Statistics from Librano$$$$$$$$$$$$$ are faked/false/not to be trusted: Blogs/commenters have been saying this for, well, forever.
Librano$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

StatsCan puts bad numbers on site - twice
OTTAWA (CP) - For the second time this year, Statistics Canada has released erroneous trade numbers on its website, further undermining the credibility of federal statistics.
cnews

That doesn't surprise me. I've suspected Librano interference in StatsCan for awhile now. After all, what's stopping the Libs? They may already have the RCMP on their leash and no doubt the MSM always seems to absolve them of wrongdoing.

I once asked a (far-left) economics professor of mine whether the Governor of the Bank of Canada was truly independent or could be vulnerable to political interference. He simply asserted that the official is independent, period. Wouldn't entertain the concept of corruption. Interesting. A professor telling me there's simply no corruption, as if he could know for sure. (BTW, he ALWAYS ended each lesson w/ the q. of "How does this affect equity and the distribution of income?" And he once wrote that reducing the deficit was "ridiculous" and when I later asked him in class, he pretended he never wrote any such thing. Communists. Can't believe a thing they say).

Two good articles from the Daily Telegraph:

1) People in authority with their heads screwed on correctly--read this from "Tube bomb suspect fled Britain by Eurostar [train]", Daily Telegraph, August 1:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/08/01/nbomb01.xml

'Hazel Blears, the Home Office minister, defended police plans to pick out young Muslims for stop-and-search as part of the security response to the bombings.

Miss Blears, who is in charge of the department while Charles Clarke, the Home Secretary, is on holiday, told the BBC that she believed the Muslim community would accept such searches as a necessary response.

Ian Johnston, the chief constable of British Transport Police, made clear in a newspaper interview that his officers would not shy away from concentrating on those groups most likely to present the greatest danger.

He told the Mail on Sunday: "We should not bottle out over this. We should not waste time searching old white ladies."'

2) What Osama et al. want: Daily Telegraph: "Fanatics around the world dream of the Caliph's return"
By Anton La Guardia, Diplomatic Editor
(Filed: 01/08/2005)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=Z43SYMJGKEERLQFIQMFCM54AVCBQYJVC?xml=/news/2005/08/01/wislam101.xml&sSheet=/news/2005/08/01/ixnewstop.html

Excerpts:

'...From the London Underground to the streets of Baghdad and the hotels of Sharm el-Sheikh, the Muslim fanatics who blow themselves up in the name of Islam believe their "jihad" will ultimately defeat the infidel West and restore a Caliph to rule the billion-strong Islamic nation, or umma, according to Islamic law, or sharia...

As a religion that grew with Muslim conquest, Islam does not distinguish between the spiritual and the temporal. Islamists claim that after centuries of Islamic jurisprudence, "Islam has all the answers". But they have yet to resolve the question of how the Islamic state can be achieved: by preaching, political action or holy war? And if jihad is waged, what should be its targets and methods?...

For much of the last century, the idea of Islam as a political cause seemed consigned to history as nationalists had the upper hand from Turkey to Egypt, Persia and Pakistan.

Mustafa Kemal, or Ataturk, went the furthest. Having abolished the Caliphate, he turned the rump of the Ottoman empire into the secular republic of Turkey and forced through the wholesale adoption of European legal codes, writing and calendar.

In Egypt, nationalists agitated against British colonialism. Later, Gamal Abdel Nasser's coup in 1952 led to the rise of strident Arab nationalism that demanded the creation of a single Arab state.

Islamists reviled nationalists for fragmenting the "land of Islam", elevating the laws of man above those of God, and worshipping national sovereignty as a false "idol"...

After the fall of Kabul to the Mujahideen in 1992, Arab fighters returning home ignited bloody insurrections, particularly in Egypt and Algeria.

But as these insurgencies were crushed, more militants became convinced that the only way to get rid of the impious governments was to attack the "faraway enemy" that supported them. The 1993 lorry bombing of the World Trade Centre, carried out by followers of the blind Egyptian sheikh, Omar Abdel Rahman, was the first attempt to take the war to American soil. Five years later, from their refuge in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan, bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, the leader of Egypt's Islamic Jihad, announced their merger to create the "World Islamic Front for Jihad against Jews and Crusaders". They issued a fatwa declaring that "to kill Americans and their allies, civilians, and military is an individual duty of every Muslim who is able."

Their attacks - which saw the suicide bombing of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, and the crippling of the USS Cole in Aden in 2002 - climaxed with September 11. Declaring a "global war on terrorism", President George W Bush quickly toppled the Taliban in Kabul and scattered al-Qa'eda's leadership. However al-Qa'eda fragments or its sympathisers have since carried out a succession of bombings - many of them suicide missions - against western targets in Tunisia, Pakistan, Indonesia, Kenya, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Spain, Iraq, Egypt and now Britain...

Zawahiri [bin Laden's #2] said jihadis should not lose sight of the ultimate goal - the creation of an Islamic state in the heart of the Muslim world, notably in Egypt, as a base from which to "lead the Islamic world in a jihad against the West" and recreate the Caliphate...'

Mark
Ottawa

A letter sent to the Globe:

'Cormorants are in the Canadian Air Force, not Coast Guard

In their column, "Our Arctic sovereignty is on thin ice" (August 1), Michael Byers and Suzanne Lalonde write: "Several of the Coast Guard's new Cormorant helicopters should also be based near the Northwest Passage to ensure that any suspicious vessel is boarded and inspected."

Once again our academics show their ignorance of military affairs. The new Cormorant helicopters are part of the Canadian Air Force, not the Canadian Coast Guard. We have only 15 of them; they are dedicated Search and Rescue aircraft and are stationed at: Gander, Newfoundland; Trenton, Ontario; Comox, B.C.; and Greenwood, N.S.

There are simply not enough of these aircraft to allow for "several" of them to be based near the Northwest Passage. Besides which the Canadian Air Force has no base anywhere near the Passage where such aircraft could be stationed and maintained (the nearest unit to the Passage is 440 Squadron in Yellowknife with four 35-year old Twin Otters).

Establishing such a base near the Passage, and buying additional helicopters to operate from it, would be just another added cost which the Canadian Forces' budget cannot support.'

Mark
Ottawa

The left spins statistics as if numbers were elastic/rubber bands, Stephen. (numbers are malleable, no? One can hammer them to say anything). Here is another example,using numbers and words;see below: "small but significant". Mount Royal in Montreal is small/puny; Mount Everest is significant/magnificent. Link between them? "small but significant" Not.
>>> Bad, that's you, moron: bad behaviour is 'linked to smoking'. Bad/phony science: the sociologists are mad, mad, mad/insignificant jerks.
>>>>

Bad behaviour 'linked to smoking'
BBC News - 18 hours ago
Women who smoke in pregnancy may raise the risk of their child displaying anti-social behaviour, researchers say. There was a "small but significant" link between maternal smoking and both unruly behaviour ...

>>>>>>>> Further down in the article:
The new work suggests a biological cause for anti-social behaviour.
>>>>>>>>>>> Contradictory statements in the same article; amazing how the BBC/MSM spin their reports to fit their viewpoint, i.e., socialist.
Procustes' bed, for sure. (Search)
Procrustes (proh-KRUS-teez)
Procrustes was a host who adjusted his guests to their bed. Procrustes, whose name means "he who stretches", was arguably the most interesting of Theseus's challenges on the way to becoming a hero. He kept a house by the side of the road where he offered hospitality to passing strangers, who were invited in for a pleasant meal and a night's rest in his very special bed. Procrustes described it as having the unique property that its length exactly matched whomsoever lay down upon it. What Procrustes didn't volunteer was the method by which this "one-size-fits-all" was achieved, namely as soon as the guest lay down Procrustes went to work upon him, stretching him on the rack if he was too short for the bed and chopping off his legs if he was too long. Theseus turned the tables on Procrustes, fatally adjusting him to fit his own bed.
http://www.mythweb.com/teachers/why/basics/procrustes.html

Mark, I saw Greenwood, NS in that posting. A brother of mine, whose birthday is today, used to work as a radar specialist there. He was involved in the search and rescue ops in that function.

You said: "Establishing such a base near the Passage, and buying additional helicopters to operate from it, would be just another added cost which the Canadian Forces' budget cannot support.'"

Of course the current Forces' budget cannot support that. Blame the Librano$. All those billions they steal from everyone's paychecks apparently must end up in the coffers of ad firms, the Communist Party of China, the tyrannical butchers of the African continent, Hamas, etc. They could obviously care less about our sovereignty. All they care about is being in power and getting rich off the backs of ordinary Canadians. As long as they get to call the most important shots, they could give a weasel's bum who owns or exploits our territory. One more reason to wipe the Liberal Party of Canada out of existence.

Maz, you are right. The left is always spinning stats and whatever else they can get their hands on, like the Grewal tapes. They get a bunch of experts to point out a seam of some kind in a tape that was copied from the original and use it in headlines claiming that it has been "proven" or "concluded" that the tapes were tampered with. Here we saw indubitable proof of bias on the part of the leftist MSM.

Same goes for the left's persistent claim that gayness has been "proven" as being hereditary. The leftist media similarly took some statements from an alleged scientist who claimed to have done a study on cadavers' brains and come to the conclusion that gayness is based on the structure of a part of the brain allegedly found to be different for members on either side of the "orientation" fence. Headlines were manipulative: they concluded proof of hereditary determination of sexuality, while deep down in their articles there was a small disclaimer that it was indeed NOT conclusive. Nevertheless, to this day the proponents of SSM use the claim of hereditary determination as an argument. Whether they saw the well-buried disclaimer is irrelevant. The manipulation had already taken place and served the purposes of the left. Wish I had the appropriate link at hand right now. Would take some searching, perhaps.

Disclaimer: I don't mean to offend anyone, honestly. I was merely using this as a prominent example of media bias. I really don't care what private decisions other people make for themselves.

British police are reporting the terrorist (not bombing person) being held in Rome is actually an Ethiopian who has been living in the UK with forged documents and has a brother in -ta da - Canada. Anybody want to bet the documents were made here. Everything else in this country is made in China except false passports, drivers licences, etc. We can do a better job of that here.

Greetings to you too, Kate, good to hear from you. Glad to hear that all is going well. Have a safe trip.

Good for you, Kate!

Since you've already got guest bloggers in your short absences, why not reward yourself with a week or two off, a couple of times per year?

Might help avoid that burnout... (and it's not like you owe your readers anything — after all, you do this for the intrinsic rewards only...)

Garth's right. Kate doesn't owe anyone anything. I, for one, truly appreciate her efforts. Any time away is well-deserved.

Kate, you do make a difference. And we need you to keep us in line and help deal with the insurgent moonies coming in from heaven knows where...

I lifted this from Tony's comments [July 28].

[to the USA],
*On behalf of the Government of Alberta, I am writing to express to you, and through you to President Bush and the people of the United States, my support for your nation and its leadership role in ridding the world of terrorism.*

[ to the UK],
I have posted and Emailed UK sites with a thumbs up for the Brits and Tony Blair.

Blair has gone through hell with the stupid WMD argument flak from the sightless left.

Now he is vindicated and we owe him plenty for his correct convictions and personal endurance.

Can you picture a sweet young thing bouncing down the beach to the water wrapped head to toe in a bhurka?

The red-blooded free world will never move backward into fundamentalism for this and a thousand other reasons.

[to young men living by hate],
Jihadists, how foolish is terrorism anyway?
You have watched it daily for thirty-eight,
[38], years across the ISRAELI BORDER. There has not been ONE INCH of advance.

Millions of Muslims around the world are living a happy life.

You may hate the world now, but that will pass. Suicide bombers are mostly young rebels. Older Muslims learn the real value of life and very few become human bombs.

God gave Muslims logic. There is no shame or sin in using what God gave you to make wise decisions. 73s TG

Canada's defence: 2 li'l boats

By TOM GODFREY, TORONTO SUN

CANADA CUSTOMS officers say their fleet of two inflatable boats to patrol the world's longest undefended border just doesn't hold water when compared to the 100 aircraft and 75 vessels their U.S. counterparts have at their disposal.

"We have two boats for use from coast to coast," says Ron Moran, president of the Customs Excise Union.

If a plane or helicopter is required, they have to turn to another Canadian government department or ask U.S. Customs to share one of theirs.

"We need a border patrol," he says. "There has to be an independent body to secure the border."

Customs officers said their boats were purchased second-hand about 15 years ago. One is based in Quebec and the other in B.C., officers say.

"That is the extent of our fleet," Moran says. "We have to depend on the generosity of the Americans."

U.S. border agents also use dogs, horses, bikes, ATVs and helicopters and are testing unmanned aircraft or drones.

U.S. spokesman Kevin Corsaro said his agents nationwide daily refuse entry to 1,237 people, nab 54 aliens trying to sneak in, and pull over one traveller for terrorism or national security concerns.

Every day, they make more than 3,300 arrests, seize 1,000 kilos of drugs, 193 guns, $205,500 in currency and $1.9 million in merchandise on the Canadian and Mexican borders.

Helen Leslie, of the Canada Border Services Agency, refused comment, citing national security issues, but sent old press releases from her agency's website.
http://torontosun.canoe.ca/News/Canada/2005/08/01/1155392-sun.html

Two, aka 2, inflatable boats---- 2 inflatable////
inflatable..... inflat... inf.... i..glguglgug... glug. Pathetic.

More crap/flatulence/bs from the CP, aka the Communist Press of Canada: apologists/trumpets for the Librano$$$$$$$$$$$$:
WTF is "a small moral victory"? WTF is a large moral victory? This is anti-Americanism at its pernicious worst: sly, cunning, and inane. There is no dispute; it is bs, all bs. The Librano$ keep this running in order to trot old Aunty-American out every so often to remind the subjects of Zanada that the US is the great satan (Iran-style language supplied by yours truly...hee haw).
BTW, Kick-ass John Bolton had been appointed by G. Bush, POTUS, as his rep at the UN in New York City. Go, John Bolton. Kick asses.
Kickasskkkasskkasskkkasskkkasskkkass

Canada claims win in latest world trade ruling on softwood dispute
OTTAWA (CP) - Canada claimed a small moral victory Monday in the latest round of the longrunning, multibillion-dollar softwood lumber dispute with the United States. The World Trade Organization sided with Canada and ruled that the U.S. has failed to prove some of its claims that certain softwood lumber exports have been unfairly subsidized.

Remember Mark Johnston and his article in Imprint the Waterloo Uni paper?

The editor let me reply in full and two others also ripped his head off....

His story was "I see things entirely differently. The deluded band of egocentric, paranoid terrorists that I think have made up the present and past governments of the United States of America has been launching petty, cowardly attacks on legitimate sovereign nations for decades, and 9/11 was something they had coming to them.
The World Trade Centre and the Pentagon I think were government-connected targets, and those attacks were not aimed at the general population." etc etc

Pasted from the whole thing here

My reply here

Thanks to all who added bits and contributed useful points to counter the weird things he was coming out with....and well done Carla Sandham the Imprint editor for allowing the alternative views to be put across.

"It's time we joined the war on terror
It's time for Canadians to get their heads out of the sand and face facts: We must start playing an active role in the war on terrorism immediately."

The rest is here: Toronto Sun by Michael Taube:
http://www.rapp.org/url/?FL2KA40B

Maz2, saw that today as well. It was perfectly timed, given that there is now an apparent, albeit some tenuous link (so far) to Canada with one of the terrorists in the London bombings. Don't hold out much hope that we'll ever know what's going on. Don't want to worry the public, and all that.

Mark Steyn in the Daily Telegraph August 2 (where would one be without the Telegraph?):

"Blair must overturn 40 years of mistakes"
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2005/08/02/do0202.xml

Excerpts:

'...Was it really shocking to you that young men born and bred in the United Kingdom are willing to take bombs on to the Tube and buses? Were you stunned that cells of Islamic terrorists from countries with which Britain has very few traditional or historical ties are living at taxpayers' expense in London council flats? Were you knocked for six to discover that bookstores in Leeds sell video games where Muslim men can play at slaughtering infidels? Were you flabbergasted to hear Birmingham's senior and famously "moderate" Islamic cleric, invited along by the West Midlands Police to their press conference, argue that the men named as responsible for the attacks were merely innocent commuters?...

It's these insulating circles of grey - the imams, lobby groups, media, bishops, politicians - that bulk up the loser death-cult and make it a potent force. We complain about "unassimilated" Muslim immigrants, but in some respects they've assimilated too well. Witness the suspected Tube bomber who on his arrest last week cried: "I have rights!" He and his colleagues demonstrate an impressive mastery of the salient features of the advanced social democratic state - the legalisms, the ethnic pandering, the bureaucratic inertia...

...In 2001, after a Dutch crackdown on benefit fraud, 10,000 Somalis moved from Holland to one East Midlands town - Leicester. Why wouldn't a Somali jihadist fancy his chances in such a country?...

...If "the images of ruin and destruction" come to pass, it will not be because of the bombers but because of a state that lacked the cultural confidence to challenge them.'

Mark
Ottawa

Excellent Dave, just excellent! 73s TG

Dave t: Very good reply. Glad I could give you stuff on the (non)invasion of Afghanistan.

Good points on Kuwait, Bosnia and Kosovo. How soon everyone forgets.

See my post above 2) What Osama et al. want: Daily Telegraph: "Fanatics around the world dream of the Caliph's return"

Mark
Ottawa

Would you say the lone star State is moving north?
-------
Geokinetics Inc., a U.S.-based energy services company, has struck a deal to buy Trace Energy Services Ltd. of Calgary in a transaction worth at least $35 million.
http://630ched.com/news/news.cfm?dir=business&file=b080127A&n=3
-------
Houston-based Kinder Morgan Inc. is buying Canada's Terasen Inc. in a cash, share and debt deal that values the Vancouver company at nearly $7 billion and provides the financial muscle needed to rapidly grow the pipeline network sprouting from the Alberta oilsands.
http://630ched.com/news/news.cfm?dir=business&file=b080143A&n=3
--------
One can only hope ... ;-)

Maybe all those emails to corporations as Greg from Dallas suggested at one point are paying off? ... Nah... couldn't be..

Kate was in Colorado and didn't get in touch with me. Which means I'll be making Canada jokes from here on out to punish her.

For instance, why did the Canadian chicken cross the road?

A: Because the American chicken told it not to.

Get it?

Hahahahahahahahahaha...!

Me thinks Kate going to be the subject of some severe Protein deficiency.. ;-)

Hey Jeff, if she worked 12 hours, that still left her 12 hours to phone... but maybe she crossed the road and didn't have a quarter for the phone. .. yes/no?

I'm rather surprised that a city which supports BSL would be chosen for a seminar on dogs. Their city attorney just recommended people shoot stray amstaffs on sight.

Actually, I really regret not having the time to call Jeff. It was his turn to buy.

;-)

Great piece Dave t !
From a Waterloo grad.

David T:
I just got through reading your article in the Waterloo paper and I am in awe. A great piece of writing. The level of factual debate and discussion is sure to have the moonies spinning in confusion. Keep up the good work.

BTW, welcome back Kate.

Profiling: a Hindu's view. From the Wall Street Journal, "That Feeling Of Being Under Suspicion:
What of "profiling" as an anti-terrorism forensic tool?", BY TUNKU VARADARAJAN, Friday, July 29, 2005
http://www.opinionjournal.com/taste/?id=110007032

Excerpts:

'After the terrorist bombings in London, and the revelations that many of the perpetrators were of Pakistani origin, I find that I am--for the first time in my life--part of a "group" that is under broad but emphatic visual suspicion. In other words, I fit a visual "profile," and the fit is most disconcerting.

The fact that I am neither Muslim nor Pakistani is irrelevant: Who except the most absurdly expert physiognomist or anthropologist could tell from my face that I am not an Ali, or a Mohammed, or a Hassan; that my ancestors are all from deepest South India; and that my line has worshipped not Allah but Lord Shiva--mightiest deity of the Hindu pantheon--for 2,000 years? I will be mistaken for Muslim at some point...

...I don't mean that we must be less tolerant of others but that some among us must learn to tolerate--or put up with--hardships, inconvenience or a new set of presumptions, given the all-consuming nature of the threat we face, in which "the profiled" and "the profilers" alike are targets...

...The profiling process is not precisely racial but broadly physical according to "Muslim type." (Does that make it worse or better?) The process under way now does not constitute racial profiling in the classic sense--Muslims, after all, come in flavors other than Pakistani, including white Chechens and black Somalis.

But there is no getting around profiling, surely, because of the life-or-death, instant decisions involved. So we have to ask one section of society to bear up under heightened scrutiny, asking them also to work extra hard--visibly so--to expunge the threat. Meanwhile, and just as important, we must ask the rest of society not to stigmatize those who conform to the broad physical category while also not allowing feelings of racial and moral guilt to slow our society's response to danger...

I am just as concerned about catching terrorists (who may look like me) as anyone else who looks different. I can ask that the searches and scrutiny be done in a professional manner, with no insults and nothing that offends my dignity. I, too, see the absurdity of subjecting Chinese grandmothers to the same level of scrutiny as people from the Indian subcontinent at the airport check-in counter.

Do I like being profiled? Of course not. But my displeasure is yet another manifestation of the extraordinary power of terrorism. I am not being profiled because of racism but rather because Islamist fanatics have declared war on my society...'

Exactly.

Mark
Ottawa

Bell Canada (of Mirabel, Quebec) has won a $2.2 billion (US) order to supply 368 "Armed Reconnaissance Helicopters" to the US Army:
http://www.canada.com/components/printstory/printstory4.aspx?id=0224940f-5091-42c3-ac55-15d861531f08

One of their uses is light attack missions. In other words, they will be used by the neo-colonial, neo-imperialist, unilateral, moronic American bastard military TO KILL PEOPLE.

I await protests agains this sale from the NDP, BQ, Carolyn Parrish, the Liberal Women's Caucus, Lloyd Axworthy, Judy Rebbick, Maud Barlowe, Heather Mallick, Rick Salutin, Michael Harris and Naomi Klein (what a rogues' gallery).

Mark
Ottawa

Check out the Bell website for the helicopter: "Hunter. Killer. Survivor."
http://www.bellhelicopter.com/en/aircraft/military/ARH/bellARH3.cfm

Pity the Canadian Forces have none for Afghanistan.

Mark
Ottawa