small dead animals

Not all registries are bad...

We all know that Canada's gun registry is a Tool of the Devil™. However, I'd be thrilled to see Canada adopting a national Do Not Call registry simliar to the one they have down south. There used to be a time when I enjoyed tormenting telemarketers on the phone, but my options (and vocabulary) have been greatly reduced now that I have a wife and child within earshot.

I'd also love to have a national Do Not Proseletyze registry that would keep those bloody Pentecosts and JWs off my doorstep (my wife chased off the first two JWs from our new home today). I could go for a No Chocolate Covered Almonds registry as well since I'm trying to lose weight and school fundraisers really louse that up. Finally, a Do Not Campaign registry would be a godsend come election time.

Of course, none of these will come to pass. Even if they did, they wouldn't be implemented properly (like our gun registry that can't tell the difference between a Ruger handgun and a Ruger shotgun). It would just be another opportunity for the Liberals to grease up their buddies in Quebec, and elsewhere, without actually managing to accomplish anything.

Still, I can dream, can't I?

Multiple Scandals in Ottawa? Scott Brison slips up

Did Scott Brison, Minister of Public Works and Government Services, let the scandal cat out of the bag?

From Hansard:

Mr. Jason Kenney (Calgary Southeast, CPC): Mr. Speaker, is that not interesting? The minister will not deny that he claimed yesterday that an invoice was seized when in fact, by all appearances, over 100 boxes of evidence were taken from the offices of his department.

Hon. Scott Brison (Minister of Public Works and Government Services, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, the fact is that there are several ongoing RCMP investigations and Public Works has cooperated fully with the RCMP.

Beyond that-

Some hon. members: Oh, oh.

Scott Brison needs to explain himself. He announced "several" ongoing RCMP investigations on the floor of the House. That was captured in the official transcript. He should be required to enumerate each and every investigation, when it was started, who is running it, and the nature of the allegations being investigated.

Let's see what happens on the floor of the House next week.

[Cross-posted from the Western Standard. Extended entry at Angry in the Great White North]

Oh Canada

We on the right seem to spend a lot of time bashing Canada. How about, just for a change, we talk about some of the things we like about living here? Here's my short list:

• Newfie culture and music (Great Big Sea rocks!)
• Our geography
• The freedoms we enjoy (which are still considerable)
• Canadian photography (Yusef Karsh was a Canucklehead!)
• Living on the prairies
• Stompin' Tom

What do you folks like about Canada?

Gmail Invites

I've currently got 100 Gmail invites sitting unused. Anyone who has been wanting an account there only has to send me an e-mail at digiteyesed [a+] gmail dot com and I'll slip you an invite. It's a shame to just let them sit there and gather dust.

(I've turned off comments on this post to keep people from putting their e-mail addies where a spam harvesting 'bot can find them.)

Update

I have 87 invites left. I have sent one out to everyone who asked so far. If you have a Hotmail account, you may need to check in your spam folder to find a reply as I heard that's where Hotmail dumps them. Kirby T, I sent out your invite but your e-mail provider bounced it back with a 550 error (mailbox not available), so you may want to look into that.

Queer Buy for the Gay Guy

Remember that $10,000 ring Svend Robinson pocketed? It turns out that he could have afforded it if he had just waited a bit. The RCMP paid Her Majesty ten thousand smackers after his pants got torn and his leg got a boo boo during a scuffle at the 2001 Free Trade Summit:

Former NDP MP Svend Robinson received a cash settlement of $10,000 from the RCMP, government accounting ledgers show.

Robinson said his calf was cut and his pants torn during a protest at the 2001 free-trade summit in Quebec City.

Public accounts published yesterday show that Robinson received the money for "pain and suffering."

Robinson, out for a walk with his dogs last night, said he couldn't speak about the payment.

He declined to say whether the money had helped to ease his pain and suffering.
[link -- h/t: Neale News]

Me, I'm thinkin' that a person could buy a whole lotta nipple clamps with $10K. Which would perhaps explain why Svend not only couldn't afford the ring, but also why he didn't want to discuss 'pain and suffering'.

He may have a point, but...

I'm not sure this sort of 'Frank'ness is what's called for at this juncture.

America: "Do I look fat in this?"

Canada: "Why yes, honey, you could stand to lose a few pounds, but I love you just the same!"

Nice going. They'll be writing that $5B cheque any day now.

First Annual Small Dead Blog Awards

I figure it's time that I gratuitously abused Kate's blog. With her off on a road trip, this is the perfect opportunity for me to foist a blogging award contest on her. Therefore I proudly annouce the 2005 Small Dead Blog Awards. We will be taking nominations in the following categories:

1. Best Canadian blog
2. Best new Canadian blog
3. Best American blog
4. Best new American blog
5. Best 'Blogging Tories' blog
6. Most outrageous Canadian 'Moonbat' blog
7. Most humorous blog
8. Best blog run by a member of the MSM*
9. Best hard news blog
10. Best 'Whistleblower' blog
11. Best 'Photoblog'
12. Best Canadian political blog
13. Best American political blog
14. Best coverage of Iraq war by a blog
15. Weirdest Canadian blog
16. Best blog post**

Nominations will close and voting begins on Friday October 7th at 12 noon eastern time. The prizes for the winning blogs will be a cute button to put on your site, a huge traffic boost, and bragging rights.

* Andrew Coyne, Paul Wells, Colby Cosh, etc.
** Added by request.

Shoot first, ask questions later

There is a new ad campaign trying to warn tourists away from Florida. They figure that Canadians are apt to get ventilated by angry Floridians under the state's new Shoot First law. My personal feeling is that it will probably be safer to vacation in Florida than the rest of the U.S. now that criminals are on notice they can be taken down with fewer consequences. And if this law has the side-effect of encouraging everyone to improve their manners when dealing with other members of the general public, so much the better.

Schröder Denies Resignation Plans

German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder denies widespread speculation that he is about to resign in the wake of the humiliating defeat in the September 18 elections.

Government Denies Resignation Rumors (Deutsche Welle)

While Germans wait for the announcement of a new government, speculation is rising about Chancellor Gerhard Schröder's resignation. Meanwhile, the opposition believes more and more in a grand coalition.

The surprising optimism following Wednesday's talks between Chancellor Gerhard Schröder's Social Democrats (SPD) and the opposition Christian Democrats (CDU) led by Angela Merkel has now been followed by further speculation about how the country will find a way out of its political paralysis. The rumor mill in Berlin is churning out speculation that Schröder would rescind his claims of being chancellor for a third term.

The Berlin-based tabloid B.Z. splashed the question on its front page: "Schröder Resignation on National Holiday -- Monday Last Day?" Politicians also believed that Schröder would soon resign so that a new German leader can finally be named.

[...]

The grand coalition as the final solution to the inconclusive elections on September 18 became more and more likely after Angela Merkel and the Christian Democrats exited talks with their preferred partners, the free-market liberal Free Democrats (FDP) on Thursday. "The possibility or likelihood of a coalition with the SPD is much higher than the other constellations," Merkel told reporters. In addition, she said there was a "very high possibility" of success of creating a coalition with the Social Democrats.

Guido Westerwelle, whose FDP came out as the surprise third-strongest party with almost 10 percent of the vote, thought that result would be more than enough to accompany the conservatives into power. But he now appears to be coming to terms with the likelihood that the FDP will remain in the opposition. "It seems in all probability that we're heading for a grand coalition," he told reporters, adding that Schröder should now step aside for the good of the country.

Grand coalition is an odd outcome but has always seemed the most likely. As odd a marriage as CDU-SPD would be, it far beats cobbling together a government based on several fringe parties.

Related:

German Leaders Scrambling to Build Governing Coalition
Gender Big Factor in German Chancellor Race

crosspost from OTB

Schröder Denies Resignation Plans

German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder denies widespread speculation that he is about to resign in the wake of the humiliating defeat in the September 18 elections.

Government Denies Resignation Rumors (Deutsche Welle)

While Germans wait for the announcement of a new government, speculation is rising about Chancellor Gerhard Schröder's resignation. Meanwhile, the opposition believes more and more in a grand coalition.

The surprising optimism following Wednesday's talks between Chancellor Gerhard Schröder's Social Democrats (SPD) and the opposition Christian Democrats (CDU) led by Angela Merkel has now been followed by further speculation about how the country will find a way out of its political paralysis. The rumor mill in Berlin is churning out speculation that Schröder would rescind his claims of being chancellor for a third term.

The Berlin-based tabloid B.Z. splashed the question on its front page: "Schröder Resignation on National Holiday -- Monday Last Day?" Politicians also believed that Schröder would soon resign so that a new German leader can finally be named.

[...]

The grand coalition as the final solution to the inconclusive elections on September 18 became more and more likely after Angela Merkel and the Christian Democrats exited talks with their preferred partners, the free-market liberal Free Democrats (FDP) on Thursday. "The possibility or likelihood of a coalition with the SPD is much higher than the other constellations," Merkel told reporters. In addition, she said there was a "very high possibility" of success of creating a coalition with the Social Democrats.

Guido Westerwelle, whose FDP came out as the surprise third-strongest party with almost 10 percent of the vote, thought that result would be more than enough to accompany the conservatives into power. But he now appears to be coming to terms with the likelihood that the FDP will remain in the opposition. "It seems in all probability that we're heading for a grand coalition," he told reporters, adding that Schröder should now step aside for the good of the country.

Grand coalition is an odd outcome but has always seemed the most likely. As odd a marriage as CDU-SPD would be, it far beats cobbling together a government based on several fringe parties.

Related:

German Leaders Scrambling to Build Governing Coalition
Gender Big Factor in German Chancellor Race

crosspost from OTB

Canada’s Military Not Ready to Defend Against Terrorists

Canada's Senate defense committee reports that the country's armed forces are woefully underfunded and totally unprepared to defend the country against the inevitable terrorist attack.

Report: Canada's military can't meet needs (AP)

Canada's military is "wounded" and the country's defense without the money to do its job properly, according to a Senate report released Thursday. The report laments the lack of resources and coordinated manpower to deal with a terrorist attack or natural disaster. "A hard, honest look at the facts has made it clear to the committee that the funding is simply not there to end Canada's sad era of military darkness," said the review of defense policy by the Senate Standing committee on National Security and Defense.

The report notes that of the C$12.8 billion (US$10.9 billion) the government promised over the next five years to beef up the Canadian Forces, only C$1.1 billion ($938 million) was earmarked for the first two years. This means the rehabilitation process won't get started until 2008-2009. "Even when the process does stutter to a start, it will remain vastly underfunded, primarily because the armed forces have been starved for money for so many years," reads an executive summary by committee chairman, Liberal Party Senator Colin Kenny.

The report notes Canada -- named by al Qaeda as one of five target nations deserving of an attack -- has done little since 9/11 to invest in anti-terrorism prevention. "Canada has an unenviable place on Osama bin Laden's infamous list of countries to be targeted. We may get lucky. But it's not a bet you'd want to make. "Despite the increasing complacency of most Canadians as the memory of 9/11 slips to the back of our minds, there is every likelihood that an attack will eventually occur on Canadian soil," the report said, yet noted that Canada ranks just 128th out of 165 countries in defense spending as a percentage of its gross domestic product.

Truly a shame. The Canadian Forces are well trained and professional but they operate in a political culture even more tepid on national defense than that which pervades Western Europe. They have the good fortune, however, of bordering a superpower that happens to be their strongest ally and trading partner.

Related:
Canada Defenseless
Canadian Counter-Terrorism

crosspost from OTB

Alberta Separation

I am a member of the Separation Party of Alberta. A person once accused me of treason because of this, but how can one commit treason when Canada's government actually has legitimized a process whereby provinces can separate? (Clarity Act.)

I'm curious to know how many other SDA readers are Alberta separatists. If you are, what pushed you over the edge? If you're an Albertan who isn't in favour of separation, why not?

Let's try and keep the comments on topic for this post, folks.

MTV Comes Back to Canada

MTV is coming back to Canada, in a rather backdoor manner

CTV partnership brings MTV back to Canada (CTV)

Canadians who want their MTV will soon be able to get their fill. CTV and the iconic American music channel have announced they are joining forces.

The new strategic alliance announced Wednesday will see CTV and U.S.-based MTV Networks team put two new MTV channels on the Canadian television dial. Under the terms of the deal, CTV has also gained exclusive access to MTV's broad array of channels, Internet sites and video on demand services.

According to Brad Schwartz, an expat MTV Networks International executive who has returned home to lead the new venture, viewers can look forward to a unique 360-degree entertainment experience.

[...]

Within hours of the announcement, there were already reports rival broadcaster CHUM Television would be keeping an eye on the new venture. CHUM, through a growing slate of MuchMusic channels, has enjoyed a longstanding relationship with its American counterpart. And it doesn't intend to let any newcomers edge it out without a fight. "We'll be intrigued to see how Talk TV can be morphed into an MTV brand and still remain a talk channel as licensed," CHUM Limited CEO and president Jay Switzer said in a statement released Wednesday. "We will be actively encouraging the CRTC to enforce both the spirit and letter of all Talk TV's conditions of licence."

But Schwartz dismisses any suggestion that rebranding TalkTV will violate the station's broadcasting licence. "We're going to take that MTV DNA, that irreverance, and engage and excite the Canadian production and creative communities to come up with great stuff for us," he told CTV Newsnet, distinguishing MTV's lifestyle branding from the music-focused Much Music.

CTV has already enjoyed popular success broadcasting a number of MTV programs. From the car-customizing show Pimp My Ride to Punk'd and Newlyweds with Jessica Simpson, audiences have demonstrated their love of MTV's irreverant TV style.

Why is it the government's business whether a cable television station plays music or talk?
It's quite incredible how much regulation people will put up with.

Of course, a people who will watch "Pimp My Ride" deserves the government it gets.

crosspost to OTB

Reader Tips - Thursday, Sep 29/05

You all know the drill. Put any good news tips into the comments or just trackback to this post from your own blog. :-)

Bated breath

Whatever.

Good God. Will they? Won't they? The election will occur at precisely the moment that is most advantageous for the Liberal Party. Wake me up when the writ drops. In the meantime, all parties will keep their spinners and fartcatchers on high alert. We're heading the canoe of state into The Canyon of Stupid again people. Hold on to the gunwales.

What I Want

In a thread below devoted to a Canadian Taxpayer Federation project to watchdog excessive spending by politicians, frequent commentor Peter Lowen waxed sarcastic;

What I want is a public service where no one is paid more than $20,000, and you get one pencil a year, and you can't expense anything more than a happy meal, even if you're travelling. That would lead to an AWESOME government and great policy outputs. AWESOME.

I want a public service where the Highways Minister is prohibited from flying, where the Health Minister can only access medical care under an assumed name, the Education Minister must face a class of 15 year olds 2 weeks a year as a substitute teacher, and the Justice Minister has at least two released violent young offenders placed into his personal guardianship at all times.

I want a public service where the Minister of Economic Development and top beaurocrats have mortgages placed on their principal residences as collateral in case government "economic development" projects go bust.

I want a public service where those politicians convicted of fraud and/or theft of tax dollars be sentenced to "house" arrest, paid $20K a year for a 40 hour work week of "community service" and required to support themselves and their families on that income alone - after taxes, CPP and EI are deducted.

That's what I want.

I want politicians and beaurocrats to treat our tax dollars and our economy like their very financial future and security depended on it. Maybe that way they'd learn to keep their grubby hands off both.

It's getting late

You won't really have any idea when you were middle-aged until you die.

It needed to be said.

More on Dingwall

So David Dingwall got us to pay for his golf game and his limos. But did we also pay him to lobby the government on behalf of itself and did he even lobby his former department?

caroljamieson.com

So what do you folks think of Carol's spiffy new Web site?

Dingwall resigns

From the Globe and Mail:

David Dingwall resigned Wednesday as president of the Royal Canadian Mint.

The former Liberal cabinet minister has become embroiled in controversy after it was recently revealed he failed to register as a lobbyist for a Toronto pharmaceutical company.

In a statement Wednesday he said he believed all of his actvities were above-board.

Or a speedy resolution to an isolated problem?

I know what I'm putting my money on.

While we wait to find out, I guess we can also place bets on how long it is before Dingwall is named to the Senate or is made a judge.

(Special congratulations to Simon Tuck and Jeff Sallot at the Globe and Mail who have been working this story for months.)

[Cross-posted from Angry in the Great White North]

The Drums! The drums are driving me mad!

Drunk with the power of SDA, I wield the primordial blogging might of The Kate for my own nefarious purposes, directing you to and fro, hither and thither.

Bwa.

The Money Pit

Remember, it's not what you know, it's who you know.

Genital Mutilation

Female circumcision, a practice that is still common in some parts of Africa and the Middle East, is against the law in Canada, and rightly so as there is no medical justification for the procedure. In terms of religious justification, some Muslims who are in favour of the procedure claim that it is allowed because of statements that the Prophet Mohammed made, as recorded in the Sunnah (other Muslims will point to passages in the Qur'an and say it is forbidden by Islam).

On the other side of the coin we have male circumcision. There is the odd medical justification for performing the procedure on males, but the truth is that the need is extremely rare. The vast majority of circumcisions performed in North America are completely unnecessary. In terms of religious justification, Judaism requires that all males belonging to the faith are circumcised as part of a covenant with the Lord.

I've done some thinking on this issue, and it has left me with the following questions...

1. Why is a Judaic religious practice tolerated while an Islamic one is not? Does this indicate preferential treatment of one religion over another?

2. If performing female circumcisions can be considered child abuse, does the same apply to male circumcisions?

3. At what point will some enterprising lawyer recognize this and force an end to male circumcision in this country? (Those performing the procedures usually come from places with enough money to provide a nice settlement). With the ever increasing number of rights that children have in Canada, surely at some point someone will add the right to keep one's genitals intact to the list.

I'd be curious to hear what others think on the topic.

Reader Tips - Wednesday, Sep 28/05

Please post any good news tips or topic suggestions you've got as a comment or as a trackback to this item. I'll update it several times throughout the day.

Links so far...

• Heart of Darkness
• Marching against War--and Jews
• Belief in a Creator is bad for you?
• Lost Budgie has some new posts up.
• Are CBC employees biased?
• And what about Mansbridge?
• Poverty and shiftlessness

Stick this in your conch shell and blow it

In her installation speech yesterday, Liberal Party (Governor-General Division) CEO Michaelle Jean spoke admiringly of the “legendary hospitality and humour of people in the Atlantic provinces” Sorry to burst your bubble, Madam G-G, but, notwithstanding certain fawning reviews to the contrary, this Atlantic Canadian thinks your speech was a steaming pile of smug collectivist platitudes and cloying political correctness. Blech.

The problem with Canadian politics...

...is that every time I hear someone singing God Save the Queen, I immediately think of Svend Robinson. It's disturbing.

Hide the (young) women and children!

Come the next federal election, make sure you hide away any young children in the event a Liberal, NDP, or Bloc candidate comes to your door. Why? Because the MPs from those parties are mostly in favour of greasy older people bumping pelvises with your kids:

The author of proposed federal legislation designed to protect children from sexual predators is doubtful it will pass when MPs vote on it tomorrow.

Opponents of Bill C-313 -- which calls for the age of sexual consent to be raised to 16 from 14 -- fear the Conservative party is bent on "criminalizing puppy love," Rick Casson, MP for Lethbridge, Alta., said.

"That is a weak argument," he countered. "The right thing is a close-in-age exemption of three to four years."

C-313 is opposed by the majority of MPs from the Bloc Quebecois, the NDP and Liberals.
[link -- h/t: NealeNews]

It's not bad enough that they lie to us and they steal from us, now the Liberals and their socialist friends are facilitating the predation of our children by sex offenders. It doesn't get any lower than this.

I don't care what the law says, any greasy older male caught laying a hand on my daughter before she reaches the age of majority will suddenly find himself feeling a draft where his diaphram used to be. And if I happen to bag a Liberal, so much the better.

Dingwall Dings Taxpayer Wallets

I wouldn't exactly call this revelation a big surprise:

David Dingwall, the president of the Royal Canadian Mint, and his top aides racked up total office expenses of more than $740,000 last year, government documents indicate.

Included were over $130,000 in foreign and domestic travel, $14,000 in meals and $11,000 in hospitality. The mint also appears to have picked up a $1,400 tab for Dingwall's membership in an Ottawa-area golf club, and $1,500 in membership fees in the Nova Scotia barristers' society. [link -- h/t: NealeNews]

That's a lot of dough. Maybe he spent some of it on SFH CDs? (Warning: Link content objectionable to some.)

Canada Swears in New Governor General

Canada's new unelected head of state is, oddly enough, a Haitian refugee.

Canada Swears in New Governor General

Queen Elizabeth II's new representative in Canada, a refugee from Haiti, was sworn in Tuesday as the nation's 27th governor general in a ceremony steeped in British tradition and Canadian color.

Michaelle Jean is the first black person and only the third woman to hold the largely ceremonial post as head of state, designed to defend Canada's sovereignty and promote its national identity.

The 48-year-old journalist and documentary filmmaker, whose family fled dictatorship in Haiti when she was 11, is among the youngest to hold the office.

"It is with tremendous pride and deep emotion that I am responding today to the call of destiny, which sometimes takes us in a direction you might never have imagined," Jean told members of Parliament and other dignitaries in the opulent Senate chambers on Parliament Hill.

"I am turning a significant page in my own story as I set off on this new adventure with hope and determination."

Jean's husband, French-born Quebec filmmaker Jean-Daniel Lafond and their 6-year-old adopted daughter, Marie-Eden, who was born in Haiti, applauded when Jean took the oath of office.

The ceremony included the traditional protocol of Canada's British past — including military honors — as well as performances by Canadian entertainers.

Jean, who is required to speak Canada's two national languages, French and English, is also fluent in Spanish, Italian and Haitian Creole. Her personal coat of arms shows two black mermaids blowing conch shells under the motto "Briser Les Solitudes" — breaking down solitudes.

I suppose having an appointed Haitian fill the post is no more odd than a Brit who happened to be born into royalty. Certainly, Jean's credentials are more impressive than strange women lyin' in ponds distributin' swords in some farcical aquatic ceremony.

crosspost to OTB

This comes as a bit of a surprise

Apparently, Quebecers are really getting on board with the notion of an English monarch, titular head of the Anglican Church, as Canada's head of state. Vive l'Angleterre!

Coming out of the bigamy closet

From Angry in the Great White North, news about legalized polygamy in the Netherlands:

The Netherlands and Belgium were the first countries to give full marriage rights to homosexuals. In the United States some politicians propose “civil unions” that give homosexual couples the full benefits and responsibilities of marriage. These civil unions differ from marriage only in name.

Meanwhile in the Netherlands polygamy has been legalised in all but name. Last Friday the first civil union of three partners was registered. Victor de Bruijn (46) from Roosendaal “married” both Biance (31) and Mirjam (35) in a ceremony before a notary who duly registered their civil union.

The difference is important, since as a bigamist, the only legal relationship is between the man and each wife. The wives have no legal relationship to each other, or to each other's children.

In that legal void lurks all sorts of problems.

If Canada starts to tolerate bigamists as a way of allowing polygamy through the back door, it won't be long before the legal problems with that approach forces these people to demand formal recognition and new laws to cover their "lifestyle".

Angry has more analysis.

Now watch as Canada yells "Yippeeee!" as it careens down the slippery slope.

Blogging For Taxpayers

A call out to all you Blogging Tories out there - let's give this initiative by David MacLean at the Taxpayers Federation a push.

Join the army of waste watchers!

Our challenge: Go through the mountains of travel, booze and meal expenses charged to taxpayers by hundreds of politicians and mandarins that are listed here.

Find the waste, look for conflicts, identify questionable expenditures. Take a moment to jot down your thought and email them to me. All of the worthwhile submissions will be posted here. The best submission, as determined by FFT contributors, will receive a copy of Tax Me I'm Canadian! and a free subscription to the Taxpayer magazine.

On The Road Again

I mentioned a few days ago that I was planning a major road trip. We leave tomorrow morning, and my access to the net will be limited, though I plan to check in from time to time. My usual guest bloggers have graciously agreed to help out and keep things updated as best they can.

2000 miles, 15 dogs, 7 days of dog shows, 3 women and one van. Then, when it's over, we turn around and drive home.

We call them suicide runs for a reason.

Wish us luck, and be on your best behavior. I'll ask the guys to do a reader tips post every day or two to keep each other entertained.

Reader Tips

Another busy day ahead, so reader tips it is.

I'll start things off with a few items spotted in passing;

Further to an item posted here a couple of days ago, (Martin Operative Running For Vancouver Mayor?), Peter Rempel has this update;

Tonight, Councillor Sam Sullivan beat former deputy-premier Christie Clarke for the NPA mayoral nomination in Vancouver. Sullivan will now face the COPE-Vision alliance candidate Jim Green in the upcoming mayoral race.

The news could not be more welcome: Sullivan is an admirable candidate in every sense of the term. Sullivan, a quadriplegic, is a member of the Order of Canada for his work with non-profit agencies which assist Canadians with disabilities. And, in an example of B.C.-style bilingualism, he is fluent in Cantonese.

Greg Staples has been poll tracking in a post titled More of "Nothing's Changed". He has charts!

I mentioned "urban refugee" Sean's photography to a friend today - it seems like a good idea to introduce him to new SDA readers.

Dear CTV News,

This evening I was awakened from a nap when your 11 pm newscast came on. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but I seem to recall your coverage of a complete Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza strip just a couple of weeks ago, along with the celebratory gunfire and looting of the arriving "Palestinians". Said freed peoples have now begun to fire rockets at their neighbors.

So, here's what has I'm confused. In this item that aired this evening - complete with this clever little Freudian slip of a file name "israel_offensive_050925/20050925" - the following is written;

The Israeli army stepped up its response to rocket strikes from the Gaza Strip with a series of attacks against Islamic militants on Sunday. As Prime Minister Ariel Sharon promised to use "all means" against the militants, Islamic Jihad commander Mohammed Khalil was killed in an airstrike in the Gaza Strip.

Notice: this is a thread for tips only. Also, a general request. Please refrain from using the comments section here for meaningless, off-topic chatter. On-topic debate, even on tangentially related issues is welcome, but the "chat room" format that some seem intent on creating is not. And keep it clean.

A Matter Of Timing

The AG report on the "Canadian Firearms Program" audit is scheduled to be released in February - the same month Gomery is due to hand down his election-triggering report. Though Fraser isn't talking, the Winnipeg Sun suspects it will be blistering;

Fraser isn't doing interviews about the audit, which has been underway for months.

The last time her office attempted to look into gun registry spending was 2002 and the results were explosive. In fact, her team was forced to abandon its attempts to follow the spending on the gun registry because of the absence of records.

TPC And Adscam Dingwall

An old ADSCAM character is back in the news. Globe & Mail;

Industry Canada has frozen federal financing for research projects by an Ontario biotechnology firm pending the outcome of an investigation into the company's agreement to pay $350,000 in lobbying fees to former Liberal cabinet minister David Dingwall, government sources say.

The move is part of a much broader probe of about 22 high-tech companies that may have hired unregistered lobbyists, or allegedly paid improper contingency fees to lobbyists to help secure federal financing under Ottawa's controversial Technology Partnerships Canada program.

Bioniche, based in Belleville, Ont., recently admitted to Industry Canada that it agreed in May of 2000 to pay Mr. Dingwall a “success fee” of $350,000, the government sources said.

David Dingwall was the Public Works Minister who brought in Chuck Guite.
CTV News, Sept 2004;

Controversial bureaucrat Chuck Guite was hand-picked by the Liberal government to overhaul federal advertising policy after the 1995 Quebec referendum, evidence at a public inquiry shows.

A memo tabled Wednesday made it clear Guite was recommended for the job by the office of Dave Dingwall, then federal public works minister. Warren Kinsella, who served as Dingwall's chief of staff, wrote on Nov. 23, 1995 -- less than a month after the referendum -- that "recent experience" had shown the need to centralize federal ad strategy.

The same centralized approach should apply to public opinion polling and other communications programs, he said.

Public Works was the logical department to review past practices and put new procedures in place, Kinsella wrote.

"In my view Mr. J. C. Guite ... should be assigned to carry out this review on a full- time basis," he told Ran Quail, the deputy minister at Public Works.

"It is requested that he (Guite) be assigned to a position that will allow him to carry out these tasks."

A minister notorious for his enthusiastic turning of departmental budgets to political ends claims to have had no involvement -- none whatever -- in what his bureaucrats were up to, on the single most important file in federal politics, during the gravest crisis in our history. Nor, he suggests, did anyone else in Cabinet.

His testimony is contradicted at another point by Allan Cutler, the Public Works whistle-blower who kept detailed notes of what went on at the department in that time.
As PoliticsWatch reports, Cutler testified about a Nov. 17 [1994] meeting between Guite, himself and other members of the contracting group at Public Works. 

"At this meeting, Mr. Guite told us that normal rules and regulations should not apply to advertising," said Cutler. "He said he would talk to the minister to have them changed.

"A week later, I was informed that myself and two other employees who worked for me would move to Mr. Guite's section and report to him immediately. At this point in time, Mr. Guite's responsibilities were expanded to include not only the selection of advertising agencies, but also the negotiation and award of contracts to selected agencies.

Strongworld explains;

This scandal at TPC is starting to look like another Adscam, only bigger. During its existence, TPC put $2.9 billion tax dollars into research & development "loans" to companies. Only about 5% of those "loans" were ever repaid.

Two things about this whole mess need to be thoroughly investigated.

How many Liberal heavyweights like Dingwall and Lalonde improperly received "success fees" for helping companies secure funding from TPC?

How much money was contributed to the Liberal Party of Canada from companies that received TPC funding and also from members of their Boards of Directors?

This comment at Blue Blogging Soapbox summarizes the current state of the investigation;

When you look at what we have so far - 51 companies audited out of 158 and so far they've found 15 have paid illegal fees - 29.4%. They still have 15 audits to finish yet out of that 51.

When the contingency fees had been paid, they were paid to unregistered lobbyists or to lobbyists who filed saying that they were not receiving a contingency fee. So far only 2 out of a possible 15 lobbyists have been identified and as far as we know, no action has been taken against the lobbyists.

Even the audits completed so far have been basic in nature. The reports state that they only looked at the six months before the TPC application and the six months following the successful applicaton, as this was the most likely time a fee would be paid. As well, they did not look for any non-monetary compensation.

While we certainly don't have a 'smoking gun' on this one yet - it's certainly getting close.

This thread is restricted to comments directly related to TPC only. If you've written something on this emerging scandal, send a trackback, or post your link in the comments.

(update- I've changed the timestamp on this post to keep it near the top of the page for a couple of days.)

Those Who Forget The Past Are Destined To Repeat It

(source unknown, sent by a reader)

"A Precious Tool"

THE SCORE was produced in part because of the strong interest and financial support from Genome Canada, the national funding and information resource relating to genomics and proteomics research in Canada.

"Part of our mandate is to ensure leadership in ethical, environmental, economic, legal and social issues related to genomics", said Dr. Martin Godbout, President of Genome Canada. "Using the popular medium of film, THE SCORE examines the necessity for an active dialogue between the public and scientists in determining what ethical guidelines will dictate the ongoing exploration of our world. For Genome Canada, The Score is a precious tool that will facilitate understanding of genomics research and its impact on society, create an interest and encourage discussion among Canadians".

"We have been a long-time fan of the play and we requested on a few occasions that the Electric Company restage it for our genomics and bioethics forums, but restaging The Score for one representation is not an easy endeavour, and can be quite costly", continues Godbout.
"Supporting a film version of The Score was an obvious and exciting choice for Genome Canada".

Security Fence Violence

Guardian;

Spanish authorities are rushing to double the height of a fence surrounding the north African enclave of Melilla after a dozen more immigrants were injured in a battle with police as they tried to find a way on to European soil.

The injuries followed the deaths of at least three immigrants over the past three weeks during mass attempts to storm the frontier that have ended in clashes with both Spanish police and their Moroccan counterparts on the other side of Melilla's border. Immigrants are using ladders and what one official called "military tactics" in their increasingly desperate attempts to get through the barrier erected around what is, in effect, a land frontier between the European Union and Africa.

Two 3m-high (10ft) security fences ring the Spanish enclave, which is home to 60,000 Spaniards and lies nine miles from the Moroccan city of Nador. Melilla is, with Ceuta, one of two Spanish enclaves on the coast of north Africa whose sovereignty is also claimed by Morocco. The six mile-long frontier has sensor pads, movement detectors, spotlights, infrared cameras and is patrolled by the Spanish civil guard.

The migrants, who have often travelled thousands of miles through central Africa and the Sahara to get to Melilla, try to cross the frontier in groups of up to 200. "We go in a group and all jump at once. We know that some will get through, that others will be injured and others may die, but we have to get through, whatever the cost," one told El Periódico newspaper.

Sistani Endorses Iraq Constitution

AP;

The Iraqi government's campaign to win support for the country's new constitution has won the critical backing of the most influential Shiite religious leader, less than a month before a national referendum on the draft charter.

[...]

Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, meeting with aides Thursday in the holy city of Najaf, urged his followers to vote "yes" on the new basic law, according to two top officials in al-Sistani's organization. The officials refused to be identified because they are not authorized to speak for the reclusive cleric. In January, millions of Shiites followed al-Sistani's call to vote in Iraq's first democratic elections in nearly half a century, and the ballot gave the Muslim sect a majority in the new parliament and government.

Martin Operative Running For Vancouver Mayor?

Sam Sullivan, Christy Clark's opponent for the mayoral nomination has accused Paul Martin's B.C. organizers of interference in city politics, in this Sun piece (that goes out of its way to present Martin's side and cast doubt on the motives of his critics.);

The charge was echoed by veteran B.C. commentator Gordon Gibson, a Sullivan supporter who said his view wasn't influenced by his failed bid to get the vacant B.C. Senate seat recently filled by outgoing Mayor Larry Campbell.

Clark is married to Mark Marissen, the senior political organizer and adviser to Martin , who is in Vancouver today for Chinese President s Hu Jintao's two-day visit.

[...]

A spokesman for Martin refused to respond to the rumours being spread by the Sullivan camp that [former Vancouver mayor] Campbell was appointed to make way for Clark's candidacy.

Scott Reid, Martin's director of communications, said Campbell's own track record justifies the decision.

"A Parliament with Larry Campbell is a Parliament where the people of Vancouver have a tireless advocate. Public service is practically his middle name. That's why he was asked to take a seat in the Senate," Reid said.

Raskolnikov

In an anonymous corner of the Canadian blogosphere, there's someone out there who should be drawing the big bucks in syndication. Not only is he a better writer than half of the bloated pontificators in residence at MacLeans, the Star, and Globe, he actually has something important to say.

Go read Gramma's House.

Wells, Levant, Zerb - see what you can do. Get this guy a gig.

The Infinite Genome

Ever since the genomics revolution took off, scientists have been busily deciphering vast numbers of genomes. Cataloging. Analyzing. Comparing. Public databases hold 239 complete bacterial genomes alone.

But scientists at The Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR) have come to a startling conclusion. Armed with the powerful tools of comparative genomics and mathematics, TIGR scientists have concluded that researchers might never fully describe some bacteria and viruses--because their genomes are infinite. Sequence one strain of the species, and scientists will find significant new genes. Sequence another strain, and they will find more. And so on, infinitely.

"Many scientists study multiple strains of an organism," says TIGR President Claire Fraser. "But at TIGR, we're now going a step further, to actually quantify how many genes are associated with a given species. How many genomes do you need to fully describe a bacterial species?"

[...]

Analyzing the eight GBS [Streptococcus agalactiae] genomes, the researchers discovered a surprisingly continual stream of diversity. Each GBS strain contained an average of 1806 genes present in every strain (thus constituting the GBS core genome) plus 439 genes absent in one or more strains. Moreover, mathematical modeling showed that unique genes will continue to emerge, even after thousands of genomes are sequenced. The GBS pan-genome is expected to grow by an average of 33 new genes every time a new strain is sequenced.

CTV Ad Lib?

Greg Staples;

You just have to check out the second video clip of the Stephen Harper speech via CTV. Listen very carefully to the end of the clip. After Stephen Harper finishes speaking you can clearly here the CTV translator snidely say -"no kidding". Seems the hate Harper vibe has been completely ingrained at CTV.

Don't Bring A Cat To A Mule Fight

Now, this is cat blogging!

Update: Snopes has more.

Xiaoping Who?

D.J. McGuire;

Does Paul Martin know what his own government is doing? As Canadian rights activists lamented the deportation of Falun Gong practitioner Xiaoping Hu to Communist China - and try desperately to keep Canada's Immigration Ministry from condemning fellow practitioners Fang Yaobin and Xiong Fengying to the same fate - Prime Minister Paul Martin chose to deny reality: "I can tell you that we are not in the process of deporting Falun Gong practitioners" (Epoch Times). I open the question to our Canadian readers: is Martin completely oblivious to what's happening, or just a bald-faced liar?

"OK, Hans. I'll show you. Stand to your reft"

In Nuclear "Accident" Just Asking To Happen News;

In a second day of bluster after its disarmament accord, North Korea accused the United States on Wednesday of planning a nuclear attack and warned it could retaliate.

North Korea "is fully ready to decisively control a pre-emptive nuclear attack with a strong retaliatory blow," the communist nation's Rodong Sinmun newspaper said in an English-language commentary carried by the state Korean Central News Agency.

At six-nation talks in Beijing on Monday, North Korea promised to give up its nuclear weapons program in return for economic aid and security assurances.

Reader Tips

A few items sent in over days past, and grabbed while surfing.

A quote from President Mahmood "Give Me Nukes Or Give Me You Death" Ahmadinejad;

In the first such statement by an Iranian president in nearly 20 years, Mahmood Ahmadinejad said his election would mark what he termed a new Islamic revolution. Ahmadinejad said such a revolution would spread throughout the world.

"Thanks to the blood of the martyrs, a new Islamic revolution has arisen and the Islamic revolution of 1384 [the current Iranian year] will, if God wills, cut off the roots of injustice in the world," Ahmadinejad was quoted by the official Iranian news agency as saying. "The era of oppression, hegemonic regimes, tyranny and injustice has reached its end."

For the first time ever, poll results swing on the bus vote.

One Free Korea:

We are now four months from the next Great North Korean Famine, and rather than making the urgent and public appeals that could stop it, the United Nations is issuing a permit. Just one month after the World Food Program issued an urgent appeal stating that 6.5 million North Koreans depend on its food aid for their survival, it has capitulated to North Korea's demand to cease delivering food aid in favor of "development aid" that will be neither distributed nor monitored by anyone outside the North Korean government itself. Do past events leave any doubt about how Pyongyang will allocate the blank check it demands for this "development aid?" The result will be that Kim Jong Il will continue the political cleansing of North Korea's hostile classes

Phil Donahue tells Bill O'Reilly he doesn't know what he's talking about in the Iraq war. Oops.

Dave, who plays for "Graham Brown & the Prairiedogs" wrote to ask that I plug their website. All things considered, one would think he'd choose his words more carefully!

Add your own in the comments, or send a trackback.

War Reporting For People Who Like To Think

Fourth Rail has a flash presentation up that provides the kind of information on operations in Iraq that you won't find at CTV.

The pace and tempo of operations in western Iraq have been increasing over the past month, indicating the Anbar Campaign is moving forward. The disclosure of Operation Sayaid signals the Coalition is now prepared to move on the towns and cities along the western branch of the Euphrates River.

Adventures Of Chester;

The thing that makes this presentation so powerful is its complete independence from the normally practiced way of reporting the war. Most war reports make sweeping generalizations from a few small bits of first-hand observation, for better or worse. They rarely tie military actions together in an operational whole (note: Wretchard has just pointed this out as well at The Belmont Club).

Carol Jamieson: The Plot Thickens

Stephen Taylor has his eye on the oft-quoted "Trojan Tory" , who apparently, has never met a Tory party leader she couldn't organize against. Now she's issuing her own "news releases".

It's no surprise that the Harper hater is so popular with the Toronto Globe and Mail's Gloria Galloway . Reportedly, Jamieson "coverage" will expand to the CTV news this evening, though I don't know the nature of it.

Though, I can guess.

update here's the online version.

Bloggers Often Ask

What must I do to get a link from "Small Dead Animals" to one of my posts?

Answer here!

Symbiosis

The paper quoting the blogger quoting the paper...

(Thanks to reader Dave for sending the clipping.)

To Boldly Go...

where no one in the Ottawa press gallery has gone before...

Stuck On Stupid

Conservative politicians, pay attention. Since most of us despise pretentious airheads in media as much as we do pretentious airheads in politics, "giving as good as you get" once in a while shows you own a backbone. Whatever their political stripe, voters admire that. You don't need to be a US Army General to stand up for youself and the truth.

Honore: And Mr. Mayor, let's go back, because I can see right now, we're setting this up as he said, he said, we said. All right? We are not going to go, by order of the mayor and the governor, and open the convention center for people to come in. There are buses there. Is that clear to you? Buses parked. There are 4,000 troops there. People come, they get on a bus, they get on a truck, they move on. Is that clear? Is that clear to the public?

Female reporter: Where do they move on...

Honore: That's not your business.

Male reporter: But General, that didn't work the first time...

Honore: Wait a minute. It didn't work the first time. This ain't the first time. Okay? If...we don't control Rita, you understand? So there are a lot of pieces of it that's going to be worked out. You got good public servants working through it. Let's get a little trust here, because you're starting to act like this is your problem. You are carrying the message, okay? What we're going to do is have the buses staged. The initial place is at the convention center. We're not going to announce other places at this time, until we get a plan set, and we'll let people know where those locations are, through the government, and through public announcements. Right now, to handle the number of people that want to leave, we've got the capacity. You will come to the convention center. There are soldiers there from the 82nd Airborne, and from the Louisiana National Guard. People will be told to get on the bus, and we will take care of them. And where they go will be dependent on the capacity in this state. We've got our communications up. And we'll tell them where to go. And when they get there, they'll be able to get a chance, an opportunity to get registered, and so they can let their families know where they are. But don't start panic here. Okay? We've got a location. It is in the front of the convention center, and that's where we will use to migrate people from it, into the system.

Male reporter: General Honore, we were told that Berman Stadium on the west bank would be another staging area...

Honore: Not to my knowledge. Again, the current place, I just told you one time, is the convention center. Once we complete the plan with the mayor, and is approved by the governor, then we'll start that in the next 12-24 hours. And we understand that there's a problem in getting communications out. That's where we need your help. But let's not confuse the questions with the answers. Buses at the convention center will move our citizens, for whom we have sworn that we will support and defend...and we'll move them on. Let's not get stuck on the last storm. You're asking last storm questions for people who are concerned about the future storm. Don't get stuck on stupid, reporters. We are moving forward. And don't confuse the people please. You are part of the public message. So help us get the message straight. And if you don't understand, maybe you'll confuse it to the people. That's why we like follow-up questions. But right now, it's the convention center, and move on.

Male reporter: General, a little bit more about why that's happening this time, though, and did not have that last time...

Honore: You are stuck on stupid. I'm not going to answer that question. We are going to deal with Rita. This is public information that people are depending on the government to put out. This is the way we've got to do it. So please. I apologize to you, but let's talk about the future. Rita is happening. And right now, we need to get good, clean information out to the people that they can use. And we can have a conversation on the side about the past, in a couple of months.

Meaghan Walker Edward T. Coulter Champion Williams

I have resisted for some time writing about a certain obsessed "fan" of this site, primarily to deny her the attention she seeks. However, considering the influx of readers who were introduced to SDA via my interview last week with Peter Warren, and her "appearance" on his radio show by way of a somewhat libelous email that he read on-air, perhaps its time to bring new readers up to speed.

Who is Meaghan Walker-Williams? Good question. Though she writes and comments under a variety of "identities", a google search on her real name will bring up this thread at the libertarian blog, No Treason. It's lengthy, but the portrait of "MWW" is painted primarily in her own words. You can't get better than that.

As you will glean from that discussion, Meaghan had been operating a site called "Blanked Out Times", writing various diatribes and obvious libel under the psuedonym "Edward T. Bear". When her identity was exposed she pulled the site, but not soon enough to avoid a solid whupping from the No-Treason folks.

Meaghan finally retreated to safer territory by, believe it or not - starting her own "No Treason" blog - devoted entirely to talking to and about No-Treason.com in a one woman rant spectacular.

She had had practice. For some months she had sought personal gratification in writing under a variety of names (including mine) at this site dedicated to SDA. Not satisfied with simply making posts, she also writes in her own comments section, agreeing with and congratulating herself.

One would think that commenting across the blogosphere into the wee hours of the morning, sending outraged emails to media and politicians, and running various "sockpuppet" blog sites is enough to keep one woman occupied, but no!

Meaghan Walker-Williams has now announced yet another- this one fixating on one of Canada's best written and original blogs, Dust My Broom. Written by Darcey Jerrom, Shere Khan and Raskolnikov, they bring a mostly conservative-libertarian viewpoint to a variety of issues, including those relating to Indian and Metis culture and politics.

I should flesh this out a little. You see, Meaghan Walker-Williams is a self-declared Indian "activist". But "activist" really doesn't do her justice. You see, Meaghan determines on behalf of "her" people - nay, on behalf of North Americans of all races and recombinations - who is permitted to discuss aboriginal topics, and what views they may express. She is none other than the annointed, the one true keeper of the MWW Official Stamp Of Indian Authenticity And Approved Thought.

No others need apply.

Which brings me, in a round about way, to the reason I decided to make this post. Last night, at her newly spawned "Dustmybroom2", the following literary achievement appeared, albeit briefly ;

Dear Adrian/Raskolnikov/Kate's Beard

Are you capable of making a single essay or comment that doesn't have anything to do with Aboriginals and how much you despise your own people?
I'm just wondering.
Or are you just a One-Trick Pony for the Blogging Tories?
Seriously... why don't you try it some time. Write a post, that doesn't involve your contempt, rage and disgust at Aboriginal Peoples.
If you hate Indians so much... why do you spend so much time doing nothing but thinking about Indians, writing about indians, bashing indians?
For somebody who seems to so despise "identity politics", you are postively enamoured with playing the "Right-Wing Blogging Injun" thing to the hilt.
Don't you know it's boring.
Or are you both still searching for identity Having decided to first discard your own heritage, and then piss and shit all over it as well, as often as you possibly can?
You do know that you are nothing but a "token" to these right-wingers...
That if you dared to challenge them on any subject, on any topic, they will drop you like a hot potatoe, and treat you, with exactly the same contempt that they are applauding you for your snipes and attacks at other indians.
You may have fooled yourself Raskolnikov, into believing that if you can just bash indians
enough, that you won't be associated with the bad stereotypes of indians in the minds of your new found friends.
But no matter how much you scrub your skin, you will never get the smell of "Indian" off of it these people will never forget who you are... even if you have.

So, the next time you read a comment by someone using the initials "MWW", or "Ann Coulter of Canada" or "Drugcop" or "Edward T. Bear" or whatever new personality may yet await to claw its way to the surface - quoting me as saying that "Canada needs institutions to lock up the Indian activists" (or variations thereof), you'll have a much better idea what sort of institution I'm referring to - and the type of Indian "activism" I'm talking about.

Chinada

China E-Lobby picks up another acquisition by the Communist Chinese that has gone virtually unnoticed by the Canadian press. Or perhaps they do notice, but the subject is too close to Liberal Party vulnerabilities to risk mentioning too loudly.

CNPC buys up part of another Canadian oil firm: Meanwhile, the Communists continued their poaching of Canadian-owned resources (third and third items) with the Communist-owned China National Petroleum Corporation's "$1.4 billion acquisition of the Ecuadorean oil assets of Canada's EnCana Corp. this week" (Washington Times).

So.... I wonder how long before a troubled Ontario Hydro is privatized to permit investment in "new infrastructure" by our new bestest frends?

A question those in the oppostiion benches might start posing, don't you think?

Criminal Disregard

A Toronto Sun editorial asks the obvious in the wake of Paul Coffins curfew for pleading guilty to 15 counts of fraud - "Is anyone ever going to be seriously punished for AdScam?"

Here in Saskatchewan, of course, we experienced our own highly publicized poltiical scandal in the 1980's. In view of the severity of Paul Coffin's sentence for defrauding the Canadian taxpayers (you can't call it defrauding "the government" when the government is an accomplice) of $3 million, I thought it might be interesting to review those convicted and jailed over a total of $838,000 in misspent funds in our own province during the 1980's;

- Lorne McLaren, former MLA: 3½ years.
- John Scraba, former communications director: two years, $12,000 in restitution.
- John Gerich, former cabinet minister: two years, $12,264 in restitution.
- Michael Hopfner, former MLA: 18 months, $56,000 in restitution.
- Eric Berntson, former Saskatchewan deputy premier: one year; resigned Senate seat.
- Ralph Katzman, former MLA: one year, $100,000 in restitution

Of course, unlike most of those listed above, Paul Coffin isn't a politician. In fact, no politicians at all have been charged in the Adscam debacle, nor has there been any investigation into broader questions of inappropriate political acquisition of public funds outside of Gomery's narrow mandate - despite the fact that the triggering event for the Governor General's audit was a whistleblower complaint by Public Works employee Alan Cutler - who in 1995 questioned a $15,000 a month retainer that Paul Martin's Finance Department was attempting to push through on behalf of his personal leadership campaign team the firm Earnscliffe.

Of course, the same provincial NDP premier whose party has flogged the "Devine" corruption horse in every election race since, had no problem at all endorsing the faltering minority government this spring. Apparently, Calvert suffers no twangs of ethical hypocrisy in standing shoulder to elbow with corrupt federal Liberals - so long as the cheques keep coming.

Reminscent of an old W.C. Fields joke, Lorne Calvert has established what he is. You can't blame Saskatchewan taxpayers for wondering if there's a secret price list.

Reader Tips

Things are ramping up here with work, and combined with getting ready for a major road trip, my time for blogging is limited.

For the giddy in the mainstream media seemingly suffering from Clinton Affected Memory Disorder, Tom McGuire offers a cure. Meanwhile, John Kerry (who still trails Bush in post-election approval rating pollings) is busy raising Katrina Kash!

Want to know how your Saskatchewan tax burden compares with that of Montana? It's all here. (Short form Sask - 50.58%, Montana - 27.25%) Data for several provinces and northern states, all in one handy table.

Don Martin in the Calgary Herald on the political realities of Brian Mulroney's "sick city";

The problem now is we're trapped by the scenario Prime Minister Paul Martin identified when paying his respects to former Global National bureau chief David Vienneau, who died last year. The parliamentary precinct, he said, is like a "small village" where everybody knows each other.

This much was confirmed while golfing with a respected journalist (is that an oxymoron?) last week. As our floundering game became too depressing to discuss, talk turned to the state of the profession. And that's when this veteran correspondent made a profound, albeit alarming, observation.

"The longer you stay in Ottawa, the harder it is to write anything," he lamented. "The list of topics you can tackle which doesn't burn your contacts or hurt your friends gets shorter and shorter."

That's the bottled essence of Mulroney's rage. If the capital is a village, reporters were the village idiots during his reign. Everybody was friends with everybody else. Except him. He was the outsider. And so they set out to get him. Surely Conservative Leader Stephen Harper can empathize.

Drop your tips in the comments, or send a trackback to your own witty and insightful posts.

Slidell, Louisiana

More pictures, these from Hershblogger;

The attention has been on New Orleans and the levees, but here are some pictures of what the storm surge did on the north side of Lake Pontchartrain.

Prairie Centre Policy Institute

A few months ago I mentioned that the Prairie Centre Policy Institute would do themselves a favour by keeping their website current. Just got a note that they've updated the site. Check it out.

While I was there, I thought I'd snag this nifty little graphic...

Tommy Douglas. Not. Dead. Enough.

Red States, Blue States

A couple of you have sent along John Fund's analysis of the German election at WSJ Opinion Journal. Schroeder ran a campaign that will be familiar to Canadians - blatant anti-Americanism, bolstered with accusations that the right-of-center Christian Democrats had a "hidden agenda". With 11 percent unemployment and zero growth, the election's muddled result is not good news for Europe;

German voters may not again get quite as good a shot at installing a government that can bring about real economic reforms. Voters balked at real change at the last minute. In the words of economist Norbert Walter, "they wanted someone to wash their fur, but at the same time not get it wet." Most Germans understand that their country has to modernize in the long run, but, says Thomas Kielinger, a writer for the newspaper Die Welt, "when push comes to shove many are reluctant to go for the candidate who tells it like it is."

The late economist Mancur Olson argued that the downfall of democracy would be its tendency to calcify into special-interest gridlock. Germany's extensive welfare state has created millions of voters who fear the loss of any benefits. Combine that with voters in eastern Germany who cling to outmoded notions of state support and you have an formidable challenge to bring about real reform.

Ion Mihai Pacepa digs deeper in a National Review piece titled "Berlin's New Anti-American Axis". Pacepa is identified as "the highest-ranking intelligence officer ever to have defected from the former Soviet bloc";

In February 10, 2003, the government of Germany began building a new, anti-American Berlin-Moscow-Paris Axis. As one of the former Soviet bloc experts on German matters (and chief of a bloc intelligence station in West Germany), I had been waiting for something like that to happen ever since October 1998, when Joschka Fischer became Germany's foreign minister.

[...]

It may never be possible to prove "beyond the shadow of a doubt" Joschka Fischer's connection with the Soviet KGB, but I do know that the KGB ? and my DIE ? was financing West Germany's anti-American terrorist movements in the 1970s, while I was still in Romania. Fischer's evidently ingrained anti-Americanism is now spreading throughout the German government, and beyond.

Here is the Angela Merkel quote which once gave me hope that Germany would lose its Socialist ties, at least for some years. "Wir brauchen keine Agenda 2010 mehr, so richtig Schritte von ihr waren, wir brauchen eine Agenda Arbeit. Arbeit braucht Wachstum, und Wachstum braucht Freiheit."

"We do not need "Agenda 2010" (the name of the plan of reforms Chancellor Schröder introduced), as proper as some of its steps are. We need an "Employment/Work Agenda." Employment requires growth, and growth requires freedom."

The Left in Germany and elsewhere in Europe has achieved rarely-acknowledged successes in transforming the country. They were well-conceived and carefully executed:

Education/Indoctrination. During the Cold War, the East Germans established a summer vacation teacher exchange program. The East Germans used this as an opportunity to indoctrinate the teachers from West Germany. During the Cold War, parents of school-age children who could afford it, would for that reason alone send them to private schools.

It was during this time period that West Germany increasingly turned left and, significantly, turned its back on religion as well. Indoctrination done well begins with reinforcing your proclivities.

"Jusos". The "Young Socialists" were formed and given a political role to gain experience and provide continuity in governing. In East Germany there was also the FDJ (Free German Youth) to begin political thinking and activity at an early age.

I may have forgotten, but I know of nothing quite like it on the right.

"Stability" and "Prudence". These were the watchwords of Bush 41 which conveniently left unexamined the record of the most murderous ideology in world history. Imagine, more than eleven million in Ukraine alone, before the outbreak of WWII!

In 1990, Bush 41 did not want anything like a Nuremberg Trial anywhere, not even in now-tiny Hungary. I tried. The common ideology of Socialism that made the murders possible is evident in the formal names of the Nazis and USSR.

As happened with so many others, Markus Wolf went seamlessly from the Nazi regime to become head of the Stasi and then allowed to disappear from view, "punished" with a suspended sentence.

Joschka Fisher. According to Mihai Pacepa, the anti-American sentiment in Germany was carefully-cultivated. Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, according to Pacepa, the highest-ranking intelligence officer to defect during the Cold War, was certainly KGB-supported, probably an officer. His attacks now are more subtle than as a Red Brigade leader. And more damaging.

"Joschka" is just the German spelling of the Hungarian word for "Joe." His parents were Hungarian and left because of Soviet Occupation.

Since once again we talk about a Berlin-Beijing-Moscow-Paris axis, are these the new Axis Powers? Just asking. We will know soon enough.

Eternal Vigilance

Monte Solberg;

It can't be long now until Reg Alcock comes rapelling out of a black helicopter and drops, cat like, on to the roof before slipping through a window.

Juicing Up The Poll Numbers

Did you catch this line in the latest Leger poll?

"The numbers were reached after distribution of the 20 per cent of respondents who were undecided."

D.J. McGuire of China E-Lobby writes;

If I remember your home province correctly (Saskatchewan, right?), you folks actually lived through one of these.  Remember when Roy Romanow was cruising to his 3rd majority in 1999?  When he had a 20-point lead and the election was seen as a formality?  Well, come election day, the UNDs decided almost entirely for the Sask Party, which nearly beat Roy, and the shock pushed him into early retirement.  Germany just went through the same thing, where pollsters had the CDU up 10 points, after it wiped out (ahem, "distributed") UND voters.  They broke largely away from the CDU, and now everyone is stunned.
 
Down here in the US, we just don't poll that way.  The UNDs are not wiped out/"distributed"; their called what they are - undecided.  If an American firm was polling the survey Leger had, for example, it would look like this: Liberal 33.3%, Tories 20%, NDP 12%, Bloc 10.8%, Others 6.6%, Undecided 20%.
 
In other words, the Grits would look good, but there would obviously be enough voters out there to tip the balance.  The next step would be to find out who the UNDs are, to figure out to whom they would lean.  The arguments and other hijinks would then ensue.  Instead, most Canadians who are looking at that poll will see a Grit surge that just isn't there.  This sort of polling is great for whomever is in first, but terrible for everyone else, and wrongly so.
 
Now, Martin et al will dream of a majority, more knives will be out for Harper, and western voters will get a good deal angrier, all because Canadian pollsters can't seem to find the energy to examine, rather than dismiss, undecided voters.

Pardon Me?

CNEWS;

The Saskatchewan government is expanding its system of criminal record checks for civil servants after two workers whose criminal pasts were unknown, were fired over allegations of misspending during the last year.

Neon Sunset

A photo I took a couple of weeks ago, that I thought I'd share.

(Click on the photo for the full sized version)

Tendering The Gomery Report?

(Click graphic for larger version)

A tip from a reader who reads Warren Kinsella (scroll down to his Sept.12 entry), who wonders;

I'm confused. I thought Gomery's PR flak was leaking this morning that their scrupulously-balanced reports would be late. But this MERX posting (nice to see them have a competitive process about something, for once) says otherwise. Any theories, anyone?

At time of writing, it's still available on the MERX site. You can find the Gomery report tender by scrolling down to find Services, "Communications, Photographic, Mapping, Printing and Publication Services".

To echo Kinsella - any theories, anyone?

Chocolate, Vanilla or Fatwa?

Scotsman;

THE fast-food chain, Burger King, is withdrawing its ice-cream cones after the lid of the dessert offended a Muslim. The man claimed the design resembled the Arabic inscription for Allah, and branded it sacrilegious, threatening a "jihad".

The chain is being forced to spend thousands of pounds redesigning the lid with backing from The Muslim Council of Britain. It apologised and said: "The design simply represents a spinning ice-cream cone."

The offending lid was spotted in a branch in Park Royal last week by business development manager Rashad Akhtar, 27, of High Wycombe. He was not satisfied by the decision to withdraw the cones and has called on Muslims to boycott Burger King. He said: "This is my jihad. How can you say it is a spinning swirl? If you spin it one way to the right you are offending Muslims."

Update - picture here

Hitchens vs Galloway, Transcript

Further to this link to the audio files of the Hitchens - Galloway debate, an unofficial transcript is now up.

ADSCAM : "a triumph of entrepreneurship"

Anonalogue isn't impressed with the track record of Ethics Commissioner Bernard Shapiro.

Post Katrina Postcard

From reader Joe McElyea in Texas;

My wife Mary and I own a store here in Dallas and we have part time help on sale days like today. This morning I was talking to one of our friends who helps us out, Janis works full time as an assistant to the main pastor of a large church here and we were comparing notes about how our churches were helping the thousands of relief people here in Dallas.

Her comment was astounding, unless you had connections there were so many churches and people turning out to help that church efforts were turned away and they were instructed to please give cash and specific items to meet specific needs. It seems as if every church including our Methodist church is sponsoring a family in a home, we have an extra parsonage. In Janis' church there is a man who is coordinating with apartment complexes and they are putting people in apartments for up to 18 months rent free. And yesterday one of my sales reps. was telling me about her church furnishing two houses completely for families, this is going on all over North Texas and our clergy is telling us that this will be a long term commitment, not just a quick fix.

It appears that our own poor people might also benefit from this outpouring since food banks have never been so full and clothing drives have filled up available spaces for storage, we know that the needs will never go away but a lot of effort and love have come forth to help at this time.

However I just spoke to a customer who is an attorney, one of his friends has just been appointed as a federal judge in New Orleans and he along with other attorneys are telling us that a major concern is the power structure in Louisiana, mostly it is old time democrats and their friends and buddies are lining up to see how much they can reap off of the rebuilding. I also have a friend who is a social security judge who spent several years in Louisiana and she told me almost verbatim the same thing. Kind of ironic isn't it?

So, here we are watching the poor people who have been displaced get a hand up, most of them are totally appreciative and it will be interesting to see how they assimilate into our North Texas culture where we have a dynamic black, middle and upper socioeconomic class of people. I am so tired of the media picking out evacuees who are misspending their money, it is their money since they were given the money, and then media guys search to find the unhappy cranky people to put their voices on the air.

The majority of these fine people are thankful, prayerful and moving on the best they can while we stand in line and work our connections to help them.

Election Day In Afghanistan

An email from an old friend in the Canadian Armed Forces speaks for itself;

It is a beautiful sunny Sunday morning here is Kabul. It is the day of the elections here. There have not been an election like this in almost 30 years. There are 2,775 candidates, 335 of them are women. They are competing for 249 National Assembly seats. Also 3,025 candidates are vying for seats in 34 provinces.

We all wait patiently here at the base for all 'hell' to break loose. In a country noted for dragging candidates out into the street in broad daylight, to publicly execute them by beheading, without danger of reprimand. Anything could happen.

In a country traditionally run by warlords, now the warlords run for parliament. Even though many have been disqualified, still a large percentage are linked to armed groups. One of the top warlords is running as a candidate. What will happen to the people if these people are elected?

Yesterday a few incidences occurred in and around the key points, Kabul and Kandahar. Rebels set up ambush points where even the police are not safe from the attacks. Taliban have vowed to disrupt the elections at all costs.

The soldiers, the Canadians, and even the camp has been threatened and put at risk and all are on alert.

Just another day in 'paradise'.

Update: Publius.is collecting links and commentary on the day's progress.

Udate II, via the comments: CNN is reporting that the election went relatively smoothly with good turnout, and although there was isolated violence, there were no civilian casualties.

The Latham Diaries

The one time would-be Prime Minister of Australia.

h/t Damian Penny

When Corruption Kills

The already tangled Katrina relief story takes another twist;

Senior officials in Louisiana's emergency planning agency already were awaiting trial over allegations stemming from a federal investigation into waste, mismanagement and missing funds when Hurricane Katrina struck. And federal auditors are still trying to track as much as $60 million in unaccounted for funds that were funneled to the state from the Federal Emergency Management Agency dating back to 1998.

In March, FEMA demanded that Louisiana repay $30.4 million to the federal government. The problems are particularly worrisome, federal officials said, because they involve the Louisiana Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness, the agency that will administer much of the billions in federal aid anticipated for victims of Katrina.

Carrying that thought a step further, Canadians might consider asking where the claimed $10 bilion in security spending by the "people who brought you Adscam" is going in this country - and who it is going to.

Be Careful Who You Pull A Knife On

Yeow.

Just One More Picture

What started with a photo op, is ending with a photo op.

At the bar after a long day of cleaning up trash left behind by Hurricane Katrina’s massive storm surge, some seem bitter that the military was already making plans to pull out again four days after our warships first anchored off Biloxi, Miss.

“It’s all about the PR,” said one sailor. “Stand in front of the camera and look nice.”

To many sailors, the humanitarian mission has obvious political overtones.

“It doesn’t matter to us,” said one naval officer. “We get paid to serve, so whatever the country wants us to do, we do.”

To be fair, lots of people who went ashore from HMCS Ville de Quebec, HMCS Toronto and HMCS Athabaskan did plenty of good work in the area Katrina hammered two weeks ago. They cleaned up a church, a seniors’ home, a sports and recreation centre and helped out at an emergency food distribution centre. And the Halifax-based coast guard buoy tender Sir William Alexander will surely be useful as it starts assisting the Americans to put their navigational markers back in place.

But the U.S. Navy — which was in charge of organizing the Canadian work parties — seemed ill-prepared to assign the Canadians major tasks.

“I get pretty pissed off when I don’t have something to do,” said one frustrated Canadian sailor. “Maybe they don’t trust us.”

[...]

The ships will pull out of here tomorrow, after a weekend visit from Gen. Rick Hillier, chief of the defence staff.

As they touch up paint in preparation for Hillier’s tour, some sailors are unhappy they aren’t getting the chance to do more before they leave Mississippi.

“I just can’t believe we’re leaving as early as we are. There’s so much to be done here,” said one sailor.

“It’s really sad. I know one thing — we were working like dogs down here.”

While the official line is the Yanks are happy as heck for the help from their favourite neighbour, things aren’t always so rosy in the real world. Some of the U.S. crews responsible for running the slow-moving landing craft that take more than two hours to get Canadians ashore grumbled the Canucks were difficult to manage. Some were downright surly.

“It’s like herding a bunch of f---ing cats,” said one American sailor.

Canadian brass say ships were the only way to bring supplies and muscle to this region without placing additional burden on the already taxed infrastructure.

But that argument’s a tad weak when you see how much the Americans have done for the Canadians.

They feed the visiting sailors lunch, bus them around and ferry them back and forth to the warships anchored about 40 kilometres from shore.

To his credit, the task group’s commander said the operation would have run better if he’d had a large amphibious ship that could carry its own landing craft and trucks to get around in once sailors get to land, rather than relying on the Americans. That’s the ship the navy has been talking about acquiring all year.

“I need to be able to move people and equipment quickly to shore.” said Commodore Dean McFadden.

Living Museum Pieces

The dogs of Great St. Bernard Hospice are no more.

In an age of heat sensors and helicopters, the dogs have became obsolete and the 12 pups are being raised to ensure the purity of their ancient pedigree.

"It's a shame," said Marie-Helene Sbai, as she and her boyfriend shook the rain off their coats in the museum's entrance. "It's the entire dog's heritage that no longer exists. It's clear that they weren't really rescuing people anymore."

St. Bernards, raised by the hospice's religious order since the 17th century, are credited with saving some 2,000 pilgrims traveling between Switzerland and Italy over the centuries.
    
A St. Bernard was last used in a search around 1975, said the friars. Upkeep of the gentle, slobbering beasts was expensive and time-consuming. So the dogs were sold.
    
In April, two foundations were created to care for the dogs and build a museum in their honor. The Barry of the Great Saint Bernard Foundation, which bought the dogs, was set up in January with $656,000 donated by Christine Cerletti, a singer in the northern Swiss city of Basel. It is named after a St. Bernard that lived in the monastery from 1800 to 1812 and helped save more than 40 people.
    
A second foundation created by former Geneva banker Bernard de Watteville and his wife, Caroline, is building a museum 22 miles away in Martigny, at the foot of the pass on the Swiss side where the dogs have spent winters for the five decades since their rescue duties began to dwindle.

Unlike the traditional museum piece, however, dog breeds are "living history", and while breed type and temperament traits are sometimes modified to suit demands of the show ring and modern lifestyles (as in the stabilzation of temperaments in the once "sharp" Doberman Pinscher), most breeds still bear strong resemblance, as well as uncorrupted genetic pedigrees that trace back to the times of their working ancestors.

It's one of the reasons serious breeders in all species pay such close attention to what seem to the untrained eye to be minor "beauty" points. The small details of breed type, like set of ear and shape of eye, colour details, coat texture - are often important indicators that the genetic history of these animals has been preserved intact for another generation.

"The Net Knows More Than You"

Jay Rosen has an open letter to the people of CBS. A year after "Rathergate", he'd like to know what they've learned.

People of CBS News, the Net knows more than you. The chances are fairly high that a given producer at CBS would not know enough southern history to grasp what Senator Trent Lott was actually saying when he praised Strom Thurmond's 1948 campaign for president. The chances of the blogosphere not knowing this background are zero.

Occupied New Orleans

The lengthy ruse is finally over;

"George Bush needs to stop talking, admit the mistakes of his all around failed administration, pull our troops out of occupied New Orleans and Iraq, and excuse his self from power..."

Blair's "Brutal Honesty" On Kyoto

James Pinkerton, Tech Central Station;

Kyoto Treaty RIP. That's not the headline in any newspaper this morning emerging from the first day of the Clinton Global Initiative, but it could have been -- and should have been.
 
Onstage with former president Bill Clinton at a midtown Manhattan hotel ballroom, British Prime Minister Tony Blair said he was going to speak with "brutal honesty" about Kyoto and global warming, and he did. And Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had some blunt talk, too.
 
Blair, a longtime supporter of the Kyoto treaty, further prefaced his remarks by noting, "My thinking has changed in the past three or four years." So what does he think now? "No country, he declared, "is going to cut its growth." That is, no country is going to allow the Kyoto treaty, or any other such global-warming treaty, to crimp -- some say cripple -- its economy.
 
Looking ahead to future climate-change negotiations, Blair said of such fast-growing countries as India and China, "They're not going to start negotiating another treaty like Kyoto." India and China, of course, weren't covered by Kyoto in the first place, which was one of the fatal flaws in the treaty. But now Blair is acknowledging the obvious: that after the current Kyoto treaty -- which the US never acceded to -- expires in 2012, there's not going to be another worldwide deal like it.
 
So what will happen instead? Blair answered: "What countries will do is work together to develop the science and technology….There is no way that we are going to tackle this problem unless we develop the science and technology to do it." Bingo! That's what eco-realists have been saying all along, of course -- that the only feasible way to deal with the issue of greenhouse gases and global warming is through technological breakthroughs, not draconian cutbacks.

Blair concluded with a rhetorical question-and-answer: "How do we move forward, post- Kyoto? It can only be done by the major players coming together and pooling their resources, to find their way to come together."
 
Interestingly, these words from Blair, addressing an audience of a thousand at the Sheraton just a few blocks north of Times Square, failed to get any pickup in the media. Even The New York Times, published just down the street, ran a story that dwelt on the star power in the room, including King Abdullah of Jordan, Jesse Jackson, and George Stephanopoulos. "Isn't this awesome?" said one participant, and those words seemed to reflect fully the Times' take on the event.

What Many Knew All Along

But the partisan in media took particular pains to avoid reporting;

"I really should have called for the military," Blanco said, while chatting with her press secretary in between TV interviews. "I really should have started that in the first call."

Unbeknownst to Blanco, her bombshell acknowledgment was recorded on a network satellite feed, and by Tuesday the clip was getting wide exposure in Louisiana news broadcasts.

In the early days of the Katrina crisis, disaster management experts repeatedly blamed the failure to send in the National Guard for the city's descent into chaos.

Most observers blamed the White House for the blunder - a misconception that was thoroughly dispelled by the governor's inadvertent confession.

Some say Blanco's blooper was responsible for the abrupt change of tone in her speech Wednesday night to the Louisiana legislature.

Where earlier she and her aides had openly blamed the Bush administration for bungling Katrina rescue efforts, Blanco announced: "The buck stops here, and as your governor, I take full responsibility."

Just as surprising were Blanco's words of praise for the White House: "I want the people of Louisiana to know that we have a friend and a partner in President George W. Bush. I thank you, Mr. President."

After Bush's speech in Louisiana yesterday, ABC news interviewed people on the street. Unfortunately, there was no opportunity to cherry pick the responses;

After the speech ended, ABC provided a scene of wonderful high comedy, with reporter Dean Reynolds interviewing evacuees outside the Astrodome and repeatedly getting the "wrong" answers delivered in the almost musical accent of black New Orleans. Do you think the President was sincere? "Yes." Did you hear anything you didn't believe? "No, I didn't." One woman not only declined to criticize the President, she forcefully argued that state and local authorities deserve the lion's share of the blame for not acting long before the feds could be expected to arrive, invoking the famous unused buses.

Poor Reynolds, caught in a white liberal nightmare where the black people refuse to follow the script. But it's no surprise that Bush won the evacuees over. It was, as one woman put it, "a well fine speech."

A Dissident Writes

I'm a CBC worker in Toronto, and 'locked out.' (I have a problem with that status. Management gave us notification of the lockout about eighty hours before we were locked out. [Law gives 72.] If they hadn't have blinked first, it would have been a strike call within eight hours or less. But because management jumped the gun, we all can strut around saying we're locked out even though it's just a technicality.)

The tenor of what I've heard from the loudspeakers is that it's all a part of the Alamo mentality. We are the last bulwark against the neo-cons. Then we got our pets show. The Barenaked Ladies. The Roging Grannies. Various piggybacking soul and rap singers.

Arnold Amber (my fearless leader) wrote in the Globe and Mail that jounalistic integrity would be compromised by more contracts. One would curry favour. But from what I've seen in the past weeks, we're already currying.

The NDP shows up every week, all sorts of other union-left groups show (International Day of Solidarity? Is the ComIntern still operating?) and promote themselves upon my aching back.

Another Phone Book Published

The chimpanzee genome has been sequenced, joining that of the cat, dog, horse, cow, mouse, elephant and others. Unfortunately, they're all written in Klingon.

But when researchers announced the latest addition to the genome list last week, it made national headlines, thanks to the nature of the beast - our closest living relative, the chimpanzee. The $25 million chimp project was part of a federal program to sequence animal genomes that costs taxpayers $130 million a year.

Some enthusiasts claimed that data from the project proved Darwin's theory of evolution beyond a reasonable doubt. Others said the information could eventually make it easier to develop treatments for diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.

But some scientists are now questioning whether the expensive and complex sequencing of so many animal genomes is worth the effort. They argue that science needs more research on the anatomy and physiology of the animals themselves - and less into genetic heritage.

"We've sequenced all these animals, but it really doesn't help much yet because we don't know the functions of so many human genes, or their counterpart genes in other animals," said Bernard Wood, an anthropology professor and an expert on apes and evolution at George Washington
University.

"You could say that the technology has advanced beyond our ability to make good use of the information."

Wood's review of the anatomical differences between chimpanzees and humans, published a few years ago in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found that of 1,700 anatomical structures in humans, there are only 200 counterpart structures that match up in chimps.

"We still don't know enough about chimpanzees," he said.

Genome sequencing is the process of identifying the order of the billions of pairs of genetic code that dictate an organism's functions and characteristics. To sequence a genome, researchers extract DNA from a blood or tissue sample and use sophisticated machines to identify the arrangements of the long chains of chemicals, known as "base pairs," that together form different genes.

But the genetic code is written in an unfamiliar language, so sequencing a genome of any plant or animal doesn't immediately lay open its genetic secrets.

From the Baltimore Sun.

Oh! Not Mo Again!

Good news - Debbye is back;

[S]candal seems to be becoming Canada's chief industry, as Bill takes note of yet another Canadian boondoggle which is finally being subjected to scrutiny: Audit of $2.9 billion TPC program expands and (oh my aching head) Paul Martin's mentor, Maurice Strong who was also implicated in OFF, is involved. Again.

Auditing The Libranos, Redux

The Canadian Taxpayers Ass'n is talking about something that was pointed out months ago by blogger MK Braaten - that the Liberal Party of Canada "Adscam audit" wasn't an audit at all.

The Liberal Party of Canada has failed to conduct a forensic audit of its financial records to determine whether any "dirty money" made its way into party coffers. Leading forensic auditor and fraud expert Dr. Al Rosen has assessed the Liberal Party's alleged accounting review as misleading, inconclusive, and "half baked." The Liberal Party of Canada should not be in receipt of any tax dollars - whether technically legal or not - from the Adscam scheme.

Then, for good measure, call or email your local news outlet and ask why they're coverng Britney Spears' new brat instead of stories like this.

The "C Cup"

Heh.

And I thought the "Take30 Cup" was funny.

*

Chinese Beauty Secrets

But are they testing the stuff for lead content?

h/t Lost Budgie.

Geek Alert

Patrick Ruffini has too much time on his hands;

ECorps allows web geeks, blog aficionados, and graphic designers across America to come in and share what they're good at. From this, we'll build a community of like- minded people just like you. You don't have to be especially political to join, and you don't have to have architected a Fortune 500 company web site either: a snazzy blog, or even just a willingness to learn will do just fine. If you're not the person for this, is the webmaster or database administrator at the office a closet Republican? Then send this to them. I'll need everyone's help to spread the word far and wide beyond the blogosphere.

Do you dabble in Flash, and wonder why everyone just like you seems like a Michael Moore-addled lefty? Tired of the liberal tilt on Slashdot? Then ECorps is perfect for you. Not only will you network with interesting folks, but you never know -- you may learn about some interesting side gigs.

Climate Change: Mitigation VS Adaptation

Fred, over at Gay and Right, has picked up on a report that echoes something I've long argued - that if climate change is indeed real, then it's the height of human arrogance to pretend we can reverse it, even if human activity is one of the contributors. Despite all the advances in science and technology, not much progress made in changing the weather.

One approach — mitigation — would limit carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere largely by reducing emissions due to human activities. The Kyoto Protocol is an example of this approach. The second approach — adaptation — would reduce society’s vulnerability to, or help cope with, the consequences of global climate change due to higher CO2 emissions.

The projections underlying this study are from researchers who are sympathetic to mitigation. However, their conclusions show that adaptation is preferable. Cost estimates are based on reports from various United Nations-affiliated organizations.

Then, make it stop.

Human (and animal) kind has survived massive climate shifts throughout our history, and barring cataclysmic change, will continue to do so. The resources that will be sucked down the wealth transfer hole under Kyoto would be better applied to adaptation.

The obvious advantage to the adaptation model is that there isn't nearly as much guesswork involved. Furthermore, even if a magic device were invented tomorrow that neatly removed massive amounts of CO2 from the atomosphere for mere pennies a day, we cannot assume that the results would include a stabilization of weather. Because, meteorological  semantics aside, it's local weather patterns that we must live with and adapt to, regardless of what direction the overall climate is going in.

Update - DO NOT MENTION THE WEATHER MACHINE UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES

Hitchens vs Galloway

KPFTX.org has audio up of the debate.

update: Unofficial transcript.

No, He's Not The Centerfold

Now, you can say you "only read it for the bloggers".

Manitoba Disorder Of The Sash

Darcey Jerrom spotted this amusing item;

Premier Gary Doer's speech at the Manitoba Metis Federation's general assembly this morning might be a bit awkward. Doer was supposed to receive the Manitoba Order of the Sash, the federation's highest honour, at its 37th annual meeting in Brandon."

The Manitoba Metis Federation rescinded the honour at a meeting this past weekend but were unable to get ahold of Doer to tell him

The Blame Game: Score At Half-Time

The post-Katrina poll results you didn't hear about.

They Just Can't Help Themselves

Tom Brodbeck in the Winnipeg Sun;

One television report this week had Mulroney calling former Tory cabinet minister Joe Clark "stupid" in the book.

Actually, what Mulroney really said in the book was that Clark was a weak leader and didn't have the capacity to manage his caucus when he was party leader.

"I'm not so sure that he does today, although if he hasn't learned anything over the last seven or eight years, he'd be a very stupid man, and he's not stupid," said Mulroney.

The TV report turned "not stupid" into "stupid."

Maybe Mulroney's not so crazy after all.

Driving Miss Pettigrew

Daisy Werthan: Hoke?

Hoke Colburn: Yes'm.

Daisy Werthan: You're my best friend.

Hoke Colburn: No, go on Miss Daisy.

Daisy Werthan: No, really, you are...

[Takes Hoke's hand]

Daisy Werthan: You are.

Hoke Colburn: Yes'm.

Out With A Whimper

Monte Solberg;

I'm told that the PMO has had around thirty staff changes in the last year. I note that long time loyalist Ruth Thorkelson quietly left the PMO as Deputy Chief of Staff for the office that makes appointments. I note too that this happened after the Michaele Jean uproar. Clearly these two things are unconnected and no stories should be written connecting the two.

Though, let's be fair to the national media - insignificant departures from the Prime MInister's office are just so hard to fit it in, what with the headline grabbing coverage of Conservatives letting go staffers, Conservatives in Quebec criticizing the leader, and Conservatives dropping out... er, not dropping out of candidacy races.

Walking Off The Pounds

Via the Corner;

Steve Vaught, a roughly 400-pound man, is walking from Oceanside, CA to New York City, because, as he says, he wants to "lose weight and regain my life." According to his website, he has made it over a thousand miles so far and is now in Texas.

Which reminds me - ever since hearing about this little tromp, It occurred to me that those high-priced weight loss spas that ask clients to pack bathing suits might consider providing parkas instead.

The Film That Launched A Thousand Suicide Bombers

Now the camera focuses on a man and a boy crouched behind a concrete barrel or culvert, their faces contorted in fear. Enderlin: "Here Jamal al-Dura and his son are targets of gunfire from Israeli positions." The camera pans to a nearby Israeli outpost. The father waves with his right hand in the direction of the Israeli position. The father is hunched behind the barrel, the boy nestled against his back. Enderlin:

Muhammad is twelve years old. His father tries to protect him. He waves. But another round of fire bursts out. Muhammad is dead, and his father grievously wounded.

During the 55-second sequence, two shots have hit a concrete-block wall that stands like a backdrop for the scene, landing far afield of the father and son. Other bullet holes, similarly off-target, can be seen in the wall as well. The father shields the boy; the father's arm is clearly visible, perpendicular to the ground. Guttural cries are heard, adding to the feeling of panic. The last round of gunfire kicks up a cloud of dust, obscuring the man and boy. When the dust clears, the boy is stretched out at his father's feet; the father bobs his head as if groggy.

And that was it. As Enderlin would later explain, the reason France-2's scoop was offered free to the world was that the producers did not want to earn a profit from so tragic an incident. Only the terrible moments of the child's death throes, he added, had been edited out, being "too unbearable." The film sequence itself, attributed at first to a "France-2 cameraman," was subsequently identified as the work of the station's Palestinian stringer, Talal Abu Rahmeh. By then, the full authority and reputation of France-2 itself had been indelibly stamped on the footage.

[...]

In one version of his story, Talal Abu Rahmeh went to Netzarim junction at seven in the morning on a hunch that the children would be out demonstrating "because it was a school day," and he knew they demonstrated on school days. In another version, he ran over to the junction at 3 PM, after someone called his office to inform him that there were fierce battles going on. The outtakes show he was there from early morning. Apparently, a dozen of his colleagues had the same intuition; they too can be seen in the raw footage.

The Reuters, AP, and France-2 outtakes that I viewed show two totally different and easily identifiable types of activity at Netzarim junction: real, intifada-style attacks, and crudely falsified battle scenes. Both the real and the fake scenes are played out against a background of normal civilian activity at a busy crossroads. In the "reality" zone, excited children and angry young men hurl rocks and Molotov cocktails at the Israeli outpost while shababs ("youths") standing on the roof of the Twins throw burning tires down onto the caged lookout; this goes on seemingly for hours, without provoking the slightest military reaction from Israeli soldiers.

At the same time, in the "theatrical" zone, Palestinian stringers sporting prestigious logos on their vests and cameras are seen filming battle scenes staged behind the abandoned factory, well out of range of Israeli gunfire. The "wounded" sail through the air like modern dancers and then suddenly collapse. Cameramen jockey with hysterical youths who pounce on the "casualties," pushing and shoving, howling Allahu akhbar!, clumsily grabbing the "injured," pushing away the rare ambulance attendant in a pale green polyester jacket in order to shove, twist, haul, and dump the "victims" into UN and Red Crescent ambulances that pull up on a second's notice and career back down the road again, sirens screaming. In one shot we recognize Talal Abu Rahmeh in his France-2 vest, filming a staged casualty scene.*

Split seconds of these ludicrous vignettes would later appear in newscasts and special reports; the husk, the raw footage that would reveal the fakery, had been removed, leaving the kernel rich in anti-Israel nutrients.

Such staged scenes showed up, for example, in a dramatic CBS 60 Minutes special report on Netzarim crossing - a place "now known," intoned Bob Simon, echoing Palestinian sources, "as Martyr's Junction."

The al-Dura death scene was filmed right in the middle of these falsified incidents. It can be localized and situated. In one section of Reuters footage we see the man and the boy crouched behind the upended culvert as a jeep drives slowly up the road, stops in firing range of the Israeli position that is clearly visible in the near distance, makes a U-turn, drives in the opposite direction, stops short of the barrel/culvert, and helps perform the clearly faked evacuation of a man wounded in the right leg, as also shown in the France-2 news report. In fact, two ambulances stand for a long moment no more than fifteen feet from the al-Duras. There is no evidence of armed combat in their vicinity. No sound of gunfire. Men run down the road, passing in front of the al-Duras. No one is hit.

David Gelernter has the full sequence of photo stills, along with more on the consequences of this bit of film making.

Deuce Four Heads Home

Michael Yon's latest dispatch from Iraq carries an update on LTC Erik Kurilla's recovery and the progress his team made in Mosul.

As the Deuce Four heads home this week, they leave behind a Mosul that, while not yet in the clear, is much closer to security and prosperity than anyone would have considered possible eight months ago. In between the daily secret reports Kurilla has brought to his hospital room so he can track his battalion, the Commander watches television news, increasingly frustrated by what he sees as a clear, and inaccurate, negative bias. "When you get the news back here in the states, it's all doom and body counts. I only wish the American public could see the incredible progress that is being made every day in Iraq, particularly in places like Mosul."

Heh

Ted Kennedy's SCOTUS confirmation hearings crib notes.

Your search - "an independent review of the Calgary Police Service" - did not match any documents

In April of this year, the Calgary police chief went to extraordinary ends to seize a computer owned by a civilian employee. This was not for a criminal investigation, but a civil suit. Calgary Herald, April 9th;

Calgary Police Service Chief Jack Beaton has obtained a secret court order to seize from a civilian employee of the department a computer believed to be used in creating a website critical of his leadership.

The Anton Piller Order, a rarely used legal remedy aimed at preserving evidence in specific civil court cases, was executed by several police officers Saturday at the southeast Calgary home of Jan Vahey, who is contracted to do transcription work for the police service.

The order -- along with the reasons it was sought and approved by the judge -- have been sealed by the court, keeping its contents secret.  Vahey said she's forbidden by the court order from speaking to anyone about it.

Deloitte & Touche, LLP ("Deloitte") has been engaged by the Calgary Police Commission to conduct an independent review of the Calgary Police Service public and internal complaint process. The review will assess:

* accessibility
* effectiveness
* efficiency

As part of this review Deloitte is seeking written submissions from interested parties in the complaints process. These submissions should outline:

* accessibility to the complaint process
* barriers to the complaint process

Additionally, Deloitte is interested in all parties' views as to the effectiveness, efficiency or failings of the complaint process.

These written submissions must be received by Deloitte no later than midnight October 15, 2005.

Please send your comments to the attention of:
Brian Tario, Firm Director
3000 Scotia Centre
700 2 Street S.W.
Calgary, Alberta
T2P 0S7

If further detail is required please contact Brian Tario at 403-267-1768 or by e-mail at btario@deloitte.ca

Apparently a stingy little contract they have with Deloitte, considering how small and well-buried this notice is!

Nor has it been posted on the Commission, The CPS, City of Calgary or Calgary Police Association websites. 

Good News From Iraq Continues

Arthur Chrenkoff is signing off. A step up the professional ladder requires that he discontinue blogging.

Few other bloggers have achieved what Arthur has, in almost single-handedly bringing balance and context to the greater progress being made in both Iraq and Afghanistan. If you have been framing your opinion on post-war Iraq through the lens of the mainstream media, you owe it to yourself to read Arthur's final installment of good news. You'll be astonished at how much there is. If you search the archives, how much there has been in all these months of car-bomb-a-day reporting from the "green zone".

The good news is that the series will continue - the team at Winds of Change has taken up the torch, and have established a new site devoted to the series, titled Good News From The Front.

Bookmark it!

Tales From The Land Of Milk And Granite Curbs

The City of Ottawa guaranteed a loan for the organizers of this year's Gay Pride Parade;

Parade organizers borrowed $50,000 from the TD bank to hold the parade, and somebody at the city thought it was a good idea to guarantee the lone. When the gays stiffed the bank and walked away from the load, the city was left to pay the bill.

This is just wrong at a number of levels.

One of the problems is that the city had to dedicate a large number of police officers to the event - and by the way the officers were on orders to wish everyone there a "Happy Pride Day". With those costs involved, and with our short staffing issues with Ottawa police, don't you think we would be better served if the police officers were doing more essential things like stopping kids from breaking windows at schools or setting houses and dumpsters on fire in Barrhaven?

As city residents, we need our tax dollars to go to pay for the lack of essential services. A gay pride parade is not a core service.

If there is going to be a parade, that's fine. But if the gay community has so much pride, maybe next year they can pay for the parade themselves.

Paging Gurmant Grewal

The Canadian media and their cohorts on the Liberal-left side of the blogosphere are set to go nuclear in their condemnation of Peter C. Newman. Watch for words like "sleazy", "dishonest" and "unethical".

Information in his new book on Brian Mulroney, titled "The Secret Mulroney Tapes" was obtained by secretly taping conversations and phone calls between himself and the former prime minister.

So, fasten your seatbelts and reach for your earplugs. As we have already seen, the white hot lens of political punditry and media scrutiny is about to beam down on Mr. Newman.

Wake me when it starts.

Reader Tips

Busy day here, so I'll just pass along a few items that have dropped in my inbox over the past few hours.

Reader Peter Benyk emails on a topic I haven't followed, because I don't care about satellite radio. Others do, so;

The two Canadian companies have finally been granted approval for broadcasting satellite radio from the Federal cabinet. Although they were approved earlier by the CRTC for licenses heavy lobbying from Quebec insisted there be and even number of French and English stations and now there will be four of each. The licensees relented to this bit of blackmail and as a result the federal cabinet approved both licenses. How ludicrous that this government insist on this provision as if the population of this country was split with approximately half communicating in French and the other half communicating in English. We know at best the figures would be 4 to 1 English over French. These radio stations are to carry a prescribed amount of Canadian talent so where is the equity in developing the English talent if their outlets are minimized so they are equal to the number of French outlets. This is just another example in my book where Quebec is dictating the Federal Liberal policies of Canada and if you wondered if there was truth to a common complaint that French is being shoved down the throat (and ears) of Canadians here you have it in living color. English speaking Canadians are being forced to split the number of English stations 50/50 as if this reflected the French -English population and talent pool of this country. Since 90% of the people who communicate in French are located in the Quebec area it is reasonable to assume that they will be able to get along with fewer stations but why limit and handcuff the English speaking population, by only giving them an equal number of stations, who are servicing a much broader cross section of people in Canada and are highly involved in providing English services in every province and who are in fact servicing a much larger pool of Canadian talent albeit English speaking.

Lots at China E-Lobby today.

Communist leader Hu Jintao came to his hotel in Toronto "via the underground parking garage" (Epoch Times) rather than face the Falun Gong and Tibetan protestors who jostled for position with the usual group of bribed welcomers.

In the 1970's the US Congress approved a massive barrier system for New Orleans. An environmental lawsuit took care of that!

A pastor in Alberta is facing a human rights tribunal over a letter to the editor in a Red Deer newspaper criticizing homosexuality. If he loses, he could be forced to pay $7,000 in fines - including $2,000 to the homosexual-rights group EGALE Canada.

$2,000 just for being offended? Time to register REDNECK Canada as a non-profit, methinks.

(Add your own in the comments, or send a trackback to this post.)

Prime Minister Poll

Though I have my doubts about this poll (the last hours of the second round of the first round saw a surge of votes for P.E. "We have a great deal to learn from the Soviet Union" Trudeau that looked a whole lot like a cookie-deleting party), I've been asked by a couple of readers to direct you to the Calgary Grit online poll, to help send Sir John A. MacDonald over the top.

Journalism Today: Never Let Timeline Get In The Way

Update: He's having server problems, but the post linked to below can be accessed here for now

In a lengthy entry, Jeff Goldstein begins by quoting Jack Kelly in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in a report that takes dead aim at Katrina reporting;

It is settled wisdom among journalists that the federal response to the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina was unconscionably slow.

"Mr. Bush's performance last week will rank as one of the worst ever during a dire national emergency," wrote New York Times columnist Bob Herbert in a somewhat more strident expression of the conventional wisdom.

But the conventional wisdom is the opposite of the truth.

Jason van Steenwyk is a Florida Army National Guardsman who has been mobilized six times for hurricane relief. He notes that:

"The federal government pretty much met its standard time lines, but the volume of support provided during the 72-96 hour was unprecedented. The federal response here was faster than Hugo, faster than Andrew, faster than Iniki, faster than Francine and Jeanne."

For instance, it took five days for National Guard troops to arrive in strength on the scene in Homestead, Fla. after Hurricane Andrew hit in 2002. But after Katrina, there was a significant National Guard presence in the afflicted region in three.

Journalists who are long on opinions and short on knowledge have no idea what is involved in moving hundreds of tons of relief supplies into an area the size of England in which power lines are down, telecommunications are out, no gasoline is available, bridges are damaged, roads and airports are covered with debris, and apparently have little interest in finding out.

So they libel as a "national disgrace" the most monumental and successful disaster relief operation in world history.

We know that Bush watches ESPN.  We know that the Iraq War is a failure.  We know that the President surrounds himself with yes men.  And all these things-when coupled with his "failure of imagination" (a more "imaginative" President presumably would have shredded the Constitution and dropped active duty troops into New Orleans over the objections of a sitting governor, and would've done so on Tuesday as the levees were breaking-in effect, anticipating what the local government was unable both to anticipate and prepare for) - highlight Bush's failure.

In short, the dumbest, Chimpiest, most fascist President ever failed to be the most prescient, creative, Constitutionally "proactive" President ever.

This, my friends, is "journalism."

Journalists, take note. This is why increasing numbers of Americans - and Canadians - are turning off their network news and cancelling subscriptions. The "art of omission" is a dangerous ploy in an age where the media consumer has near instant, unfiltered free access to legal and constitutional experts, transcripts, archival material, and witnesses on the scene.

When viewers and readers discover you are ignoring the details - in this case, details like the limitations placed on presidential powers by the US Constitution - in a transparent ploy to score political points, you damage the relationship with the information consumer on a multitude of levels.

That you inflict long term damage on your own professional credibility goes without saying. What seems less understood by your profession is that your actions convey a profound contempt for your readers and listeners. Disingenuously superficial and/or inappropriately politicized versions of current events are an insult to our intelligence - and we know it.

As frustrating as this facade of journalism is to those of us who have the time to seek out a variety of sources to sift fact from half-fact, there are sobering implications that go beyond immediate reporting. Subverting the legitimate public policy debate that should arise out of this disaster (both in the US and here - where Vancouver awaits the "big one") places lives at stake. Our lives.

If you, as a member of the general public, don't feel a little uneasy at the eagerness of a crocodile media whose tears mix with saliva as they report rising ratings "rising death tolls" , if you don't realize that our lives are no more valuable to these people than those in a Baghdad cafe or New Orleans street, you're deluding yourself.

Disaster and terrorism fatalities serve a political purpose for a significant number of people who are posing as journalists while they pursue a higher ideological purpose. In their eyes, we're just so many potential body parts for the next Pulitzer Prize winning illustration of their world view. These people are not on our side. They're on theirs.

Related: Katrina timeline, plus this Hugh Hewitt inteview with Mark Steyn.

Update: Ben Stein says "The real story is that the mainstream media rioted."

We Stand On Guard For Thee

Paul Tuns;

In March 2004, in the wake of the Adscam scandal, Auditor General Sheila Fraser released another damning report, this one on Ottawa's inaction on addressing national security concerns. She highlighted the vulnerability of Canada's ports and airports to terrorist attacks, especially with regard to those who work there. She found that 5.5 percent of a sample of airport employees had possible criminal connections, a flag for national security concerns. If extrapolated to the entire airport workforce, there would be 4,500 employees with possible criminal connections the implications being that employees are not being properly screened, and those with criminal connections may also be tied to terrorist groups.

Senator Kenny's Security and Defence committee has released several reports over the last three years raising concerns about the country's lack of preparedness for terrorist attacks. In December 2004, Kenny released the 2005 edition of the Canadian Security Guide Book, which highlighted the same concerns Fraser drew attention to: improperly guarded and underguarded borders, and vulnerable ports and airports. In one example, he noted that Canada's ports of entry were jeopardized by the disappearance of 1,127 uniforms or uniform items belonging to Canadian airport screeners over a nine-month period, including 91 security badges.

Kenny's committee also alleges that the government is "cutting corners on intelligence." This seems to confirm Fraser's findings that nearly $9 billion in anti-terrorism money is not ending up where it is supposed to go, and that there are intelligence gaps resulting from fiscal mismanagement and oversight confusion. Kenny says the problem is not merely money but training; he said it can take years to properly train intelligence officers, but that there is no commitment to train a sufficient number of analysts.

Fraser's report also found other problems with the government's response to 9-11. Fraser said the official watch lists of criminals and terrorists were outdated, and that such information was not being shared among departments so that, for instance, the list of 25,000 lost and stolen passports each year is given to front-line border officers. She concluded, "These matters are serious and need to be addressed."

When an alert was sent to Canadian customs agents in Quebec warning of an "armed and dangerous" suspect, some 50 employees walked off the job for four hours at about 15 of 44 border crossings just before 9 a.m. yesterday.

[...]

...the protesting agents were exercising their right under the Canada Labour Code to withdraw services if they feel their life or health is threatened.

"We're not armed, we're not going to be a target," said Jean-Pierre Fortin, a union spokesperson. The union wants the federal government to supply border agents with sidearms. Ottawa says the agents' bulletproof vests, telescopic batons and pepper spray are sufficient.

Anniversary

After living overseas for about a year and a half, I was now finally home in New York. This time around I had landed a sweet apartment in Lower Manhattan. Situated about six blocks from the World Trade Center and just two from the South Street Seaport. I could stand on my balcony and see through the canyon of skyscrapers that lined John Street to catch a glimpse of the World Trade Center.

All in all, it was a great place to live -- very quiet and peaceful, especially for Manhattan.
Except for the night before the attack.

That whole day I was restless. Work was a stessful and I couldn't concentrate all day. I had decided to take my camera along and take pictures of the WTC/Battery Park City area at lunchtime, but I ended up stuck in a meeting all day.

At the end of the day, I was still quite anxious and tense. So much so, that I decided to walk around a bit before going home. I would have taken pictures but the rain that hit the area pretty much killed that idea. My digital cameras was anything but waterproof.

Even after getting home I was still restless, so I watched a little TV. Then things got wierder.

The intro to the show Third Watch contained a monologue about some guy talking about how fast things can go wrong in life and started mumbling about Chaos Theory. After that show was over, I turned to the History Channel which was playing a [surprise!] WW2 documentary. Suddenly, a few Normandy veterans started saying basically the same thing. They commented about how one minute their friend would be next to them and then the next instant they were dead.

Needless to say, this sort of stuff didn't sit well with me. So I turned off the tube and went to check my email. Imagine my shock when I saw the Yahoo Question of the Day was about Chaos Theory. At this point, I called my parents to make sure everything was OK. I was certain something bad was about to happen, but I didn't know what.

Confused, I decided to go out onto my balcony to get some fresh air. To my shock and amazement, I saw a kind of odd glow in the sky and a strange kind calm in the streets. At this point, I ran back in to get a my camera and got a few shots of this phenommenon.

Later, I would try to get some sleep, but with all the odd vibes around me, how could I? I finally fell asleep around 1:30 AM only to awaken again around 3AM from a nightmare. At 5 AM, I fell back to sleep, only to be awoken at a quarter to nine, when a loud boom interrupted my sleep.

Joe Katzman at Winds of Change has collected dozens of links related to 9-11 and the aftermath.

One Million!

SDA recorded the one millionth visitor a few minutes ago, according to Sitemeter.

Thanks, everybody!

(If you aren't familiar with Sitemeter, scroll down to the bottom of the sidebar and click on the number - you'll be taken to a site that provides general traffic statistics here.)

Katrina's Impact On The Drug Trade?

Over at the Shotgun a comment by "Greg From Dallas" merits attention, I think.

Something that has not been addressed is how much of the shooting in New Orleans was simply your usual garden variety psychopath and how much of it was drug shipment warehouses being protected.

As one of the largest seaports in the world, only a small percentage of cargo shipments are thoroughly checked out. Lots of illegal narcotics flow in through the ports. Organized crime exerts a lot of infuence in the Port of Louisiana as well as at other ports around the world. (There are those who say that organized crime has no influence in Canadian ports, but I'm not buying it.)

So when Katrina hit, the natural order of things was disrupted. Drug distribution couldn't take place and flow through normal channels. As a consequence, I imagine some people in charge gave explicit orders to protect shipments in their covert warehouses. (You have to wonder why street thugs would be trying to shoot down a helicopter.)

One of the things we can tell from this is that a) a lot of junkies are not getting their fix, so we should have a rise in burglaries and street crime; b) various kinds of dope are going to become expensive because when the supply is diminished, users are going to have to pay a premium to get their narcotics.

The upshot is that professional criminals took a bath. The street price of narcotics is going to be inflated for a while. A lot of junkies are not going to be able to get their dope. And probably there'll be an escalation in various kinds of street crime for habituated drug users to get the price of their drugs.

Saskatchewan's Oil Reserves

Dr. Laurier L. Schramm , Saskatchewan Research Council;

In Saskatchewan we have about a billion barrels of conventional oil reserves. At current pumping rates this is only seven years of production.

Via Saskdesk

Peter Warren Interview Audio

Thanks to Joel, at Proud To Be Canadian, an audio file is avaiable here of this afternoon's interview.

My Heart Will Go On

Celine Dion never loses her focus.

Correct and I've been there a few times. We've stayed there. I've, you know, filmed videos there and so Rene and I, we've been to New Orleans. And, I have to say, Larry, that and state it as the rest of the world if I may I was watching you behind, there's a television right now, I'm watching and I'm especially waiting like the rest of the world.

I'm waking up in the morning. I'm having a coffee. I barely can swallow it. I come here at Caesar's Palace every night to perform. I barely can sing. But for respect the people who come I am still singing. When I come home at night, my son is waiting for me. I watch television. Yes, we gave $1 million but what we expect, what I want to look like the rest of the world, I open the television there's people still there waiting to be rescued and for me it's not acceptable. I know there's reasons for it. I'm sorry to say I'm being rude but I don't want to hear those reasons.

(more)

FEMA - True, False And Half True

By now, everyone has certainly seen stories about how FEMA, the State Department, State of Louisiana, or DHS rejected some kind of aid from someone. Some claims that aid was refused are rumors or smears, some are real. I thought it would be instructive to make a list, with brief commentary on each claimed refusal. Please note that in many cases "refused" translates as "delayed for a ridiculous length of time while people died."

In this related post, we have the Quote of the Week:

If William Buckley were dead, he'd certainly be spinning in his grave right now. As it is, I hope he's having a few extra belts of Glenlivet, or at the very least inviting a lovely young escort to feel around a bit inside his smoking jacket.

On The Eve Of The Fourth Anniversary

A three-part series on China's role in the War on Terror, at China E-Lobby. Intro:

The Unexamined Effect of the Hainan Island Outrage - This is the first of three posts that were inspired by Sunday's anniversary of the 9/11/01 attacks. Tomorrow's post will focus on occupied East Turkestan, which the Communists have used as their smokescreen to cover up their support of anti-American terrorists. The final post, on Sunday, will describe in detail those ties between Communist China and America's enemies in the War on Terror.

As a companion piece, Mark Helprin for the Opinion Journal. He has been sounding the alarm bells on China since the Clinton years, and has scathing words for both left and right.

September 11 was not so much a discrete event as part of a continuum. It was the result of broad strategic failures that, preceding it by decades, continue to this day and are likely to continue on. It is as if the country has lost, as exemplified by the Left now out of power, a great deal of the will to self-preservation, and, as exemplified by the Right now in charge, not a little of its capacity for self-defense. Our politics and policies have somehow been parceled out to opportunists like Michael Moore--purveyor of conspiracy theories and hatreds, whose presentation, unclean in every respect, is honored nonetheless by the controlling rump of Democrats--and to Bushmen like "Kip" Hawley of Homeland Security, father of the proposal to allow carry-on ice-picks, bows and arrows, and knives with blades up to five-inches long.

For more than 20 years prior to September 11, Islamic terrorists imprisoned and murdered our diplomats and military personnel, destroyed our civil aviation, machine-gunned our civilians, razed our embassies, attacked an American warship and, in 1993, the U.S. itself. For varying reasons, none legitimate, we hesitated to mount an offensive against the terrorists' infrastructure, hunt them down, eliminate a single rogue regime that supported them, or properly disconcert our fatted allies whose robes they infested. This was comparable in its way to Munich. Only in 2001, when it became obvious to any rational being that we must, did we retaliate, but even then in the face of domestic pressure to judicialize the response, which was exactly what we had done all along.

[...]

Having made many wrong choices, we find ourselves at yet another strategic crossroads, where invisibly to the general public we are about to choose wrongly again. We are reshaping the military into a gendarmerie, configured for small wars, counterinsurgency, peacekeeping and nation-building, all at the expense of the type of force that could deter or defeat a rising China. Although we need a gendarmerie, we cannot do without heavy formations and the many additional ships required for a navy--now less than half the size of the Reagan fleet and shrinking--to exploit our natural advantage in the Pacific.

The U.S. will chase every terrorist mouse (which is good, unless it means also neglecting the core competencies of the armed forces), while lessening and dispersing its power, and moving from previous centers of gravity (Europe, the Western Pacific) to Africa, Central Asia and the Middle East. This will create a long and open alley through which China will run. Among other things, by placing markers in every trouble spot, we will probably be tied down and distracted, taxingly and often, to our enemies' delight.

Great Canadian Blog Survey

Take it here

Camp Pavewalk Turns Political

As the CBC lockout enters its fourth week, the pavement pounding writers, producers and reporters are beginning to share their inner thoughts. The Black Rod has been collecting the most inspiring passages.

"J.T." - Writer and producer living in Parkdale;

.... you have to give Kayne credit for standing up and saying what the media and many politicans have been saying all this week: "George Bush does not care about black people."

"My gold star today goes to Bill Doskoch , for a wonderful round-up and news story excerpts . They detail the way Hurricane Katrina proved the U.S. federal government lies . And, the way reporters have finally found the guts to expose those lies."

John, a contract producer in Vancouver, shares this;

"If our healthcare system needs fixing, here is the solution: let's all pay a bit more in taxes. I know the usual assholes (http://www.fraserinstitute.ca/} will whine about what a pain in the ass that is, but when they get sick, they can take comfort in the fact that it was money well spent."

"...we need to tell the story in a way that engages Canadians and moves them to action. We could tell them it's about contracts, and job security, and nurturing public broadcasting values. All true but not exactly grabby. But if we tell them it's a story about how a group of fanatical managers hijacked a national institution, and wasted hundreds of millions of dollars trying to impose a bizarre neo-con cult of management on their employees..."

The Black Rod sums things up nicely;

Anti-American? Check
Anti-business? Check
Anti-Conservative Party? Check

Remember, these are the folks who covered the last national election. They covered the Gomery Commission. They covered the Conservative Party convention and the House of Commons leading up to the non-confidence votes of the Spring. Would you expect fair and balanced reporting from this bunch? Will you expect it next time?

Redneck Guide To Fuel Economy

Feeling sorry for yourself when you fill your tank these days?

My '86 Dodge truck (318, 2WD) manages to squeak out 12 miles to the gallon. However, it's paid for, costs $36 a month to insure. Not making payments adds up to a lot of "free gas". Even at over $100 a fill, I can't justify replacing it with a newer, more fuel efficient vehicle. It's not as though I can manage with a Prius - something around here has to be able to haul my crap around.

And well, to be honest - I'm cursed. After years of van and truck ownership, I long ago accepted that I would never own a vehicle that managed more than 14 miles to the gallon. Indeed, for many years I drove across the continent in a Chev van that averaged 8. Mercifully, it ran on propane. That's what you get, I suppose, for not doing your "due diligence" and asking if the previous owner (and enthusiastic engine rebuilder) used it as a tow vehicle for his racing boats.

So, when I was able to pick up my little vintage motorcycle a few years ago, I considered it a sensible decision. The Gas Gods were about to have a little mercy on me. I thought, "Finally, something economical to run around on in the summertime!" Not perfect, but it's a start.

Uh. Yeah.

(Click for full size)

What can I say? There are SUV's that get better milage.

Peter Warren And Me

I'll be a guest on the the Peter Warren show around 2 pm "Saskatchewan time" tomorrow afternoon. Topic is supposed to be blogging, of course.

FEMA Head Removed

With allegations of resume padding, this was just a matter of time. A commentor at "Poliblogger";

if "brownie" is so dang unqualified, then why was brown overwhlemingly confirmed by the senate when it was controlled by the dems?

FEMA is a management agency which must get cooperation if it's to be able to cut through the layers of local and state government during an emergency. it has no assets of its own; it's a management service that can marshall in and manage vast national reservoirs of aid into counties and cities and states.

brown had a lot of legal background in the relationships between local, state and federal governments/bureaucracies before he got the FEMA job. it's one reason he was nominated and confirmed.

ALSO: it's easy in hindsight to say that last year's FLORIDA hurricane season was un-extraordinary; IOW: it sure looks that way now. but ti was the worst hurricane season florida had ever had - except fore andrew. but the very fact that aid flowed in there so smoothly proves brown is NOT a total incompetent. he ran FEMA then, and NO ONE COMPLAINED. not once.
also keep this in mind: brown has done NO FINGER- POINTING. zero.

Tremors

Big earthquake today northeast of Australia, in Papua New Guinea

Interactive seismic monitor

Addressing The Inequities

...in the disturbingly disproportional incarceration rates of males;

37 The next question is the meaning to be attributed to the words "with particular attention to the circumstances of male offenders". The phrase cannot be an instruction for judges to pay "more" attention when sentencing male offenders. It would be unreasonable to assume that Parliament intended sentencing judges to prefer certain categories of offenders over others. Neither can the phrase be merely an instruction to a sentencing judge to consider the circumstances of male offenders just as she or he would consider the circumstances of any other offender. There would be no point in adding a special reference to male offenders if this was the case. Rather, the logical meaning to be derived from the special reference to the circumstances of male offenders, juxtaposed as it is against a general direction to consider "the circumstances" for all offenders, is that sentencing judges should pay particular attention to the circumstances of male offenders because those circumstances are unique, and different from those of non-male offenders. The fact that the reference to male offenders is contained in s. 718.2(e), in particular, dealing with restraint in the use of imprisonment, suggests that there is something different about male offenders which may specifically make imprisonment a less appropriate or less useful sanction.

Text of the original ruling is here. This convoluted bit of reasoning is worth a read, if only to challenge your logic centers.

What seems to been overlooked is that the majority of crimes commited by aboriginal offenders are against other aboriginals. As a result, the majority of aboriginal victims of crime receive "two-tier" justice as well. For example, the battered aboriginal spouse is more likely to see her abuser released back into the community than had the crime occured in a non-aboriginal relationship.

Star Phoenix news brief;

A former chief and two others from a Saskatchewan First Nation have been sentenced to two years of house arrest.

The men were convicted of pocketing about $1 million from the treaty land entitlement trust fund of the Saulteaux First Nation.

They also signed cheques for another $1.8 million to friends and relatives in excess of their legitimate wages.

The Crown prosecutor had asked that the men serve three to five years in federal prison on their criminal breach of trust conviction.

Isolated case? Hardly.

Then there is the on-going situation at First Nations University, where apart from the turmoil over faculty and administrative firings, a 32 member board comprised mostly of chiefs and other First Nations representatives will suck over $600K from the budget this year. ($300,000 of that for a forensic audit). Then, there's the $100,000 "management fee" for the Saskatchewan Federation of Indian Nations.

By way comparison, the 12 member board of the U of S in Saskatoon operates at a $87,000 cost.

It is seldom that problems with First Nations crime and poverty are raised without bringing past injustices by the Canadian government to the table. Fair enough, but one would think that this history would lead to a more proactive attitude by both First Nations and the Canadian justice system in preventing and punishing current ones.

These days, the first ones to kick aside the interests of First Nations people on their way to the trough are their own leaders. So long the "wages of crime" amount to a $100K a year salary to sit around the house, that's not likely to change.

Buried In The Provincial Auditor Report

While local media cheerfully reported that the Saskatchewan government had received a "pasing grade", other portions apparently don'g merit any attention - that despite a decrease in provincial population, the Calvert government has boosted provincial spending a staggering 26% since taking office in 2001. And then there's this;

The bottom line is if we didn't get a $700 million one-time handout from the feds and experience a $333 million increase in oil revenue, we'd be staring square in the eye of a $244 million deficit.

While oil prices are forecast to remain strong, we know for sure that $700 million aint coming coming back.

Stormchasing!

Stunning photographs were sent to me by a friend. I have no other details about place or date, but I've saved them to a directory. (originally they thought there were in Ontario, but commentors advise the photos have been attributed to various locales)

The rest are here

A Crazy Texas Guy

This was passed along by a reader, from a friend who we shall call "Woody", and who told me to edit it where I saw fit. It didn't need any.

Woody was on the road traveling last Thursday when he saw the plight of people in New Orleans, he is a real red neck Texas guy who played football for a small college about 30 years ago. He is prone to get into arguments over next to nothing, he will argue enough so that stores have to call security guards and his wife knows how to talk him out of trouble with cops when he mouths off.

Woody is rather passionate about life, his daughter is engaged to a nice black man and was best friends with her fiancés sister who had a baby last month. The mom started running a high fever a few weeks ago, went to the hospital and she was sent home with two aspirins and then she developed more complications which ended up with her being in the hospital last week on life support. Woody was rather upset about this, his daughter was taking care of the beautiful new baby and last Friday he decided he could not sit still any more.

He borrowed his wife's SUV, he took off on the road with a lot very large coolers, he does big cookouts at times, and two large tables on the top of the SUV. He purchased hundreds of pounds of lunch meat, large containers of sandwich spread and loaves of bread. Then he filled the coolers with hundreds of bottles of water. Friday night Woody checked into a hotel part way to Louisiana and set up an assembly line to make sandwiches, he spent nine hours building sandwiches and developed a good case of sandwich elbow. He had every thing cooled down and Saturday afternoon he was on the highway in Louisiana mixing in with large relief convoys of Tahoe's, Expeditions and Suburbans flying down the road over eighty miles per hour. They passed a number of military convoys loaded with all sorts of heavy equipment, he said that the road of full of workers and soldiers heading towards New Orleans.

Woody made it through the first road block tucked into a group of government vehicles as he was just waved right on by. The second road block of Highway patrolmen stopped him and saw he was loaded with coolers and he told them he was with the group and he was passed through. At the third road block just out of New Orleans he was stopped and asked for an identification badge, he tried to bluff by searching around his SUV, the Patrolman than ask him again who he really was and his reply was "I am just a crazy guy from Texas with a truck load of sandwiches and water and offered him a sandwich. The patrolman looked at him like he was crazy and then he told him to pull out and drive on down the street. There he was stopped again at a gathering of large number of highway patrol cars and patrolmen.

When Woody told them what he was doing, they asked around and one of the men in charge told him that there was a bus breakdown at a church a few blocks away and that they could use some food. He drove up to the church which had been made out of a converted Wal-Mart and there were three buses in the parking lot. A large man came out and ask him what he was doing and Woody told him that he had over a thousand sandwiches and bottles of water and the reply from this man was "Thank you."

The two of them unloaded the food and water which made the coolers so heavy they could hardy lift them. They then began to pass the food out and he was told that these were the last three buses out of the superdome. They were filled with tired and hungry old people, women and children who was eager to have food and a cool drink of water. Woody apologized for having to use heel of bread on some of the sandwiches but he ended up with more meat than bread and he wanted to use it all up. The people did not seem to care.

At the bottom of some of the coolers a few sandwiches had gotten wet and one of the women was about the throw them away since every one had been feed, Woody asked her if there were any animals around and she remembered that there was an old gentleman living in a car in the parking lot with a dog. They then feed the hungry skinny dog and the owner was grateful.

As Woody was packing up the man who helped him thanked him and was shaking his hand. Woody then told him that he needed something and those around waited to hear what he wanted. He said that prayer was needed for the woman in the hospital back in Dallas who had the little baby. He said they both hugged and cried in the parking lot and then he was told that Sunday morning there would be over 400 prayers for the young mother.

Woody was the only white person among all of the folks taking care of the bus loads and in the bus loads of people, one friend had warned him before he went down that they might see him on TV being the victim of violence, and what he found was warmth and friendship and very tired worn out hungry people. This crazy red neck Texan said that there never was any thing but kindness and appreciation that night.

Woody hit the road and headed back to Texas and he found out the mother did not make it. She died and her family expressed gratitude for new baby in their lives and for the time they had with the mother before she went to heaven. Some how this crazy trip seemed to help Woody get some balance for all of the things that can happen and a bit of peace.

Squirt Motorcycle Racing

Now, this is starting them young....

Reader Tips

A few items passed along recently.

An interview with Bill Vander Zalm.

Katrina's fury exceeded only by her windbags.

Speaking of "windbags", Canadians who have been critical of the US response to Katrina might do well to "stifle" and pay a little more attention to our own 10 billion dollar state of unreadiness.

As retired Canadian general Lew MacKenzie told the Sun's Bill Rodgers yesterday, Canada couldn't even muster half the 40,000 soldiers the U.S. government (albeit belatedly) has poured into New Orleans to restore law and order, assist in relief efforts and help rebuild shattered levees.

Yahoo has been assisting the police. The secret police. In China.

This post on being poor has generated a lot of buzz. This reply, on staying poor, is the one that deserves it. (Kathy Shaidle is right - this is a very good smackdown - speaking as someone who still wears "supermarket shoes".)

Add your own in the comments, or send a trackback.

Stay Tuned

Just caught wind that there's something coming down the pipe on Jean-Daniel Lafond that makes John Ralston Saul look like Rush Limbaugh.

Fact Checking The Globe And Mail Updated

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more...

Update - Stephen Taylor (who has never sent me down a wrong alley before) was burned on this one and offers apologies and background. Questions about the accuracy of his post were first raised by readers at Angry At The Great White North, (where Steve has also posted an retraction and additional thoughts). Instead of quoting either one, I'll suggest you go read what they have to say.

I join them in extending my apologies to Carol Jamieson, Brian Laghi and Gloria Galloway.

To Stephen's "source" - whether your misinformation was intentional or not, my advice to you is the same as theirs - violate our trust at your peril. The blogosphere is an interactive media that does not move information in a one-way channel, in the way that traditional media does. The material you send is served up for commentary, verification, contradiction, feedback and when necessary, retraction.

Thus, feeding us politically-motivated misinformation is a very dangerous prospect - our correction protocols are quite unlike the mainstream media which protects erronious sources and misreporting by issuing little paragraphs in the back pages. Corrections on the blogosphere are - as you will have probably realized by now - quite capable of becoming bigger and more interesting than the original post.

If an independant "mea culpa" from the original source isn't forthcoming, don't be surprised if there's more digging into this one.

The Self-Neutered American Media

I told someone privately a couple of days ago that the American media has lost the ability to sway public opinion in any appreciable way.

CNN/USA TODAY POLL: Only 13% blame Bush

They failed when they called a win for Gore, failed in their predictions of an "inflamed Arab street" the run-up to the Afghan and Iraq wars, failed in the "quagmire" reporting of the Iraq invasion, failed to pin blame for 9-11 on the Bush administration, failed to win an election for John Kerry, and today, they're failing to turn an act of nature into a White House plot to "let black folks drown".

There's no mystery as to why - the American public is onto them. You'd think the freefall in newspaper subscriptions and network ratings would be a clue. As usual, the last ones to see the "root cause" are the media themselves.

(Update: Things like this don't help either. )

Update to update : Or maybe not - Geraldo smeared by NYT?

Roy Hallum Freed

Rusty Shackleford has been following the case of American hostage Roy Hallums for months. He writes;

As you know, The Jawa Report was the first media to report that Roy Hallums was taken hostage in Iraq. Since that time, we have done everything in our power to support the Hallums family, raise money, and keep Roy's name in the media.

ASPCA Rescue Diary

The ASPCA blog is reporting efforts in pet rescue from the disaster zone, including the rescue of 75 dogs from the Superdome;

Don't believe everything you hear. The ASPCA has investigated allegations that family pets in Louisiana are being taken from their owners and shot. We have found absolutely no truth to this widely circulated rumor. According to reliable sources, one dog was shot and killed after he tried to attack an officer. There is no order to shoot animals unless they are endangering law enforcement officers. You can help keep a volatile situation from becoming even worse by checking out rumors before passing them on.

You may have heard the rumor that evacuees in Louisiana are being ordered to abandon their animals. In some cases, they have had to leave their animals but there are many animal rescuers in the area. The Louisiana State University School of Veterinary Medicine has assured us that every effort is being made to reunite animals and people.

As a footnote: if you're inclined to help, research the foundation you give to carefully - animal rights activist groups like HSUS (Humane Society of the United States) and PETA are political entities more concerned with promoting legislation and are not animal rescue or welfare providers. Private rescue can be equally dodgy. It's probably best to stick with the ASPCA or contact your local kennel club.

Harper Fires Staffers!

I thought I'd use that subject line to underscore a Canadian media that has become so politicized that they are virtually useless as an information portal.

Yesterday, while our national and regional news services were breathlessly reporting that Harper had laid off between 5 and 15 office staff (no one seemed sure) as one of their lead items, yet another development in the investigation of United Nations corruption went virtually unreported.

As Adscam was to overall government "spending" by the Chretien/Martin Liberals, the Oil-For-Food scandal is simply a canary in a rotting coal mine of bribery, theft and kickbacks at the United Nations.

FoxNews;

Now the issue is becoming the scale of corruption in the U.N.'s normal operations and which individuals and corporations are reaping the benefits of a network of bribery and conspiracy that investigators have just begun to uncover. So far, those identities are still a mystery - but perhaps not for much longer.

Last Friday, federal prosecutors in Manhattan indicted the head of the U.N.'s own budget oversight committee, a Russian named Vladimir Kuznetsov (search), on charges of laundering hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of bribes paid by companies seeking contracts with the United Nations.

The Conservatives might be wise to serve them up a little of their own medicine. For months, there has been ample evidence uncovered of corruption at the UN on a multitude of fronts - evidence that most Canadians are virtually unaware of.

The Yakovlev-Kuznetsov scandal joins a growing list of cases of U.N. misconduct, waste, theft and abuse. They include bribe-taking under Oil-for- Food, sexual abuse of minors by peacekeepers in West Africa, sexual and financial misconduct - including outright larceny - at U.N. offices in Geneva, and business ties between the son of Secretary-General Kofi Annan (search) and one of the Oil-for-Food inspection firms hired with Yakovlev's input, Swiss-based Cotecna Inspection (Cotecna has denied any wrongdoing).

In yet another scandal that emerged just last week, the United Nations disclosed that its Ukrainian peacekeeping contingent in Lebanon, including the commanding officer, has engaged in "significant financial misconduct" - though the world body has refused to provide details of what was done wrong or how much money was involved.

Source (PDF)

By publicly challenging the government to investigate Canadian involvement in Oil-For-Food, demanding that they ensure Canadian taxdollars are not being siphoned into private offshore bank accounts or used to produce child porn, the Conservatives could begin chipping away (and rightfully so) at the confidence of Canadians in the UN as a form of international "moral authority" and undermine the Liberal/NDP dependancy on this favoured foreign policy crutch.

The Canadian media has no interest in pushing the issue into the public debate - the default setting of both private and public media in this country is overtly liberal, pro-United Nations, and anti-Republican. Unpleasant details about UN corruption don't sit well with editorial boards who understand the political implications. They simply prefer not to look. It's time that the Conservatives worked harder at forcing them to.

An Appreciation For Scale, Redux

More context in one post by a Saskatchewan blogger than Charles Adler, Pierre Bourque and Stirling Faux combined were able to scrape together over an entire week;

Now imagine the British trying to cope with their entire Island in shambles, and having to evacuate an entire city under horrific conditions and provide housing and care for the flood of displaced people.

Or, imagine the entire bottom third of the province of Saskatchewan being without infrastructure; in other words all the roads in the populous part of the province being either blocked by trees or under water, with power and most utilities out. And then, imagine having to evacuate a million plus people… and then some.

Another way of looking at the scope of things might be to imagine the coastal countries of Belgium, Holland, and Denmark, with all coastal regions of Germany being either destroyed or compromised to the point where most infrastructure was unusable. How well could the EU respond, and how quickly?

Dispatches From The "Circle Of Death"

It was a bad week to be out on the streets.

I hate placing blame and finger-pointing. But for this fiasco I have to place the blame squarely, unequivocally, and soundly on the shoulders of the president. His job is to keep this place running [...] There is nothing necessarily wrong with a bureaucrat. As long as he does his job. But this one is so creatively bankrupt, so mistrusted, so disconnected, and so discounted by his own people that he is dead weight. We needed a leader, but they gave us luggage.

I do not own a house. I do not own a car.

On the other hand four hours on parade is still better than four hours on the Circle of Death. It was also good to see that everyone seemed to be having a good time. That spirits are still high. That we are more united than ever. That we aren't alone.

Rise To The Occasion

A couple of days ago, I wrote that "In former times entire nations found the strength to rise to the occasion, ordinary people understood that survival depended on their shared common decency and respect for their fellow citizen."

When I wrote that, I could not help but think of the starving people of Holland, welcoming their liberators after five years of German occupation.

This year the Dutch flooded the streets yet again, with their grandchildren and great-granchildren beside them, to applaud a few old soldiers for what is likely to be the final time, 60 years after the fact.

I wonder if, in the year 2065, the people of New Orleans will turn out in the thousands to celebrate the return of those who came for them or their grandparents, to bring fresh water and food, to drive back the criminals, to help them to safety?

I wonder if there will be a monument erected in a reborn City of New Orleans to the good people of Texas who took them in on moment's notice, and by the thousands...

For those of you who checked in this morning expecting to read the first of several items, as is the usual custom here - you're not getting that today. Instead, I have a single link for you. It's long, but unlike most long essays, there is not a word wasted.

In it there are scenes of sheep, wolves and sheepdogs, wet shoes, shades of pink and grey, and the mayor of New York City running towards a burning building.

Tribes.

I'll be back tomorrow.

Reader Tips

I'll be out much of the day. Here's an invitation to send a trackback to your own stuff, or post links to breaking news items in the comments.

Later.

Update - I see you folks outdid yourselves. There are some very good items in the comments.

Also, this via Nealenews;

CNN's Soledad O'Brien interviewing New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin this morning (Sept.5);

Nagin>> I got promises too.  I can't stand any more promises. I don't want to hear any more promises. I want to see stuff done. That's why I'm so happy the president came down here because I think they were feeding him a line of bull also. They were telling him things weren't as bad as it was, he came down and saw it and he put a general on the field. His name is general Honore. When he hit the field, we started to see action. What the state was doing, I don't friggin' know but I tell you, I am pissed. It wasn't adequate. The president and the governor sat down. Air force one, I said, Mr. President, Madam governor, you two have to get in sync. If you don't get in sync, more people are going to die.

O'Brien>> What date was this?

N>> I don't know.

O>> When did you say that?

N>> Whenever air force one was here.

O>> Okay.

N>> And this is after I called him on the telephone two days earlier. And I said, Mr. President, madam governor, you two need to get together on the same page because the lack of coordination people are dying in my city.

That's two days ago? Easement I don't know the exact date. They both shook their head, said yeah. I said great. I said everybody in this room is getting ready to leave. There was senators and his cabinet people, you name it, they were there. Generals. I said everybody right now, we're leaving. These two people need to sit in a room together and make a doggone decision right now.

O>> Was that done?

N>> The president looked at me. I think he was a little surprised. He said, no, you guys stay here. We're going to another section of the plane and we're going to make a decision. He called me in that office after that and he said, Mr. Mayor, I offered two options to the governor. I said -- I don't remember exactly what -- two options. I was ready to move today. The governor said she needed 24 hours to make a decision.

O>> You told me the president told you the governor said she needed 24 hours to make a decision?

N>> Yes.

O>> Regarding what? Bringing troops?

N>> Whatever they had discussed. As far as what the -- I was advocating a clear chain of command. So that we could get resources flowing in the right places.

O>> The governor said no?

N>> She said she needed 24 hours to make a decision. It would have been great if we could of left air force one, walked outside, and told the world that we had this all worked out. It didn't happen. And more people died.

Happy Birthday, Saskatchewan

I recall when I was little seeing my grandfather's birth certificate. It indicated his place of birth as "District of Assiniboia". Our own family farm turned the century mark a couple of years ago.

Not many folks live to be 100, much less older, so while he was there for the birth of the province, he's missing the birthday celebrations today.

Recruits of the 46th Battalion leaving Arcola, 1916

I drank my first illicit beer on the platform of that station. The photo is from a collection taken in the southeast of the province during that time. Be sure to check out the Buchanan photos - gathered (from as far away as the British Isles) by local historian Adrian Paton of Arcola, the history they record is matchless. These small internet files don't do justice his work - the quality of the original photographs on display at the local museum is superb.

William Jefferson barn, built on NW-24-7-4-W2 1906. In his later years, Bill Jefferson used to stop in for supper on Sundays, unannounced.

One of the drawbacks of these old photos is that they leave a mistaken impression of a monochromatic, dry and dusty past. However, consider the one below - which I took about hundred yards from the ruins of the Jefferson barn (Moose Mountain Creek in October). The scene will have changed little from the day Buchanan was there.

The farmhouse lasted longer.

There is a co-ordinated fireworks display planned for this evening in Saskatoon, (with identical programs scheduled for 15 locations in the province). I'll be firing up the bike in a while to go in. I'll try to take some photos, though no promises.

In the meantime, I do have my own small photo gallery, most of which have been taken here in the province, many of them within a few miles of my home. Enter here

Combat Operations In New Orleans

James Joyner;

The commander of Louisana's National Guard contingent is calling the situation in New Orleans an "insurgency" and says they have commenced "combat operations." This is, as best I can tell, not a satire.

The Battle For New Orleans

Via Maz2 in the comments, this Washington Post article reveals something that was hinted at in news items prior to the hurricane's landing.

Behind the scenes, a power struggle emerged, as federal officials tried to wrest authority from Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco (D). Shortly before midnight Friday, the Bush administration sent her a proposed legal memorandum asking her to request a federal takeover of the evacuation of New Orleans, a source within the state's emergency operations center said Saturday.

The administration sought unified control over all local police and state National Guard units reporting to the governor. Louisiana officials rejected the request after talks throughout the night, concerned that such a move would be comparable to a federal declaration of martial law. Some officials in the state suspected a political motive behind the request. "Quite frankly, if they'd been able to pull off taking it away from the locals, they then could have blamed everything on the locals," said the source, who does not have the authority to speak publicly.

A senior administration official said that Bush has clear legal authority to federalize National Guard units to quell civil disturbances under the Insurrection Act and will continue to try to unify the chains of command that are split among the president, the Louisiana governor and the New Orleans mayor.

Louisiana did not reach out to a multi-state mutual aid compact for assistance until Wednesday, three state and federal officials said. As of Saturday, Blanco still had not declared a state of emergency, the senior Bush official said.

"The federal government stands ready to work with state and local officials to secure New Orleans and the state of Louisiana," White House spokesman Dan Bartlett said. "The president will not let any form of bureaucracy get in the way of protecting the citizens of Louisiana."

Blanco made two moves Saturday that protected her independence from the federal government: She created a philanthropic fund for the state's victims and hired James Lee Witt, Federal Emergency Management Agency director in the Clinton administration, to advise her on the relief effort.

An Appreciation For Scale

This is sobering. The opening page is a graphic map of areas affected by Katrina. Clicking on the boxes brings up a breakdown showing smaller boxes, each of which represents a satellite photo. The detail is more than adequate to see individual buildings. (For even more detail, simply increase the text size of your browser.)

A small section of one of the aerial views of New Orleans. (Note to self - if warned of flooding in an urban area, move vehicle to top floor of parking garage.)

They are large images, so if you're on dialup, be patient.

This should be a very valuable site for those who were safely evacuated to view their homes to get a rough idea of the state of flooding, etc. For those of us who have the good fortune to be mere observers, I suggest you spend some time with it to get a sense of scale.

As someone who has transversed the continent on several occasions by road, I have come to believe that many in politics, government and media fly too much. Like the "destination oriented" urban business or leisure traveller who generally lives and works within a relatively confined geographical area, their excursions to far flung locales are experienced almost exclusively through airport terminals.

Flying distorts one's sense of scale. There is an unreality about the little images on the ground and the vast distances they represent. Imagine the experience becoming so routine that the window seat ceases to be your first preference. Imagine not looking down from a cloudless sky to try to identify geographical features and places you once stopped for coffee in. Imagine napping over the vastness of South Dakota, Nebraska and Iowa - and awaking a couple of hours later to ready your tray for landing.

Of course, many of you don't have to imagine anything of the sort. It's your normal flying experience.

Flying from Saskatoon into Los Angeles for the first time, there is a sense of astonishment at the endlessness of the great, smoggy city and her suburbs. Landing at night, the sense is even greater, as the lights of the city flood out into the Pacific, carried by boats.

Yet, make the same journey by road (ideally, with windows open and air-conditioning off) and the City of Angels appears as a mere oasis at the edge of a dry, rolling ocean of emptiness.

The second perception is accurate and appropriate, while the first is a distortion created by a sudden burst of speed.

So many people have so little appreciation for how large their country is, no realization that their great metropolitan areas are just miniscule dots on the map when placed within the great expanse of the continent. They have little understanding that there are hundreds of thousands of miles of infrastructure that connect us to each other in fragile threads of asphalt and cable and that their very urban lives depend on them.

As capsulized as the world becomes to the habitual air traveller, even more so is that of those who seldom travel at all. I know of Canadians who have never been south of Minot who can tell you with utter authority all about that great country - based on the flickering images that come over their television sets.

Returning to Katrina - some of the unthinking and uninformed criticism by media punditry of relief efforts may be due, in part, to this phenomenon. The size of the area devastated by Katrina and the subsequent flooding, relative to the size of those assets that are struggling to respond, is difficult for them to scale.

And virtually impossible for those whose view is contained within a 36" screen.

Finally, Arrests

The Indian Posse is not a "youth gang". It's full-fledged organized crime that recruits aboriginal youth to exploit a youth justice system that grants virtual immunity from prosecution and incarceration. In turn, the Canadian justice system affords more lenient sentences for aboriginals by dictate of the Supreme Court. It's no wonder that so many destroy their lives and others in the conviction that crime pays.

19-year-old Elizabeth Halkett was a crown witness in a case involving the murder of her brother. On March of 2004 her body was discovered in her burned out home. She was already dead when the fire was set. Yesterday, charges were finally laid.

Twenty-two-year-old James Slippery, who was already charged with arson in the case, appeared in a Saskatoon court today to face charges of being an accessory after the slaying and committing an offence for a criminal organization. Two other men, Elwood Poorman and Gerald Littlecrow, were also in court to face similar charges.

All have been remanded in custody until their next court appearance October 7th.

Halkett was to testify against a 16-year-old alleged member of the Indian Posse in the stabbing death of her brother, Joel, last year. Police say she was slain before she could testify at a preliminary hearing.

Reporting From The Astrodome

I just finished watching CTV news, and a segment that was busy playing up problems for refugees arriving in Texas.

Rightwingsparkle is volunteering at the Houston Astrodome. Her report is far more hopeful;

The whole thing was, of course, heartwrenching. People were packed cot to cot and with their supplies next to them. The really hard thing to see were the children. So small and with so little to keep them busy. The citizens and Churches of Houston came through in a BIG way and there was plenty of food, water, and clothes for everyone. The only thing I really had to dig for were toys. I plan to bring a bunch tomorrow. That seemed to be the only real need that wasn't being meet. There were also plenty of volunteers.

As you might imagine I wanted to hear what it was like being in the Superdome. One teenage girl told me that it was terrifying when the shooting started. "It was the gangs," she said. Her mother said, "The people found the guy who was shooting and beat his ass and his ass needed beating." I found over and over again that people were as disgusted with the behavior of the thugs as the rest of us. I asked them if they were angry at the government. Not one I spoke to said they were. They were angry at the people who behaved badly. They were angry at the thugs with guns. They were angry with the people who threw trash everywhere and went to bathroom in public places.

In other words, they were mad at the right people, unlike our friends on the left.

Postcard From Afghanistan

From a friend in the Canadian Armed Forces, just returned to Afghanistan.

It is September 1 here, we had a scorching day. Temps I believe were in the 45C range. Tonight, the sky darkened and it was hard to tell if it was the dust or a storm brewing. At about 1930, I got my answer. The light show was spectacular. A bit of thunder and lots of lightning, but no rain. The clouds may have dumped the rain in the mountains. It still has a very dusty smell outside.

A few things have happened since I wrote last. I have made it out of the camp. That in itself was quite a production. I went with the transport guys to pickup some cargo from KIA (Kabul International Airport). We took the BIG trucks. It is hard enough for me to get my short leg up into the step and pull myself up. Add on a flack vest, tack vest, helmet, water, camera, and rifle to that mix. I think the guys were taking bets as to whether I would fall back or not. I made it.

On our way out of the camp, we just happened to pick the precise moment that the India President Karzi was passing by. He had made a stop at the King's Palace to dedicate a monument or something. He and his 'groupies' were just leaving the dedication when we were trying to leave. It was like the parade.

There were police on motorcycles, limousines, trucks of soldiers, SUVs with snipers hanging out the window, US Hummers with weapons, and a few dozen black sedans. While we were sitting there, I took out my camera to take a picture. One of the Afghanistan guards saw me and came running up to the PLS I was in. He wanted his picture taken too. LOL So he stood at attention and I took his photo.

Finally we were able to get out behind the 'parade' and follow them into town. All along the route, there were soldiers lined up with weapons, keeping the people off the streets. This was the first time I had seen the streets so empty. I saw one soldier actually beating a man back off the street. All for Karzi, since he came with an offer of money for the government. The Afghanie flag and Karzi's picture were on every post.

We found out the hard way that streets had been shut down for this. Ever try turning two semis and two g wagons on a street with parked cars? Not fun. I am sure that red car had the scratched bumper already. lol

Finally made it to our destination of KIA. The Herc was late and we were early, so we had more than an hour to kill. My driver, Jason, was quite the charmer and took me for lunch and shopping at the airport.

Once loaded and on our way again, we did not make it very far until we were jammed. Coming out of the airport is a very poor side of town. I will say I have noticed quite a few improvements as we travelled through Kabul. This particular section now had paved gutters. Unfortunately they still just pile trash along the roadway. And of course we were stopped right next to a lovely pile or rotting stench. Gunners got out to guard the trucks, and soon the kids and people started to swarm. The kids were talking to the guard.

The adults were stopping, standing and surveying our situation. Now anywhere else that would not be a problem, but it becomes an immediate danger to us. As we were temporarily trapped.

From this vantage point I was watching a small child sift through the garbage. He found a plastic and a tin pop containers. At one point an Afghany man came over and beat the kids back from my guard. The kids, being kids, merely circled and came back when the coast was clear. Another teenage boy was showing too much interest in what I was doing, so my driver Jason, pulled his rifle, the guards moved in, and moved the teen off. We got a little nervous just sitting there, so the guards went forward. Stopped traffic and got us through.

We delivered out goods to its destination and headed home. It was a long hot dusty sweaty day.

This morning, yes it is now morning here, I am monitoring the computers. Soon we will be moving to Kandahar, but in the meantime, conveys of troups are out checking things out. Just another day in the life...........................

Previous "postcards" are here, here, here, here, here, and here.

Trudeaupiate

The President of the Czech Republic Václav Klaus has a blunt, and timely message for Europe, and by extension, for all western governments and those who elect them.

The question is what kind of ideas is favoured by the intellectuals. The question is whether the intellectuals are neutral in their choice of ideas with which they are ready to deal with. Hayek argued that they are not. They do not hold or try to spread all kinds of ideas. They have very clear and, in some respect, very understandable preferences for some of them. They prefer ideas, which give them jobs and income and which enhance their power and prestige.

They, therefore, look for ideas with specific characteristics. They look for ideas, which enhance the role of the state because the state is usually their main employer, sponsor or donator. That is not all. According to Hayek "the power of ideas grows in proportion to their generality, abstractness, and even vagueness". Hence it is not surprising that the intellectuals are mostly interested in abstract, not directly implementable ideas. This is also the way of thinking, in which they have comparative advantage. They are not good at details. They do not have ambitions to solve a problem. They are not interested in dealing with the everyday's affairs of common citizens. Hayek put it clearly: "the intellectual, by his whole disposition, is uninterested in technical details or practical difficulties." He is interested in visions and utopias and because "socialist thought owes its appeal largely to its visionary character" (and I would add lack of realism and utopian nature), the intellectual tends to become a socialist.

In a similar way, Raymond Aron, in his famous essay "The Opium of Intellectuals", analyzed not only the well-known difference between the revolutionary and reformist way of thinking but also - and this is more relevant in this context - the difference between "prosaic" and "poetry". Whereas "the prosaic model of thinking lacks the grandeur of utopia" (Roger Kimball), the socialist approach is - in the words of Aron - based "on the poetry of the unknown, of the future, of the absolute". As I understand it, this is exactly the realm of intellectuals. Some of us want to immediately add that "the poetry of the absolute is an inhuman poetry".

[...]

Fifteen years after the collapse of communism I am afraid, more than at the beginning of its softer (or weaker) version, of social-democratism, which has become - under different names, e.g. the welfare state or the soziale Marktwirtschaft - the dominant model of the economic and social system of current Western civilization. It is based on big and patronizing government, on extensive regulating of human behavior, and on large-scale income redistribution.

Health Canada is calling for a change to the law that prevents peers and nurses in the city's sanctioned safe injection site from helping people inject.

Health care workers can only supervise and offer medical assistance if a user hurts themselves and gets sick or overdoses.

If nurses help an addict shoot up, they could be charged with possession or trafficking.

"We need them to help," said Ms. Tobin.

"And we need more places like the safe injection site. It's so busy now, it's being used all the time and people are sitting on the street, getting people who don't know what they're doing to inject them."

The net result is a society of entitlement that absolves the individual of personal responsibility and creates an illusion that consequences are made to be avoided. There is always "failure of society", a previous generation, or corporate dynasty at whose feet the blame for personal failure lies, always someone else with more "ability to pay" to pick up the tab.

"They owe you" .

Consider a city built, unwisely, below sea level, protected by massive levies and powerful pumps provided by the state, maintained by the state, with all the apparent permanence of the state.

In the unthinkable event that those fail, experts and engineers plot strategies for worst case scenerios. They conduct disaster drills, with fake victims and fake blood. The state provides modern highways and mass transit, and communications systems and weather satellites.

Then, when the day comes that the unthinkable becomes possible, the planning and technology move into high gear. Government officials, with the assistance of private and public media, warn of a tremendous hurricane as it grows in strength. The images are available world wide as satellites track its path, and local TV records the destruction of those it has already battered.

Government officials and elected leaders urge the citizens to evacuate to save their lives. They warn of the scope of the impending storm and the potential of devastation. They mobilize and priorize. Hospital staff stay on duty to care for the sick and infirm. The doors to the largest facility available that may withstand the storm are opened in hopes that those who had no way of escaping, or somehow learned of them too late, can find refuge.

And tens of thousands ignore them and remain in their homes.

Many of them have cars parked in their driveways. Many who don't are able-bodied and capable of walking. They ignore the warning and simply remain where they are, though they have children and elderly in their care.

With the storm passed, the waters rising faster than the heat, electricity failed and supplies running out, when the truth begins to dawn on the survivors - that the state is not all-powerful, that the mere human beings charged with coming to their aid,are, in fact, mere human beings who cannot come sweeping to their rescue like the cavalry over a Hollywood hill, that there are so many to rescue, because like they, so many have ignored the warnings - do they pool their resources?

Do they find strength in human dignity and sanctity of life? Do the strong come to the aid of the weak? Do they summon patience and resolve in the knowledge that help is on the way, if only they can find the courage to help themselves a little longer?

What is their response to this consequence that has befallen them, a consequence largely of their own making?

"You owe us" .

They take what others have failed to provide, those things required to sustain life - jewelry and television sets. And when taking isn't enough (it never is), they devolve into predation and anarchy, abandon the weak, turn upon the innocent and each other - and all in a matter of days.

In former times entire nations found the strength to rise to the occasion, ordinary people understood that survival depended on their shared common decency and respect for their fellow citizen. That, by co-operating and persevering, they might create coping mechanisms through pooling skills and resources, and to be sure, the majority of those trapped in New Orleans will have done just that.

But, in former times, whole nations were not living in a time of entitlement, where all and any are provided for by an all-encompassing "social safety net", funded by those faceless others with more, who have life easier, whom we have been trained to envy.

Those human failings, irresponsible and anti-social behaviors that once brought consequences in the community - shame, ostracization, and deserved personal deprivation - are today excused, assigned new and neutral nomenclature (all the better for medical diagnosis), prescribed "tolerance", and if possible, assigned the politics of race or class, so that collective guilt may be mined to ensure that self-destructive behavior gains not only acceptance, but state funding.

The predatory violence and anarchy befalling New Orleans is not the result of a freak convergence of forces brought on by unnatural disaster.

It's a warning.

(See also: American Spectator: Masques of Death)

Where Are The Buses?

In a parking lot, in New Orleans.

Via Drudge who seems to be the first one asking how many of the poor, the very young and disabled, could have been moved out of New Orleans with that fleet, while the highways were still open and the streets dry and unobstructed?

I've been listening to Charles Adler and others today while I work, and I have to say, the lack of attention on cases of negligence of those civic officials charged with the first line of defense, is predictable. In their world, the only politician alive in America is George W. Bush.

But, by all means - you know-it-all media pundits, whine about how America is the wealthiest country in the world, whine about the delay in federal assets getting to the storm victims, raise the opportunistic hot button of racism, but while you're at it - please share with the rest of us watching which fingers you'd snap.

And before you answer, here's another question for you, if you believe the only factor lacking is will and organization.

Where are the lawyers?

Heard of any class-action suits?

Me either. That - more than any shortage of personnel carriers or rescue helicopters - should tell us everything we need to know about how difficult it is to access New Orleans.

Update Debris Trail delves into the logistics that the majority of the finger-snapping media experts seem incapable of comprehending.

Seismic Monitor

Keep an eye tuned to the little map on the left. It shows recent earthquakes, and at the moment, there's activity on the San Andreas fault. Southern California has been hit by a mag 5.1.

The fully interactive map is here.

It's A Weighty Responsibility

Being a role model.....

I'm a redneck artist living in the middle of nowhere who likes talk radio and killing small animals. Can somebody please tell me when the hell I turned into Kate McMillan?

Crime Watch

It's the first day of school in Saskatoon. Police are reminding drivers to watch for youngsters crossing streets and parents to double check that their kids aren't inadvertantly wearing gang colours.

Community outrage is growing over the release of three teenage girls accused of having kicked and beaten a 60 year old Florence Frenchman to death in her North Battleford home. In the words of their defence lawyer Ron Piche (who succeeded in getting a publication ban, so of course, no one is allowed to know who, or where they are.)

"If there is a trial, it could take a year or more before it begins, Piche noted. "I don't see (their release) as undermining confidence in the justice system," he said. "Are you going to keep an accused in custody that long?" Piche said.

Or, if that isn't possible, may I propose a compromise? Let's share this societal responsibility for youth crime - place one out of every three or so of these anonymous young offenders charged with violent offenses in the guardianship of the judge who has done the releasing. That is, they must live in their home. Board a few with the Justice Minister, too.

Oh, and defense lawyers. Don't let them off the hook for arguing for their release.

Of course, Saskatchewan isn't the only place with these problems - in Toronto they've begun to crack down hard on their Jamaican gang gun violence, with plans to slap them with Victim Impact Statements.

Speaking of gangs and street violence - the good Reverand and civil rights leader Al Sharpton was last seen fleeing the scene of Cindy Sheehan's vigil near Crawford, TX.

In a hurry to get to New Orleans, no doubt.