Racial Profiling

I was talking to a refugee friend of mine the other evening and he was telling me about how he tried to use the Western Union franchise inside a local Money Mart to send a couple hundred dollars to his wife, whose father is in the hospital. Since she is in India, alone with their two children, and she has been caring for her father, who now requires frequent blood transfusions, she has been unable to work and therefore my friend wanted to send her a bit to help her and his kids get by.

When his wife had not received the money within the expected time, my friend returned to the Money Mart to enquire about what had happened. Due to a US directive (Western Union is a US company), his money transfer had been blocked simply because of his name. Since he has an Arab name, he was unable to send a relatively meagre amount of money to help his troubled family. He has not been in trouble with the law. There is no other reason that this happened other than his name.

This treatment by a company operating in Canada is absolutely disgusting.

Western Union Story Link

The Good Guys Vs. The Bad Guys

In regards to the current and on-going conflict in the middle-east (and many more in the world):

Wow, sure looks like all the hate-mongers have got people out there to swallow a lot of it. Let's just keep this up and teach it to our kids, and with a little luck, humanity will never evolve beyond this BS that keeps us down. There are insane people everywhere who end up getting into power situations because they are the most aggressive/destructive. They want to spread their anger because it supports their cause. This is feeding it. Think you're angry, think about how angry the Palestinians/Jews are. So angry in fact that nothing is going to stop them from trying to destroy the other. See a pattern here? How do we get out of it? Certainly the path we're on has shown a few times to not really have the greatest results. You think at some point you'll convince anyone that one side is good and the other side is bad. People need to calm down. Of course there are those on both side who think the world would be better off without the other, but this is not the majority, and this is not going to happen. And until there's a critical mass of people willing to not buy into the bullshit from the leaders and their media mouthpieces, this is what we get. And the kind of malicious vitriol that is getting thrown around here and in the blogosphere ad infinitum is only fanning the flames. COME ON PEOPLE!Yes, things are bad and pretty hopeless seeming, but what about a little compassion and seeing through the fact that the majority of people do not tow the party line of the insane power structure.

Now we know where Harper stands.

Stephen Harper referring to Israel's retaliatory actions as "a measured response" is complete lunacy that seems to either show his lap dog status to George Bush or else his right-wing fundamentalist value of "blow 'em off the map" revenge. Having a well-orchestrated military power, with the weaponry pretty much created and funded by the world's only superpower, murdering dozens of civilians and blowing up civilian infrastructure is completely unjustified. Has Mr. "tough on crime" Harper ever thought about trying to prosecute those who have perpetrated the crime under the rule of law that it seems the Conservative government is perpetually harping on about.

And this is the guy who wants to overhaul our justice system? Would a "measured response" to dealing with a murderer from Toronto be to blow up Toronto's sewage treatment plant? Or the Don Valley Expressway?

Hello Harper, Goodbye Canada

The recently concluded softwood lumber pact may indicate Harper’s route to deeper integration. Harper and George W. Bush were feted by trade officials for pushing through the agreement to end American duties on Canadian lumber and return to Canadian producers 80 percent of the $5.3 billion already collected.

Little mentioned is a key clause that requires U.S. government approval of any provincial forest-policy changes. This may be the most significant retreat from sovereignty in recent years, one authored by Harper. The Americans want this provision to ensure that all Canadian forest- policy changes point in one direction only: toward industry-controlled timber pricing.

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