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CNN Headline "Illinois Republicans want perjury probe for Burris"

"Burris' attorney, Tim Wright, told reporters Sunday the affidavit was submitted after they reviewed the transcripts from Burris' testimony and realized "there was also some additional information we could have offered."

...

"Clearly it would have been better if Sen. Burris had provided this information when he first testified," Manley said. "Sen. Reid is reviewing the affidavit and will await any action by Illinois legislative leaders after they review the matter."

Worth keeping an eye on this one?

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/02/15/burris.blagojevich/index.html

SIGN THE PETITION TO BE SENT TO PM HARPER TO KEEP OMAR KHADR AND OTHER GITMO TERRORISTS OUT OF CANADA:

http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/canada-must-support-us-trial-of-omar-khadr.html

The list of signers is growing as we speak... over 900 since 12 February... C'mon, add your own!

Stand up for Canada!

LGF condemns Coulter:

http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/32787_Ann_Coulter_and_the_Council_of_Conservative_Citizens

I signed, and in the message, included the link for the picture of the lad "holding hands".

http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/canada-must-support-us-trial-of-omar-khadr.html

KAHDR HOLDING HANDS:
http://steynian.files.wordpress.com/2008/05/omar_khadr1.jpg

eastern paul, I agree that's a horrible picture, but I severely doubt that Khadr. So, that picture doesn't apply to him.

And, speaking of pictures, I don't understand why his photo hasn't been updated by the press. He is perpetually 15 years old in every newspaper cutting I've seen.

Term limits have been scrapped in Venezuela. Then again, this shouldn't be terribly shocking.

'Hand of peace' snub for Obama

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article2185289.ece

In Obama's international game, I guess he thought "paper" covers "rock".

I'd be most interested in the thoughts of all SDA readers about this list of Top 5 conservative principles for 2009 and beyond.

If you know anything about the Big Tent theory of politics then you'll understand why they're listed in the order they are. Comments about the items themselves (or suggested alternatives) and their order are especially appreciated.

Robert W., at the end of that page it says [I've corrected a couple of grammatical errors] "when the market is unfettered and left to grow without any rules it will start to conflict with other principles such as competition, as 10 companies become one and no more are left to compete", which is not true; coercive monopolies do not arise without government intervention.

Ignatieff on the Liberal Party and the West: "We have to be honest enough with our neighbours and citizens to say 'We didn't always get it right. We didn't always listen with respect. We didn't always understand what had to be done.'

You mean the Liberal Party NEVER got it right or listened with respect.

http://www.thestar.com/News/Canada/article/588191 The Torstar has this little story about Iggy reaching out to us westerners,just like every other lib leader in recent memory. It is odd that they never mention that less than two months ago the ignoramous signed an agreement that would have stripped all the power from the west and given it to himself and his cronies.Not necessarily lies,but lies if necessary. The Coalition is not dead enough.

Interesting read in the Ottawa Sun, a column by Elizabeth Thompson re Obama's visit: "A source of inspiration".

Marlene Jennings feels his visit is a power symbol and has energized the black community. She say's "we all would have loved to have a chance to glimpse, wave and say hi". As the only black MP she would have liked to shake his hand and congratulate him.

Jennings went on to say she was invited to Paul Martin's meeting with Bush. Wonder if that was because she is black?

Jennings bemoans the fact she's now the only black MP in the HOC.

Perhaps she can harken back to her own Liberal party when they forced out Jean Augustine, who was popular in her riding and had no plan to leave, but had to make way for her current leader.

to make way for her current leader

Yesterday at church, the priest, in his homily, mentioned Malcolm Muggeridge, like me, a Catholic convert. So, I decided to Google this “muscular Christian” for whom I have the highest regard. (I’ve read many books by and about him.) The following is the summary of the video of Muggeridge’s first appearance on Wm. Buckley’s “Firing Line”, in 1968, long before Muggeridge became a Christian. (In 1978, at the age of 79, he and his wife, Kitty, became Roman Catholics.)

Summary: He calls himself," says WFB [William Frank Buckley] in his introduction to the first of Mr. Muggeridge's several appearances on Firing Line, "a man of the Left... His apostasies from the Left are, however, so numerous as to leave him a member of the Left in the same sense that, say, Bishop Pike is a member of the Episcopal Church."

But let Mr. Muggeridge speak for himself: "Well, Bill, I think you must distinguish between being a member of the Left and being a liberal. I regard liberalism as the great disease of our society, and when I said that people like Mrs. Roosevelt, admirable though they were in intentions, would be seen to have done more damage than people like Hitler and Stalin, I meant precisely that. Hitler and Stalin got a lot of people killed and precipitated the great war, but they are now discredited. BUT LIBERALISM, WHICH HAS BEEN THE DOMINANT PHILOSOPHY IN THE MOST INFLUENTIAL AND POWERFUL NATIONS OF THE WEST, CONTINUES TO THRIVE DESPITE THE FACT THAT EVERY TIME IT’S BEEN APPLIED, THE CONSEQUENCES HAVE BEEN DISASTROUS.” (Emphasis mine)

Back to me: This was said 40 YEARS AGO. Like other great Christians of the 20th century, such as G.K. Chesterton, T.S. Eliot, J.R.R. Tolkien, and C.S. Lewis, Muggeridge was a prophet.

I wish Mr. Muggeridge were here to comment on the Obamanation that’s just occurred. Actually, seeing the gargantuan hubris of the whole thing, he’d probably display his famous, wide and crinkly eyed grin—and commend it all to the mercy of God.

So, via Liz J, Marlene Jennings says, "We all [sic] would have loved to have a chance to glimpse, wave and say hi" to Obama.

How dare Marlene Jennings presume to speak for me! (As presumption is one of Obama's trademarks, we're going to be overwhelmed by it for the next four years or as long as he's able to mesmerise the gullible.)

Bruce Walker advises RNC Chairman Michael Steele to make anti-corruption the GOP focus for the 2010 election cycle:

"What Michael Steele should do"

LizJ: "Jennings bemoans the fact she's now the only black MP in the HOC."

STOPIGGY and his cronies threw out another black woman. Where is Augustine now?
Ad$Cam K gives the lowdown.
...-

"Augustine is “stepping aside” for another Liberal parachute star candidate, Michael Ignatieff, although, according to Chretien loyalist Warren Kinsella in today’s National Post, she was pushed into giving up her seat. Kinsella writes, “Having endured nearly two years of bullying by Paul Martin’s aids, few believed that she was doing so voluntarily.” Word from the Hill is that real source of Augustine’s tears in caucus, when she made the shocking announcement, may have been produced by her allegedly being offered only a Senate seat instead of a far more desired cushy ambassadorship in a warm Caribbean nation."
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2005/nov/05113007.html

Montreal Gazette gets "it".

"But when they [HRCs] succeed, we can all kiss our precious freedoms goodbye."
...-

"Another assault on press freedom"
urlm.in/brfd

Hmm...

It would appear that the one most positive and hopeful aspect of President Obama's election - the elevation of an African-American to the presidency for the very first time in history - is now becoming a cause of some consternation and worry for those who make a living out of "race-based issues":

http://diverseeducation.com/artman/publish/article_12163.shtml

lookout, it may just be a semantic quibble, but I think that small-l liberalism is not the same as socialism.

Liberalism is focused around the importance of the individual as the agential power in a society; i.e., individual rights and equality of opportunity (not outcome).

Large-L Liberalism is more akin to socialism, focused around govt intervention, etc.

nv53 - I wonder about your statement that 'coercive monopolies don't grow without government intervention'. I think that's valid in many cases - such as our Desmarais, PowerCorp etc in Canada, Air Canada, CBC, Bombardier..but can't coercion emerge from the power of the expanding monopoly itself? For example, when unions move in and prevent small non-unionized businesses from competing. Or just a large business that can charge lower prices. Is the key word 'coercion'?

wallyj - yes, we need to keep reminding Canadians that Ignatieff signed a document that would have disenfranchised all Canadians from control of their govt, handing over all control to one party, in one province - the Bloc. So his 'respect' for the West is pretty empty rhetoric.

Libertarianism is should not be confused with liberalism, ET. I believe Muggeridge had it right. He was around to see Trudeau's form of liberalism.

Liz J ...very good point.Iggy should be wearing the fact that he pushed out Augustine.Of course race had nothing to do with it.Of course.

Here she is today:

http://www.citizenship.gov.on.ca/english/news/2007/n20070312.shtml

I agree, ET, that "liberalism" and "socialism" are not, historically, the same. I'd imagine that Muggerridge was noting the propensity of liberalism in the West to slide into socialism, which is most certainly what the Liberals in Canada did to it, BIG TIME, after 1968. IMO, for the past many decades, policy-wise, the Liberals have been the NDP, but with a better colour scheme!

Trudeau's 1982 Charter, which vested unprecedented power in the hands (talons?) of (activist, left-wing) judges and semi-judicial bureaucracies (tyrannies, like our HRCs) was the nail on the coffin of Canada remaining a democratic country with traditionally “liberal” values. I agree with your “Liberalism [small “l”] is focused around the importance of the individual as the agential power in a society; i.e., individual rights and equality of opportunity (not outcome)”, which we most definitely no longer have in Canada.

The Charter—which we have, for practical purposes, for perpetuity because of the stringent amending formula—has effectively turned our democracy into a left-wing (socialist) oligarchy. The UK is even worse off than we are and, with Obama now in the White House, the US is well on its way to catching up. I’d imagine that Muggeridge saw these train wrecks coming way down the line—e.g. in 1968 and well before, e.g., the radicalism of FDR’s New Deal and Eleanor’s feminism. Sensing the deep reality—might I say “truth”—of things and not being fooled by appearances is what prophets do!!

Hansen & Goreacle's footprints.

*Waste 2 minutes and gag on Hansen's screeching. Hansen alludes to the Holocaust/deniers in his vileness.
Hansen is not a scientist; he is an AGW demagogue.
Hansen is a clear and present danger to our civilization.

...-
"Winter storm hits southern California
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

LOS ANGELES - A winter storm that could be the largest of the season is bringing heavy rain and mountain snow to southern California.

The U.S. National Weather Service says the rain should last much of the day, and wind with gusts of up to 70 kilometres per hour is causing dangerous surf conditions off the coast.

The California Highway Patrol says heavy snow has closed a section of Interstate 5 in the mountains north of Los Angeles.

Meteorologist David Gomberg calls it the "most significant storm so far this season." He says there could even be waterspouts or small tornadoes." (canoe)
...-

*"Coal-fired power stations are death factories. Close them"

"The trains carrying coal to power plants are death trains."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/feb/15/james-hansen-power-plants-coal

Red Orympigs: Bread and circuses; panem et circenses.

But, Caligula, aka Boots, went too far, no?

"The games were often too violent and abusive, like the time when Caligula (37-41 A.D.) sent innocent people from the public to battle because the gladiators were being killed off too fast: the unfortunate had their tongues cut off so they could not yell for help.*"
...-

"2010 Vancouver Olympics coverage will be massive"
http://olympics.thestar.com/2008/article/588173

*http://www.capitolium.org/eng/imperatori/circenses.htm

The Headline SHOULD Read -

"Ignatieff Calls Trudeau /Chretien/Martin Liberals Stupid"

While in the West Ignatieff told Liberal supporters that campaigning against the West is Stupid.

Do you think he'll change his tune, just like the rest, when he discovers he can get votes from Quebec and Ontario by attacking Alberta?

The Five Feet Law of OMcGuinty*.

"because the journalists were so close to the screens."

O: Puppets'R', er, uh, er, Us.
...-

"In All Fairness

SCREENING OBAMA

One wouldn't know it from reading the Washington Post or New York Times, but some inside the White House don't think that President Barack Obama hit a home run with his first national press conference last week.

"It looked scripted beyond the scripted part, the speech," says one former communications adviser, who has been feeding notes and suggestions to the White House team and worked with them on the inauguration. "Every president has gone into one of these things knowing that there were some pre-arranged questions or journalists to be called on, but this one was pretty ham-handed."

To that end, he says, the White House is looking to install a small video or computer screen into the podium used by the president for press conferences and events in the White House. "It would make it easier for the comms guys to pass along information without being obvious about it," says the adviser.

The screen would indicate whom to call on, seat placement for journalists, pass along notes or points to hit, and so forth, says the adviser.

Using a screen is nothing new for Obama; almost nothing he said in supposedly unscripted townhall events during the presidential campaign was unscripted, down to many of the questions and the answers to those questions. Teleprompter screens at the events scrolled not only his opening remarks, but also statistics and information he could use to answer questions.

"It would be the same idea with the podium," says the adviser.

Obama had a teleprompter set up for his remarks last week, before taking questions, but the White House couldn't use the teleprompter for anything but the remarks, because the journalists were so close to the screens. Further complicating matters, teleprompter copy can't be easily updated in real time, in a setting like a White House press conference."
http://spectator.org/archives/2009/02/16/in-all-fairness
...-

In Ontario, Liberal Pinocchio:

*12 Feb 2009 ... McGuinty serves notice: reporters must stand 5 feet away. Posted By KEITH LESLIE, THE CANADIAN PRESS. Posted 6 hours ago ...
www.saultstar.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=1432239

"KAHDR HOLDING HANDS:
http://steynian.files.wordpress.com/2008/05/omar_khadr1.jpg"

is this verified ?

Where & when ? Why is he smiling at a pile of severed human hands ?

You're right bluetech, Iggy should be wearing a double whammy, he booted out an MP who intended to run and she is a member of a minority.

The Liberals love to call themselves the champions of minority rights and slag the Conservatives falsely on the subject.

Isn't it the ultimate irony she is now called a "Fairness Commissioner" in a job description that would decry exactly what happened to her?

Fred - re: Kahdr holding severed hands photos - yes, it has been verified some years ago that this is Omar.

The photo was posted on a site called the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA) www.rawa.org which is worth a visit.

I remember when the photo of Omar was circulated some years ago his lawyers tried to purge it from the internet but, thankfully, it still exists.

Not so easy to understand is WHY Canadian media never runs this photo but Amercian media has.

The CBC doesn't want Canadian filmmaker's footage from Afghanistan, about anything or event there, even when offered to the CBC for free.
http://www.ottawasun.com/Comment/2009/02/16/8405301-sun.html

There is another photo on the RAWA site of a smiling happy Omar also holding severed feet. These photos were taken in August 1998 following public amputations by the Taliban as sport on an arena.

Omar is showing of his trophys I guess. He would have been how old then? About 12?

Poor child huh.

Dubai. A shining beacon of Islamic modernity and moderation?

Think again:

Statement from Larry Scott Re: Peer Visa Denial

Statement from Larry Scott, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour, regarding the United Arab Emirates' decision to deny a Visa to Israeli Tour Professional Shahar Peer to play in the Barclays Dubai Tennis Championships.

We are deeply disappointed by the decision of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) denying Shahar Peer a Visa that would permit her to enter the country to play in the Dubai Tennis Championships. Ms. Peer has earned the right to play in the tournament and it is regrettable that the UAE is denying her this right.

Following various consultations, the Tour has decided to allow the tournament to continue to be played this week, pending further review by the Tour's Board of Directors. Ms. Peer and her family are obviously extremely upset and are disappointed by the decision of the UAE and its impact on her personally and professionally, and the Tour is reviewing appropriate remedies for Ms. Peer and also will review appropriate future actions with regard to the future of the Dubai tournament. The Sony Ericsson WTA Tour believes very strongly, and has a clear rule and policy, that no host country should deny a player the right to compete at a tournament for which she has qualified by ranking.

.....................

Scratch a fascist, totalitarian, supremacist, racist ideology...

I hope you don't mind ET, Lookout but actually Muggeridge being the word smith he was, meant Liberalism not Socialism as being the hidden plague in Western Society. Liberalism is far more insidious and seditious to a well functioning society than socialism or communism. At its core it seeks to remove the responsibility the individual has toward his society, then removes the responsibility the individual has toward himself as he slips ever farther into a hedonistic hell of 'do your own thing' with the resulting decay of societal norms and standards. A week or so ago I heard a young man on talk radio saying that street drugs are not good for the individual but the individual should be able to "Destroy himself if he so chooses". On the surface we recognize liberalism/libertarianism. In fact untold misery for everyone around the self destructive individual. How many other people have to put up with having their personal property stolen or personal safety put at risk simply because the druggy wants to get high again? How many extra hours do 'normal' individuals have to work to pay for the welfare industry to keep this selfish, self destructive person alive? My observation is that we have raised a bunch of spoiled brats that push their way to the front, demand that their every whim is the most important thing in the world, until the next whim strikes. Young men refuse to be men preferring to remain little boys, riding their bikes to evermore self destructive extremes. Obsessing over child's games instead of growing up, marrying, raising and supporting the next generation. Young women somehow have this twisted notion that 'education' makes them more important as they sit in their cubical emailing their co-workers, complaining about their lot in life rather than giving birth and raising healthy children. If you notice I place high importance on regeneration. Without it nothing we have is worth anything, including our esteemed liberalism as immigrants move into our society and by sheer number overwhelm our esteemed philosophies. Liberalism, not socialism or communism, is the silent plague that shall surely bring about the end of our society.

How Democracies Become Tyrannies

In the Republic, two young men, Glaucon and Adeimantus, accompany the much older Socrates on a journey of discovery into the nature of the individual soul and its connection to the harmony of the state. During the course of their adventure, as the two disciples demonstrate greater maturity and self-control, they are gradually exposed to deeper and more complex teachings regarding the relationship between virtue, self-sufficiency, and happiness. In short, the boys begin to realize that justice and happiness in a community rests upon the moral condition of its citizens. This is what Socrates meant when he said: "The state is man writ large."

Near the end of the Republic Socrates decides to drive this point home by showing Adeimantus what happens to a regime when its parents and educators neglect the proper moral education of its children. In the course of this chilling illustration Adeimantus comes to discover a dark and ominous secret: without proper moral conditioning a regime's "defining principle" will be the source of its ultimate destruction. For democracy, that defining principle is freedom. According to Socrates, freedom makes a democracy but freedom also eventually breaks a democracy.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/02/how_democracies_become_tyranni.html

So the Iggy one anuck through Saskatchewan on the weekend, trying to drum up business. I find it interesting that he did it on a long weekend, when most news agencies were dormant. I wonder if it was so he wouldn't have to weasel out of an interview with John Gormley.

Muslims have their Caliphate. It's called the OIC.

Bat Yeor, National Review, on the most dangerous Muslim Organization today:

"Three weeks earlier, a Dutch appeals court had ordered prosecutors to begin criminal proceedings against Wilders for “inciting hatred and discrimination” and “insulting Muslim worshippers” through his public statements and his 2008 film, Fitna. The order to proceed with the criminal prosecution resulted from pressure put on European states and on the UN Human Rights Council by the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC). The OIC’s aim is to punish and suppress any alleged Islamophobia, around the world but particularly in Europe, and it has been a leader in creating the conditions that made the U.K.’s Wilders ban possible.

The OIC is one of the largest intergovernmental organizations in the world. It encompasses 56 Muslim states plus the Palestinian Authority. Spread over four continents, it claims to speak in the name of the ummah (the universal Muslim community), which numbers about 1.3 billion. The OIC’s mission is to unite all Muslims worldwide by rooting them in the Koran and the Sunnah — the core of traditional Islamic civilization and values. It aims at strengthening solidarity and cooperation among all its members, in order to protect the interests of Muslims everywhere and to galvanize the ummah into a unified body.

....

In its efforts to defend the “true image” of Islam and combat its defamation, the organization has requested the UN and the Western countries to punish “Islamophobia” and blasphemy. Among the manifestations of Islamophobia, in the OIC’s view, are European opposition to illegal immigration, anti-terrorist measures, criticism of multiculturalism, and indeed any efforts to defend Western cultural and national identities. The OIC has massive funding from oil sources, which it lavishly spends on the Western media and academia and in countless “dialogues.” It influences Western policy, laws, and even textbooks through pressures brought by Muslim immigrants and by the Western nations’ own leftist parties. Hence, we have seen Kristallnacht-like incitements of hate and murder against European Jews and Israel conducted with impunity in the cities of Europe — where respect for human rights is supposed to be one of the highest values."

..........................

Is the OIC the organization that Canada's Human Rights tribunals get their marching orders from? Is this who Barbara Hall reports to? One would think so, given the amount of venom and aggression they have towards those who oppose Islamism. And given Barbara Hall's publicly pronounced conviction of Macleans and Steyn, without trial.

If the above is true, these people are traitors to our nation and a clear and present danger to all of our lives and should be publicly engaged and denounced as such.

Mark Steyn right on the money again.

http://www.ocregister.com/articles/obama-trillion-president-2308155-events-world#

Another CTV poll, 'proving' internet censors have an uphill battle. Kommissar Hall is 'weeping and gnashing her teeth', as we speak.

http://www.ctv.ca/home

Should the CRTC introduce rules to ensure Canadian content on the Internet?
Yes 18%
No 82%

Cheers

Hans-Christian Georg Rupprecht, Commander in Chief

1st Saint Nicolaas Army
Army Group "True North"

More by St. Mugs: There be kulaks there.
...-

"The Manchester Guardian. Monday 27 March 1933. (Pages 9 & 10).

[Anonymously written by Malcolm Muggeridge]

THE SOVIET AND THE PEASANTRY
An Observer's Notes
II.
HUNGER IN THE UKRAINE
Wretched Cultivators

[This is the second of three articles by an observer who recently visited the North Caucasus and the Ukraine in order to see how the collectivisation of agriculture in Soviet Russia was affecting the lives of the peasants. The first article appeared on Saturday and the third will be published to-morrow]

(From a Correspondent in Russia.)

My train reached Rostov-on-Don - fairly large town, capital of the North Caucasus—in the early morning before it was even light."

"These may be kulaks, I thought, but if so they have made a mighty poor thing of exploiting their fellows. I hung about looking on curiously, wanting to ask where they were to be sent—to the north to cut timber, somewhere else to dig canals—until one of the guards told me sharply to take myself off."
http://www.garethjones.org/soviet_articles/soviet_and_the_peasantry_2.htm

Obama Spending $Millions to Import Palestinians

I find this phrase from the SoS memorandum fascinating:
humanitarian needs of Palestinian refugees and conflict victims in Gaza.

Joe, I agree with everything you say.

I’m not an academic or philosopher, but I believe classic liberalism (which has definitely morphed into the “freedom [that] also eventually breaks a democracy”—thanks, Shawn) was a good thing. From Wikipedia (footnote numbers removed):

“Classical liberalism (also known as traditional liberalism laissez-faire liberalism, and market liberalism or, outside the United States and Britain, sometimes simply liberalism) is a doctrine stressing individual freedom, free markets, and limited government. This includes the importance of human rationality, individual property rights, natural rights, the protection of civil liberties, individual freedom from restraint, equality under the law, constitutional limitation of government”, free markets . . . ”

Notice that, in all Western “democracies”, virtually all of these civic virtues have been removed. (In Canada, our—Trudeau’s—Charter is one of the prime reasons for that.)

It seems that Muggeridge and the other 20th century Christian prophets (reality is stranger than fiction: Iggy’s uncle, the estimable George Grant, was among them!) saw what Shawn documents. I’d imagine—some help here, ET?—that the original Liberal Party in Canada very much adhered to classical liberalism. So did the Conservative (here and in the UK) and the Republican Parties—and look what’s happened to them lately.

If one is actually expecting freedom, “Abandon hope, all ye who enter here” would seem to be an appropriate motto for Western democracies these days. And “No prophet is welcome in his own country” is as true today as it ever was. So, the 20th century Christian prophets I’ve mentioned and the secular ones too— some help here?—warned us of the tyranny to come: as usual, to no avail. Would they be surprised by the rise and triumph of Obama? Not in the slightest. They sensed this train wreck coming long before it was even a speck on the horizon!

Bat Yeor speaks. Know your enemy.
Who/what is raping Europa?
...-

"Geert Wilders and the Fight for Europe

Britain has just witnessed the spectacle of a duly elected parliamentarian from another EU country, Geert Wilders of the Netherlands, being denied entry to the country because he constituted "a threat to public policy." Wilders, after being detained briefly at Heathrow, was sent back to Holland -- where he has further legal troubles. Three weeks earlier, a Dutch appeals court had ordered prosecutors to begin criminal proceedings against Wilders for "inciting hatred and discrimination" and "insulting Muslim worshippers" through his public statements and his 2008 film, Fitna. The order to proceed with the criminal prosecution resulted from pressure put on European states and on the UN Human Rights Council by the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC). The OIC's aim is to punish and suppress any alleged Islamophobia, around the world but particularly in Europe, and it has been leader in creating the conditions that made the U.K.'s Wilders ban possible.

The OIC is one of the largest intergovernmental organizations in the world. It encompasses 56 Muslim states plus the Palestinian Authority. Spread over four continents, it claims to speak in the name of the ummah (the universal Muslim community), which numbers about 1.3 billion. The OIC's mission is to unite all Muslims worldwide by rooting them in the Koran and the Sunnah -- the core of traditional Islamic civilization and values. It aims at strengthening solidarity and cooperation among all its members, in order to protect the interests of Muslims everywhere and to galvanize the ummah into a unified body.

The OIC is a unique organization -- one that has no equivalent in the world. It unites the religious, economic, military, and political strength of 56 states. By contrast, the European Union represents half as many states and is a secular body only, and the Vatican -- which speaks for the world's 1.1 billion Catholics -- is devoid of any political power. Many Muslims in the West resist the OIC's tutelage and oppose its efforts to supplant Western law with sharia. But the OIC's resources are formidable."
http://www.aina.org/news/20090216082740.htm

some fun with numbers on the fambly day weekend.

I have suspected this for some time , that provinces with high unemployment are more represented than provinces with low unemployment. so the higher number of constituents per riding is less federal government in your daily lives .

so take a province like Nfld and Labrador.
at one time called Vinland , and now called after Danny Williams Whineland.

It has an average of 72000 constituents per riding. and 14.3 % unemployment , PEI has 11.9% duffsitters with a rep ratio of 34000 constituents per riding.

at the other end of the scale is Ontario and Alberta with 121000 and 124000 per riding respectively and 8 and 4.4 % Unemployed.

the complete chart as follows

Nfld 72 14.3
PEI 34 11.9
NS 85 8.8
NB 75 8.7
Que 103 7.7
Ont 121 8.0
man 85 4.3
sask 71 4.1
alta 124 4.4
BC 122 6.1

a regression gives Unemployed=13.18-0.06 (pop per riding)

maybe ontario , alberta and BC dont want those extra 20 seats. and Danny Whiner and Ghiz will want to give up theirs.

Push your nose against the window Danny, you're on the outside looking in.

direct link to smiling Omar.

http://www.rawa.org/handcut3.htm

maybe we can get Bob Rae and Smiling Taliban Jack to explain these away.

lookout:

One way to look at it:

Classical liberalism (Whiggism): Freedom to ... (pursue your rational self interest within reasonable constraints).

Modern liberalism (a Orwellian linquistic inversion): Freedom from ... (from want, from poverty, from houselessness, from ignorance, from a loan rejection, from being without high-speed internet access, et al). But of course for these entitlements to be delivered, some folks' freedom must be sacrificed (social justice = theft+re-distribution).

To me, modern liberalism = socialism. It doesn't have to advocate state ownership of the means of production to be called socialism today. Most socialists have eschewed this concept after it has proven, over and over again, to be a unmitigated disaster.

Me No Dhimmi, a very useful "liberal" primer. Many thanks!

Thanks lookout. (yeah, the old "negative" vs. "positive" rights, though I think the term "negative rights" is unhelpful. It sounds, you know, kinda negative ... ).

At the risk of Kate slapping me, a question:

I notice you used the word "estimable" which I often use too. But I also notice many occurrences of "inestimable" in contempotary useage. Is the latter word higher praise? Or a mistake? Or ...

A brilliant rant about PC censorship from Ray Bradbury.

Courtesy of MAD

lookout at February 16, 2009 8:41 AM

A little treat

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2682873266642772925

MND, I just looked up "estimable" and "inestimable" in my trusty Canadian Oxford Dictionary.

The meanings ARE different: "estimable" means "worthy of esteem" (which George Grant certainly is!), while "inestimable" means “too great, intense, precious . . . to be estimated".

I guess one might use the latter like this: "Although his works were largely ignored and/or ridiculed by the intelligentsia and elites to which he belonged, George Grant’s writings were of inestimable value to his pro-life confreres.”

Then, of course, there are “contranym[s], which refer to a word or phrase that can also mean the opposite of its traditional definition. Oversight, for example, means both watchful control, and neglect. ‘To dust’ means to remove dust or apply it, depending on whether you’re cleaning house or looking for fingerprints.” (from Mind Readers Dictionary)

I thought that “estimable” and “inestimable” might be contranyms—there are actually quite a few of them—but they aren’t.