Federal Transport Minister David Collenette was Liberal transport minister at the time of this item.
[. . . . ] One of the first moves by the Chrétien Liberals upon assuming office in 1993, with Paul Martin as minister of finance, was to orchestrate a contract-breaking takeover of the [Toronto's Pearson International] airport. The cost of that illegal act was in the hundreds of millions. If lost revenue from delays in modernizing the airport were added in, the cost to taxpayers and airport users likely approaches $1-billion.
Now the Liberal end of the Pearson airport story is unravelling. All the elements that the Liberals claimed they were trying to prevent at Pearson, allegations based on gross misrepresentations -- monopoly price gouging, sky-high fees, political infighting -- are present in their creation. The Greater Toronto Airport Authority, established by Liberal transport ministers as an absolute monopoly untouchable by any government or competition or regulator, is most of the way through spending $4.4-billion to build a new airport. The big turkey coming home to roost at Pearson is the cost of servicing that debt.
[. . . . ] When it comes to handouts from government, there isn't a better or bigger plum than the Greater Toronto Airport Authority, which the Liberals handed to Mr. Turpen and a cabal of local political hacks almost five years ago. The appointees, not one of whom has ever seen the inside of a cockpit or an airline boardroom, now run the airport from the comfort of directors' chairs that nobody can take away. Board members include back room Liberal operatives who helped smear the old contract that the Liberals destroyed.
Having created the Turpen airport, where are Mr. Collenette and his colleagues? Nowhere to be seen, as is typical of Canadian transport ministers whenever the weather gets rough and the flight gets bumpy. Earlier this year, apparently aware that his government had created airport monsters with unlimited power, Mr. Collenette promised to introduce legislation to curb some of their power. A bill was introduced -- C-27 -- but it's dead, sucked into the great Liberal power vacuum.
None of the GTAA's looming fiscal problems are a surprise. Back in 1999, when the airport was raising its massive debt load, the warnings were everywhere. Billions in debt mean billions in interest costs and debt payback. Fees would have to double, triple, quadruple. Traffic would have to soar. As the airline industry looped into a tailspin, bond rating services began to get nervous. DBRS dropped its rating on GTAA in June. Other rating fiddles are likely without a major turnaround in airline fortunes.
The real crunch comes over the next couple of years when GTAA will have to start paying interest and begin amortizing it's debt, which now stands at $5.2-billion. At that time, the GTAA will have to face debt service costs of $500-million a year. Under debt covenants, it will need to produce net revenues of $600-million. Current net revenues are about $190-million. Airport revenue -- from more passenger traffic, higher rents, and higher fees -- is going to have to more than double over the next couple of years. No wonder Tim Horton's doesn't want to enter into any long-term contract. [. . . . ]
Why, I Do Believe I may have Redneck Tendencies
A friend sent these indicators -- and then, I thought about them. I have seen some variation on all of these -- and the people involved are the salt of the earth. I have added a bit of commentary. .
You Might be a Redneck if . . .
You ever tore a carburetor apart on newspapers on the kitchen table (I swear, I've seen at least part of a carburetor there; the whole thing, I wouldn't recognize, anyway.)
You have jacked up your home to look for a dog. (Jacked up homes? That, I recognize. Isn't that what everyone does when he's lived in the house long enough to save for the pouring of the basement? )
You have a relative living in your garage. (Well, what else do you do with it, when you can't afford to buy a new a car and the old one has irretrievably broken down? Isn't that how you save for the next second-hand car?)
Your standard of living improves when you go camping. (After all, the campsite may have hot water showers which run every day, and sink fixtures which were better than those you had to buy on your meagre budget. )
Your neighbor has ever asked to borrow a quart of beer. (One once asked to borrow a cup of brandy -- which amounts to the same thing, doesn't it? Maybe it was for cooking?)
You carry a fly swatter in the front seat of the car so you can reach the kids in the backseat. (Doesn't everyone?)
You think people who have cell phones and e-mail are uppity. (That's the way you phrase it when you're poor -- or don't know how to use these new-fangled contraptions; it's the redneck's defense to what he sees as sophistication -- something he/she does not have.)
The most delightful, decent, real people I have met have had one or more of these tendencies. I understand them. They don't know what a monster home is -- except from the outside -- and they have fun anyway.
It’s not just overreaction or Yankee imagination. Anti-Americanism is not only alive and well, it’s spoon fed in Canada.
And it stems from a taxpayer paid source: the classroom. [. . . . ]
[. . . . ] In other words, don't expect instant miracles in cleaning up the Liberal tradition of conflicts of interest and patronage.
For instance, some probably envy Jim Munson, 57, who was appointed to a life sinecure in the Senate by the retiring Chretien.
[. . . . ] Munson, a former CTV reporter, had been Chretien's media spokesman for a mere 15 months.
Until age 75, he'll pull in a salary of $114,200, plus office and staff, plus free travel and other perks. At taxpayers' expense.
As for U.S. President George W. Bush and the Americans, Martin surprisingly appointed Progressive Conservative turncoat Scott Brison as his own parliamentary secretary to deal with Canada-U.S. relations.
Step backwards -- Islamic Sharia law in Canada
Step backwards Dec. 14, 2003, Marianne Meed Ward, Toronto Sun
Have we lost our minds in Canada? We are poised to become like the repressive Middle Eastern countries we occasionally bomb, and start enforcing Islamic Sharia law.
Yes, you read that right. A newly minted council of 30 Muslim leaders in Canada is in the process of establishing an Islamic Institute of Civil Justice. The institute will set up arbitration committees across the country to apply Sharia law in civil disputes (marriage breakups, business deals gone sour and so forth). The council hopes to have ground rules hammered out by the end of the year.
Happy New Year, ladies. You too can inherit half what your brother does when your parents die. You too can be sentenced to death by stoning for adultery.
Mind you, the agreements must be submitted to secular Canadian courts for ratification. And it's hard to see how a Canadian court would uphold the aforementioned human rights abuses. So doesn't the institute risk becoming a pointless little exercise, aimed at ... what? Helping Muslims feel at home in Canada? Freeing up the backlog of civil suits, and lowering costs (two of the reasons cited for the institute)? But if the agreements can't possibly be carried out (or shouldn't be), haven't we increased our costs?
And I can't see how any of the Sharia laws would be applicable in Canada, even if people enter them voluntarily. [. . . . ]
I don't know whether this is still on the Sun website, but it is well-worth reading again.
Liberal and ex-PC, Scott Brison, on ACOA -- Scrap grants: Funding agency has become a tool of the Liberals
ACOA Funding: Is ACOA going to be around much longer? Reference: The following article appeared in the National Post in August by Sheldon Alberts, Deputy Ottawa Bureau Chief, August 17, 02. Find it and read the whole thing.
OTTAWA - Scott Brison, one of the Progressive Conservative party's highest-profile Atlantic Canadian MPs, is calling on the federal Liberals to scrap the $447-million Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency (ACOA) because government grants to businesses are an outdated and "dubious" way of boosting the region's economy.
In a move the Tory finance critic predicts will be controversial and politically risky within his own party, Mr. Brison said Ottawa should use the savings to give Atlantic Canadian companies dramatic reductions in corporate taxes.
"The fact is, the government is taking $380-million out of Atlantic Canada in corporate taxes -- money that comes from the most productive corporate entities in Atlantic Canada -- and using 500 ACOA employees to process that money and return a small portion of it to other ventures in Atlantic Canada. It becomes a very dubious economic proposition," Mr. Brison, the MP for Kings-Hants, N.S., said in an interview.
"Why wouldn't we leave that capital with these productive Atlantic Canadian entities, who know how to invest it and know how to grow their businesses and employ Atlantic Canadians?"
The Western world is committing collective suicide
Rarely have I be so agitated by an article as I was by David Warren's, entitled, "On many fronts, the West fights itself." (National Post, June 5, 04) Warren sees the decline of a West, that once was assured of its moral principles and proud of its numerous achievements. Now we see the swelling army of Quislings, who would hand over moral authority to the barbarians. Rome might have fallen to the Vandals and the Ostragoths, but they didn't actively wish it upon themselves. This is the perfect time for Warren to write this article. This week we celebrated the 60th anniversary of D-Day, when the Allies began to crush the monstrous ideology of racial purity and political hegemony. We in the West were united in the effort to dislodge it. Today, we are much more weak-kneed. Possibly, because we have allowed the enemy inside the gates--10% of France is now composed of mainly hostile Muslim. In Canada, the negative optics of "racial profiling" keep most political leaders and their camp-followers, the 'elites', in the multiculturalist tent. "We are too nice and too accepting to become bomb targets," they assure us.. We will see about that prediction.
Warren uses Italy--not the most pugnacious country--to illustrate the difference in perspectives about the Iraqi war. Unlike the Germans and the French, they are willing to pit their culture against that of the Taliban's. As Warren puts it, "Prime Minister Berlusconi speaks for an Italy that is not ashamed to call itself Western or Christian." Spain used to have a leader like him, until one horrendous terrorist attack frightened the Spanish into electing a left-leaning, appeasement government. I am sure al-Queda will use this tactic again and again, until they have cowed the other weaklings into submission. The retreat from democracy will be gradual, as it was in Rome's time, but it will eventually become total. "Lock up your women" will become not a hoary joke statement; but rather an edict backed by public flogging.. We must wake up and adopt the intestinal fortitude of our predecessors to confront the new enemy.
In his biography, Winston Churchill stated, "Of all the crosses I had to carry during the war, none was heavier than The Cross of Lorraine." He was referring to Charles DeGaulle.
Twenty years after the war ended, a female cryptographer refused to have an anaesthetic during a major operation, because she was afraid she might inadverttionally mention the Ultra enigma code-breaking machine she had worked on.
When the Soviet underground leaked that Stalin's son was a prisoner in Dachau, Stalin said, "I have no son." The son committed suicide when he heard his father's comment.
One female Russian sniper at Stalingrad killed 68 German soldiers. She would position herself above a dead horse and knock off the starving soldiers that tried to reach it. When German General, Von Paulus, was being marched out of the city with his quarter million defeated soldiers, he made a pithy comment. His Russian general escort asked what the hell was happening, as he watched German soldiers using their frozen comrades as toboggans. Von Paulus said, "It's been a hard campaign. The boys just want to have some fun." As they trudged out of the city, they kept walking over their comrades, who were smashed under a foot of ice--left over from when a T-3 ran them over.
I saw an article in the National Post on the 100 most beautiful women today. Many of them were all-time favourites. Nobody symbolizes the elfin quality of beautify that Audrey Hepburn projected. Having the neck of a gazelle didn't hurt. Bridget Bardot will always be on my list of cuties. Having stolen her poster for And God Created Women from the theater, I had plenty of time to appreciate her female charms. Finally, because, a. my mother found it, and b. the theater offered six free passes to their movies, if it was 'found', I lost possession of this icon of sheer lust. Still, I am aggrieved, as I don't remember Sophia Loren on the list. Shameful! And Laureen Bacall? Where was she?
Of course, everybody has his favourite idea of beauty--Kim Bassinger, Jayne Mansfield, or the Olsen twins. We see their faces/bodies, backlit, coiffured, and, if necessary, digitalized. Women have, unfortunately, bought into this 'identi-kit version of attractiveness. Blonds with collagened lips and huge fake breasts, now on anorexic bodies, dominate the media scene. Then to really drive home the message, Kate Moss, because she looks like a 12 year old boy, was high on the list. I looked at the list and tried to put a face to each one--being male, I scored quite high. Still I thought, there is a distressing similarity to many of them. Kidman morphed into Schiffer, Paltrow less so into Bergman. There was a Stepford Wives resemblance amongst too many of them.
If women could just see that they themselves, or at least those around them, are equally beautiful--in many cases, more so--then their media tyranny would end. Yes, Princess Rania is exquisitely gorgeous, but so were scores of Iranian girls in photos that came out of Tehran--back in the days of the Shah--when women were freed from the veil. Thai women, with their instinctive grace and shy porcelain beauty would tie Hepburn as a entire race, if they were promoted the same way. Brazilian women, who don't have the necks of gazelles, but certainly the bodies of them are high up the scale. Were any of them nominated? Just check out the Carnivale in Rio tapes. Rio's nightly passando along the crescent of Copacabana is a study in exotic women. Black girls, with green eyes, blends of Japanese, Poruguese, and Negro, whites with kinky coils; it is all on parade. I don't think I would notice Paltrow in that passando of beauty. There are numerous other countries, which should, but don't, count as beauty breeders. All I can say is that that is our loss.
It is not only Martin who is taking off the velvet glove to throw muck; it is the CBC too. As expected, they are salting their National news' commentary with biased, heavily partisan coverage. Today, not a classic act to that end but a good journeyman effort, had the news leading off with another Harper-is-secretly wearing-a white-sheet accusation. The spawn of Satan diatribe by Martin was front and center. This was followed by some Quebecois Conservative commenting that she personally found Harper vaguely sinister. If the whole government apparatus cannot be controlled by francophones, then it is always truly scary, madam. Almost nobody has as much to lose, if the center shifts to English Canada--you remember, that other 73% of the population. Geez! That lead-off seems as though there might be some overt collusion between the Liberals and the CBC. I am sure that Tony Burman, the program director, will again spring to the defense of Mansbridge and his coverage. The latter portion of the hour will feature Hanamansingh's carefully crafted, "Speaking to the youthful voter" segment. I have declined the chance to view this blatantly engineered section. Spoiled, vacuous, and materialistic, the youth allowed to grab air will be resolutely Liberal or NDP in their viewpoints.
Don't be surprised if one blurts out, "I mean, like, that Harper dude. He is, like, kind of scary. What with that gay mortgage stuff. And his position is defense? A bit paliolithic, eh? "Paliolithic" is a word I learned in grad school. Damned if I can ever spell that sucker properly. Anyway, where was I? Oh ya, Harper, he is like some dynasaur. Again excuse me, as I am not completely sure how to spell that word either, or even pronounce it properly -- but he is totally a Cro-maggot man, dude." (Hanamansingh smiling broadly), "Cutting back to you Peter." (Mansbridge's desk) "And thank you, Ian, for that illuminating report. Now on to ather news. Gilles Ducepps says that Harper's plan...."
CAIRO, Egypt (AP) -- A statement bearing Al-Qaida's name warned Monday that Western airliners will be the terror group's target.
The statement appeared on an Islamist Web site known for posting messages from militants, including the video in which a terror group with al-Qaida links executed the American kidnapped in Iraq, Nick Berg.
The statement's authenticity could not be immediately verified, but it was signed "Al-Qaida on the Arabian Peninsula."
In early 2000, the U.S. Justice Department and the Immigration and Naturalization Service executed a successful undercover operation. "Squeeze Play" was designed to break up an Asian people-smuggling ring. The INS operation also uncovered the fact that the Chinese government was directly involved.
In the end, six individuals, including a Chinese general, were indicted by a U.S. grand jury formed in Detroit. The indictment of Chinese Gen. Fhang Wei included videotaped evidence taken by a Canadian undercover operative who managed to penetrate the smuggling ring. For the first time in the U.S., James Leigh, a Canadian currently living abroad at an undisclosed location, today relayed his story of danger inside the dragon's den.
[. . . . ] Ironically, after being indicted in the United States, Chinese Gen. Fhang met with Canadian officials, including Immigration Minister Elanor Kaplan, during a briefing in Fujian on how to combat illegal people-smuggling. The briefing included plans for Canadian security and law enforcement operations to combat smuggling.
Despite the apparent lack of coordination between the U.S. and Canada, Leigh's undercover work for the U.S. government did not end with Operation Squeeze Play. For the first time, Leigh revealed that he also helped the U.S. track North Korean operatives working within Canada and in Asia.
[. . . . ] "The Chinese government has been and still is sanctioning smuggling into the United States and Canada," stated Leigh flatly in an exclusive interview.
You must link to this.
Peaceful Students? Islamism's Campus Club: The Muslim Students' Association
[. . . . ] Yet at an MSA meeting at Queensborough Community College in New York in March 2003, a guest speaker named Faheed declared, "We reject the UN, reject America, reject all law and order. Don't lobby Congress or protest because we don't recognize Congress. The only relationship you should have with America is to topple it....Eventually there will be a Muslim in the White House dictating the laws of Sharia." [. . . . ]
Only Israel Labeled "Nazi"
From COP/JPost came the following, and I cannot find the link. If you subscribe to the LATimes, you may be able to find it. It may have been published as "The Actions of Israel, the Epithet Nazi" by Walter Reich -- Only Israel Labeled "Nazi" Walter Reich, LATimes. It is well-worth reading.
* Genocidal mass murder continues to foul the world. Yet the foulest epithet in any language - "Nazi" - is hurled not against any of the perpetrators of those crimes but, uniquely and systematically, against Israel.
* During the last three years in the streets of Israel, numerous city buses, cafes, and restaurants have been turned into bomb chambers by Palestinian organizations whose stated goal is to eradicate Israel and make the area free of Jews. At the World Trade Center in New York on Sept. 11, 2001, as many innocents were murdered as during a day's gassing in Auschwitz. Yet the epithet "Nazi" hasn't been commonly used against the organizers of these or other massacres around the world.
* For six decades after the Holocaust, anti-Semitism was seen as having led to the worst genocide in human history. It wasn't possible to be an anti-Semite in polite company. But if the public could be convinced that Israel is no better than Nazi Germany, then the anti-Semites could again be back in business.
* When we hear the epithet "Nazi" aimed at Israelis, we should understand its purpose. And we should understand that - whether the term is part of a verbal war or of an effort to make anti-Semitism once again respectable - it will continue to be aimed at Israel rather than at countries and groups that engage in genocide and mass murder.
Now that Anti-Semitism Seems to be Rearing its Ugly Head
