John Kerry, Not French

Political Animal 3 Comments

Via Glenn Reynolds, who suggests that John Kerry (Kerry quotes form the foundation for the piece) should read it – today’s Lileks:

We stopped pretending we would ratify Kyoto. We only spent $15 billion on AIDS in Africa. We did not take dictation from Paris. If we had done these things, it would minimize the world’s anger.
Is the world angry at Russia, which spends nothing on AIDS and rebuffed Kyoto? Is the world angry at China, which got a pass on Kyoto and spends nothing on AIDS for other countries?
Is the world angry at North Korea for killings its people? Angry at Iran for smothering that vibrant nation with corrupt and thuggish mullocracy? Angry at Syria for occupying Lebanon? Angry at Saudi Arabia for its denial of women�s rights? Angry at Russia for corrupt elections? Is the world angry at China for threatening Taiwan, or angry at France for joining the Chinese in joint military exercises that threatened the island on the eve of an election? Is the world angry at Zimbabwe for stealing land and starving people? Is the world angry at Pakistan for selling nuclear secrets? Is the world angry at Libya for having an NBC program?
Is the world angry at the thugs of Fallujah?
Is the world angry at anyone besides America and Israel?
…
But even if you admit that the world is angry at America – so angry that the poorest of them can�t wait to come here and stake a claim � you have to stand in awe at the sheer political idiocy of Kerry�s conclusion. Boiled down:
“There are countless numbers of things that we could be do minimize the kind of anger and … almost recruitment that has taken place in terrorist organizations as a result of the way the administration has behaved.
By toppling the fascists in Baghdad without French seal of approval, we have encouraged recruitment in terrorist organizations. It�s not the invasion that ticked off the Man in the Arab Street, it�s the lack of a 17th UN resolution on Iraq. Right now in a caf� in Beirut an educated man, a chemist by trade, schooled in the ways of the West, is reading an article about how the US will only spent $15 billion on AIDS and probably won�t reduce its carbon emissions to 1817 levels, and he throws down the paper in disgust: bastards! I must join Al Qaeda, move to Iraq and kill the contractors who are upgrading their outmoded infrastructure!

Chr�tien sent our representatives to the Kyoto negotiations with a decree – not to protect the western based resource industries – not to fight for recognition that a thinly spread population in one of the most hostile environments in the world may just need to heat their homes – but to “beat the US by 1%”.
So today, tax dollars are funding home improvement projects to continue the charade that is still known as “meeting our obligations under Kyoto”, while the media ignores the fact that Kyoto is dead.
Kofi Annan visits Ottawa and Paul Martin cuts him a check. The bad guys in Iraq are the Americans, didn’t you know? Ipsos-Reid polls confirm that Canadians are convinced that “Bush lied” and the media outlets report it as fact. Polls tell us that Canadians believe the Iraq invasion a failure and the Canadian position not to back the US to be the right one. No surprise there. Public perception as reality, public opinion as a substitute for foreign policy – it’s the Canadian way. You won’t see the Fifth Estate visit the Saddam Hussein – TotalFinaElf – Power Corporation – Paul Desmarias – Jean Chr�tien connections. Not a peep about the Annan/UN Oil-For-Blood scandal. How can they? There hasn’t been a poll.
John Kerry receives much ridicule for being “French looking”. I can understand why the comparison is tempting – but I’m not sure it’s an entirely accurate.
Internationalist, UN-friendly, Kyoto defender, poll driven? That’s not France. The French aren’t “internationalists”, for one thing. There’s no such thing as French altruism – the UN is used to secure French interests, not world interests. Most importantly, the French don’t care if others are angry with France. Or if others like them.
No, John Kerry isn’t French.
The Liberal Party of Canada would fit him like a glove. He’d thrill in Montreal. Or Quebec City. My God – how he would love multi-cultural Toronto. And the Liberal Party of Canada. How proud he would be of a reputation for personal politeness and international peace-keeping. Of our health care system. Kyoto – why, Canada signed Kyoto, and meant it. Gay marriage would be much easier to understand in Canada, once the pollsters tell us we like the idea. One can almost picture him standing in the backbenches behind Carolyn Parrish and echoing her refrain about those “bastards” south of the border.
John Kerry is Canadian.
(Added to the Beltway Traffic Jam)

Canadian Breast Implant Registry

Not Quite News 3 Comments

Following on the heels of the highly successful and universally praised Canadian Firearms Registry, a new Canadian Breast Implant Registry has been announced.

The registry would address concerns of Health Canada that illegally sold and unregulated breast implants are making their way across the border from the US and Asian countries. It is estimated that the illegal breast trade has swelled to nearly $300 million since most breast implants were banned in Canada in the early 1990’s in a wake of device failures and court settlements.
The Breast Implant Registry would be backed by new legislation that would allow police to enter any hospital or commercial place of business without a warrant. In special circumstances, searches can be extended to allow physical examinations if illegal implants are suspected. Negotiations are underway with the provinces to hammer out who pays for removal of illegal implants, as these devices are a known threat to health, and many victims are unaware they have them.
The legislation also further restricts the use of approved breast implants, including limits on minimum age and maximum size. As of Jan 1, 2005, no implant in excess of a B cup will be legal in Canada, unless approved by a hospital committee.
Health Canada reports that about 4,500 Canadian women per year, as well as a handful of men, require surgery for breast implant related injuries or illness, and that many others go unreported. It is unknown how many illegal breasts are in Canada, but estimates go as high as 40,000.
“We are seeing just the tit of a breast implant iceberg”, says New Democrat MP Judy Wasylycia-Leis. Wasylycia-Leis is part of an all party committee looking at the problem.

Canadian Suspect Linked To British Plot

Terrorism No Comments

The suspect arrested Monday in Ottawa is now reported to be linked to the British bombing plot.

Mohammad Momin Khawaja, a Canadian government computer specialist, was held in Ottawa on Monday.
He was later accused of involvement in terrorist activity around the London area.
Early on Tuesday morning 700 British police raided 24 addresses in the South East of England, arrested eight young men and recovered half a ton of ammonium nitrate fertiliser – favoured by terrorists for manufacturing bombs.
Late last night police were granted another three days to question the suspects, meaning they can be detained under the Terrorism Act until Saturday afternoon.
It was also disclosed that a number of the eight – all British citizens mainly of Pakistani descent – had attended al-Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan.
Canadian suspect Khawaja, 29, was arrested at the Foreign Ministry offices where he worked.

Yesterday his father, Mahboob Khawaja, a university prof living in Saudi Arabia, called the raids in Canada and London “a hoax to create embarrassment”. Today the Saudis detained him, too..

Homeland Insecurity

Roadkill 2 Comments

Choice tidbits from the Calgary Herald story:

About 25,000 passports lost or stolen each year never appear on border watch lists, and 4,500 airport employees with “possible criminal associations” have access to restricted areas, Fraser said.
…
“The government as a whole failed to adequately assess intelligence lessons learned from critical incidents such as Sept. 11 and systematically follow up on needed improvements,” Fraser wrote in the most stinging line of her report.

Well, hello? Who was in charge, again?

Chr�tien said the Western world is “looked upon as being arrogant, self-satisfied, greedy and with no limits. The 11th of September is an occasion for me to realize it even more.” Chr�tien said he told Wall Street business leaders last year the West mjust not exercise its power so as to humiliate other countries and peoples. “When you’re powerful like you are, you guys, this is the time to be nice.”

(“Western World”… wink wink, nudge nudge…)

Last week, McLellan announced additional measures to create a government-wide communications system in anticipation of the embarrassing accounts in Fraser’s report about gaps in intelligence-sharing.
There was the time, for example, when a federal agency failed to circulate a terror alert from a foreign ally.
And in another case the government’s top-secret messaging system sent a response to the wrong address, and the sending agency waited a month to follow up and check whether the message had ever been received.
“Fortunately, (that) alert turned out to be a false alarm,” Fraser wrote in her typically dry prose.

$7.7 billion just doesn’t buy what it used to.

A Day In The Life, Pt. 2

stuff 1 Comment

Following up on yesterday’s work…

After laying out the major blocks of color, work continues with the addition of stronger colors for depth, and outlining and detailing with black.
This is the front, at the same stage – black added.
A couple of hours later, the artwork is finished and highlighted with white. This rear quarter is complete, but unfortunately the photo of the bird with white added did not turn out well enough to post here.

The finish is still flat in these photos, because iti’s still in base coat – the shop owner was getting the car ready for clear coating when I left. One looong day for everyone involved. Holding an airbrush for hours on end, results in cramping of the hands, and as mentioned yesterday, an inability to focus for a time afterwards. Couple that with crawling around on a concrete floor all day and I’m really rather tired.
I also got a start on the helmet and have both it and another small job to go back to in the morning, so I should be able to get some photos of the car with clear coating. The transformation that happens with clear is amazing – lines sharpen, some of the overspray melts and colors become about 30% more vibrant.
update – The finished job

RCMP Anti-Terrorism Arrest Suspect

Radioactive 1 Comment

No name has been released, but the home the warrant was issued for was owned by one Mahboob Khawaja, author of the book Muslims and the West: Quest for Change and Resolution.

Globe And Mail – Dr. Khawaja has also written several essays disapproving of U.S. foreign policy and the war on terrorism and commenting on “corrupt Arab leadership” and “American-Zionist political encroachment in the Middle East.”
He was once listed as policy adviser and a member of the international affairs, politics and religions faculty at Syracuse University in New York.
There was no answer at the home last night.
Neighbours said the owner lives in the house with his wife and four adult children and that he is a university professor who works overseas.

Hole In Ground Successfully Completed

Gopher News 4 Comments

“On time, and on budget.”

The $18 million cost of the project was shared by city, provincial and federal governments, and Federal Finance Minister Ralph Goodale says it is a good example of how all three levels of government can work together.

dig.jpg
Another installment for the Wide Open Future campaign – “Experience Saskatchewan – Endless Blue Horizons, Colorful First Nations Culture, the Synchrotron and Free Bags of Goose Shit.”

Goodale also marvelled at the size of the project, which he describes as, “1.3 million cubic metres of earth, moved by 200 workers and a massive amount of equipment, all in the dead of winter, working 24 hours a day.”

$13.84 a cubic meter. Second reaction – does this qualify them to fill holes?
Thousands attended the ceremony. No, really. Thousands.

Protein Wisdom

Blogging 1 Comment

Jeff Goldstein –

“Here’s how you know your politics have pitched a bit to the right: you’re enjoying a plate of Gino’s Pizza Rolls, watching an early episode of “M*A*S*H,” when suddenly you realize that just about everything Larry Linville says makes sense — and that, given the opportunity, you’d happily bend Alan Alda over a butcher’s table and thwack his self-satisfied ass about a thousand times with a rolled up poster of Douglas MacArthur.”

If Protein Wisdom isn’t on your daily read-list, it should be.

Day In The Life

stuff 3 Comments

I’ve been holed up in a bodyshop all day, painting a drag car. After staring for 7 hours at airbrushed lines, which are fuzzy, your eyes forget how to focus, so reading is difficult for a time afterwards. So, some pictures. I do this every so often for my commercial website – today I decided to share the step by step process here.
To save page loading time, only the first three are on this page. The rest are in the expanded entry.

A digital rough layout of the design, slapped together on the computer, over a photo of the customer’s car.
Before. The shop has painted the base color, which was then clearcoated and resanded. Good boys. Did my taping for me.
After spraying over the existing deep maroon paint with a light dusting of white, the background colors are set up.

Continue reading →

Saskatchewan Budget

Gopher News 1 Comment

From a source inside the government – the budget coming down ain’t going to be pretty. Saskatchewan (pop 975,000 and dropping) has been running half-billion dollar deficits and now has an accumulated debt equal to the highly criticized “Devine years” of the 1980’s.
The difference is that the Grant Devine Conservatives had an revenue-poor economy to deal with in which potash, oil and grain prices were in the tank, coupled with drought and sky-high interest rates. Plus, they had inherited the Blakeney legacy of hostility towards investment and private development – the nationalization of the potash industry, the despised “Land Bank” government purchases of farm land, and gas/oil royalty structures that crippled development of the resources.
Romanow, to his credit, faced the music, and the deficit was brought under control, though the province still fared miserably when it came to economic development. Old socialist economic theories and entitlements die hard – especially when your political base consists of unionized labour and “Tommy Douglas” seniors who respond to “Mediscare” campaigns.
The Calvert NDP have managed to dig us back into a very large hole despite record revenues and lowest interest rates in a generation. It didn’t stop them from campaigning on a spending platform and pledging to preserve “public ownership” of the sacred Crown Corporations – of which the government owns around 70. The only jurisdiction in North America with more government ownership of the economy outside Saskatchewan is Cuba.
Bottom line? The government may fall over this budget. There is real concern that some on the government side of the benches will not vote for it, and with the current 50 – 50 split of NDP to conservative SaskParty members in the legislature – it won’t take but one defection.
Interesting times ahead.

Best Hate Mail Contest

Insufferable Twits 3 Comments

About a year or so ago, I got into an online spat with a moonbat in the yahoogroup Global-M, that prompted my adversary to Googlehunt my name. She thought she was really onto something when she found an old page for a flamewars group that I had belonged to. She posted her find to the list and linked to it with an “Aha! Look what I found!” – I believe she thought I’d be embarrassed….
Mensa membership is no guarantee of intelligence. Apparently, Ms. Hsu had not considered the possibility of a page edit. When list members clicked on her link, this is what they found;


Quote of the Day
“I am a big fat idiot. I should have never linked to this site. It was a mistake to spend all night on google searches. I should have gone to bed. I should have put down the bourbon. My deepest apologies. –Tanya Hsu.”

For whatever reason, it seems she didn’t recheck the page after making the post, so remained blissfully unaware of the change. Then, a few months later, Tanya’s new employer did a Googlehunt on her name….
This prompted an email exchange, which she crossposted to her groups, cc’d to an unidentified lawyer (who remained curiously silent) . She demanded that my Mensa membership be revoked. It finally culminated in this:

Date: Sat, 16 Aug 2003 14:09:31 -0400
From: Tanya C. Hsu
To: Catherine McMillan
Subject: Re: Flamer Rips Mensan
You stupid fool. You stupid stupid fool.
I work with a government department in Washington DC. You have *no idea* of what and who can make life very difficult for you.
You ought to rethink fast.

The black sedans are still parked outside my house.
And so, this brings me to the purpose of this post – What is the best email threat or hate mail you’ve ever recieved? Use the trackback feature to link to this post, or share it the comments. You may also enter over at Wizbang where I’m doing a bit of guest blogging. I promise an appropriate prize for the winning entry.
Even Tanya can play if she likes.

Fiamma Nirenstein

What He Said 1 Comment

“In the contemporary world, the world of human rights, when you call a person a right-winger, this is the first step toward his or her delegitimization. ”

But I soon noticed that I had lost the innocence of the good Jew, of the very special Jewish friend, their Jew: I was now connected with the Jews of the State of Israel, and slowly I was put out of the dodecaphonic, psychoanalytic, Bob Dylan, Woody Allen, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Philip Roth, Freud shtetl, the coterie that sanctified my Judaism in left wing eyes.
I have tried for a long time to bring back that sanctification, and they tried to give it back to me, because we desperately needed each other, the left and the Jews. But today’s anti Semitism has overwhelmed any good intention.
…
The Left blessed the Jews as the victim “par excellence,” always a great partner in the struggle for the rights of the weak against the wicked. In return for being coddled, published, filmed, considered artists, intellectuals and moral judges, Jews, even during the Soviet anti- Semitic persecutions, gave the Left moral support and invited it to cry with them at Holocaust memorials. Today the game is clearly over. The left has proved itself the real cradle of contemporary anti-Semitism.
…
Why is the war on terrorism often looked upon as a strategic problem that the world still must solve (look at the US war against Afghanistan and Iraq) and Israel is treated like a guilty defendant for fighting it? Is it not anti-Semitism, when you act as if Jews must die quietly? Why is Israel officially accused by the human rights commission in Geneva of violating human rights, while, China, Libya, Sudan, have never ever been accused? Why has Israel been denied a fixed place in regional groups in the UN while Syria sits in the Security Council? Why can everybody join a war against Iraq except Israel, despite the fact that Saddam has always threatened Israel with complete destruction? When sovereign states and organizations threaten death to Israel, why does nobody raise the question at the UN? Has Italy been threatened by France or Spain like those Iranian leaders who openly say that they will destroy Israel with an atomic bomb? And what is said when a large part of the world newspapers, TV, radio and school textbooks recommend kicking the Jews out of Israel and killing them all over the world using terrorist bombers? The international community doesn’t consider this a problem. Israel is an “unterstate”, denied the basic rights of every other state, to exist in honor and peace. The Jewish state is not equal.

Middle East Martyrdom Game

What He Said 1 Comment

Converting bad leaders into dead saints

As everyone knows, the Middle East suffers from bad leadership. We have number of aging, corrupt and undemocratic leaders who represent extremist ideas. Until now, these gentleman have proven to be insuperable obstacles to peace, democracy, progress and improvements of the well-being of the populace. However, Middle East innovation and ingenuity have now come up with a solution. Any fanatic, illogical, corrupt or bloodthirsty leader can be instantly converted into a revered saint and martyr by assassination.

Go read the rest.

Sexual Healing

Penis News No Comments

‘He’s worse than a snake,’ says one victim’s relative –

A self-described medicine man who told several girls and women he could cure them of illnesses by having unprotected sex with them has pleaded guilty to several charges.
Harold Mearon, known as “Lucky” in aboriginal communities near Hobbema, halted his trial in Wetaskiwin on Monday to change his previous not-guilty pleas.

Stifle that giggle. Sexual assault isn’t funny. This man is a predator, preying on the stoopid weak.

Hans Island Showdown

Military 14 Comments

An international showdown is brewing. This time, it’s Canada staring down Denmark in a dispute over ownership of Hans Island.

Canada may be pulling back from overseas military commitments, but is planning to “flex its muscles” with an exercise on home soil by sending a warship, a squadron of helicopters and 200 troops to the high Arctic this summer.

Hans Island is like the Falklands…

The operation, code-mamed Narwhal, is the first time the military will have a joint naval, air and land force operating so far north.

without the sheep…

Colonel Norris Pettis, commander of the Canadian Forces northern area, told The National Post that the operation is about “sending a message that this land is important to us…that we can put troops, and aircraft and ships, on the ground to respond to whatever we might be called upon to deal with.”

or the people…

Both countries claim ownership of the barren and uninhabited island.

it’s about the size of a Home Depot parking lot.

A Danish warship sailed past Hans Island in 2002 and a group of soldiers disembarked and reportedly hoisted the Danish flag, an act Canada claimed was a violation of its sovereignty.

The bastards!

Canada has launched a five-year plan to increase its military presence throughout the Arctic, including satellite surveillance and far-reaching patrols of soldiers on snowmobiles.

A sleeping giant awakes.

Same Witch Hunt, New Witches

Gopher News 1 Comment

A new sexual abuse scandal has just surfaced in Saskatchewan. The scandal – as it came to pass in the Martensville and Klassen cases – is the overzealousness of the police and Social Services, and the ruination of another innocent family.
Saskatoon Star Phoenix

Social Services and the RCMP turned up at the family’s farmhouse without warning; took four of the children into care; conducted videotaped interviews with the kids that show leading questions were asked; asked one brother, aged 15, if he had witnessed or committed sexual assault without advising him of his legal rights; then charged two other brothers and the father with sexual assault based solely on those interviews, with no corroborating evidence.
Information presented at one of the subsequent trials shows that the decision to lay charges was made within hours of the police becoming involved: before the interviews had been completed and before anyone had even looked for other evidence.
The parents were not allowed to say goodbye to their children. Three of them were made permanent wards of the province and have been moved from one foster home to another ever since.
The charge against the father was stayed after 15 months, although only after the Crown prosecutor offered him a deal to plead guilty.
One brother was found not guilty and refuses now to live in Saskatchewan because of his experience. The second brother was found guilty, but had his conviction overturned on March 11 by Mr. Justice Gerald Allbright of the Court of Queen’s Bench.
The final injustice is that the family has been threatened with legal action if they take steps to publicize their situation.

This is a favoured tactic of prosecutors in Canada. Laws that were designed to protect “young offenders” and sexual assault victims from having their names publicized are being increasingly abused to hide misdeeds and mistakes of prosecutors and police. The courts place a publication ban on all evidence, charges are stayed, and only those directly involved are aware of the injustice and the damage caused.

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