We should have the same desire expressed by Sir John A MacDonald to Queen
Victoria, the Mother of Confederation, "to live under the sovereignty
of Your Majesty and your family for ever."
A Christian Monarchist Canadian Tory Blog
The grits are down a bit from last quarter and the Tories are down from record levels (thank you coalition), but the Tories are still out fundraising the grits 2.5:1. Tories raised $4.362 million, the grits $1.857 million, the NDP $595 thousand. The Tories raised millions during a recession. The NDP seem to be down a bit. Considering that the grits are still deeply in debt, this quarter is just a drop in the budget for them. Remember an election costs $20 million. I doubt the grits have paid off their $2 million loan from 2007 and their debt from the last election. The Tories had substantial reserves from last year. Its time to start using some this money to aggressively define iggy.I hope the ads start during the iggy Seinfeld convention.
By Kim Ghattas BBC state department correspondent, Washington
The report singles out the Quds unit of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Iran remains the "most active state sponsor of terrorism" in the world, a report by the US state department says. It says Iran's role in the planning and financing of terror-related activities in the Middle East and Afghanistan threatens efforts to promote peace. Al-Qaeda, however, remains the biggest danger to the US and the West, the annual report states. It says that while the number of terror attack around the world is dropping, they are on the increase in Pakistan. 'Existential threat' The new US administration may be trying to engage Tehran, but, just like last year, Iran is still described as the most active state sponsor of terrorism.
Re: Me vs. Stephen Harper, excerpt from Garth Turner's book, Sheeple, April 29.
I remember being 17 during the 2006 election, braving -15 C weather in Burlington, Ont., to put up Garth campaign signs with a close friend. We both knew the blogging buffoon was a pompous, self-important blowhard, but we were eager for a Conservative MP, and supported him nonetheless.
It was embarrassing as a constituent to have my MP gallivanting around Parliament with his half-baked rebel shtick pretending it was all about us, and sulking like a toddler when Big Daddy Harper finally spanked him. He was a bearded manifestation of Machiavellian opportunism and cynicism.
Without any pretense of an argument, which liberals are neurologically incapable of, the mainstream media are now asserting that our wussy interrogation techniques at Guantanamo constituted "torture" and have irreparably harmed America's image abroad.
Only the second of those alleged facts is true: The president's release of the Department of Justice interrogation memos undoubtedly hurt America's image abroad, as we are snickered at in capitals around the world, where they know what real torture is. The Arabs surely view these memos as a pack of lies. What about the pills Americans have to turn us gay?
The techniques used against the most stalwart al-Qaida members, such as Abu Zubaydah, included one terrifying procedure referred to as "the attention grasp." As described in horrifying detail in the Justice Department memo, the "attention grasp" consisted of:
"(G)rasping the individual with both hands, one hand on each side of the collar opening, in a controlled and quick motion. In the same motion as the grasp, the individual is drawn toward the interrogator."
The 13-year-old South Shore student found out that she was to receive the first email written by Queen Elizabeth II to members of the public. The queen's message is going to 21 young people from the 16 nations that make up the Commonweath. Their entries were selected for a Buckingham Palace blog celebrating the Commonweath's 60th anniversary.
"I am speechless - it is the queen," said Karina, a Grade 7 student at Chambly Academy in St. Lambert. "I am just overwhelmed."
The Canadian recipients of the three-paragraph email are Karina, who lives in Longueuil, and Dacia Dou-haibi, a 24-year-old social worker from Vancouver Island.
Here is a clip of Mark Steyn and Ezra on Milt Rosenberg's Show on WGN Radio. They are discussing freedom of speech. It was a great two hours. Unfortunately this is just a 20 minute clip. Something ed stelmach seems to not believe in.
I went to the latest Cirque de soleiel show recently. It is called Ovo. I have seen almost every Cirque show. I must admit they had become somewhat repititious for me. This latest one is much more unique and was a lot of fun. It is all about insects. The stage and set were much more dark and interesting. The acrobatics had interesting twists on old favourites. I really enjoyed this show. Go see it and be amazed. It's why the Cirque doesn't feel the recession. Here are some clips from the show.
Julie Couillard deserves to return to the obscurity where she came from. No one wanted her dress, even for charity. The wife of the head of the charity bought it. The first bid was$50. She really is pathetic.
The sale of the dress was supposed to be the highlight of the evening, with Couillard hoping that bidding would start at $5,000.
But things got off to a slow start. Auctioneer Rock Fournier repeatedly tried to get an opening bid of $1,000, but no one would oblige.
“It’s an icon of our national heritage,” he told the audience.
Finally one woman bid $50, which drew some groans from the crowd.
Cajoled by Fournier, the bids slowly climbed to $1,000 with gynecologist Lucie Morin making the winning bid. Her husband, neurologist Lionel Carmant, is president of the foundation that is to receive the money raised from last night’s fundraiser.
“I bought it for the cause, I have absolutely no idea what I’ll do with it,” said Morin, who said she was disappointed that the dress didn’t sell for more. “That’s not the kind of dress I would wear.”
Couillard said she was disappointed the dress didn’t sell for a higher price, but added that she is very happy it sold – and that a woman bought it.
He stabbed Marcia Langleib, 55, smashed her head against the floor, jumped on her head, and tried to sexually assault her. When two men tried to intervene, he attacked them. In the same wild spree of violence, he attacked two other women.
But, hey, that was then. Niedzielski is, we are told now, a new man, hard-working, Alcoholics Anonymous-attending, contrite and no menace to society.
Langleib, an esthetician at the time of the September, 2005 attack, is a different person, too, but not in such a good way: The brain damage inflicted by the attack affects her balance, motor control, and memory. Her jaw and facial bones were broken. She was in a coma for two months. She cannot work, and gets by on a small government stipend for victims of violence.
And yet Niedzielski's lawyer managed to convince Quebec Court Judge Isabelle Rheault that his client had taken himself in hand, overcome his drug problem, and deserved a sentence that would look forward to rehabilitated life, not backward to vengeance. Rheault ordered Niedzielski to serve a sentence of two years less a day - in the community!
No wonder people lose faith in the justice system. After admitting to this horrible crime, he doesn't even go to prison?
There are several things terribly wrong with Niedzielski's sentence. It assumes, for one, that drugs explain the attack. But taking drugs is a fairly common activity; attacking strangers and nearly killing them isn't. Should all drug-crazed attackers go free? This doctrine of "I won't do it again now that I'm clean" could excuse anything.
Dear antonia z has decided to call for the assassination of Michelle Malkin. Now she says its a joke. I thought my opinion of this loon couldn't sink any lower. she fits in well at the red star, all bias all the time. Wonder when she will humoursly call for the bombing of Tory caucus meetings. she is so funny. this is a loon who is always ranting about domestic violence against women ( she feels domestic violence against men is ok or doesn't exist). yet she finds advocating murder funny. Well it is now out there for the world to see. her black little soul on display. her editor should expect an email or two.
A) You can't borrow as much as he will need to without raising interest rates, which hurts the economy.
B) The massive amount of spending will trigger runaway inflation once the economy starts to recover.
C) His overhaul of the tax code (still in the planning phases) and his intervention in corporate management will create such business uncertainty that nobody will invest in anything until they see the lay of the land.
D) His bank program is designed to help banks, but not to catalyze consumer lending. And his proposal for securitization of consumer loans won't work and is just what got us into this situation.
So, Mr. Obama should enjoy his poll numbers while he can.
The new leader, Michael Ignatieff, borrowed $750,000 and paid it off just before he took over as leader in December, two years after the 2006 leadership race concluded.
Shortly after that, Canada’s chief electoral officer reviewed political loans and recommended Parliament make loans more transparent.
He found loans from individuals at non-commercial rates of interest could be taken as a means to influence the politician or party to whom they are lending the money.
Last year, the bill passed the House of Commons but died in the Senate when the election was called.
The government reintroduced the bill in the Senate on Tuesday. If it passes the Senate, it will then have to go back to the House of Commons.
Uber liberal cheerleader Jim Tarvers is not very pleased with the grit convention about nothing. I think it might be amusing if not very well attended. Holding a conference in Vancouver will guarantee only wealthy or really die hard grits will attend. I assume some of the lib bloggers have been begging for cash to attend the coronation. Not sure why even they would attend. I assume they will have to pay street people to fill their seats.
Canada's natural governing party, as it still thinks of itself, opted twice for convenience after last fall's election. First it let Stéphane Dion hang on after a shattering defeat rather than force him to follow Paul Martin's example of an early exit. Then it rolled over rules, precedents and the right of members to pick the new leader by letting the elite anoint Michael Ignatieff.
Most flawed decisions seem sound at the time. Those two are not exceptions. Allowing the intelligent and honourable, if inept, Dion to save face seemed the decent thing to do before discarding him to history this spring. With the pre-Christmas coalition crisis still unfolding, the Liberal priority was to return to Parliament rallied around a leader who could credibly form a government or fight an election.
Of the two decisions, the second best defends itself. Since elevating Ignatieff, Liberals have enjoyed a modest opinion poll bump. They are imposing discipline on the leader's office, bringing fundraising into this century and slowly leaving behind their unholy union with, as Stephen Harper theatrically put it, socialists and separatists.
Still, following the path of least resistance has consequences. Only the most loyal Liberals will trek to Vancouver this week for what's being called the Seinfeld convention. It will crown the leader and won't set policy. It's essentially about nothing.
As anyone who reads this blog knowI very much dislike government hyper regulation. The CRTC is a case in point. It seems to be regulating Canadaian tv networks out of existence. It is time to drastically cut back CRTC over regulation. Let Canadians choose what they want to watch or hear. Can con rules are pretty irrelevant in the internet age.Its time to drastically cut back the powers of the crtc. 'What are you trying to achieve?" CTV boss asks CRTC Posted: April 27, 2009, 5:17 PM by NP Editor Full Comment CTV boss Ivan Fecan is upping the rhetoric level against the CRTC, accusing chairman Konrad von Finckenstein of playing dangerous games with Canada’s broadcast industry.
That's a shame, too, because those who don't remember history are doomed to repeat it and it's not certain that America could survive another incompetent of Obama's caliber in charge -- although, in all fairness, Rome made it through quite a few emperors who were probably only marginally more on the ball than Obama, so perhaps I'm being overly pessimistic....
Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) asked Gore if he stood to benefit financially from cap-and-trade legislation, which would force companies to reduce carbon emissions. Gore responded:
But every penny that I have made, I have put right into a non-profit, the Alliance for Climate Protection, to spread awareness about why we have to take on this challenge. And Congresswoman, if you're, if you believe the reason I have been working on this issue for 30 years is because of greed, you don't know me. Obviously, she does. Gore was lying. He's already made millions and will make even more if cap and trade legislation is passed.
Criminal attacks 5 women in the subway causing brain damage to one of them. Sentence to be served in the community. He apparently has changed his life, even though he apparently breached the terms of the earlier conditional sentence. The Crown asked for five years, the judge gave him no jail time. This judge brings disrepute to the judicial system. This is justice?
Métro attacker given conditional sentence BY SUE MONTGOMERY , GAZETTE JUSTICE REPORTER APRIL 27, 2009 12:02 PMCOMMENTS (15) Since beating up three women in the Snowdon métro and leaving one of them brain damaged, Peter Niedzielski has turned his life around, earning him a two-year conditional sentence, followed by three years' probation.
The crown had asked for a five-year prison sentence, while the defence suggested his client be able to serve his sentence in the community.
Niedzielski, who pleaded guilty to all charges against him, already received a conditional sentence last April for charges related to two of his victims.
Quebec Court Judge Isabelle Rheault said by taking anger management courses, getting off drugs and proving he could follow conditions, Niedzielski showed he had changed.
This is not the first time Mr. Obama has shown signs of his low view of religion in the public square. In a 2007 speech, he criticized many evangelicals involved in politics, saying, "Somehow, somewhere along the way, faith stopped being used to bring us together and started being used to drive us apart. It got hijacked. Part of it's because of the so-called leaders of the Christian Right, who've been all too eager to exploit what divides us." Mr. Obama seems to believe any religious opinions that can be construed as divisive have no place in politics. The natural conclusion is that religion's only place in the public square is to function as a kind of feel-good, unifying placebo. No one should make public arguments rooted in religious truth.>The relationship between religion and politics has become murky in recent years. The effort of America's Founders to prevent the establishment of a state religion has been twisted and reinterpreted to create an increasingly large gulf between religion and public life. That gulf became even wider this past week, when President Obama's administration asked Georgetown University to remove all signs and symbols from their hall before the President delivered his speech to the assembly. The University was only too willing to strip the hall of its religious symbols in order to land such a prominent speaker. The message was clear: religion has no place in the public square.
This is not the first time Mr. Obama has shown signs of his low view of religion in the public square. In a 2007 speech, he criticized many evangelicals involved in politics, saying, "Somehow, somewhere along the way, faith stopped being used to bring us together and started being used to drive us apart. It got hijacked. Part of it's because of the so-called leaders of the Christian Right, who've been all too eager to exploit what divides us." Mr. Obama seems to believe any religious opinions that can be construed as divisive have no place in politics. The natural conclusion is that religion's only place in the public square is to function as a kind of feel-good, unifying placebo. No one should make public arguments rooted in religious truth.
The Tamils are protesting in Toronto and have blocked traffic in the downtown core. The protesters are blocking routes to the some of the city's biggest hospitals. They are protesting in front of the US consulate. I saw them on my way to work yesterday. The tiger flags were very much in evidence. It is time for the tigers to surrender. The tiuger flags are not winning the Tamisl much sympathy. I think people are sympathetic to the suffering of the Tamil people , but not the brutal ruthless tigers. The government of Sri Lanka has announced it will now concentrate on saving civilians from the Tamils. The ltte has announced a unilateral ceasfire as well. It is time for the ltte to surrender. It is time to end the killings.
I have been a staunch opponent of the communist fidel and his repressive regime since I was a teen. I have vowed never to visit Cuba until its people are free. I am not sure the loosening of the trade embargo is a good thing. Canadians spend millions in Cuba, enriching the government of that island prison. I am less opposed to allowing Cubans to send money back to their families. ( I am Indian after all and if my family in India needed it, I would certainly send money). I hope HM Minister Peter Kent can encourage the commies to start loosening their grip a little, though I am not hopeful anything will change even with the death of castro. Cubans still try to escape their prison by sea, at great personal cost. I want to see a free and democratic Cuba. I am not completely sure how that can be accomplished. The trade embargo has not produced the desired result. Perhaps flooding the Cuban market with cars and other American goods will loosen the grip of the commies on power. I('m not sure which is the best way to go. My gut reaction is to isolate the commies, but maybe other ways should be considered. I am still a staunch anti-communist, but I am considering other ways to defeat this old enemy.
"I want to certainly reinforce the message that the prime minister delivered to the Summit of the Americas, to encourage productive, constructive responses to the U.S. gesture," Kent said of his main purpose in travelling to Havana. "Also to stress again our encouragement of the release of political prisoners and the opening of institutions to democratic practices."
Things are getting for dark for the tigers. i am very worried what will happen after the defeat of the tigers. Sri Lanka is still a very divided society. The Singhalese have not behaved well towards the Tamil minority. I hope India and other regional powers will help bring a lasting peace to the area. Outside mediatprs need to be brought in. The ltte should surrender, the unilateral ceasefire means very little in this situation. They are very close to be annihilated.http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8019451.stm
Most ethnic Tamil civilians have now left the war zone
The ceasefire declaration by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and its immediate rejection by the government have emphasised the starkness of the situation in which the guerrilla group finds itself, 37 years after first taking up arms for the cause of a Tamil homeland and 26 years after the start of all-out war.
Masters of communication, the Tigers were quick to disseminate their message to journalists all over Colombo and overseas, too.
But to many it seemed like a cry of desperation from the losing side
A Hercules aircraft touched down around 2 p.m. carrying the body of Maj. Michelle Mendes, 30. Military colleagues carried her flag-draped coffin to a hearse waiting on the tarmac. The body was then transported to the coroner’s office in Toronto.
Mendes was found dead in her sleeping quarters at Kandahar Airfield on Thursday. She had barely returned to Kandahar for a second tour of duty when her death occurred.
The military said an investigation into the circumstances of the woman’s death continue. No further details were released, although the military said enemy action has been ruled out.
The problem was that while their predecessors in the '50s and '60s bargained on how to split the profits, in the '90s they bargained on splitting profits they didn't have.
To renew their collective agreements, the unions always used the tactic of targeting the wealthiest of the Big Three to get the best deal and impose it on the other two that could not necessarily afford it. This tactic of skimming the best and pretending that all three companies were on the same economic footing created a gap between remuneration and the real value of the work done.
Auto executives, in order to cover up for their inability to reform their industry, and to protect their big and undeserved bonuses, succumbed to the ever-increasing demands of the unions and bought labour peace with money they didn't have. They promised generous salaries, holiday packages, special medical assistance and, of course, lucrative pensions they were not able to sustain. Chrysler's pension fund is at 86 per cent of its capacity and is $1 billion short, while GM's fund is at 80 per cent of its capacity and $3.5 billion short.
This happened because their calculations were based on gains from investments in the bubble market. They gambled and they lost. Furthermore, in 1992 Bob Rae's provincial government allowed some "flexibility" in maintaining the pension funds of two companies that "could not go under" – Stelco and General Motors. That probably explains the bigger deficiency in GM's pension fund compared with Chrysler's.
So since the 1990s, the unions and the auto industry, in some cases with the permission of government, have negotiated salaries and pensions they could not sustain.
I understand the frustration of Ken Lewenza and his members about facing the possibility of not getting what they bargained for. But does he understand how millions of Canadians who are unemployed or on the verge of becoming jobless feel when they are asked to pay to protect the benefits of his members, benefits that they themselves don't enjoy?
Or as George Will calls it the racial spoils system. How is it that we seek acolour blind society, when we spend so much time trying to give advantage to people based on race alone.
I was saddened to hear the news of the death of Bea Arthur. I met Bea Arthur in London at a performance of Sweeney Todd many years ago. I was sitting right beside her and I said to her you are Bea Arthur. She replied in her deep voice yes. She explained she loved going to London because people didn't recognize her so much. I apologized for disturbing her, she replied not at all and that was that.
I loved Maude and the Golden Girls and remember seeing her in her one woman show a few years ago. Rest in Peace Bea , you gave joy to a lot of people.
But the swarming hordes of the anti-West axis -- unlike those that overran Rome and its empire -- do not gather at the frontiers of the West. Instead they assemble within the modern day temple of rank hypocrisy, the United Nations, and from there launch their assault against the civilization whose wonders they greedily seek, as did their barbarian predecessors invading Rome.
The UN conference on racism in Geneva, Switzerland is the modern day effort of an increasingly supine West at negotiating the price for being left alone by the rapacious thuggish leaders of failed and rogue states of the Third World.
It is the weakening of the West's moral centre -- the abject unwillingness to defend its history which on balance has given the longest lease on freedom and prosperity to the world -- that was on display in Geneva.
My friend Tarek Fatah now has a regular gig at CFRB. He replaces the always irritating Stephen Ledrew. I think it is a big improvement. Tarek is very much to the left, but he is always interesting to talk to and he understands the jihadi threat. He recently attended Durban II. I called in and told him I was glad Canada had boycotted this anti semitic festival.
Also John Tory has a new show on CFRB right after the very annoying, very liberal liana and steve show ( though I no longer see their show mentioned on the CFRB schedule). It will be interesting to see what John has to say. I wonder if he will comment on the leadership race. I hope not.
HM Government is encouraging private donations to Quebec arts and elsewhere as well. Listen to the interview with Benoit Dutrizec( in French), I wish someone had explained this during the election campaign.(h/t ) There was no arts funding cuts
There was a lot of hostility to the board of GE over the leftist bent of its NBC and MSNBCdivisions and rightly so. NBC and MSNBC has been decidely biased in favour of obamessiah. Apparently NBC personnel have been instructed not to criticize the president and of course there is olberman and his interview with garafalo. More from the Factor.
I wrote about prominat Australian Scientist Prof Ian Plimer recently. Seems he and his mates are converting Oz into a climate realist nation. Hopefully the multiple Canadian climate realists will also sway the public here.
Into this global warming glasnost that Australia is experiencing steps Pilmer, with perspectives that would once have been derided and dismissed. To those who claim it is economically prudent to curb greenhouse gases based on the information known to date, Pilmer responds that the business world would never “make trillion-dollar decisions without a comprehensive and expensive due diligence.” To those who claim that an overwhelming consensus of scientists associated with the United Nations climate change report have concluded that man is responsible for bringing us to global warming catastrophe, Pilmer points to the report’s chapter dealing with man’s role, which is “based on the opinions of just five independent scientists.” Thanks to Pilmer, the press and politicians, Australia is likely to become the developed world’s third Denier Nation, after the Czech Republic, where only 11% of the public blame humans for global warming, and the United States, where only 34% blame humans.
Revenge is a recurring theme in Prabhakaran's life, said the Indian journalist Narayan Swamy, the author of the biography Prabhakaran; Inside an Elusive Mind.
After Gandhi, the Tigers assassinated President Ranasinghe Premadasa with a suicide bomb, and the Oxford-educated Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar, the most senior Tamil in the government, was killed by a suspected rebel sniper. The Tigers made assassination attempts against Prime Minister Chandrika Kumaratunga, Defence Secretary Gotibaya Rajapaksa and the Army Commander Lt. Gen. Sarath Fonseka. He also killed off the leaders of rival militant groups.
"He's like a mafia person," Col. Karuna said, "always revenge."
I wrote this letter in response to yesterday's editorial in the Montreal Gazette.
God save the G-G THE GAZETTEAPRIL 24, 2009 Re: "One thing in Ottawa that doesn't need fixing" (Editorial, April 23).
I was quite pleased with your editorial on the role of the Crown in Canada. I find it very sad that Canadians don't understand our system of government. The Crown is the ultimate defence against tyranny and power-hungry politicians. It and its representatives must remain totally impartial.
Adrienne Clarkson's suggestions seem to go against that tradition, making the role of governor-general another thing for partisans to bicker over.
Thanks for educating Canadians on their government. Would that our schools did the same. God save the Queen of Canada
iggy's new book sounds like a total snooze and he manages to irritate some of his readers. iggy like many in his party seem unable to understamd the concept of personal responsibility.
In the service of his ultimate mission -- the leveling of social inequalities -- President Obama offers a tripartite social democratic agenda: nationalized health care, federalized education (ultimately guaranteed through college) and a cash-cow carbon tax (or its equivalent) to subsidize the other two.
Problem is, the math doesn't add up. Not even a carbon tax would pay for Obama's vastly expanded welfare state. Nor will Midwest Democrats stand for a tax that would devastate their already crumbling region.
What is obviously required is entitlement reform, meaning Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid. That's where the real money is -- trillions saved that could not only fund hugely expensive health and education programs but also restore budgetary balance.
Except that Obama has offered no real entitlement reform. His universal health care proposal would increase costs by perhaps $1 trillion. Medicare/Medicaid reform is supposed to decrease costs.
HM UK Government is acting shAmefully towards people who have been remarkably steadfast and loyal to the Crown. Their treatment of Gurkha soldiers who have fought with HM forces for 2 centuries is shameful. HM Courts have ruled against the government and still they continue their despicable treatment of these loyal soldiers.
Campaigners have reacted with anger to new rules on the eligibility of Gurkha veterans to live in the UK. The Home Office said that new rules would allow about 4,300 more to settle, but the Gurkha Justice Campaign said it would be just 100. Actress Joanna Lumley, a campaigner for the Gurkhas, said the announcement made her "ashamed of our administration". Immigration Minister Phil Woolas denied he had betrayed the Gurkhas, adding: "This improves the situation." He said: "It has never been the case that all Gurkhas pre-1997 were to be allowed to stay in the country. With their dependents you could be looking at 100,000 people. "It's simply not true that we have betrayed the Gurkhas. When people read the guidelines they will see the sense of them." 'Truly appalling' In September 2008, the High Court ruled that immigration rules denying Gurkhas who retired before 1997 - about 36,000 - an automatic right to stay in the UK were unlawful. Peter Carroll, from the Gurkha Justice Campaign, said the fight to allow them to stay in this country would continue with renewed vigour.
HM Government may appeal the rulling ordering HM Government to try and repatriate Omar Khadr. I do not want this viscious scion of the terrorist family in Canada. I would be happy if the rest of his despicable family would leave. They are traitors to this land. I am so sick of people using Canada as a flag of convenience. these people hate canada. we owe them nothing. And why are the courts now trying to run canadian foreign policy? PM may appeal ruling that he must repatriate Khadr
Updated: Thu Apr. 23 2009 7:59:34 PM CTV.ca News
Prime Minister Stephen Harper says he might appeal a court ruling which states that Ottawa must immediately seek the repatriation of Omar Khadr.
"The facts, in our judgment, have not changed," Harper said in Parliament Thursday. "We will be looking at the decision very carefully and obviously considering an appeal."
Harper's comments came after a federal court judge ruled that the Charter of Rights and Freedoms obligates the prime minister to try to bring Khadr, currently jailed in Guantanamo Bay, back to Canada.
OTTAWA - Canada has long been criticized by numerous world leaders because of the nation's shameful, large-scale production and exportation of asbestos-a well known cancer-causing substance. In a statement issued in early April, Liberal Party leader Michael Ignatieff said he unequivocally favored a ban on Canada's export of extremely toxic asbestos to developing countries that are known to have a lax attitude about protecting the health of its citizens.
"I'm probably walking right off the cliff into some unexpected public policy bog of which I'm unaware, " Ignatieff stated, "but if asbestos is bad for parliamentarians in the parliament of Canada, it just has to be bad for everyone else. Our export of this dangerous product overseas has got to stop."
All well and good, and Ignatieff had been widely praised by numerous environmentalist groups for his comments, but, during a discussion with reporters last week, the liberal politician seemed to backtrack on his calling for a nationwide ban on the exportation of asbestos by saying, "We have 60 years of experience with this product. What I said in answer to a question is that we have an obligation to international agreements to the countries that we export to, to make them aware of the risks. That's all I said."
Others would disagree. Kathleen Ruff, who is a senior advisor on the subject of international human rights for the Ottawa-based think-tank Rideau Institute, has a different interpretation of Ignatieff's latest statements on the subject of asbestos. "I knew he would be under pressure to retract what he said, but that's an out-and-out lie," said Ruff. It should be noted that the Rideau Institute and the Canadian Cancer Society have both advocated tirelessly on behalf of a complete ban on Canada's export of asbestos.
Apparently babies are not particularly important. This woman is going to get a one year conditional sentence for killing her infant. I am sickened. The columnist thinks it would have been better to kill the baby before birth. I think she should have given up the child for adoption. If the father had done this crime he would have felt the full force of the law. This woman should face the same consequences as a man. She should be jailed for many years.
There is so much disturbing about the Ottawa woman who smothered her newborn baby and threw his body in the trash, it's hard to know where to begin.
The sordid facts were read out in court Tuesday and it seems that Angela Kuehl, now 27, killed her baby son in 2007 because she wanted to keep her common-law boyfriend, not because she was mentally ill.
Her boyfriend came from an affluent family and she saw the relationship as a good opportunity. But the boyfriend (they have since broken up) had repeatedly made it clear that he didn't want children.
Furthermore, she'd had an abortion in a past relationship, found the experience traumatic and feared her new man would force her to have another one.
So what's a panic-stricken woman with an unwanted pregnancy to do? Carry the child to term, of course, and then wrap a plastic bag around his head until he's dead.
This is the 21st century, not the 19th, for heaven's sake. We're not talking about a scullery maid raped by the lord of the manor who feels she has no way out.
After one abortion, one would think Kuehl would have zealously used birth control, knowing that her boyfriend wanted a kid-free relationship.
OK, some women have really bad luck with birth control. But surely another abortion would have been preferable to hiding the pregnancy, giving birth in secret and then killing the baby.
Keeping her boyfriend was obviously so important to her that extinguishing her newborn's life was necessary. It was cold and calculating - killing for the sake of love. But there's always a psychiatrist around to conclude such behaviour is the result of a "disturbed" mind.
And so it came to be that an Ottawa judge accepted Kuehl's guilty plea to infanticide this week. She will be sentenced in August and both the Crown and defence have suggested a one-year conditional sentence.
That's quite a difference from the mandatory minimum 10-year sentence she would have received if she'd been convicted of second-degree murder.
The strange thing about it is that, despite the wording in the infanticide law about a disturbance of the mind as a mitigating factor, the law had nothing to do with mental illness historically.
A century ago, juries were reluctant to convict (and execute) women for killing their babies. So an infanticide law, with its more lenient penalties, was introduced in England in the 1920s as a way of acknowledging the social conditions that prompted women to kill their newborns.
In a sense, the law (adopted by Canada in 1948) was a smokescreen to conceal the fact that women were committing these crimes because of social stressors, not because of a mental disturbance.
"It's a way to bring in the social (milieu) as a mitigating factor," says Kirsten Johnson Kramar, a University of Winnipeg sociologist and an expert on infanticide.
But should the stress of knowing your boyfriend didn't want kids win leniency - as in no jail - in an infanticide case? It's hard to have sympathy for Kuehl.
I went to see the premier of the Segal production of Over the River and Through the Woods. The evnt was sponsored by The Saputo Company and Lino Saputo jr as were a host of prominent Montrealers including Senator Kolber were at the event. The Thetaer was beautifully decorated with amazing floral arrangements. The renovations have turned one theater into three. The play is one part of the 21 day segal salute to the Italian community. There will be Italian films shown as well and art shown in the gallery. The play was wonderful. It really was a heart warming comedy. It highlighted the importance of family. Part of the humour was watching the actors playing elderly Italian americans saying things that my Indian realtives would have said. The acting was marvelous and the story a bit bittersweet. It is about a man and his four elderly Italian American Grand Parents. I was truly jealous of the character. he got to eat dinner with his four grandparents once a week. I never got to know any of my grandparents. It was a truly lovely 2 hours . I urge you to see it if you can, There was food and wine being served before and after the performance. There was a cheque presentation to help the victims of the Italian earthquake in Abruzzo. There was also a tribute to Bryna Wasserman who is the artistic director of the theater and she saluted Leanor and Alvin Segal. A truly enjoyable evening.
This is the Song on which the title of the play is based.
I am a strong defender of our system of Constitutional Monarchy. Canadians in general know very little about their system of government. The Gazette has a good editorial on the Crown in Canada today. God save the Queen of Canada
Governor-General Michaëlle Jean has another 16 months in her five-year term. She is evidently healthy and has served with grace and dignity. So it is a little unseemly to be considering a successor just yet.
But her predecessor Adrienne Clarkson, speaking at a constitutional-law conference last week, raised the subject of how we choose our head of state. Clarkson proposes confirmation (or rejection, presumably) by Parliament of a candidate nominated by the prime minister. This makes sense, Clarkson said, because the G-G is "the embodiment of the nation, and I think the nation should see who is going to embody them."
How alarming that someone could have held the job for six years while understanding it so poorly. The governor-general does not embody the nation. The G-G embodies the Crown. If you are among the many Canadians who see this as a pointless anachronism, we invite you to look again.
47 of 49 bloq MPs voted against Bill 268. Bill 268 makes it harder to traffic children. One would think that is a mom and apple pie issue. Is anyone in favour of trafficking children except for disgusting , despicable pedophiles? The NDP and the grits voted for this bill. The bloq except for 2 members should hang their heads in shame. For the people of Quebec this is an humiliation at the hands of the bloq. I congratulate the other memebrs who understand that trafficking children is wrong. This concept seems to difficult for 47 of duceppe's trained seals. Only Maria Mourani ( ugh) of the Bloq voted for the law. The other bloq mp was absent. I doubt this is the will of the people of Quebec.
Speaking of unhealthy, angry white liberal actress Janeane Garofalo venomously played the race card: “It’s about hating a black man in the White House. This is racism straight up and is nothing but a bunch of teabagging rednecks.” The theme was echoed by Jeffrey Kimball, a professor emeritus of history at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, who castigated the “extreme right” for organizing against President Obama because “he’s black and he’s liberal.“ Tell that to the thousands of activists in South Carolina who practically booed and heckled white Republican Rep. Gresham Barrett off the stage at a Tea Party in Greenville last Friday night for supporting the trillion-dollar TARP and embracing the pork-laden stimulus law after voting against it. “Go home!” they shouted. The only color that mattered to protesters: the red ink of government debts. But in the age of Obama, there’s no room for such nuance and inconvenient truths. A decent young woman is a “dumb b*tch” for holding the same view of marriage as the Obamessiah. A conservative campus speaker is bullied as a hatemonger by wild-eyed hatemongers. A grass-roots movement is debased as a bunch of racist vulgarians by a media mob of racists and vulgarians. Civility and tolerance have taken a left-hand turn down a one-way street. So much for changing course.
The Amazing Story Behind the Global Warming ScamThe key players are now all in place in Washington and in state governments across America to officially label carbon dioxide as a pollutant and enact laws that tax us citizens for our carbon footprints. Only two details stand in the way: the faltering economic times and a dramatic turn toward a colder climate. The last two bitter winters have led to a rise in public awareness that there is no runaway global warming. A majority of American citizens are now becoming skeptical of the claim that our carbon footprints, resulting from our use of fossil fuels, are going to lead to climatic calamities. But governments are not yet listening to the citizens. How did we ever get to this point where bad science is driving big government to punish the citizens for living the good life that fossil fuels provide for us?
The story begins with an Oceanographer named Roger Revelle. He served with the Navy in World War II. After the war he became the Director of the Scripps Oceanographic Institute in La Jolla in San Diego, California. Revelle obtained major funding from the Navy to do measurements and research on the ocean around the Pacific Atolls where the US military was conducting post war atomic bomb tests. He greatly expanded the Institute's areas of interest and among others hired Hans Suess, a noted Chemist from the University of Chicago. Suess was very interested in the traces of carbon in the environment from the burning of fossil fuels. Revelle co-authored a scientific paper with Suess in 1957—a paper that raised the possibility that the atmospheric carbon dioxide might be creating a greenhouse effect and causing atmospheric warming. The thrust of the paper was a plea for funding for more studies. Funding, frankly, is where Revelle's mind was most of the time.
Next Revelle hired a Geochemist named David Keeling to devise a way to measure the atmospheric content of Carbon dioxide. In 1958 Keeling published his first paper showing the increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and linking the increase to the burning of fossil fuels. These two research papers became the bedrock of the science of global warming, even though they offered no proof that carbon dioxide was in fact a greenhouse gas. In addition they failed to explain how this trace gas, only a tiny fraction of the atmosphere, could have any significant impact on temperatures.
Back in the1950s, when this was going on, our cities were entrapped in a pall of pollution left by the crude internal combustion engines and poorly refined gasoline that powered cars and trucks back then, and from the uncontrolled emissions from power plants and factories. There was a valid and serious concern about the health consequences of this pollution. As a result a strong environmental movement was developing to demand action.
Government heard that outcry and set new environmental standards. Scientists and engineers came to the rescue. New reformulated fuels were developed, as were new high tech, computer controlled, fuel injection engines and catalytic converters. By the mid seventies cars were no longer significant polluters, emitting only some carbon dioxide and water vapor from their tail pipes. New fuel processing and smoke stack scrubbers were added to industrial and power plants and their emissions were greatly reduced as well.
But an environmental movement had been established and its funding and very existence depended on having a continuing crisis issue. Roger Revelle’s research at the Scripps Institute had tricked a wave of scientific inquiry. So the concept of uncontrollable atmospheric warming from the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels became the cornerstone issue of the environmental movement. Automobiles and power planets became the prime targets.
Revelle and Keeling used this new alarmism to keep their funding growing. Other researchers with environmental motivations and a hunger for funding saw this developing and climbed aboard as well. The research grants flowed and alarming hypotheses began to show up everywhere.
The Keeling curve continues to show a steady rise in CO2 in the atmosphere during the period since oil and coal were discovered and used by man. Carbon dioxide has increased from the 1958 reading of 315 to 385 parts per million in 2008. But, despite the increases, it is still only a trace gas in the atmosphere. The percentage of the atmosphere that is CO2 remains tiny, about 3.8 hundredths of one percent by volume and 41 hundredths of one percent by weight. And, by the way, only a fraction of that fraction is from mankind’s use of fossil fuels. The best estimate is that atmospheric CO2 is 75 percent natural and 25 percent the result of civilization.
Several hypotheses emerged in the 70s and 80s about how this tiny atmospheric component of CO2 might cause a significant warming. But they remained unproven. As years have passed, the scientists have kept reaching out for evidence of the warming and proof of their theories. And, the money and environmental claims kept on building up.
Back in the 1960s, this global warming research came to the attention of a Canadian born United Nation's bureaucrat named Maurice Strong. He was looking for issues he could use to fulfill his dream of one-world government. Strong organized a World Earth Day event in Stockholm, Sweden in 1970. From this he developed a committee of scientists, environmentalists and political operatives from the UN to continue a series of meetings.
Strong developed the concept that the UN could demand payments from the advanced nations for the climatic damage from their burning of fossil fuels to benefit the underdeveloped nations—a sort of CO2 tax that would be the funding for his one-world government. But he needed more scientific evidence to support his primary thesis. So Strong championed the establishment of the United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (UN IPCC). This was not a pure, “climate study” scientific organization, as we have been led to believe. It was an organization of one-world government UN bureaucrats, environmental activists and environmentalist scientists who craved UN funding so they could produce the science they needed to stop the burning of fossil fuels.
Over the last 25 years the IPCC has been very effective. Hundreds of scientific papers, four major international meetings and reams of news stories about climatic Armageddon later, it has made its points to the satisfaction of most governments and even shared in a Nobel Peace Prize.
At the same time Maurice Strong was busy at the UN, things were getting a bit out of hand for the man who is now called the grandfather of global warming, Roger Revelle. He had been very politically active in the late 1950's as he worked to have the University of California locate a San Diego campus adjacent to Scripps Institute in La Jolla. He won that major war, but lost an all important battle afterward when he was passed over in the selection of the first Chancellor of the new campus.
He left Scripps finally in 1963 and moved to Harvard University to establish a Center for Population Studies. It was there that Revelle inspired one of his students. This student would say later, "It felt like such a privilege to be able to hear about the readouts from some of those measurements in a group of no more than a dozen undergraduates. Here was this teacher presenting something not years old but fresh out of the lab, with profound implications for our future!" The student described him as "a wonderful, visionary professor" who was "one of the first people in the academic community to sound the alarm on global warming." That student was Al Gore. He thought of Dr. Revelle as his mentor and referred to him frequently, relaying his experiences as a student in his book “Earth in the Balance,” published in 1992.
So there it is. Roger Revelle was indeed the grandfather of global warming. His work had laid the foundation for the UN IPCC, provided the anti-fossil fuel ammunition to the environmental movement and sent Al Gore on his road to his books, his movie “An Inconvenient Truth,” his Nobel Peace Prize and a hundred million dollars from the carbon credits business.
The global warming frenzy was becoming the cause célèbre of the media. After all, the media is mostly liberal, loves Al Gore, loves to warn us of impending disasters and tell us "the sky is falling, the sky is falling." The politicians and the environmentalist loved it, too.
But the tide was turning with Roger Revelle. He was forced out at Harvard at 65 and returned to California and a semi retirement position at UCSD. There he had time to rethink Carbon Dioxide and the greenhouse effect. The man who had inspired Al Gore and given the UN the basic research it needed to launch its Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was having second thoughts. In 1988 he wrote two cautionary letters to members of Congress. He wrote, "My own personal belief is that we should wait another 10 or 20 years to really be convinced that the greenhouse effect is going to be important for human beings, in both positive and negative ways." He added, "…we should be careful not to arouse too much alarm until the rate and amount of warming becomes clearer."
And in 1991 Revelle teamed up with Chauncey Starr, founding director of the Electric Power Research Institute and Fred Singer, the first director of the U.S. Weather Satellite Service, to write an article for Cosmos magazine. They urged more research and begged scientists and governments not to move too fast to curb greenhouse CO2 emissions because the true impact of carbon dioxide was not at all certain, and curbing the use of fossil fuels could have a huge, negative impact on the economy, jobs, and our standard of living. Considerable controversy still surrounds the authorship of this article. However, I have discussed this collaboration with Dr. Singer and he assures me that Revelle was considerably more certain than he was at the time that carbon dioxide was not a problem.
Did Roger Revelle attend the summer enclave at the Bohemian Grove in Northern California in 1990 while working on that article? Did he deliver a lakeside speech there to the assembled movers and shakers from Washington and Wall Street in which he apologized for sending the UN IPCC and Al Gore on this wild goose chase about global warming? Did he say that the key scientific conjecture of his lifetime had turned out wrong? The answer to those questions is, "Apparently.” People who were there have told me about that afternoon, but I have not located a transcript or a recording. People continue to share their memories with me on an informal basis. More evidence may be forthcoming.
Roger Revelle died of a heart attack three months after the Cosmos story was printed. Oh, how I wish he were still alive today. He might be able to stop this scientific silliness and end the global warming scam. He might well stand beside me as a global warming denier.
Al Gore has dismissed Roger Revelle’s mea culpa as the actions of a senile old man. The next year, while running for Vice President, he said the science behind global warming is settled and there will be no more debate. From 1992 until today, he and most of his cohorts have refused to debate global warming and when asked about us skeptics, they insult us and call us names.
As the science now stands, the global warming alarmist scientists say the climate is sensitive to a “radiative forcing” effect from atmospheric carbon dioxide which greatly magnifies its greenhouse effect on atmospheric warming. The only proof they can provide of this complex hypothesis is by running it in climate computer models. By starting the models in about 1980 they showed how the continuing increase in CO2 was step with a steady increase in average global temperatures in the 1980s and 1990’s and claim cause and effect. But, in fact, those last two decades of the 20th century were at the peak of a strong 24 year solar cycle, and the temperature increases actually may have been a result of the solar cycle together with related warm cycle ocean current patterns during that period.
That warming ended in 1998 and global temperatures (as measured by satellites) leveled off. Starting in 2002, computer models and reality have dramatically parted company. The models predicted temperatures and carbon dioxide would continue to rise in lock step, but in fact while the CO2 continues to rise, temperatures are in decline. Now global temperatures are in such a nose dive there is wide spread talk from climatologists about an impending ice age. In any case, the UN’s computer model “proof” has gone up in a poof.
Nonetheless, today we have the continued claim that carbon dioxide is the culprit of an uncontrollable, runaway man-made global warming. We are told that when we burn fossil fuels we are leaving a dastardly carbon footprint. And, we are told we must pay Al Gore or the environmentalists for this sinful footprint. Our governments on all levels are considering taxing the use of fossil fuels. The Federal Environmental Protection Agency is on the verge of naming CO2 as a pollutant and strictly regulating its use to protect our climate. The new President and the US Congress are on board. Many state governments are moving on the same course.
We are already suffering from this CO2 silliness in many ways. Our energy policy has been strictly hobbled by the prohibiting of new refineries and of drilling for decades. We pay for the shortage this has created every time we buy gas. On top of that, the whole issue of corn based ethanol costs us millions of tax dollars in subsidies, which also has driven up food prices. All of this is a long way from over.
Yet I am totally convinced there is no scientific basis for any of it.
Global Warming: It is a hoax. It is bad science. It is high-jacking public policy. It is the greatest scam in history.
When I want to laugh, I have sometimes listened to CKLN radio on Saturday mornings. CKLN is the Ryerson campus radio station , but has been taken over by marxist non students for some time now. Now the station seems off air most of the time. Lawsuits are everywhere. Radio as in most things on University campuses is not inclusive of anything but the extreme left. See what happened to my friends at Carleton. There now seems to be a battle at CKLN between the marxists and the University. I hope CKLN returns to being a student radio station and eliminates its marxist oppressors. I also wish that university radio stations would be more inclusive of other viewpoints. I can always dream.
After attempting to start her weekly one-hour show Wired for Sound, a woman barged into the studio, yelling erupted between other volunteers, two people barricaded themselves in a room and police were brought in to break up the debacle. “It seems bizarre when you think of it,” Stanhope said. “This would never happen at CHUM FM, it would never reach that point. It seems people are on this power trip when it comes to college radio.” For nearly two years, CKLN has been embroiled in fierce internal fighting with two groups of people claiming power over the station. While one side was fighting to keep CKLN to its social justice roots, another side was attempting to make the station more mainstream. Dozens of hosts were fired and shows were cancelled, resulting in new student shows filling the gaps.
2 senior tigers have surrendered. Since the tigers always say they will commit suicide rather than be captured, this is good news. Ther has been enough death. It is time for the tigers to surrender and peace talks with moderate Tamil politicians to begin. The tigers have systematically murdered every moderate Tamil politician.
Two key Tamil Tigers 'surrender' Daya Master gave himself up at Puthumathalan, the army says Two senior Tamil Tiger rebels in Sri Lanka have surrendered to the military, the army says. It says that the rebels' media co-ordinator, Daya Master, gave himself up along with a top interpreter, named George, who worked for senior rebels. Correspondents say that if the reports are true it will be a major setback for the rebel leadership. It has insisted that rebels should commit suicide by swallowing cyanide capsules rather than be captured. The army says that the pair were taken at Puthumathalan on Wednesday "in the company of fleeing civilians".
Seems a national camping store may boycott Israel. sigh.....I guess the lefty loonies want Israel to stop defending itself. Hopefully the board will be reasonable and ignore this nonsense.
A motion is expected to be presented next week at Mountain Equipment Co-op's annual general meeting in Vancouver, calling for a boycott of all products produced in Israel.
"We just don't think (Mountain Equipment Co-op) should be doing business with Israel until it changes its behaviour," said Patrik Parkes, a spokesman for BC Teachers for Peace and Global Education.
