Perhaps my beloved Britain has endured some of the worst excesses. When I spoke at the Hay-on-Wye literary festival a couple of years back and criticized newspapers that headlined suicide bombers as martyrs, I was told by two angry leading intellectuals that I had lived too long in America.Something similar happened at this year's Hay-on-Wye festival, sponsored by the Guardian, where a five-person panel discussed "Are there are any limits to free speech?" One of the Muslim panelists said if anyone offended his religion, he would strike him. A lawyer, Anthony Julius, responded that Jews had lived as minorities under two powerful hegemonies, Christian and Muslim, and had been obliged to learn how to deal nonviolently with offense caused to them by the sacred scriptures of both. He started by referring to an anti-Semitic passage in the New Testament — which passed without comment. But when he began to list the passages in the Koran that denigrate Jews, describing them as monkeys and pigs, the panelists went ballistic. One of them, Madeline Bunting of the Guardian, put her hand over the microphone and said words to the effect, "I am not going to sit here and listen to any criticisms of Muslims." She was cheered, and not one of the journalists in the audience from right or left uttered a word about free speech — not hate speech, mind you, but free speech of a moderate nature.
Unrelated - A Saudi court has sentenced the victim of a gang rape to 90 lashes.
363 murders in a city, and the year's not over. Time to redeploy to Okinawa!
"Self-discipline through shared responsibility". Breaking old ground in curing antisocial tendencies in children.
Add your own in the comments.
I'm Interested to know how Jack Layton plans to meet his proposed 80% of GHG output from 1990 levels.
I think he has some explaining to do before the Conservative government agrees to it
I don't think they can because it's going to be pretty tough to do, unless we all want to live like Mennonites.
I was recently in Europe on business with several people from around the world (India, South America, Austria, Canada). Inevitably the conversation drifted into a discussion of terrorism. I stated that Islam was incompatible with democracy and the greatest threat facing the west were these muslim-psychopaths. Much to my surprise every single one of them agreed with me whole-heartedly. All is not lost with Europe. They simply suffer the same week-kneed-yellow-belly politicos we are stuck with.
missing link,
And in the MSM by the look of it. The Guardian is a left wing paper, but Harold Evans mentions that there was no comment from the right wing ones. In the UK, unlike Canada, there are right wing papers. So the question is, Why didn't they speak out?
John Ibittson, no small potato at the G&M, has hit the nail on the head. Amazing. The Globe !!
(3ws) .theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20061117.wibbitson17/BNStory/National/home
He says Bob Rae, the long shot, will win the Liberal leadership race because he is the puppet for the Liberal Bosses. Delegates be damned !?!?
He claims the Elites of Ottawa, Montreal and Toronto are mad as hell that Harper and Canadians are destroying all that the Basket-Weavers have built up since Trudeau.
The centre of gravity is shifting west and Uncle Mo is having a bird as he pulls the strings.
Re: 90 lashes
US allies in the WOT? What a crock! These bastards are the same people who were and are financing Osama and the Madrassas in Pakistan. Meanwhile, George Bush holds hands with their leaders while attacking Iraq, which was arguably no more repressive under Sadaam than the Saudis are to their own people now.
If there was to be a justified WOT, it should have started with Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.
"I don't think they can because it's going to be pretty tough to do, unless we all want to live like Mennonites."
And not just any common-or-garden Mennonites either:
Old Order Amish.
lberia: I am not a military tactician...and I strongly suspect that you aren't either. Afghanistan and Iraq could be considered as the "thin edge of the wedge" in the battle. They attack the lesser of the evils to establish a beach-head and to give not too subtle notice to the main players that they'd better mind their p's and q's.
The Taliban in Afghanistan and Hussein in Iraq were well worthy of the US's attention.
Liberals Writing Off Ethnic Minorities, Still Ruling, Holding Canada Down While Out of Office
http://thecanadiansentinel.blogspot.com/2006/11/liberals-writing-off-ethnic-minorities.html
I love Iberias thinking. If you can't fix all the problems right now, don't bother fixing any. I tried that on my parents once when I was a kid. All I got out of it was a sore bottom, and the realization that your parents are not good people to try out new philosophies on.
RCMP PROBE THREATENING LETTER FROM 'FLQ'
A letter claiming to be from a new cell of the Front de libération du Québec and threatening to take action for what it describes as “Anglo-Saxon imperialism” in the West Island and west-end Montreal is being investigated by police.
...- ...-
GRAHAM CALLS EMERGENCY MEETING TO DISCUSS QUEBEC
Interim Liberal leader Bill Graham has summoned all eight party leadership contenders to an emergency meeting this morning to find a way out of the crisis over whether the party should recognize Quebec as a nation, sources say. ...-
national newswatch
Finance Minister Jim Flaherty is considering allowing income-splitting. In my own situation this would be a big help, so I hope he goes through with it in time for tax time.
90 arrested in Montreal mob sweep
More than 700 Montreal police officers conducted a series of early morning raids to round up suspected organized crime figures. (cnews)
...- ...-
Rap Sheet: Compiled by Librano$$$$$$$$$$
Schedule of Witnesses at the Gomery Inquiry:
3w.gomery.ca/en/witnesses/index.asp
Att: Stephane Dion
"The Rwandan government launched an inquiry last month into allegations France helped the Hutu government in the slaughter."
Has anyone seen/heard this in the Canadian MSM: the CBC, Radio Canada, CTV, Globe-Mail, Toronto Star, La Presse, etc.? Why is this not news in Canada? Cover-up?
What is Stephane Dion's policy-position regarding charges
of genocide
levelled against his nation, France?
Stephane Dion is one of "eight [Liberal] party leadership contenders" summoned/rounded up by Graham to discuss the concept of nations.
Dion is a citizen of two nations: France and Canada. Will Dion become a citizen of three nations? France-Quebec-Canada?
Mr. Dion's other nation, France, is named as being part of the genocide as shown here below.
...- ...-
Rwanda's Kagame should face court: French judge
Extract:
"COVER UP"
Kagame was then leader of the Rwandan Patriotic Front which defeated the Habyarimana government's Hutu militias to end the genocide. A Tutsi, he accuses France of training soldiers it knew would later commit genocide, a charge Paris has denied.
"The French are trying to appease their conscience for their role in the genocide and are now trying to find someone else to hold responsible for their acts here," Foreign Affairs Minister Charles Murigande said in Kigali.
"They have panicked because they know their acts during the genocide were going to be exposed to the rest of the world in the on-going probe commission here," he told Reuters.
French Foreign Ministry spokesman Jean-Baptiste Mattei said Paris wanted to continue to work with Kigali but would not comment on a judicial matter or respond to Murigande's comments.
The Rwandan government launched an inquiry last month into allegations France helped the Hutu government in the slaughter."
3w.news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20061121/wl_nm/france_rwanda_dc_2
hassle- I completely agree with you. Taking out the military dictatorship in Iraq, and the Taliban in Afghanistan was a tactical and strategic act against Islamic fascism/terrorism which is rooted in the whole tribal ME - it was a key 'beachhead'.
Yes, SA and Pakistan are major sites of Islamic tribalism and its resultant Islamic fascism - but, you can't go in there as easily as you can into the peripheral tribal/fascist states. The tactic is to remove the tribal dictatorship to enable the people, freed from the dictatorship, to move themselves into democracy.
That switch from a tribal to civic organization is not a mechanical act, it isn't like going into a restaurant and deciding between 'the fish' or the 'meat'. It's a complete structural change - akin to a switch from the 10th century to the 21st. It isn't easy. It must gradually work its way - and the fastest way is to enable it to emerge from 'the bottom up' - from the periphery.
AIDE: TRUDEAU WOULD HAVE SUPPORTED IGNATIEFF'S POSITION ON QUEBEC
If Liberal icon Pierre Trudeau were alive today, he'd endorse Michael Ignatieff's view that Quebec should be recognized as a nation, a top adviser to the leadership front-runner says. Indeed,
Alf Apps
argues that the former prime minister would repudiate the view of his own son...(national newswatch)
...- ...-
Background: Alf Apps.
Fasken Martineau DuMoulin LLP - Toronto
Phone: (416) 868-3339, x Fax: (416) 364-7813
Email: aapps@tor.fasken.com
Year called to the bar: 1987
Alfred Apps carries on a transaction-oriented practice with a special focus on advising high-growth Canadian mid-market companies with an international outlook, as well as several of the leading North American private equity and venture funds that provide financing to them. His expertise is in the areas of mergers and acquisitions, equity/debt financings, structured finance and corporate restructuring. He has experience working in both the public and private market contexts. ...-
lexpert.ca
More:
Michael Ignatieff - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
His campaign is headed up by Senator David Smith,
a powerful Chrétien organizer,
Ian Davey (son of Senator Keith Davey), Alfred Apps, a Toronto lawyer and ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Ignatieff
Apps is a key-man for AdScam Chretien, Gagliano, et al, aka Librano$.
Hassle, Alex and ET:
The current policy has not only destabilized the region, it has given new motivation for aspiring terrorists. It's hardly a successful "beachhead" or "thin edge of the wedge" battle against anything.
It's hypocritical to say that the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan is about bringing freedom and democracy to the ME when states like Saudi Arabia are not being criticised or pressured to change.
lberia: "...states like Saudi Arabia are not being criticised or pressured to change...".
You lefties need to be consistent...maybe the US just isn't using "megaphone diplomacy" and instead are using "quiet" and "nuanced" diplomacy!
And no one could reasonably expect any country in any war to be perfect and the Americans have been FAR from perfect in the War on Terror. Afghanistan and Iraq may have fomented some NEW terrorism, but I think instead what has happened is that it has focussed the efforts of existing and latent terrorists in a single area.
Just because the invasions aren't completely successful does not repudiate the argument that that the intent was to form a beach-head. C'mon, try thinking harder, lberia!
Leftist writers continue to believe that Islamic terrorism is a result of western imperialism. Based on that erroneous assumption, they cover the whole story as kind of 'David vs Goliath.'
Looked at this way, the terrorists are in fact the good guys, or their actions are at least legitimate, if not heroic.
This argument is easily demolished by the Algerian massacre example (amongst hundreds of others). If indeed terrorism is a result of western imperialism, how do you explain 150,000 Algerian Muslims barbarically butchered by fundamentalist Algerian Muslims, all in the last decade, or so?
Common sense and proof aside, I get the impression that most leftists have fully formed opinions, in which truth and fact have no place. I think we've all seen this phenomenon in the comments section right here.
Message from Maulice Stlong from China:
Do not believe these reports. This is counter-revolutionary lies.
(Pssst: Bob; this is Uncle Moe; suppress these lies. Turn off the internet. BTW, Bob, my kidney infection has been cleared up. Say hawhoa to Iggy for moi, Mao.)
...- ...-
Human Organs: Another Chinese Export
"They told me my kidney came from an executed prisoner because you get them fresh that way. From the taking of the kidney, it is only a few hours to get it transplanted in me."
So said one of six prisoners recovering from a transplant operation at Huaxi University of Medical Sciences in Chengdu, China, whose comments were secretly recorded on videotape in 1994 by Chinese dissident and former political prisoner Harry Wu.
Five other patients in the room had also received a "fresh" kidney that day. It is unlikely that it was a mere coincidence that, one the same day, the Chinese government carried out a mass execution only 10 miles away. ...-
3w.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1742665/posts
The Burqa bandits.
Funny story over at LGF and the Star about robbers in head to toe burqas robbing Muslim owned jewellery stores in Toronto, in broad daylight.
Hey, my retirement plan is coming together.
McGuinty is a confidence man.
McGuinty is a croupier*. McGuinty controls the games; a Wizard of Oztario, he is. His motto: The house wins, every time, suckers.
...- ...-
Public should have confidence in lotteries despite new allegations: Premier [Liberal McGuinty]
TORONTO (CP) - Premier Dalton McGuinty says Ontarians should continue to have confidence in the province's lotteries despite new allegations of retailer fraud. cnews
More allegations of lottery tampering
CBC News is reporting new allegations of retailer fraud in Ontario lotteries. cnews
...-
*Croupier: [Origin: 1700–10; McGuinty is a confidence man.
McGuinty is a croupier*. McGuinty controls the games; a Wizard of Oztario, he is. His motto: The house wins, every time, suckers.
...- ...-
Public should have confidence in lotteries despite new allegations: Premier [Liberal McGuinty]
TORONTO (CP) - Premier Dalton McGuinty says Ontarians should continue to have confidence in the province's lotteries despite new allegations of retailer fraud. cnews
More allegations of lottery tampering
CBC News is reporting new allegations of retailer fraud in Ontario lotteries. cnews
...-
*Croupier: [Origin: 1700–10;
...U3,U4,... BC invades sovereign nation of Laurentide, aka Quebec. Bidding war declared over royalties; G-G Jean is recalled from Africa, without finding yellow cake. Rev. Calvert-Sask wants in on the $$$$$. Aux armes, Gilles Duceppe. Where are Iggy/Dion? Where is Garth? Arbour has launched UN investigation.
...-
Uranium Company Stakes Claim In West Quebec
Cindy Clyne and Gord McDougall
Wednesday, November 22, 2006
Hundreds of private landowners in the rural Outaouais could find a uranium mining company on their land without warning.
Aldershot resources of B.C.
has staked mining claims on 366 rural properties in west Quebec without the landowner's knowledge. Ian Huggett with Eco-Watch says to make matters worse, because of Quebec's revised mining act, there's nothing they can do about it.
Huggett says it's up to landowners to check with the Ministry of Natural Resources in Quebec City to see if their land has been claimed.
CFRA News has attempted to contact Aldershot Resources, but has not received a response.
cfra.com
Calling ET: (with apologies if this has already show up at sda -- haven't had time to read the posts).
THE NUTTINESS AND INCOMPETENCE OF CONDI RICE:
Another job well done
Alberto Fernandez is the infamous State Department employee whose job it is to appear on behalf of the United States on Arab media outlets. He's a fluent speaker of Arabic and capable of performing his assigned task, if he adequately represented the United States. He recently condemned American behavior in Iraq for its "arrogance" and "stupidity" on Al Jazeera. He has also expressed his high regard for Yusuf al Qaradawi, the European sheikh who has been refused admission to the United States because of his support for terrorism.
The State Department nominated Fernandez as one of three candidates for the Edward R. Murrow Award for Excellence in Public Diplomacy to be selected by Tufts University for his media work, and Tufts selected Fernandez for the award. Fernandez has accordingly received a certificate signed by Condoleezza Rice and $10,000 in cash. A reader has kindly forwarded us a copy of the State Department cable announcing the award:
iberia - that's the whole point, to destabilize the region, which is locked into a primitive tribalism, enforced by the dictatorial powers enabled by the economies being focused around one resource, oil, which is controlled by one tribe.
The region can't change itself; the military powers of the dominant tribe are too great. It has to be destabilized from the outside. So, you start with the periphery and allow the rifts to, like a tear in cloth, flow through.
Surely you can't be in favour of the 'stability' of primitive tribalism - eg, as in Saudi Arabia, which has just sentenced a raped woman to 90 lashes? You can't be in favour of the stability of Saddam Hussein, who maintained that 'peace' by mass executions? You can't be in favour of the stability of Iran, which is equally repressive and makes extensive use of 'mob-politics', arousing the mob to feverish hysteria.
Again, change isn't accomplished mechanically; you can't flip a switch. It takes time, and you have to weaken the domination of the 'Master System' by weakening its control over the domain. You do that by weaking the control over the extensions - the peripheral area. When those peripheries begin to change, the whole infrastructure will move that way.
Saudi Arabia IS under pressure to change. From outside, by all the talk iin the world about democracy and the lack of democracy in the ME, and from inside, by Iraq actually holding elections and writing up its own constitution.
I suppose this is the place to get this off my chest. Has anyone else noticed that cbc and others no longer mention that Iggy spent anytime in the states. Whenever his past is mentioned,the reporters and the libs always refer to it as time spent abroad,or overseas and even international work. Now,I understand the libs wanting to distance him from the U.S. of A.,but why do the media fall in line? Obviously,the bias is coming from the top.
ET: Here's what Fjordman has to say.
"But he [Mark Steyn] makes other assertions I strongly disagree with, such as indicating that the United States should remain in Iraq to spread democracy: “What does it mean when the world’s hyperpower, responsible for 40 percent of the planet’s military spending, decides that it cannot withstand a guerrilla war with historically low casualties against a ragbag of local insurgents and imported terrorists?”
"Here, Mark Steyn is wrong, which indicates that he doesn’t fully understand Islam. The entire project of “spreading democracy” was a mistake from the very beginning, because democracy cannot be exported to an Islamic country such as Iraq. It is stupidity to waste hundreds of billions of dollars on Muslims while Islamization continues apace in the West."
Link to his recent essay if you're interested.
http://w3.brusselsjournal.com/node/1674
I honestly wish you were right. However, my own multi-month study of Islam tells me you can't install democracy in Iraq. Democracy is in fact a sacrilige in Islam; the attempt to do it actually strenghtens the umma -- feeds the jihad.
Sorry: I must agree with Fjordman -- an attempt to install democracy by force reveals an ignorance of Islam, however noble and well-intentioned is the the goal. You're tribal theories don't work here.
We should put our efforts into eradicating Islamicization for the West.
"I suppose this is the place to get this off my chest. Has anyone else noticed that cbc and others no longer mention that Iggy spent anytime in the states."
Commies re-writing history?
I hear that Neutron Bombs can be detonated in a manner that leaves all the "stuff" intact but gets rid of all the people.
How many do we have? I'm getting out my map of the middle east...
ET: Put another way. In our modern post-colonial-guilt-ridden PC democracies we simply are unable to sustain the massive presence for the duration required to do the job (even if it were acknowledged to be possible).
Just take a look at one of the former heroes of the project Tony Blair (Churchill abroad, Chamberlain at home). He is now calling for assistance from Syria and Iran to "stablize Iraq". Back to Scowcroftian realpolitik. You are aware that Scowcroft is Condi's mentor, right?
As for stability, we need a lot less of it.
The US should stick to defending the oil wells (and the Kurdish north.) Leave the rest of Iraq to caos and civil war.
Why are we fighting them when we could let them fight themselves?
We then drop a few smart bombs on the homes of the mad mullahs of iran and start the destabilization there. You end when the whole middle east have whacked themselves to the point where they tire of war or they're all dead.
Why stop their suicide?
iberia, statescraft is about different levels of relationships, strategies and options with different nations, always fluid, always with risk/reward factored into each situation.
We need Saudi oil. We can't run our cars or buses on Pepsi. Most American can't walk/bike to work. It's where we, and all industrialized nations, are in the oil economy. If we don't show up at work or haul our goods, the economy is dead. China will buy the Saudi oil if we don't. Rudi Guliani slapped the Saudis down publically when he handed back their relief check after 9/11. It's as good as it gets. Trust me, the Saudis know full well what the US really thinks about them. They don't care.
There is a whole A List of major players and places - Putin, Syria, Chavez, Iran, NK, and the other usual suspects - in the world that don't care what we think of them. They do bad things in spite of our disapproval. This isn't like the playground where the US can take its toys and go home in a huff. Some creeps we can sanction. Some creeps we can overthrow and militarily occupy when given that limited opportunity. Some creeps we can ignore. Having cordial relationships with creeps like Saudi Arabia and France is in our best interest until the risk/reward paradigm changes. I'm ok with that. You see it as hypocrisy. I see it as the essence of national survival and statescraft since the days of the Roman empire.
A massive round-up of mobsters in Montreal?!??
Wow!
The Librano influence is finally beginning to wane. ;)
If you want to take down a tree or a building, the quickest way is to destabilize it. However, if you don't plan it out carefully, it can come down on your head. Current events are proof that Bush and friends did not plan it out carefully enough.
It's not a mistake to try and moderate or defeat Islam. It's just a mistake to think that conventional military force will defeat an ideology, especially when the ideology is based around a God.
Uh, Iberia.
What God would that be???
Harper has made a fatal error.
Saskatchewan is now a nation; Ontario is a nation, etc.
The way is open to all:
Set up your own nation.
CANADA IS NOW THE BALKANS OF NORTH AMERICA.
Alberta can now separate.
...-
FEDERAL MOTION TO RECOGNIZE QUEBEC AS NATION
Prime Minister Stephen Harper said in a statement in the House of Commons on Wednesday that the federal Conservative government will introduce a motion recognizing that Quebecers constitute a nation within a united Canada. ...-
national newswatch
Maz, OK. So they are a nation.
A nation of whiners and freeloaders. :)
Just out of the Volpe camp." we are outraged at this blatant attempt to undermine democracy.The timing of these arrests is quite suspect as most if not all are delegates of the only italian-canadian leadership candidate. Hopefully,we still have enough pull with the Quebec judiciary to spring my piasonos in time for this weekends vote."
Joe Canuck: Does Allah ring a bell?
Iberia: But of course. Allah, the God who has a barbaric child molester as his most foremost prophet. You mean that God??
Yup. Also 72(?) virgins if you die for the cause...
No mention of the words: Muslim, Islam, Allah-Mohammed; the only allusion to Islam is the word, "Arab".
This constitutes willful blindness on the part of the UN, Islam, CNN, etc.
It is a Muslim genocide*; brown Arab Muslims killing/exterminating black African Muslims.
...-
Egeland: 'Meltdown' in Darfur
UNITED NATIONS (CNN) -- Citing a "dramatic deterioration" of the situation in Darfur, the top U.N. humanitarian official said a crisis is approaching for the region in Sudan that could cost millions of lives.
......
"U.N. officials say at least 200,000 people have been slain in Darfur from fighting between government-backed troops, militias and rebels. Millions of others have been displaced.
The attacks by militias who support the Arab government against blacks in Darfur have been characterized as a genocide." ...-
3w.edition.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/africa/11/22/un.darfur/
* Genocide–noun
the deliberate and systematic extermination of a national, racial, political, or cultural group.
[Origin: 1940–45;
Border and airport workers arrested in huge mafia sting
By DANIEL RENAUD, SUN MEDIA
Extract:
"But the true extent of the investigation was only revealed when
the presumed godfather of the Montreal Sicilian Mafia,
Nick Rizzuto, 82,
left his posh house on Antoine-Berthelet street, his hands bound by plastic handcuffs.
The godfather was already awaiting trial on an impaired driving charge.
He was convicted once in the 1980s for drug trafficking in Venezuela.
But this is the first time Rizzuto has ever been arrested in Canada for activities related to organized crime. (canoe news)
...- ...-
Alfonso Gagliano .... Vito Rizzuto .... Nick Rizzuto ....
"Nor was Agostino Cuntrera the only client of Gagliano.
Another was Dima Messina, the financial aid of
Montreal Mafia-boss Vito Rizzuto.
An RCMP investigation showed that Messina laundered 22 million Canadian dollars for Rizzuto in 1986-88. Rizzuto's Ferrari Testarossa (a 250,000 dollar Italian sports car) was registered under Messina's name."
3w.tni.org/archives/tblick/aruba.htm
Silence of Italians Deafening
EFF HEINRICH, The Gazette
Published: Thursday, November 23, 2006
The RCMP called it "one of the most important police operations in the history of Canada" - the arrest early yesterday of 73 people in connection with "traditional Italian-based organized crime in Montreal."
So what did Italians in Montreal think about it? The silence was deafening.
Extract:
"I've been in the office since the morning and I haven't seen any reaction from the community," said Sciascia, 59, a commercial lawyer in Little Italy.
His caution: Don't use the arrests to attack the Italian community with old stereotypes.
"If there are charges that are brought, we'll have to wait and see what happens," he said. "These are things that happen in every community. You can't generalize, because the Italian community, usually, is honest-working people who have contributed tremendously to Quebec and Canada."
As for the suspects, "this element represents perhaps 0.00001 per cent of the community," Sciascia said - a tiny fraction of the 224,460 Montrealers who said they were of Italian ethnic origin in the 2001 federal census."
montreal gazette
...-
Alfonso Gagliano, the bookeeeper, represents 0.00001%? Dunno? Best to remain silent, right?
Is Alfonso deaf and dumb, too?
Of, course, the cream always rises to the top:
The Honourable
Alfonso Gagliano
Member of the Queen's Privy Council for Canada.
Bravo, Alfonso.
Look what the Harper is up to, now.
Harper is gunning for the nation of criminals.
Harper has corralled/conned the Socialist nation, also. The Socialists are all on stage, together; with the Harper; never been together before on a stage. It's a first for Toronto! Where's Wacky Jacky? Wowser.
Totornot, Totronto, that wunnaful nation, er town.
...-
HARPER TO OUTLINE TOUGH GUN CRIME LEGISLATION
Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Premier Dalton McGuinty and Mayor David Miller will today unveil plans to make it harder for those accused of gun crimes to get back on the street, the Toronto Star has learned.
The three men, who have never shared a stage together, will meet at Toronto's Sheraton Centre Hotel to announce ambitious measures targeting gun criminals not far from where teenager Jane Creba was shot to death on Yonge St. last Boxing Day. (national newswatch)
Canada Poised for More Tax Cuts Amid Higher Surplus (Update2)
By Theophilos Argitis
Nov. 23 (Bloomberg) -- Canadian Finance Minister Jim Flaherty will probably say today that budget surpluses in the next two years will surpass an earlier forecast, leaving more room for tax cuts ahead of a possible election.
The government's semi-annual fiscal update, scheduled for release in Ottawa at 3:30 p.m., may show the two-year surplus is higher than the C$8 billion ($7 billion) forecast in the May 2 budget, Flaherty has said. The minister also will outline his tax and spending priorities in an accompanying economic agenda.
``We will set a direction in terms of tax policy, building on what we've already done, and giving some indication of where we want to go,'' Flaherty said in a Nov. 18 interview during a Group of 20 meeting in Melbourne.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper's minority Conservative Party government has pledged to return more of its revenue windfall from record global energy prices and corporate profits back to taxpayers and provincial governments. Harper argues large budget surpluses have dragged down growth and only proved the previous Liberal Party government overtaxed Canadians. ...-
Bloomberg provides this excellent idea:
To contact the reporters on this story: Theophilos Argitis in Ottawa at targitis@bloomberg.net .
3w.bloomberg.com
TORY CHINA CARD RILES POWER
....André Desmarais, a CITIC board member since 1997, has inherited from his famous father, Paul Desmarais Sr., an unbridled enthusiasm for the roaring Communist dragon.
He is now widely considered -- by Brian Mulroney, among others -- to be the most-connected Canadian in China. And he's not one bit happy-faced about Prime Minister Stephen Harper's diplomatic chest-beating on China...
...editorial this week in La Presse, the Montreal daily of which André Desmarais is chairman, had this to say about Mr. Harper's diplomatic tact: "The development of China's economy and relations with the outside world have a better chance of moving the dictatorship towards democracy than sermons. Especially if the latter come from the mouth of a government leader whose reign -- the Chinese surely know -- might be short."
Ouch. Couple that with the fact that Bob Rae is a director of the Canada-China Business Council and that the Desmaraises contributed $18,500 to Mr. Rae's Liberal leadership campaign and Mr. Harper should consider himself warned...
globeandmail.com
CANADA CHINA BUSINESS COUNCIL
Board of Directors
ccbc.com/home/content.php?Cat=About&Subcat=Board
CCBC 2006 AGM & LUNCHEON
...Sergio Marchi, CCBC president, will share with members his insights following his just completed two-week trip to China....It will be a valuable opportunity for informal sharing of views about current developments in the Canada China business relations.
Will Harper be invited?
UNIFIL now has the right to use force? Kofi UN-Annan's War Against Israel Continues.
Against the Joos only? Louise Arbour is not upset?
...-
France Spoiling for a Fight
France authorizes troops to fire at IAF jets over Lebanon.
French soldiers in Lebanon who feel threatened by aggressive Israeli overflights are permitted to shoot at IAF fighter jets, a high-ranking French military officer told The Jerusalem Post Wednesday, several days after meeting with an IDF general in Paris to discuss what he said was a “blatant violation of the cease-fire.”
...
Milos Strugar, spokesman for UNIFIL, supported the French position, saying that according to the UN resolution, UNIFIL had the right to use force in self-defense, even against Israeli aircraft.
...- LGF
These web pages have been established to provide information about high-risk offenders living in Saskatchewan communities....
saskjustice.gov.sk.ca/publicnotification/publicnotification1.shtml