Draft Dodgers, Immigration--The Latest, Security-Borders-Illegal Aliens-Other Stakeholder Groups, Bill of Rights
Draft Dodgers -- Paul Martin
PM Martin seems to be making noises as though he thinks it is perfectly acceptable to allow American draft dodgers to remain in Canada -- unless I was only half listening and got this wrong. Check.
May I suggest an updated motto for Canada?
Bring us your draft dodgers, your welfare cheats, your violent thugs, your drug dispensers, your gambling experts, your killers, your terrorists, your -- whatever. Our diversity and inclusiveness know no bounds.
A VETERAN Toronto cop blasted Canada's immigration system yesterday after the weekend arrest of a twice-deported career criminal. "To me, the fact this guy should have been deported from this country a long time ago says a lot," Det.-Sgt. Wilf Townley said. "This isn't the only (case). There's lots of other ones.
"They should be getting rid of these people. How does somebody get out on a bond who's committed 27 criminal offences in this country?"
[. . . . ] Charged with 37 robbery and firearms offences are Junior Clive Francis, 45, Gregory Antonio Ambursley, 32, and Orthniel Moriano McLeary, 32, all of Toronto. [. . . . ]
And they immigrated from ???
Link and find out what Rejean Cantlon, of Canada Border Services Agency has to say.
I venture to say he is livid -- as am I and a growing number of Canadians. Speaking out is likely a career-ending move. Think of Police Chief Julian Fantino of Toronto whose contract was not renewed, I suspect because he spoke truth and certain groups didn't like it.
Coming geopolitical quakes -- Paul Martin and his government must take cognizance of this.
The failure to interdict northern trespassers is particularly worrisome, since Canada is a proven springboard for terrorists. Ahmed Ressam, the Algerian caught at the Canadian border with 100 pounds of explosives destined for the Los Angeles airport in December 1999, ran an al Qaeda cell in Montreal, despite having previously been ordered deported by the Canadian government. Two of the seven most wanted al Qaeda members are naturalized Canadians.
This comes from one of the articles below.
SAFETY'S NOT NO. 1
SAFETY'S NOT NO. 1 Heather MacDonald, New York Post, Dec. 15, 04. Heather Mac Donald is a contributing editor at the Manhattan Institute's City Journal.
[. . . . "] Nothing compromises our domestic defense against Islamic terrorism more than our failure to control who enters the country.
The alien-smuggling trade is the "sea in which terrorists swim," explains David Cohen, the NYPD's Deputy Commissioner for Intelligence and an ex-CIA expert on al Qaeda.
Yet fear of offending the race and rights lobbies has trumped national security at DHS. This spring, for example, Asa Hutchinson — the department's undersecretary for Border and Transportation Security and now a contender for the top job — shut down a successful border-patrol initiative to catch illegal aliens.
[. . . . ]
The world can now count on one geopolitical earthquake every 10 years. Between 1985 and 1995, it was the fall of the Berlin Wall, the implosion of the Soviet Union, the collapse of communist parties the world over, and America's emergence as the world's only superpower.
Between 1995 and 2005, it was the September 11, 2001, attacks against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon that triggered a war on, and the defeat of, Afghanistan's despotic Taliban regime followed by a war on, and the defeat of, Saddam Hussein's bloody tyranny. So between 2005 and 2015, what's on the global menu?
[. . . . ] The failure to interdict northern trespassers is particularly worrisome, since Canada is a proven springboard for terrorists. Ahmed Ressam, the Algerian caught at the Canadian border with 100 pounds of explosives destined for the Los Angeles airport in December 1999, ran an al Qaeda cell in Montreal, despite having previously been ordered deported by the Canadian government. Two of the seven most wanted al Qaeda members are naturalized Canadians.
If time is short, do a search for this paragraph and read the list below it:
One all-too-realistic geopolitical nightmare was a weapon of mass destruction terrorist attack on the U.S. West Coast. A nuclear device detonates in a container ship about to enter Long Beach, Calif. News had just broken about pollution of the U.S. food supply, most analysts assumed by transnational terrorism. The U.S. can prevail conventionally anywhere but seems helpless in coping with asymmetrical warfare. [. . . . ]
Don't forget the list.
More Border Patrol, but no money -- Congress approves biggest guard buildup ever
WASHINGTON – The U.S. Congress has quietly approved the biggest build-up of Border Patrol agents in the history of the nation – but allocated no money to fund the positions.
While much of the nation's attention was focused on the intelligence-reform bill and whether it would include provisions to forbid illegal aliens from getting driver's licenses, both houses approved legislation that would nearly double the size of the border-guard positions over the next five years. [. . . . ]
It may be that every American "knows" the Founding Fathers bequeathed to us a Bill of Rights as a guarantor of various liberties, and this belief may be so deeply ingrained in the national psyche that virtually every famous political actor in the country has attested to the framers' wisdom in their crafting of the great bill, but the plain, historical and undeniable fact of the matter is the framers overwhelmingly rejected any notion of a bill of rights. When the proposal was put forth during the Constitutional Convention, only two men of 55 spoke in favor of the measure, and the state delegations rejected the idea unanimously. [. . . . ]
Christmas Good-bye from the House: Hansard Dec 13, 04--Canadian Security depends on luck
Bud Talkinghorn: Stop bashing the Republicans over the Iraq war
It is always entertaining to see the Canadian liberal left at their protest posts. They come across as a hodge-podge of whiners. Ottawa featured the "Butt pirates against Bush" boys waving their rather suggestive placards--the ever vigilant CBC crew were there to film them when one said, "Hell no! We can't put that on the air." The rest of the usual suspects--government grant-NAC members, some spare union guys, "The Raging Grannies" from the Unitarian Church in Fredericton, the Vegans who want the cows of Texas left to die of old age, the tree-huggers always able to muster a few attendees, the seriously indoctrinated university students bused in from Eastern Canada, and no protest would be complete without the professional anarchists. Who finances these marches? The transport? Food and hotel bills? My guess is that part of the taxpayers' money that the NGOs and other funded Liberal/liberal lobby groups receive pays for them. Probably the labour unions and the NDP funnel in some covert payments too.
So now we have the main players and the supposed reason for protest--they are against that warmonger, Bush. In the United States, President Bush has been portrayed as Satan by the Democrats. The cowboy boots are just to disguise his cloven hooves.
Somehow the left has developed amnesia. That period from 1962, when the Democratic president, JFK, sent a few thousand troops to Vietnam, until 1973, when a Republican arranged a truce and got the troops home, has simply disappeared down the memory hole. JFK said in 1963 that if troop levels in Vietnam ever went over 15,000 he "would eat his hat". When Democrat Johnson quit, the troop level was above 600,000. The anti-Vietnam war protests were enormous and the protestors came from every segment of society. Their message was focused on stopping the war. They were not the lobbyists for faddish leftist causes that we have today. America had already fought Saddam over Kuwait previously. This current war is to make sure they are not going to have to fight his proxy terrorist army in the streets of America. There is not as solid a justification for Vietnam. The French, who learned the hard way told Kennedy, "Don't go into that swamp." But Kennedy knew better.
So the next time the War-Protests-R-Us crowd hold another march, ask them about Kennedy and Johnson. Ask them why, in the face of all intelligent analysis, these presidents kept fighting an enemy that posed zero direct threat to America. Or ask why they wouldn't admit that their allies, the South Vietnamese, were rather useless. This is not a slur on the soldiers' courage, for this reluctance was mainly caused by not being paid by their corrupt officiers and politicians.
I doubt that the protestors will have the mental wherewithal to see this parallel. JFK will always remain in their minds as a Camelot figure, but not as the orginator of the savage and useless Vietnam conflict. For you young folks out there; consider that on top of the 57,000 U.S. soldiers killed, a far number were wounded. As to the cost, consider that--to me anyway--having 16,000 of your planes shot-down or disabled constitutes rather hefty material loss. And finally, consider that Kennedy and Johnson authorized the infamous Operation Phoenex, where 60,000 Vietnamese civilians were assassinated by Marine special forces or their CIA partners. People were "terminated with extreme prejudice" on the flimsiest evidence they might be Cong. Imagine what the outcry would be if Bush authorized the same tactics in Iraqi. Perhaps the protestors should try cracking the spine of a history book.
Last night on The Fifth Estate, CBC presented such a biased program on Dick Cheney that it should be used in journalism school as an example of what journalistic bias is. I know so little about the VP of the US that I stayed up to watch. What viewers were treated to was a classic hatchet job. CBC is becoming shrill in its utter demonization of President Bush and his administration -- which leads to Barbara Kay. NJC
Propaganda in the classroom -- Dear Barbara Kay, please do a poll on the CBC's ideological brainwashing
Today's column is in part an amateur poll on intellectual harassment in our universities. I'm asking Canada's future educators and lawmakers -- students in, or recent grads from, the humanities and social sciences -- if they're being ideologically brainwashed by their professors. So without further ado: Do you see a balanced ideological perspective in your courses? Does your professor direct you to alternative points of views? Is dissent or diversity of opinion encouraged in discussion? Are Judeo-Christian perspectives denigrated or mocked? Are grades a reflection of the merit of your arguments or conformity with the professor's ideology?
[. . . . ] Unlike the United States, we have precious few institutions to monitor academic freedom in the universities, champion the merit principle and promote ideological neutrality in teaching and hiring practices. One such is the admirably vigilant, membership-funded Society for Academic Freedom and Scholarship (www.safs.ca).
So students (and parents), please send me your responses. Confidentiality is assured. Validate my keen assessment, or shame me for my wildly off-the-mark rush to judgment: It's your call. Survey 101 results TBA. [. . . . ]
Need I say go and read her article? The following contrasts the intellectual milieu over a period of years.
Universities--Bastions for the Left
In the National Post, (Wednesday, Dec. 15--A 17) Barbara Kay takes issue with the Left's take-over of intellectual development in academia. Using a survey done in the States, she shows that the vast majority of professors are Democrats, hence liberals. On average, they vote 15 to 1 for Democrats and their activist ideology. Kay speculates that the Women's Studies faculty is probably a 1000 to 1.
Rather than just take these statistics at face value, I pondered my own experiences in university. Having taken my undergraduate degrees before the great tide of American draft dodgers arrived, I did not notice much indoctrination from the Left; in fact, my political science prof was practically a fascist. It wasn't until years later when I was working on my masters, that I saw the relentless socialist curricula come into play. My Chinese history course was heavy on how the imperialists had destroyed and ravaged much of all South-East Asia. The course could have been labelled "White Guilt 5301". Luckily, my main mentor was a man of free-wheeling intellect and appeared to have no ideological ax to grind. One of the perks of the graduate program is that students have access to the faculty common room, where students and professors mingle over coffee. It was there that you got to heard the professors as indoctrinaires. It was obvious that the old "truth", that education was to open minds, had been vanquished. The Left does not see anything wrong with biased, often false, theories being the whole meal for impressionable students. They see the universities as a major launching pad for their world socialist vision.
If they can reach a critical mass of the students, then the students will carry those socialist dogmas into the public domain. On campus, they have fostered all kinds of idiotic 'politically correct' rules and regulations. The result is either a student population afraid to voice their own beliefs, or one that is left bitterly divided. Didn't we witness this at Concordia last year. A handful of Palestinian students, along with their Canadian contingent of useful leftie fools, stopped the lecture by a former Israeli Prime Minister. Then the university refused to let another Israeli leader speak on campus. The university claimed that it was for security reasons only. This type of decision is usually made with staff imput. I suspect that the staff went along with the decision because they consider these ex-leaders to be war criminals for their actions against Palestinian terrorists. The Left, having watched their cherished communist dream collapse when the Berlin wall came down, are now forced to advance more peripheral socialist societies. Palestinian oppression is the current cause.
This persistent indoctrination is open and unapologetic. For the Left, the university must be an agent of social change. However only one line of that change can be correct--theirs. John Furedy, a professor at U of T, portrayed this stifling politically correctness movement as "the velvet underground". Fortunately the Right (and their politically neutral allies) are staging a comeback. Student groups are now actively monitoring lectures and curricula, looking for leftist slants. Go get them boys. It is time that ideolgical wall came down.
Bud Talkinghorn
Gay marriage--the fall-out to come
The cry of the pro-gay marriage people is, "What is the difference if they marry? How is that going to affect the act of marriage? Well, as a letter to the National Post from Gary Clymbaluk pointed out, it changes everything. He quotes the great social critic, Neil Postman, who saw television as a disaster. "The introduction of television into a culture isn't just the old culture plus television. It is an entirely new culture." We have witnessed in our lifetime the withering of the marriage institution. Everybody has a number of friends who simply live common law, as we have those many who divorced. To further rot the core of marriage any further is to make it even more meaningless. And it is the slippery slope. What legal defense would the Supreme Court have in denying Mormon or Muslim polygamous marriages. Their feminist leanings would not be enough. Perhaps most galling of all is how this smashing of a millennia-old ceremony was done. A small group of activist judges have sanctioned this social engineering. As most were appointed by the Liberals they know how to please their benefactors. They also know they can't be replaced till retirement. Also any criticism of their increasing ideosyncratic decisions gets a full court press against you by the elites and their politically correct followers--not to mention the vociferous homosexual lobby.
Rob Martin, a law professor from the University of Western Ontario, states that these Supremes not only feel free to tinker with any tradition, but to dramatically change it. They are not averse to simply inventing new laws according to their liberal--as opposed to Liberal--ideology. To make matters worse, there is a large "L" Liberal party that hides behind them. The Liberals under Martin and Chretien have allowed these Supremes to carry on as though they alone could interpret the constitution and the Charter. The worst of them, Justice L'Heureux Dube, thankfully has departed, but her spirit is still there. Dube thought the courts "should help the government in formulating laws." Democracy is going to suffer from this judicial hubris.
A weary group of Canadian pilots, aircrew and maintenance technicians is on its way home today after two months of flying long, gruelling patrols over the Mediterranean Sea hunting for terrorists, smugglers and illegal immigrants.
[. . . . ] Operation Sirius was Canada's contribution to NATO's campaign against terrorism in the Mediterranean, using allied warships and aircraft to watch shipping traffic for shipments of arms, terrorist leaders or smuggling.
[. . . . ] He said his crews can take much of the credit for significantly cutting down on illegal immigration in the Mediterranean. [. . . . ]
You think flying for hours is easy? Then, read the details.
Subs corroded while Chretien considered optics: Collenette -- Now, he speaks out.
The wife of the ex-Minister, Penny Collenette, worked in the PMO; as I recall, she wrote an article on the difficulties faced by a whistleblower in Ottawa and the certain repercussions to one's employment, should one speak out. How very interesting that this couple are speaking out or writing now -- and now that their pensions are assured.
If ever Canadians needed whistleblower legislation that would protect all whistleblowers, it is now!
[. . . . ] The Commons defence committee was considering whether to call Chretien as a witness after David Collenette told them his former boss balked at the $800-million lease-to-purchase plan cabinet approved in 1995.
Chretien didn't think Canadians would accept such an expenditure in the midst of health-care and other social service cuts, as well as defence, said Collenette, who is no longer in government.
[. . . . ] "There was a concern about committing to big chunks of money when we were cutting everywhere in society," Collenette added. "It could be argued that this (delay) created more challenges in making the submarines fully operational, not to mention the additional costs that this would incur."
The all-party committee is looking at the acquisition of the four diesel-electric submarines from Britain after the last of them, HMCS Chicoutimi, caught fire Oct. 5, killing one sailor.
Witnesses have said the subs were a good buy when first considered in the early '90s.
But they were in bad shape when Canada finally decided to buy them in 1998. Witnesses have described leaks, electrical problems and equipment malfunctions - largely, they said, attributable to years of neglect. [. . . . ]
I would feel empathy for Mr. Chretien's having to make hard choices in bad economic times were his government--and that of his predecessors for years--not the author of much that has contributed to continued hard times. Has it not been since Pierre Trudeau that the Liberals have taken Canada deeper into debt and the consequent waste of money on interest on the debt? Short term vote gain for long term debt pain! Under Chretien's leadership money was thrown away:
* at mouthing platitudes about our health care as we daily were exposed to the reality
* at failing ideas and companies -- think Bombardier as only one example
* at sponsorship programs where money stuck to favoured friends. Should the word 'allegedly' be appended here? If so, consider it done.
Paul Martin, after claiming government poverty, has discovered a gold mine--is it $9-billion instead of $1-billion or so?--and we can expect that he'll be throwing money at anything to maintain his position. (This man has issues with trying to live up to whatever it is -- seemingly related to his father's expectations, in my humble opinion. He is not really Prime Ministerial material.) Now, he's going about the world avoiding Parliament, trying to drum up business with authoritarian regimes (China) and courting dictatorships (Libya). I expected him, already being rich, to be more of a statesman but it is his quest for power and money (His sons now own his shipping companies, but hey, it's all in the family, isn't it?) that bothers me. There are warning signs if he would but look.
He could start by reading some of these articles and his Auditor General's reports.
[. . . . ] Traditional distrust or dislike between ethnic gangs is fading.
"Greed will overcome all of that. Fighting and violence between criminal organizations does not pay. Greed will win at the end of the day. Two individuals or criminal groups may not like each other but if there is an opportunity to make huge profits, they will make peace," Chief Supt. Soave said. "We are going to have integrated criminal organizations that are going to pose huge threats." [. . . . ]
UN: Kofi Annan fails to protect whistle-blowers at the UN -- so where does this leave those who would whistleblow on the oil-for-food scandal?
UNITED NATIONS - The axe has been six months in coming, but few familiar with the United Nations doubted it would eventually rid itself of Dr. Andrew Thomson after he and two other staffers authored a book about widespread sexual abuse, drug use, corruption and incompetence in UN peacekeeping.
While handing out the pink slips would have appeared too vindictive at the release of the book in June, the world body has now told Dr. Thomson he's out at the end of December, after serving the organization since 1992.
[. . . . ] Kenneth Cain, a human rights official, and Heidi Postlewait, a UN training officer, joined Dr. Thomson in writing Emergency Sex and Other desperate Measures: A True Story from Hell on Earth.[. . . . ]
Where Corruption Rules -- The U.N. is thoroughly tainted. -- Not accountable to anyone except itself -- This is the "multilateral" body that Paul Martin wants us to heed? Canada's moral beacon?
Another shuck! This is the body that allowed Yasser Arafat armed with a pistol to address the UN peacemaking forum. He may have left the bullets at home but the symbolism of the gun was bad optics and a bad precedent. Then Kofi Annan was invited to address Canada's parliament -- but our government allowed threats of protest--funded by whom?--to prevent President George Bush from addressing our Parliament. Ask Romeo Dallaire what he thinks of the usefulness of the UN after Rwanda. Think AIDS in Africa and South Africa's President Mbeki's refusal to admit its existence for so long, then his pronouncements on who is responsible--and the UN's refusal to consider responses besides blaming the West and demanding Western drugs. The UN has not really explored alternate responses--such as Uganda's Christian-based-abstinence and fidelity program which, apparently is working. Remember the Durban conference on racism and xenophobia? Israelis do, I'm sure. Thug states have secured positions of power and influence in the UN--and participants at the conference had the gall to write up a memorandum at the end that Israel is the only state that engages in racism and xenophobia. Sudan--think Darfur--was one of the co-signers of this. Ask yourself whether the UN has anything useful to say to the West. Now, read the following on what appears to be a sinkhole of corruption.
Calling the UN a peacemaking body and claiming Canadians would all be better off if we followed the "multilateral" approach of the UN does not make it so.
Where Corruption Rules -- The U.N. is thoroughly tainted. Rachel Ehrenfeld, National Review. Rachel Ehrenfeld is the author of Funding Evil: How Terrorism is Financed — and How to Stop It, director of the Manhattan-based American Center for Democracy., and member of the Committee on the Present Danger.
[. . . . ] The U.N.'s corruption is not limited to money. Sexual exploitation and trafficking in minors have been the routine in U.N. refugee-relief programs throughout Africa, the Balkans, and southeast Asia. In 2002, U.N. aid workers distributed food or loans and scholarships throughout refugee camps in Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea — in return for sexual favors. The following year, the U.N. investigated a report that a ship chartered for peacekeepers in East Timor was being used to bring in child prostitutes from Thailand. And in the Balkans , U.N. peacekeepers patronized nightclubs where girls as young as 15 were forced to have sex with them. Confronted with one of the scandals, a senior U.N. official responded — in the words of the BBC — that "ending the sexual exploitation of underage refugees would be an uphill task because gender discrimination was deeply rooted in many cultures...all over the world." So you see, it's not really the U.N.'s fault.
What makes this all even more appalling is the fact that the U.N. claims to be at the forefront of the global war against AIDS. Yet U.N. officials' behavior helps spread the disease.
[. . . . ] Indeed, many U.N. officials come from societies in which the level of corruption on all fronts is so high that it is an accepted social norm. [. . . . ]
There is so much more if you read and follow the links there.
Embattled Immigration Minister Judy Sgro vehemently denied reports Tuesday that a former staffer had links to a terrorist organization banned in Canada.
A national security probe was launched into Ms. Sgro's office after a senior staffer was fired for suspicion of being a security threat, government officials told the Toronto Sun earlier this week.
The staffer, a Canadian of Sri Lankan origin, had worked for several weeks in Ms. Sgro's Ottawa office, sources close to the case told the paper.
[. . . . ] Sources said the Toronto man, whose identity hasn't been released, was given a top position because he was a tireless recruiter of South Asians for the Liberal party.
[. . . . ]
Mozambican murderer ordered out of Canada -- May appeal deportation: Fled to Canada after being convicted in journalist's slaying
Mr. Dos Santos was convicted of the murder of Mr. Cardoso, who was shot four years ago while investigating a US$14-million bank fraud that involved Mozambique's ruling party.
Just before his trial, Mr. Dos Santos escaped from a high-security prison and was convicted in absentia.
He was recaptured and sentenced to 28 years in prison but escaped again on May 9 and flew to Canada.[. . . . ]
Deportee's crime spree ends with toy-store stickup
Two are termed "Canadian citizens" but I'm guessing they are connected to or are Jamaican immigrants. This department is out of control and our security is at risk while they hide behind the UN's skirts on allowing people without proper documents to enter our country. They simply get to a port and mouth the words "refugee", though, of course, that may not be the case with these two.
TORONTO - Three men, including a twice-deported career criminal facing deportation again, ended a six-month crime spree by robbing a toy store full of holiday shoppers, police said yesterday.
[. . . . ] Gayle, a Jamaican, was in Canada awaiting deportation when he shot Constable Todd Baylis in the head, killing him in June, 1994.
[. . . . ] Francis, a Jamaican, returned to Canada a third time after being deported twice, and claimed refugee status, said Det. Sgt. Townley. Toronto police arrested him in 2002, when Det. Sgt. Townley said Citizenship and Immigration Canada officials began an investigation. ''By this time,'' Det. Sgt. Townley went on, ''this guy had amassed something like 25 criminal convictions in Toronto and surrounding area.''
Nigerian con man runs scam from jail -- Global News reports women recruited through federal site -- "Some conversations are monitored, some aren't. . . . "You have to understand that there are privacy considerations, notwithstanding you are in jail. People have rights to do certain things."
TORONTO - A Nigerian con man serving time for sexual assault has been running a scam out of the Don jail in Toronto that involves recruiting unwitting women on the outside and taking advantage of lax security on the inside, Global News Toronto reported yesterday.
The man, who has also been convicted of bigamy and credit-card fraud and described by the Ontario Human Rights Commission as a sexual predator, hired employees for his scam by advertising for help on a Government of Canada Web site, according to the report by Global Defenders, the station's investigative unit. [. . . . ]
The "rights" industry -- again. Of course, if a refusal to answer questions in the House of Commons is clothed in privacy rights, we can't blame the prison system from learning from it . . . . . . . can we? Give me a break!
You have to read this one -- why he's in jail, considering that he applied as a "refugee" claiming to be a persecuted gay from Botswana. Gay-friendly Canada welcomed him -- and then . . . . .
Crime victims office being 'dismantled' -- Only a revamp, liberals say -- "taxpayer-funded thorn in his ministry's side"
The Ontario Liberals have all but "dismantled" Canada's first government office dedicated to victims of crime, which for seven years has represented victims in the courts and proposed a string of judicial reforms, its outgoing vice-chairman charged yesterday.
[. . . . ] One of the office's tasks was to disperse money from the province's $40-million victim justice fund, but that has already been taken over by the Attorney-General's Ministry, he said.
Ah, the power to dispense money . . . . . OPM money, that is.
"The office made recommendations that helped lead to a greatly expanded victim-assistance program in the courts, the province's sex-offender registry, key changes to the Coroner's Act and more rights for child sexual abuse victims, said Mr. Jackson."
Congressman Warns of Iranian Attack on U.S. -- using hijacked Canadian planes
WASHINGTON - A senior Republican congressman has been warning America's intelligence community for more than a year of an alleged Iranian plot to crash commercial airliners into a New Hampshire nuclear reactor.
Since February 2003, Rep. Curt Weldon of Pennsylvania has held a series of secret meetings in Paris with a former high-ranking official in the Shah's government who has correctly predicted, according to Mr. Weldon, a number of internal developments in Iran ranging from the regime's atomic weapons programs to its support for international terrorism, including Al Qaeda.
Based on two informants inside the mullahs' inner circle, Mr. Weldon's source, whom he code-named "Ali," relayed allegations to the Pennsylvania lawmaker that an Iranian-backed terrorist cell is seeking to hijack Canadian airliners and crash them into an American reactor. The target of the operation was only identified by Ali as SEA, leading Mr. Weldon to predict it was the Seabrook reactor in New Hampshire, about 40 miles north of Boston. Ali told the congressman that the attack was first planned for between November 23 and December 3, 2003, but was postponed to take place after this year's presidential election.
For nearly two years, Mr. Weldon tried to quietly press the CIA and a Senate panel that oversees Langley to follow up on the intelligence his Iranian source in Paris was providing. But these efforts came to nothing, according to Mr. Weldon. So now Mr. Weldon is going public. [. . . . ]
The congressman's experience with America's spy service in the last year echoes frustrations from other American officials and analysts who have cultivated Iranians willing to provide America with intelligence, but who have been ignored. [. . . . ]
The long-awaited meeting of the 10th Conference of the Parties to the Climate Change Treaty is now underway in Buenos Aires, Argentina. More than 5,000 delegates and non-government organization representatives are there to participate in the festivities. The overwhelming sentiment among the participants is to find a way to force the United States to "get on board." French Ecology Minister Serge Lepeltier said, "I am convinced that we are going to bring the United States into Kyoto, even if it doesn't want to."
[. . . . ] The economic impact this horrendous international law could have is beyond comprehension. The only thing worse - is the knowledge that the power of this international law is in the hands of a bunch of unaccountable U.N. bureaucrats whose goal is to bring down the United States.
Do look at this one. Also, there have been a few articles in the National Post / Financial Post questioning the science behind the claims of the Kyoto supporters -- particularly that it is the West that is going to be at a great disadvantage while others pollute as usual; think of our industries and our workers. It is not politically correct to question the science when such an honourable body as the UN gets behind it, as well as Maurice Strong, the ???-funded NGO's and environmental groups that claim to speak for the rest of us but we must discuss anything with consequences this severe to OUR economic well-being and industry. That doesn't mean we shouldn't downsize our vehicles--starting now--and become less reliant on imported oil just in case. But, let's talk.
Dictatorship of the minority -- "Thus if the majority is denied the right to realize its wishes through the ballot or plebiscites, then by definition the majority does not rule"
Is this too logical for Canada? -- a must read article
Dictatorship of the minority Klaus Rohrich, Dec. 13, 04, Canada Free Press. Klaus Rohrich is President and Creative Director of Taylor/Rohrich Associates Inc.
[. . . . ] If a society guarantees every minority the right to do whatever they desire, then the term "democracy" becomes meaningless. . . . if the majority is denied the right to realize its wishes through the ballot or plebiscites, then by definition the majority does not rule
[. . . . ]
Thinking the unthinkable in the House -- Few supporters dare to contemplate it, but there's a remote possibility same-sex marriage legislation may fail to pass
[. . . . ] Already many Grits and other MPs inclined to support the same-sex legislation are coming under fire from key constituencies, including Muslim and Sikh communities that have traditionally backed the Liberals.
Weston thinks that, by the time this issue comes to a vote in spring or afterward, Canadians will have made their feelings known to their MPs -- but it will still go the SCOC to be settled in the end.
Complaint filed against ethics commissioner -- language
OTTAWA (CP) - The federal deputy Immigration minister filed a complaint against the ethics commissioner Monday with the Official Languages Commission over testimony being conducted only in English.
Michel Dorais said he was "troubled" that at least one francophone employee has been forced to testify in English before lawyers hired by Bernard Shapiro to investigate allegations surrounding Immigration Minister Judy Sgro. "I learned that they didn't give people a choice - they sent them a letter in English, swore them in in English and questioned them in English," he told The Canadian Press. [. . . . ]
Weren't they hired as bilingual employees?
Minister to seek funding for 100-seat aircraft -- Emerson to ask Cabinet approval to arrange financing package for Bombardier -- "Published reports in Quebec indicated federal Cabinet agreed to provide roughly $380-million in financing for the 100-seat jet project."
Here we go again.
Why is Bombardier a government aided / taxpayer funded corporate welfare recipient -- as opposed to the mill workers at Ste. Anne Nackawic in NB? When I hear of workers who toiled 25-34 years who now HAVE no pensions--though a few may--I just rage. Also, there were contractors who regularly worked shutting-down the mill--assuming ing they were dismantling for the yearly refit -- and then the mill was abruptly closed. Of course they lost their pay for the job of closing down the mill. How does our government decide who wins and loses in this game of life -- and taxpayer money?
Why has Bombardier been able to feed off taxpayers while millworkers are left in the lurch? If all suffered the vagaries of the marketplace, most would consider it just rotten luck, but when we see the government prop up some, but not all, it appears decidedly unfair. Don't talk to these unfortunate Nackawic ex-employees and contractors about Brazil's government subsidizing Embraer and therefore Canadian taxpayers must subsidize Bombardier.
What these workers see is the unfairness! In continuously propping up Bombardier, the Feds have sucked investors into believing that this was a viable firm. Now, their stocks have nosedived. Bombardier was not viable--except for the taxpayer funding prop, it appears. Let the market decide.
Paul Martin, get the feds out of the business of picking winners and losers and dispensing largesse to the chosen few. There is no need for you to fly around the world as front man for some businessmen, but not others. Let them fly off to negotiate on their own. Stick to the few jobs which your government should be doing; start with corruption and security.
The federal Industry Minister intends to seek Cabinet approval to negotiate a financing package for Bombardier Inc.'s 100-seat regional jet project even though the company was rocked yesterday with a leadership crisis after the sudden departure of Paul Tellier as chief executive.
"You just can't look at a company that's hit a crisis point and say, 'We are going to let it die and live with the ripple effects,' " David Emerson told reporters yesterday in the House of Commons, "because those ripple effects could be profound, irreversible and I for one am not going to stand by and watch that happen to a very important sector of Canadian industry." [. . . . ]
The aircraft industry from Quebec vs other industries or other provinces? No contest!
[. . . . China Aviation Oil, the] Singapore-based company is being investigated for losses from speculative oil trading that it hid from investors. [. . . . ]
Yet China Aviation Oil's story may say less about Singapore than about the risks of investing in the Chinese economy. Could the affair turn out to be the Chinese equivalent of the Enron debacle?
[. . . . ] China Aviation Oil - a foreign unit of a Beijing company - is a reminder that transparency and corporate governance at such enterprises can be inadequate.
"Complex corporate structures and unreliable accounting practices make it difficult to perform substantive analysis on some China-related companies," Standard & Poor's said last week. "On the accounting side, the problem of limited disclosure is compounded with problems of compliance."
China: President Hu promises to promote Sino-French ties
Active measures should be taken to consolidate and further Sino-French cooperation in aviation, spaceflight, communication and nuclear energy by transfer more technology and upgrade industrial cooperation, Hu said.
Now, who gets to pollute under Kyoto? Why China -- and France, will it follow the accord or be duplicitous? Canada will curb pollution for it follows the moral suasion of the UN, doesn't it? There is an article in today's National Post about the extreme level of pollution in China just across the strait from Hong Kong, in Guangdong province, if memory serves me.
Cooperation between China and France in high-tech industry, small and medium-sized enterprises, agriculture and environmental protection should also be expanded and strengthened, he said.
Thirdly, Hu said that the two countries should also enhance exchange and cooperation in culture, education and science and technology.
I'd watch that science and technology exchange. The last time Canada got involved in a scientific endeavour with China, . . . . . . . well, check out News Junkie Canada, Section 5 and Section 6 Oct 24, 04 for the details. Search for those two sections and skim the article titles.
The two sides could learn from the experience of holding Chinese Culture Year in France and French Year in China and then explore new methods of furthering exchange and cooperation in those fields, Hu said. [. . . . ]
Did Our Minister of Official Languages (Promoting French), Diane Adam, tour Beijing in her global trek to check the state of "language"--read French--in our embassies? Her services and department will need to be expanded so that China may be "encouraged" to provide the right mixture of French / English language service, the necessity to provide larger signage in French right from the start, and . . . . . you know, all those aspects crucial to the "survival of French" around the world -- if the world plans to do business with Canadians.
PARIS France's highest administrative court, the Council of State, moved decisively to ban Al Manar television on Monday, ruling that the Beirut-based channel had repeatedly violated the country's hate laws and ignored its own pledge to avoid making anti-Semitic statements. [. . . . ]
Spain: Data on bombings erased, Zapatero claims
He also denounced the view that "Spain surrendered to terrorism" when it voted out Jose Maria Aznar and the Popular Front three days after the bombing in Madrid.
MADRID Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero said Monday that the previous government had erased all the records documenting cabinet-level activities related to the March 11 train bombings here that killed 191 people before it left office in April
[. . . . ]
Guite was the central bank, TV producer tells inquiry -- 'Rocket' Richard series: Agencies billed $450,000 for work they never did: Scully
The government contributed more than $4.7-million to Mr. Scully's now controversial series into the life of "Rocket" Richard and most of the $450,000 agencies billed for commissions was for work they never did, he said.
[. . . . ]
Google to Scan Books From Big Libraries
May I suggest that one of your Christmas gifts could be to take a child to the library, to an art gallery and to a museum -- and talk to them about each experience?
My best memories are of an elderly couple who did this for me when I was a child -- my first museum where I saw a canoe and artifacts from our native culture. This couple are not dead; they and their influence live on in my mind.
SAN FRANCISCO - Stacks of hard-to-find books are being scanned into Google Inc.'s widely used Internet search engine in its attempt to establish a massive online reading room for five major libraries.
Material from the New York public library as well as libraries at four universities — Harvard, Stanford, Michigan and Oxford — will be indexed on Mountain View, Calif.-based Google under the ambitious initiative announced late Monday.
The Michigan and Stanford libraries are the only two so far to agree to submit all their material to Google's scanners.
The New York library is allowing Google to include a small portion of its books no longer covered by copyright while Harvard is confining its participation to 40,000 volumes so it can gauge how well the process works. Oxford wants Google to scan all its books originally published before 1901. [. . . . ]
In view of our Canadian government's increasing move toward a foreign policy center based in Europe, particularly in France--in my opinion, and given the government's recourse to the UN for its moral reasoning, this is worth looking at, along with articles on the United Nations from yesterday, Dec. 14, 04.
It is time to stop pretending that Europeans and Americans share a common view of the world, or even that they occupy the same world. On the all-important question of power — the efficacy of power, the morality of power, the desirability of power — American and European perspectives are diverging. Europe is turning away from power, or to put it a little differently, it is moving beyond power into a self-contained world of laws and rules and transnational negotiation and cooperation. It is entering a post-historical paradise of peace and relative prosperity, the realization of Kant’s “Perpetual Peace.” The United States, meanwhile, remains mired in history, exercising power in the anarchic Hobbesian world where international laws and rules are unreliable and where true security and the defense and promotion of a liberal order still depend on the possession and use of military might. That is why on major strategic and international questions today, Americans are from Mars and Europeans are from Venus: They agree on little and understand one another less and less. And this state of affairs is not transitory — the product of one American election or one catastrophic event. The reasons for the transatlantic divide are deep, long in development, and likely to endure. When it comes to setting national priorities, determining threats, defining challenges, and fashioning and implementing foreign and defense policies, the United States and Europe have parted ways.
I would dispute the 'peace' aspect emphasized above, given the Madrid bombing and Dutch disillusiion over immigration and multiculturalism with its ramifications for peace, tolerance, and the survival of church-state separation, given Muslim immigrants' first loyalty to Islam instead of the national state.
It is easier to see the contrast as an American living in Europe. Europeans are more conscious of the growing differences, perhaps because they fear them more. European intellectuals are nearly unanimous in the conviction that Americans and Europeans no longer share a common “strategic culture.” The European caricature at its most extreme depicts an America dominated by a “culture of death,” its warlike temperament the natural product of a violent society where every man has a gun and the death penalty reigns. But even those who do not make this crude link agree there are profound differences in the way the United States and Europe conduct foreign policy.
The United States, they argue, resorts to force more quickly and, compared with Europe, is less patient with diplomacy. Americans generally see the world divided between good and evil, between friends and enemies, while Europeans see a more complex picture. [That characterization of Americans is painting a wide swath over the complex country to our south.]
[. . . . ] Most Europeans do not see the great paradox: that their passage into post-history has depended on the United States not making the same passage. Because Europe has neither the will nor the ability to guard its own paradise and keep it from being overrun, spiritually as well as physically, by a world that has yet to accept the rule of “moral consciousness,” it has become dependent on America’s willingness to use its military might to deter or defeat those around the world who still believe in power politics.
Some Europeans do understand the conundrum. Some Britons, not surprisingly, understand it
