Canadian Crime Safety Tips:
Tip #5 : Safety in numbers – to protect oneself from risk, always travel in groups.

It’s a poorly kept secret that the left-wing, labour oriented New Democrats governing Saskatchewan are hostile to the United States.
They parrot the “friends and most important trading partner” line, but they really don’t believe it. The NDP are socialists to the core – suspicious and antagonistic towards the US. Nor are they afraid to sacrifice the economic interests of residents of border constituencies to make their point. After all, it’s not like the southern rural areas are NDP strongholds.
What evidence is there for this? As I do nearly every year, over the past few weeks I’ve made road trips to North Dakota and Montana. Despite the fact that these border states are as sparsely populated as our own province, particularly near the Canada-US border, the American roads are well maintained – this is typical.

It must come as a shock to American residents when they cross into Canada.

This is what the last 50 miles looks like on those highways on the Saskatchewan side of the border leading to the ports of Northgate, Monchy and Climax. With broken pavement, huge potholes (never ignore a red hiway surface warning marker in this province) and eroding shoulders, these highways are in dangerous condition. According to border agents, there are American tourists who turn around after a few miles. Who can blame them?

What they don’t know is that all of these highways improve dramatically, for no identifiable reason, around 50 miles into the province.

Via my my favorite blog in the world this little story on environmental protection run amuck…

[T]he LeSatzes aren’t able to build their own riding arena. The only decent site on their property in southeastern Wyoming lies within 300 feet of Chugwater Creek, and building there is far too expensive because of Endangered Species Act restrictions intended to protect the Preble’s meadow jumping mouse.
“The mouse that doesn’t exist,” Amy LeSatz noted drily.
After six years of regulations and restrictions that have cost builders, local governments and landowners on the western fringe of the Great Plains as much as $100 million by some estimates, new research suggests the Preble’s mouse in fact never existed. It instead seems to be genetically identical to one of its cousins, the Bear Lodge meadow jumping mouse, which is considered common enough not to need protection.

Flashback Saskatchewan Highways fined for fishless habitat destruction.

Via Drudgereport;

Two Australian men may be prosecuted after they chewed live mice and bit off their tails as part of a pub competition to win a holiday.
The RSPCA called the incident “outrageous” and said it would seek the maximum penalty against the men.
RSPCA chief inspector Byron Hall said they could face two years in prison and fines of A$75,000 (US$52,050).

Mr. Hall added that the RSPCA is also tracking down unconfirmed reports of mouse-chewing involving cats.

No point in arguing with sucess – brace for an upcoming season of wall-to-wall reality TV.

Victoria Riskin, president of the 8,500 strong Writers Guild of America, said: “Our members are concerned that the plethora of reality programming is impacting them in terms of job opportunities.

Malcolm in the Middle, Jane Kaczmarek – $150,000 per episode

“There is a fair amount of anxiety that these shows are cheap to make and developing new series is too expensive.”

Will & Grace, Debra Messing and Eric McCormack – $250,000 per episode

Meanwhile, the Screen Actors Guild is not happy either.

The West Wing, Martin Sheen – $300,000 per episode

Its president, Melissa Gilbert, says: “It’s a terrible trend. My concern is that once the networks get comfortable with a certain kind of programme, it becomes very tough to make a trend go away. ”

The Friends cast – 1.2 million per episode

Stacie Lipp, who has written for Roseanne and Married with Children, went to pitch an idea to CBS the morning after the first Survivor finale.

Everybody Loves Raymond, Ray Romano – 1.8 million per episode

“Nobody listened,” she recalled. “They were buzzing. It could have been the best sitcom ever and we were doomed.”

The heart bleeds.

Watching a bunch of highschool and college dropouts learn the rules of supply and demand.

Priceless.

News to warm the hearts of my socialist friends who wax nostalgic for the good ol’days of the nationalization of the potash industry and the Saskatchewan Land Bank…. (an idea that would have worked if they’d only gone the whole measure…).

HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) – In its latest crackdown on democratic freedoms, the government announced today that all farmland will be nationalized and private land ownership abolished.
All land, including more than 5,000 former white-owned farms handed over to blacks, will become state-owned and subject to state-issued leases, Land Reform Minister John Nkomo said.
Title deeds of farm properties will be scrapped and replaced by 99-year leases with rent payable to government the state Herald newspaper reported. “There shall be no such thing as private land,” Nkomo said.
Since the farm seizures began in 2000, about 200,000 black families have been allocated former white-owned land. About a quarter were given larger properties for commercial rather than small scale farming. Hundreds of black farmers also bought commercial farms on the property market that will now be nationalized.

hat tip – Bob Tarantino, for the Shotgun

650 CKOM’s news director is a decidedly left-leaning Bush critic. Leavins has an afternoon show in which he interviews different newsmakers and shares his opinions. Those opinions are typically hinged upon Michael Moore-ish cherry picking of fact, and bolstered by ignorance of historical chronology and context.
But it would be unfair to leave an impression that Mr. Leavins is all gloom and “tsk tsk” anti-Americanism. He is on throughout the day doing general announcer duty, and much of it is lighter fare. This morning featured a prize on offer for the caller with the right answer to the following timely question: “How many beer can fit in the bowl of the Stanley Cup”
As each person called in and guessed incorrectly, he hung up to allow the next one to try. This is a paraphrase of how the contest progressed. Read carefully.

Leavins: How many beer fit inside the Stanley Cup?
Caller: 43!
Leavens: Nope. Too high, next caller..
Caller: 40.
Leavens: Too high.
Caller: 25?
Leavens: Still too high. Caller, how may beer?
Caller: 20.
Leavens: Still too high…
Caller: 10?
Leavins: Oh, that’s close! But too low.
Caller: 12?
Leavens: Oh ! … too high!
Caller: 11!!!!!
Leavens: Too low!
Caller: eh… 13?
Leavens: Too high! Oh, everyone is so close!
Caller: 11 1/2?
Leavens: No, too low! It’s between 13 and 15!
Caller: 14.
Leavins: right!

So, now, I think I have little better insight about how he comes up with op-eds like this one.

The Command Post covers this NYT story, that will remain virtually unreported in Canada.

Shiite leaders and American officials said the armed followers of Mr. Sadr, known as the Mahdi Army, had cleared out of many parts of Najaf, and seemed to be getting ready to leave altogether. The Shiite leaders said American forces, who encircled the city in recent weeks, had also cleared out of the city center and areas near the Imam Ali Shrine, one of the holiest sites in Shiite Islam.
[. . .]
“The people of Najaf are walking the streets, the cars are moving on every avenue and the Iraqi police have moved back in,” said Adnan Ali, a senior official with the Dawa Party, whose leaders took part in the negotiations. “This is a good step forward.”
Iraq’s new prime minister, Iyad Allawi, declared in an interview that the fighting was over. “The armed presence in Najaf and Kufa has ended,” he told Associated Press Television News.
[. . .]
A coalition official said American forces had pulled out of the center of town but were running joint patrols with Iraqi forces within the city.
A senior Iraqi official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, suggested that Mr. Sadr had grown demoralized in the face of political isolation and relentless military pressure. American commanders claim to have killed hundreds of Mr. Sadr’s fighters in the past weeks.
“There is every indication that the man is in a deplorable state of affairs,” said the senior Iraqi official. “He feels very weak. The Mahdi Army has suffered big losses.”

Not news for anyone who has been following reports on the fighting on the blogosphere. But it will never be news for Canadians who depend upon the mainstream media here. The El Sadr story has always been reported as being – at best – a “stalemate” between the American troops and his militia. Now that they are all but anhilated, there will be no further comment at all.
One can’t leave the impression that American troops are capable or successful.

Who best to grease the skids in your business dealings with totalitarian regimes? Why, the guy with the proven track record!

“Oil, I don’t know what for you talk for. Oil – I put that in my car.”

(The CEO of PETROKAZ has an interesting resume.)
Of course, this isn’t a full time gig. The dance card started filling a few months ago.

Mr. Chr�tien is expected to hold meetings with CITIC’s top executives, who plan to visit Canada this year. Chinese sources say he also has tentative plans to meet next week with top executives of Unicom, one of China’s two main cellphone companies.
He’ll be accompanied by his son-in-law, Andr� Desmarais, the president of Power Corp., who is a director of CITIC Pacific Ltd., the Hong Kong affiliate of the CITIC group.
The subject of their meetings is unknown. But Power Corp. has extensive business interests in China, including property development in Shanghai’s booming Pudong district and a joint venture with Bombardier to manufacture railway cars in the coastal city of Qingdao.

All in the family. (This is the Desmarais family with major holdings in PetroFinaElf .. the French oil company who had billions in contracts at stake in Saddam’s Iraq.)
Right after Chr�tien retired from the PM’s office, Warren Kinsella appeared on local talk radio. When a caller brought up the family connection between Chr�tien and Desmarais – he interrupted, threatened to sue the station, and the caller was cut off.
Nice touch and such a loving reminder of the old man.
Hey, maybe while he’s there, he can have someone dig up Zahra Kazemi and ship her home. It’s not like she has to stick around for the trial.
Crossposted at the Shotgun

As the Small Dead Animals contribution to the perpetual blog drink mixing meme, I offer this recipe.
I recieved a bottle of the sugar cane liquor that is the basis of Brazil’s national drink as a going away gift from my Brazilian hosts in April. A couple of weeks ago I had friends staying for a couple of days, and we ran out of rum. Too late to run out for more. The obvious solution – open the liquor. Without the required ingredients (tropical limes, sugar) to make Caipirinha (pronounced ky-pee-reen-ya), we came up with our own recipe for the cacha�a (pronounced oh-my-god-this-is-made-of-fermented-calf-scours ).
1 1/2 oz� cacha�a
pour over ice
Attempt (vainly) to put tinfoil cap back on bottle to control odor.
Debate the wisdom of what you are about to do. “Give it a chance”. ..”They wouldn’t go to the trouble of bottling this stuff if it tastes as bad as it smells” …. “maybe it’s better with the limes” … Hold breath… take slow sip.
Spit.
Invent new expetives.
Add 3 gallons of running water, flushed through mouth.
Take 1 regular kitchen sink. Again, holding breath, pour remainder of cacha�a down drain. Add 3 cups vinegar, follow with 1 cup bleach, full strength. Remove empty bottle some distance from house. Open windows.
Re-evaluate everything you thought you knew about Brazilian compliments and generosity.

Ich

Accused serial killer Maury Travis was found dead in his locked cell. He was hanging by the neck from a strip of bedsheet tied to an air vent, with a pillowcase over his head, toilet paper in his nostrils, a washcloth in his mouth and his hands bound behind him, with tape.
Took his own life, they say.

Damien Penny;

David Reimer’s life was sacrificed to a politically correct theory. What a disgusting waste.

What’s that? You need 5 bucks for a taxi?

$1.93 a gallon?
I wish.

That’s for a litre, kiddies.

Oops

Officials hope to explain today how explosives mistakenly wound up in a passenger’s bag during a security exercise at Montreal’s Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport.

This comes as no surprise. Not to anyone familiar with the problems in First Nations communities, and not to the Innu themselves. Ray, at Pol:Spy writes:

When the feds moved 680 people from Davis Inlet, where many were killing themselves after a life of gas-sniffing, alcohol abuse and violence, they spent an average of $223,529.00 per person on modern bungalows with heat and running water – something the Innu never had before.
Two years later, according to the CBC, the Innu are still abusing alcohol, and now marijuana (though less gasoline, likely because the pot is cheaper than the gas), and suicide is still a problem. But the Innu feared the problems would migrate with them, and they were right.
So how come the Innu could see this before the $152 million was spent and not the bureaucrats? With that kind of vision you would think they’d be the better bureaucrats. Or maybe not.

Here in the west, one of the most visible shortcomings of the Indian reserve system is played out year after year. Unlike the majority of urban Canadians who seldom see or drive through a reserve, many of us do on a regular basis. And it’s impossible to ignore that the “modern bungalows” built on reserves are too often vacant and uninhabitable in just a few years.
I live in a small, modest house that is around 100 years old. Though its seen only moderate upgrades (plumbing in the 50’s) it is still sound, square, the windows are unbroken, the doors on their hinges and I haven’t yet chainsawed a hole in an exteriior wall so cattle can drink out of the bathtub.
Of course, I paid for it myself. And I hold the title. Property on reserves is owned by the band. If it’s difficult to create respect for property (and self) among those who do not earn the money to pay for it, try cultivating it in people who have no hope of ever owning it.
Until we come to grips with the reality that racial entitlements breed beaurocratic corruption, stagnation, dependancy and lack of personal responsibility, there will be no end of Davis Inlets, suicide, unemployment and early death among First Nations people.
There has to be a better way to honour treaties than this current Canadian version of “separate but equal”.

Last night, Saskatoon police chased a vehicle through the streets at speeds reaching 85 mph. The chase ended with the suspects wrapped around a pole. Both the driver and passenger were taken to hospital, where the passenger was treated and released. (wtf??) – and the driver treated and escaped.
So, everyone, be on the lookout for a male: 5 feet tall – 100 pounds, with strong limp, staples in his face and heavily tattooed arms.
Just blended into the crowd, as they say….

Anti-war activist, author and former US Army Ranger. One of these things isn’t true.
Anti-war activist, avid cyclist and Vietnam veteran with the support of his former military colleagues. One of these things isn’t true.
Anti-war activist, former cartoonist for the NYT and waste of skin. All of these things are true.