush pressed him for answers.”

The Citizen doesn’t much care, as long as Newfoundland taxpayers share the security costs for the Bush visit. Do you think the City of Ottawa would throw in a few tickets, transportation included, to the National Arts Centre?

Albertans, on the other hand, can pay their own way, since their home heating bills are going down.

TODAY, The Star is predicting a surgery shutdown and reporting on a Canadian teen suing the government over the place of birth in his passport.

Having had an altercation with him when he was a professor and I the ambassador shepherding Chief Justice Tony Lamer on a visit to Israel, I can’t wait to hear the Attorney General for Canada explain why his government does not recognize Israeli control of West Jerusalem:

"Canadian policy does not allow our officials to travel this way," explained Ambassador Norman Spector. "We view this area as occupied territory and we will not do anything that recognizes Israeli control of this area as legitimate." For such a high-ranking official to ride in an Israeli convoy would contravene that policy, Canadian officials reason.

Canadian lawyer Irwin Cotler, the organizer of this week's visit, was outraged.

"The whole visit was supposed to be a meeting among judges to discuss Canada's Charter of Rights," he said. (Recent changes to Israel's human- rights laws are modelled after the Canadian Charter and court decisions here even have used Canadian precedents.)

"Instead, everything was overshadowed by this mess."

"If both governments had kept out of it, the incident would never have been politicized," he said. "They should have respected the principle of judicial independence."

"Balderdash," Mr. Spector replied. "Judicial independence only applies in Canada. Here, Chief Justice Lamer is the representative of Canada."

As to the Star’s medical strike, that’s nothing; the Citizen sees the surgeons and raises the stakes to a scary new virus.

Meanwhile, the Post reports that, “Canada must launch an urgent national drive to cure the alarming shortage of health care workers such as doctors, nurses and technicians, an advisory panel to governments has concluded.”  This, according to Michael Decter.

Speaking of the Post, the goat presents some good poop. RBC’s Gord Nixon had a good year--personally. Hemant Panchpor did not. Who is he?—you might ask.

On Front Street, things are more predictable than they are in Don Mills—at least on Chinese investment:

“It is right for government to demand some form of reciprocity in its dealings with China, and it is good that Mr. Emerson is finally stirring the debate on China's investment intentions and the question of security of supply. While we remain unconvinced that China's business forays pose a risk to Canada, they are a different breed of investment -- one that does not call for barriers, but may require a different set of regulatory tools.”

Also today, the pizzapieman who made Sgro go meets Bernie Shapiro’s lawyers. The Liberals say Conservative Justice critic Vic Toews should resign too.   

In Québec, the news is that Jean Charest is not, that’s not, shuffling his cabinet. Gordon Campbell is on the verge of an election, and you can guess what’s in the news out here in addition to the spring-like weather.

Posted by Norman Spector on January 27, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Wednesday, January 26, 2005

Applying a Standard

Ezra Levant was kind enough to invite me to join the fray here at the Western Standard. Just want to throw out a big thank you to Kevin Steel for helping me get set up today.

One drum I love to beat is accountability. Canadians are currently feeling a little angry at one Liberal party over a little question to do with sponsorship.

Canadians are holding the Canadian government accountable and "heads are rolling". On Monday, I was in a crowd of Tories gathered to hear Stephen Harper declare: "We will hold the Liberals accountable!" I would hope that the official opposition is able to hold the governing party accountable and I feel comfortable with Mr. Harper's professed desire and ability to do just that.

I do not feel comfortable with our nation's claim to internationalism. Mr. Martin's December article for the Economist is about the most productive thing he has done on an international level. I feel less comfortable with the United Nations. Not just this Oil-for-Food scam or the disgustingly little they have done in wake of the tsunami disaster (despite the exorbitant funds they have demanded for their lack of services) or with any of the myriad of "small" scandals. The overuse of diplomatic immunity (especially with outrageous things like parking fines and taxes). The sexual abuse and exploitation of women by UN peacekeepers. UN's two faced policy on sexual harassment and abuse. Not to mention the serial crime of apathy that the UN has committed time and time again in Rwanda, Sudan and elsewhere around the world.

And that's just what makes me feel uncomfortable.

The United Nations [supposedly] is an international body where nations resolve their differences and try find ways to improve the general quality of live throughout the entire globe. Yet the United Nations Organization itself is not accountable and it is not transparent. Why would it be? Our country has not taken a active stand in international affairs, preferring to go where the United Nations tells us, when the United Nations tell us. This is not acceptable with any organization with has proved itself apathetic over and over again. This is not acceptable with an organization that's credibility is severely compromised.

Cross posted at Existential Crisis

Posted by Dylan Sherlock on January 26, 2005 in International Politics | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack

Ein Familienfest

While Canada continues down the failed path of gun control, absurd, pointless registries and generally trying to socially ostracize firearm owners, Switzerland is taking a far more enlightened approach:

The greatest shooting festival in the world for youngsters takes place every year in Zurich, Switzerland. Imagine thousands of boys and girls shooting military service rifle over three days amid an enormous fair with ferris wheels and wild rides of all kinds. You’re at the Knabenschiessen (boys’ shooting contest).

Held since the year 1657, the competition traditionally has been both a sport and a way of encouraging marksmanship in a country where every male serves in the militia army. Today, girls compete along side the boys. In fact, girls are now winning the competition. [...]

It was a real family affair. Besides watching their older siblings, children aged 8 to 15 competed in air pistol and air rifle events. In air pistol, the guns are supported by vertical braces. Youngsters are coached by more knowledgeable youngsters.

Teaching responsible handling of firearms at a young age sounds like a far better idea than building idiotic registries.

Posted by Kevin Jaeger on January 26, 2005 in Sports | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack

The nanny state, American style

While our governments just legislate and regulate our lives directly with absurd rules like trans-fat bans and mandatory bicycle helmet laws, Americans achieve a very similar result through nuisance lawsuits:

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second District has overturned a judge's ruling, which dismissed a notorious 2002 lawsuit blaming McDonald's for the weight of a handful of its customers.

The pared-down case will now return to the trial court judge. Trial lawyers, led by George Washington University law professor John Banzhaf, are planning a wave of lawsuits trying to turn food companies and restaurants into their next cash cow. Banzhaf plans "to sue them and sue them and sue them." Somewhere, he argues, "there is going to be a judge and a jury that will buy this, and once we get the first verdict ... it will open the floodgates."

The sad thing is, Mr. Banzhaf is probably right.

Posted by Kevin Jaeger on January 26, 2005 in Food and Drink | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

How to live among the grateful dead

I love this quote from last summer in the Christian Science Monitor about the suburbs in Illinois going increasingly Democrat [italics mine]:

The turning point for [Luvie Myers] was the rise of the culture wars. "In the 1980s, those conservative people who spent all their time telling you how to live your life were kind of on the fringe," she says. "Now you feel like the Republican platform has espoused these ideas that to me are institutionalized bigotry. I can't stand it."

Who is telling everybody how to live and where are they doing it? Why heavens, it's the city of Haight-Ashbury where the Grateful Dead once rocked on! (However, the mayor still has to give his approval, but he approves of a lot of stuff so I'd say it's a given.) Reuters: San Francisco Bars Smoking in Its Parks.

Banning smoking in parks still falls short of a new prohibition in the Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan, which last month banned smoking everywhere in public.

Asked if San Francisco might one day move in that direction, Alioto-Pier said: "I think that if any city in the country is a city to ban smoking on sidewalks and stoops it would probably be San Francisco, but we will just have to wait and see."

May the four winds blow you safely home.

Posted by Kevin Steel on January 26, 2005 in Current Affairs | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Swimming Against The Mainstream

Via Powerline, these poll results of Iraqis translated from the Arabic newspaper Alsharq Alausat.

72.4 % of all of those polled said they would participate in the elections.

97% of Iraqis in Kurdistan said they would participate in the elections.

96% of Iraqis in the southern provinces (mainly Shiite areas) said they would participate in the elections.

33% of Iraqis in the central provinces (Sunni Area) said they would participate in the elections.

10% of Iraqis in Central provinces (Sunni Area) said they have not yet made their mind if they were going to vote or not.

62.1% of those polled said that the elections will be neutral and free.

17.8% said elections will not be neutral and free.

66% said that the elections must take place under current circumstances.

53.3% said the security is good in their area..

21.7% said that security was average in their area.

25% said that security was bad in their area.

Everyone - the Iraqis, the media, the Coalition forces - are expecting a dramatic surge of violence on the election day, as the insurgents and terrorists put all their resources in a concerted effort to derail the poll. But that hasn't happened yet, so let's wait until Sunday with all the "escalations of violence."

Posted by Kate McMillan on January 26, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

LARK Program

The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue Washington, D.C. ,20016 Dear Concerned Citizen: Thank you for your recent letter roundly criticizing our treatment of the Taliban and Al Qaeda detainees currently being held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Our administration takes these matters seriously, and your opinion was heard loud and clear in Washington.You'll be pleased to learn that thanks to concerned citizens like you, we are creating a new division of the Terrorist Retraining Program, to be called the "Liberals Accept Responsibility for Killers" program, or LARK for short. In accordance with the guidelines of this new program, we have decided to place one terrorist under your personal care. Your personal detainee has been selected and scheduled for transportation under heavily armed guard to your residence next Monday. Ali Mohammed Ahmed bin Mahmud (you can just call him Ahmed) is to be cared for pursuant to the standards you personally demanded in your letter of admonishment. It will likely be necessary for you to hire some assistant caretakers. We will conduct weekly inspections to ensure that your standards of care for Ahmed are commensurate with those you so strongly recommended in your letter... ....Pg.2

Posted by Kate McMillan on January 26, 2005 in Current Affairs | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

NORMAN'S SPECTATOR

FROM TODAY'S EDITION OF NORMAN'S SPECTATOR, WHERE THE ARTICLES ARE HOTLINKED.

TOP STORY

PM's crony had to quit cabinet post in 1994

The Ottawa Citizen stuffs Jack Aubry’s report:

“Prime Minister Paul Martin's first patronage appointee, who critics say should resign after attending a recent Liberal Christmas party, once stepped down from the Newfoundland cabinet after it was learned he accepted a $4,500 cash donation in a paper bag from a company trying to hang on to a lucrative contract with the province.

Opposition critics are calling for Jim Walsh to step down from the Transportation Safety Board for allegedly breaking the ethics code for office holders by attending the partisan event Dec. 15 and sitting at Mr. Martin's table. Last week, Mr. Martin defended his close friend, who headed his leadership campaign in Newfoundland, saying it is "open to question" whether Mr. Walsh's "voluntary" participation at the event is acceptable.

"The fact is -- he is somebody I know and he did go to the event."

Last week, it was said that Mr. Walsh would be returning to his Ottawa office on Monday. However, a spokesman at the board said yesterday that he was not available for comment.”

TODAY’S REVIEW

Yesterday, I had intended to take the day off, but one nuisance after another filled up most of the day. You can read all about it here.

Today, the nuisance is after Macleans' Paul Wells. I'll be taking the other half of my day- off, but I promise to be back with a full review tomorrow.

Or, maybe not.

Several readers e-mailed to say they actually preferred yesterday’s format of less summary and more analysis. If you’ve a view, now’s the time to get it in via email.

At home, Ontarians will soon be allowed to drink like adults Quebecers, and Albertans—well, who knows what’s up with a smoking ban in Ralph’s world.

It was a sad day for Jean Béliveau, as he put his hockey memorabilia up for auction.

Also in Montréal, the Gazoo misspelled “federal Heritage Minister Liza Frulla's name…and regrets the error.” She must have an awful lot of free time on her hands.

As do newspaper editors and editors--particularly the editors of the Star: “A photo caption in yesterday's Toronto Sun neglected to identify the 1939-1945 Star. The Sun apologizes for the oversight.”

Lately, Judy Sgro no doubt also has time to burn. Yesterday, her accuser suffered a blow when his lawyers quit.

Looks like they don’t believe him either, though it didn’t stop the Star from splashing the accusation over its front page and getting the minister's head on a platter—one day before pooh-poohing the whole thing.

Speaking of newspaper ethics, the situation at the one I used to publish must be causing headaches at CanWest headquarters. Hell, it’s only money burning.

Meanwhile, Joe Volpe—the colleague Sgro says pushed her, not the all-dressed pizza to go--denies any link to the pushy pizzapieman—notwithstanding court documents that show he “once intervened in the deportation case,” the National Post reports.

Speaking of that dreaded “n” word that refuses to speak its name, Liberals and Conservatives and Liberals were divided internally and separated geographically as they caucused on same-sex marriage.

The Post’s Anne Dawson reports, “the powerful women's caucus wholeheartedly endorsed the bill and accused Liberal colleagues who are opposed of wanting to follow rather than lead.”

The leader of leaders, Paul Martin, says it was okay for his first patronage appointee, Jim Walsh, to attend the Grit Christmas party--today's top story.

Still, comparing our fiscal fitness to the US deficit, you have to give the man credit for his former incarnation.

Martin, who last year said he’d use the notwithstanding clause in certain circumstances, now says he’d put his job on the line to defend the Charter, of which the notwithstanding clause is Section 33.  Go figure.

Moreover, as L. Ian Macdonald points out today—and as I’ve written in the past--Pierre Trudeau himself promised Emmett Cardinal Carter he’d override equality rights if the Court ever struck down the abortion law.

I also wonder how Martin can honestly promise Canadians that polygamy will always be a crime, if he’s not prepared to override judges if ever they decide otherwise. As Jean Chretien used to say, his notwithstanding clause was useful when judges blow it.

Only Jack Layton, it seems, has no conscience on this issue, and he says Paul Martin is playing politics with rights.

One wonders where his dissident members who do have a conscience will hide this time when the bill comes to a vote.

In the Citizen, Susan Riley knows where she stands--with Layton:

“As understandably bitter New Democrats point out, Martin promised in the election to protect the Charter, arguing that "only the Liberals can prevent Harper and his hidden agenda from fundamentally changing our country."

Same-sex couples will win the right to marry, despite Martin's bungling and Harper's opportunism. But that still doesn't fix the appalling mediocrity of Canadian political leadership.”

The Gazette’s Elizabeth Thompson reports that Sujit Choudhry, the “co-drafter of a letter signed by 134 academics blasting Tory leader Stephen Harper's position on same-sex marriages also provided counsel to Prime Minister Paul Martin as he mounted his bid for the leadership of the Liberal Party.” Kind of confirms what I wrote yesterday.

The letter was front page in yesterday's Globe; today, Patrick Monahan—another Martin adviser--says civil unions, brought in by the Socialist government of France that opposed same-sex marriage, are akin to “separate but equal” racial segregation.

By the way, those would be real, red--underwear socialists, not our domesticated variety who tilt at windmills and fight the good fight against trans-fats.

Now, I hate to quarrel with the Dean of Osgoode Hall Law School, who aside from being whip smart is a really nice guy.

However, sexual orientation is a closer cousin to gender than to race. And I don’t see him or many other lawyers going on freedom rides or voting registration campaigns against all-girls schools or Canada’s women’s Olympic teams.

I also hate to quarrel with the Globe editorial board, who pan Stephen Harper today for refusing to say he’d use the notwithstanding clause.

I’d simply note that today’s editorial concedes the main point I made yesterday—the “odds” are, but there’s no guarantee, that the Supreme Court would strike down the traditional definition of marriage if Parliament legislated it.

The Toronto Star has yet to concede the point; perhaps its editorialist has a crystal ball, as presumably does Chantal Hébert.

The National Post editorial board says the same-sex bill must protect freedom of religion explicitly, and point to a case now being heard in British Columbia:

” Deborah Chymyshyn and Tracey Smith are not trying to force an unwilling religious official to marry them. But the lesbian couple is trying to force a religious organization to provide its space for their marriage ceremony. Alleging that their booking of a Knights of Columbus hall in Port Coquitlam was cancelled in 2003 after the men's group found out that it was for their wedding reception, the women are now hoping that the tribunal will find they were the victims of discrimination.”

Though same-sex was on all these minds, the really big news yesterday was at the Gomery Inquiry.

Last week, David Dingwall testified he had Warren Kinsella “suggest” that Chuck Guité was the man for the job because he was "universally acclaimed" after the 1995 referendum.

That would be the referendum, by the way, in which their team almost lost the country.

Yesterday, though the Toronto Star’s man didn’t notice, the minister responsible for ensuring that nightmare was never repeated, Stéphane Dion, testified he had no involvement with the sponsorship program. After discovering it in 2001, he found it was useless for national unity.

As yours truly argued in Monday’s Globe, the principal goal of the program was not national unity, but to elect more Liberal MPs in Quebec--a matter that figured prominently in Mr. Chrétien's self-proclaimed legacy when he left office.

Now that he’s gone and feeling the noose tightening around his neck, the spin doctors are in overdrive and Chrétien’s lawyers are demanding that Judge Gomery step aside.

They’ll explain why at Monday’s hearings, though it’s clear their objective is to neuter the Judge in the first instance. and to take it from there. Even seasoned journalists like the Globe’s Campbell Clark are falling for the sucker punch.

We saw the fruits of the Chrétien strategy last week, when the questioning of Dingwall was not led by chief counsel Bernard Roy.

Roy is also being attacked by Chrétien’s lawyer, David Scott, for his service to Brian Mulroney. (Speaking of prime ministerial legacies, the US lumber lobby is contemplating a constitutional challenge to NAFTA.)

I, too, have questioned Roy’s appointment, because of his past association with one of the major figures in the scandal, Marc Lefrançois.

Meanwhile, co-counsel Neil Finkelstein, who is fine in Chrétien’s books, turned in a puff-ball performance questioning Dingwall and Kinsella.

The kick-ass political hack has been tough on Bernard Roy, but is yet to point out that Finkelstein worked in the office of Ontario’s Liberal AG, Ian Scott--the brother of Chrétien lawyer David Scott.

Finkelstein also has worked closely with Chrétien confidants, Eddie Goldenberg and Eric Maldoff, and with Chrétien ally Clyde Wells during the Meech saga.

The Opposition parties are livid about the challenge to Gomery, and there’s talk—en français aussi--of bringing down the government. I’m not sure Stephen Harper has thought this one through.

As Don Martin points out today, it would make no sense to hold Paul Martin accountable if Gomery hangs tough and Chrétien’s lawyers take the matter to the Federal Court.

In that event, we’d likely not see his final report before the next election—though we would have heard all the testimony.   

The Opposition—and the Government, assuming it wants answers—must seize the initiative from Chrétien and his legal/spin team.

An alternative they should consider is to demand, in a Commons motion, that Martin refer the challenge to the Supreme Court for an expedited hearing. I'll bet the price of this book that the Court would uphold Gomery's impartiality.

What must be remembered is that he's sitting here as the head of a public inquiry, not in a judicial capacity. He has no mandate to make findings of criminal responsibility, for example.

In the same motion, the Opposition parties should also demand that Martin commit not to call an election before the final report is published.

In these circumstances, it would be wise to suspend Gomery’s work, rather than have Chrétien testify with a sword hanging over the Commissioner’s and counsel’s heads.

IF YOU HAVE TIME, CHECK OUT THESE ARTICLES

Posted by Norman Spector on January 26, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack

Tuesday, January 25, 2005

Putting Words in his Mouth

Yesterday, Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Pierre Pettigrew spoke at the United Nations General Assembly, where they were commemorating the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi death camps by Allied forces during WWII. He spoke of defending the rights of all humans who suffer harm because of their race, religion and colour.

This is what Mr. Pettigrew had to say,

"For collective security there must also be collective responsibility. And there can be no indifference to crimes of hate. It is why we have championed the establishment of the international criminal court and international legal instruments such as the conventions on genocide."

But this is what I actually think he meant,

"For collective security there must also be collective responsibility, by this I mean, only if it suits our national interests or if there is a major public outcry over our inaction, will we help. And there can be no indifference to crimes of hate, unless these events take place in Africa, then of course, we do nothing. It is why we have championed the establishment of the international criminal court and international legal instruments such as the conventions on genocide, not that it matters, we'll never put the 'genocide label' on any situation because then we'd be obligated to act, and we don't want that now do we?"

To hear the governments of the world tell it, they would go to any length to stop genocide from taking place and would stop at nothing to protect the rights of all the oppressed in the world. But if that's the case, what happened in Rwanda and the Sudan? Why do world leaders ignore China's human rights abuses so they can secure business contacts?

crossposted to canadiancomment

Posted by Bob Matheson on January 25, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack

Iraqi campaign TV ads

Here's a collection of them, with English subtitles (scroll down to number 8). Interesting times -- and more optimistic than you'd think from reading the Western press.

Posted by Ezra Levant on January 25, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Regretting His Martyrdom

Posted by Kate McMillan on January 25, 2005 in Religion | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Blacks and women

What do Democrats think of blacks and women? Not much, if they dare to be Republican. Condoleezza Rice, whose qualifications and accomplishments are staggering, was put through a meat-grinder by Democratic Senators Robert Byrd and Ted Kennedy.

If I was a Democratic guru, I'd be a little bit nervous about having those two as my Jim Crow wrecking crew. Byrd, a former Klansman who still throws around the word "nigger", and Kennedy, who once took the phrase "dump a girlfriend" a little too literally, are hardly the point-men I'd put on the stop-Rice committee.

Posted by Ezra Levant on January 25, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Kicking Ass

Link: NORMAN'S SPECTATOR.

For those of you interested in my little spat with Warren Kinsella--my side of which is posted here in addition to my site--Paul Wells has just jumped into the fray in his blog.

Posted by Norman Spector on January 25, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Iraqi elections then and now

We know what the media says about the Iraqi election coming up at the end of January -- it's going to be a mess; it won't be legitimate, because some militant groups are boycotting it; there may be voter fraud. This, despite the fact that fully 7,000 candidates from nearly a hundred parties are contesting it and voter registration is high.

So it's worth remembering the obsequious "news" coverage given to Saddam's "election" two years ago, and his "100%" result.

Posted by Ezra Levant on January 25, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack