[. . . . ] Martin's pandering to China is at least consistent with his allowing non-democratic China to dictate our foreign policy toward democratic Taiwan. Canada does not allow any Tawiwanese official representation in Canada, and even bans democratically elected Taiwanese officials from setting foot in our country, even for family visits. And all at the insistence of China.

To Paul Martin's credit, he did launch one of his classic "very, very, very, very" attacks to show his is really, really, really, really concerned about his friendship with China's dictators.

[. . . . ] China has imposed a news blackout and posted additional soldiers and security forces in the city to restrict political dissidents who might use Mr. Zhao's death to revive the pro-democracy movement.

"We were interrogated for 20 minutes. They asked us a lot of questions, including how we found out where Zhao lived," producer Peter Harris said. "We got off easy because we had badges showing we were with the Prime Minister's trip." [. . . . ]

It was as bald as a message on the world’s biggest billboard–Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin swigging from a bottle of purified water in Kalumai, Sri Lanka. The photo op of a lifetime, eclipsed by free advertising for ZENON Environmental Inc. The water quenching the thirst of a Prime Minister was produced by the DART (Disaster Assistance Response Team) water purifier. [. . . . ]

"Is Prime Minister Paul Martin stupid or arrogant?" Anna, a Canadian-born journalist now living in England asked me on the telephone yesterday.

Like others, the journalist is aghast about the recent conduct of Martin in Sri Lanka, and couldn’t fathom how he could visit Tamil Tiger terrorists, including two refused as immigrants to Canada last year, in the midst of so much human suffering.

"He’s neither stupid nor arrogant. He’s only [. . . . ]

Prime Minister Paul Martin says the issue of same-sex marriage is so important to him, he'd be willing to call an election -- if he has to.

[. . . . ] "It's not my intention to go into an election. We want to govern,". . .

[. . . . ] "As far as I'm concerned [polygamy] will always be against the law." [as homosexuality was?]

[. . . . ] In an open letter to Martin, Toronto's Cardinal Aloysius Ambrozic voiced his opposition to same-sex marriages and urged Martin to use the Constitution's notwithstanding clause to override the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

[. . . . ] "Rights are rights are rights," Cotler told The Globe in response to Ambrozic's request. [Rights are slippery; not too long ago, it was illegal to practice homosexuality.]

Cotler said if the notwithstanding clause was used, it "would really be an acknowledgment by the government that it is violating rights."

Harper wants to preserve the traditional definition of marriage as being between one man and one woman, while protecting the rights of same-sex couples by creating a new kind of civil union.

What does an inspection of the Bahamas, your online stock portfolio investment service, half the electricity production and distribution in Australia, Canadian oil, trans-Pacific fiber-optics, the Panama Canal, and William Shatner's horrible "singing" commercial endorsements of Priceline.com have in common?

Li Ka-shing.

Careful examination of the Chinese tycoon's growing empire and his cozy relationship with the Communist Chinese government reveals the potential for an insidious manipulation of Western ports, markets, utilities and telecommunications that could apply crippling pressure to the United States and her few remaining allies. Indeed, through Li Ka-shing's empire -- a front for Communist Chinese expansion -- the Mainland does not need to invade Western democracies or launch missile attacks against them to flex its muscle. It can simply threaten to shut down public utilities and key industries which it now controls -- throwing Western markets into complete turmoil, if not disaster.

The frightening story begins in 1979, when Li Ka-shing purchased what became the controlling interest in one of the oldest, 19th century British trading houses, or "hongs" of Hong Kong, known as Hutchison-Whampoa.

[. . . . ] If reports that Li Ka-shing is a de facto ministry-level official of the Communist Chinese government are true, it would explain much of China's aggressive posturing on the world stage and provide a stark warning to a seemingly complacent American public -- the same Americans who yawned at Chinese arms dealers buying access to President Clinton and seem willing to accept candidate Gore's iced tea-sodden claims of "no controlling legal authority" concerning his relationship with convicted felon Maria Hsia.

Will Americans continue to stand by idly as their sovereignty, and the public infrastructure of their allies, is sold to the highest Communist Chinese bidder?

If a Muslim legally married to more than one wife by the laws of his homeland emigrates to Canada, wives other than the first are not presently recognized as such. However, in this diverse country which encourages immigrants to retain their culture, should this be so?

[. . . ] If marriage is not exclusively between one man and one woman, based on religion and precedent, how should its borders be determined?

The federally funded Status of Women Canada is sufficiently confident the question will arise, that it has launched a study to prepare itself for the debate. As a womens' rights advocate, it will consider how widespread polygamy is in Canada -- for it does exist, quietly ignored by Charter-shy solicitors general -- and seek arguments to show that it violates the spirit of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

[. . . ] Yet, the government response -- that polygamy will never be an issue because bigamy is illegal, and legislation will limit marriage to two people -- is insufficient. Canada's courts are famously ready to uphold their interpretation of the Charter by striking down, or even rewriting, the nation's laws -- something which the gay lobby has already done well from.

Strange things happen when rights collide. In same-sex marriage, the argument was equality, the defence was religion. With polygamy, the argument will be religious freedom, equality will be relegated to the defence. [. . . . ]

[. . . . ] During his last day of testimony yesterday, [formerly head of Canada Post, Andre] Ouellet launched a heated attack against the Auditor General Sheila Fraser for criticizing his way of doing business in her scathing February 2004 report on sponsorships.

Ouellet vehemently argued that Canada Post should be free to follow its own contracting and management rules since it turns a profit and is not spending federal dollars.

"I think it's unfair to put the bar so high for Canada Post," Ouellet said. "You must permit Crown corporations not to be bogged down by a bureaucracy. Ouellet was suspended with pay after the AG's report was released and resigned in July. He was the highest-paid public servant.

Jihad Watch received some inside information from a close friend of Hossam Armanious, the Coptic Christian brutally murdered in New Jersey along with his family:

The Armanious family had inspired several Muslims to convert to Christianity — or thought they had. These converts were actually practicing taqiyya, or religious deception, pretending to be friends of these Christians in order to strengthen themselves against them, as in Qur’an 3:28: “Let believers not make friends with infidels in preference to the faithful — he that does this has nothing to hope for from Allah — except in self-defense.”

Of course, the family, not suspecting the deception, was happy to see the “converted” men and willingly let them in to their home. . . .

. . . . If this is true, the killings in New Jersey are the American equivalent of the Theo Van Gogh murder in the Netherlands, a political killing motivated solely by the need to silence effective critics of radical Islam.

. . . Canada may be getting more than it bargained for. According to a recent report by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, “Terrorism of foreign origin continues to be a major concern in regard to the safety of Canadians at home and abroad. … Canada is viewed by some terrorist groups as a place to try to seek refuge, raise funds, procure materials and/or conduct other support activities....

Virtually all of the most notorious international terrorist organizations are known to maintain a network presence in Canada.” From the looks of its track record, Al-Jazeera will provide these Canadian-based terrorists with a source of news, encouragement, and instruction.

It’s official: just as Al-Jazeera has declared its intention to “present a clear, factual and accurate picture” in its news coverage, it has been approved by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission for broadcast in Canada. Putting this approval in perspective is the fact that another “fair and balanced” news outlet, Fox News, is still waiting for approval from the same body. Another example of Canada’s wobbliness in the war on terror? You be the judge. Some of Canada’s newest news outlet’s most notorious deeds include:
• Repeatedly airing the most vile anti-Americanism, including . . . [1]

• Trampling upon the Geneva convention . . . [2]

• Featuring the radical Muslim cleric Sheikh Yusuf Al-Qaradawi, who made headlines by defending suicide bombing during a recent trip to London (earning him an invitation to return from London Mayor “Red Ken” Livingstone), on an Islamic issues program entitled “Sharia and Life.”[3]

• Airing, on several notorious occasions, video and audio communiqués by Osama bin Laden and other leading jihadists, thereby allowing them to spread jihad ideology and hatred of America all over the Arabic-speaking world — and never divulging how it obtained the tapes.[4]

• Highlighting messages from the likes of Osama bin Laden’s spokesman, Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, and other high-profile terrorists.[5]

• Filming footage of a Baghdad suicide attack that indicated that someone in the network knew in advance when and where the bombing was going to take place.[6]

• Lying about . . . propaganda disguised as reporting . . . [7]

Also, last September of one of its star journalists, Taysir Allouni (who was able to get close enough to Osama to interview him in 2001, and was also the only foreign correspondent allowed into Afghanistan by the Taliban regime), was imprisoned in Spain for involvement with Al-Qaeda, and in particular with the group responsible for the 9/11 attacks.[8]

[. . . . ] The network has not repudiated its manifest support for the global jihad. [. . . . ]

But the incidents recounted above and others like them suggest that [. . . . See paragraph at top.]

Neo- is a prefix that derives from the Greek adjective veos — "new" or "fresh" — and in theory it is used inexactly for those conservatives who once were not — or for those who have reinterpreted conservatism in terms of a more idealistic foreign policy that eschewed both Cold War realpolitik and the hallowed traditions of American republican isolationism.

But the accepted definition has given way in practice to refer to the more particular proponents of the use of military action to remove threatening governments, and to replace them with democratic systems — hence the occasional sobriquets of "neo-Wilsonian." But for a number of detractors, "neoconservative" is also little more than generic disparagement, and (off-the-record) it is synonymous with American Jews who seek to alter American foreign policy to the wishes of the right-wing Likud party of Israel.

Yet note the misinformation about its meaning and usage. The five most prominent makers of American foreign policy at the moment — George Bush, Dick Cheney, Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, and Donald Rumsfeld — are (1) not Jewish, (2) hard-headed and not easily bamboozled by any supposed cabal, and (3) were mostly in the past identified with the "realist" school and especially skeptical of using the military frequently for anything resembling Clintonian peace-keeping. [. . . . ]

[. . . . ] Ever since their Nov. 2 election defeat, too many Democrats have been licking their wounds and attributing their failures to the stupidity of Bush's voters.

This makes Republicans happy -- because if the Democrats keep on blaming the voters, instead of figuring out why they have fallen so far out of touch with the concerns of ordinary Americans, the better the chances that they will lose the next election as well.

Today, Canadian Conservatives face the same hard questions as American Democrats. Specifically, how could they have lost last year's federal election to a fat, arrogant, complacent and scandal-plagued Liberal government, weighed down by 11 years of baggage, led by a rookie prime minister who failed to rise to expectations? [. . . . ]