Looking For the Truth

US-Backed Kangaroo Court Exposed

2006-11-20T13:56:00.000-08:00

For what it's worth, the well-respected group Human Rights Watch has issued a pretty severe condemnation of the verdict and sentence in the highly touted trial of Saddam Hussein. I have been noticing discrepancies between his trial and what would be considered fair for a long time. It's good to see this farce of justice being reported as what it was.

Link

CPC vs. Canadian Constitution

2006-09-25T16:12:00.000-07:00

As everyone knows, tax cuts do not come without a price, and the Conservative government under Stephen Harper has just announced a round of cuts to government services. Among those cuts is the complete elimination of a program that gave financial assistance to those making Constitutional challenges of laws.

What timing after hearing that the CPC is also tabling a "three strikes law", which has been speculated to be unconstitutional. Could this be just the beginning of a whole new set of laws designed to take away rights that we enjoy as Canadians?

Story Link

More of the Same Lies from Harper

2006-08-22T13:33:00.000-07:00

Under the new rules, introduced by Prime Minister Stephen Harper and rubber-stamped in private at last week's Conservative caucus retreat, local ridings will no longer have the power to set nomination dates or be responsible for notifying the party membership.
HQ now calls all the shots a perfect fit with Harper's control fetish and the result is a form of democracy by stealth that will preserve tired incumbency and keep fresh blood from entering a party that campaigned on openness and transparency.

Link

Racial Profiling

2006-07-25T10:42:00.000-07:00

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

2006-07-21T10:21:00.000-07:00

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.

2006-07-14T14:04:00.000-07:00

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

2006-07-07T08:55:00.000-07:00

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.

Article

Lack of Posts.

2006-06-23T14:21:00.000-07:00

Sorry everyone for slowing the pace of posts to almost non-existent. I was hoping to be able to engage in some more debate/discussion here, but for some reason, either my posts are very boring or something, there have been very few comments. I will begin posting again soon, just having a little break.

Let's Follow the Leader

2006-06-16T16:10:00.000-07:00

In a move that will hopefully start the breaking of the chain of destruction that our fossil fuel society has been part of for some time now, Sweden has given itself a timeline of 15 years to become completely independent from the use of oil as an energy source.

Link

London Calling

2006-06-13T14:34:00.000-07:00

Looks like the Metropolitan Police were a little overzealous with their trigger fingers once again, as they have released without charges the two brothers whose house was raided by over 250 officers, with one of the men being shot during the arrest.

And this after shooting to death that innoncent Brazillian man to death just under a year ago.

Let's hope that the RCMP and CSIS haven't been taking any lessons from these guys and also that the barbaric law allowing terror certificates gets struck down soon.

CBC Story.

What Gives?

2006-06-09T15:10:00.000-07:00

Any ideas on why Sam Sullivan is deciding at this point that the Falun Gong protesters on Granville must go after protesting outside the Chinese Embassy for five years? Just flexing his muscles?

User Fees

2006-06-08T13:30:00.000-07:00

It's not news that the Campbell government is in favour of user fees as evidenced by the user fees that have either been introduced, raised or are set to be introduced since 2001. These include a sizeable increase in the MSP premium, parking fees at BC parks, huge increases in tuition costs, proposed road tolls on the Golden Ears and Port Mann bridge, and many more.

These shifts have been explained that those who do not benefit from the said services should not have to pay for them.

Well, reading about the $100 million cost overrun so far going towards the 2010 games, it seems far more appropriate that this cost, rather than being taken out of the taxpayer base, should be raised by a user-fee paid by those that think this is a worthwhile expense.

To motivate people to pay, they could take a page out of the BC Parks example that tells people that their money will go directly into maintaining the park. People could be told that their contribution will go directly to their favourite contractor or advertising firm and will not be put into general government revenue. I'm sure this would be wonderful motivation for let's say, half the population of Greater Vancouver to come up with the $100 each to cover the cost overrun for such a great cause.

More Cars = The Way of the Future for the BC Liberals

2006-06-06T08:23:00.000-07:00

This morning on the radio, I heard a sound byte from Kevin Falcon, BC's Minister of Transportation, telling the public that those opposed to the Gateway Project are (I'm paraphrasing) an extremely small minority who have been opposing every infrastructure project for the last 20 years. This is news to me, as I don't remember being opposed to such things when I was six years old.

This dismissal by politicians of opposing views as simply ideological fever betrays the whole idea of the type of government that we have. If anything, I think it should be the mandate of those who have been elected to represent us to listen especially carefully to those who are presenting different viewpoints and maybe even change direction if it seems like that could be reasonably done.

I do not oppose the Gateway Project because of an "ideological view against anything new". I would be all for Mr. Falcon proposing to spend the same taxpayer money on some form of mass transit. Imagine a Park & Ride with free parking somewhere in the vicinity of Guildford with an extension of the Skytrain to said Park & Ride. For those commuting downtown, the choice to avoid the money spent on gas and parking, as well as the decreased commuter time, would be enough to draw sufficient numbers off the existing infrastructure to significantly reduce waits.

Building more roads & highways within cities is a thing of the past. We know how damaging this mode is to the environment, we know that increased capacity only leads to increased trips.

I recently saw a newspaper headline proclaiming that with the Gateway Project built, land values in the Fraser Valley would increase substantially. I wonder how many land developers are active in supporting the Liberal Party. I already know of some that do, and it doesn't seem like such a stretch to me that this could possibly be not much more than the standard corporate/political backscratching, of course at taxpayer expense.

Olymipic Legacy?

2006-06-02T11:43:00.000-07:00

As if the explicit problems with the RAV/Canada Line rapid transit line weren't enough, including cost overruns, likely-inflated ridership projections, putting the taxpayers on the line for 90% of the cost if ridership revenues aren't as high as expectations, a cut/cover tunnel on Cambie Street after being promised a bored tunnel, using public pension funds to shield SNC/Lavelin from risk, etc. I now hear this morning that it has surfaced that imported labourers are being used and are being payed far less than minimum wage. From the CBC BC website:

The B.C. and Yukon Building and Construction Trades Council says more than 50 workers from Costa Rica, Peru and Colombia are working long hours with no overtime — which works out to a wage of less than $5 an hour.

This sounds like another triumph for P3's and our so-called free market. I hope this gets really big, because I imagine it's more common than we think.

What a disgrace.

I should add that the allegations have been denied so far, but I am quite interested to see how things go.

Pass It On

2006-05-31T09:08:00.000-07:00

Well, a new study out of the Harvard Medical School, to be published in the July 2006 issue of the American Journal of Public Health has reiterated what many believe, despite the fact that it has been under attack by those whose friends may profit immensely by convincing us otherwise.

According to the study, the US and Canadian healthcare systems were compared by surveying 3,505 Canadians and 5,183 Americans between November 2002 and March 2003.

It was an all-around validation of Canadian socialized Medicare, despite the fact that the fear-mongers are trying to shock us into thinking we need more private involvement in our system, a move towards the US style.

According the the study,

Canadians are healthier and have better access to health care than U.S. residents. And, according to a new study, Canadians obtain better care for half of what Americans spend on their medical system.

"The data is clear and really irrefutable: Canadians are healthier than Americans and they have better access to medical care," Dr. Steffy Woolhandler of the Harvard Medical School said Tuesday. She added that medical care is easier to access for Canadians.

***

...Americans had higher rates of nearly every serious chronic disease, including obesity, diabetes and chronic lung disease, even though U.S. residents were less likely to be smokers.

"We pay almost twice what Canada does for care, more than $6,000 for every American, yet Canadians are healthier, and live two to three years longer," said Dr. David Himmelstein, an associate professor at Harvard and study co-author.

The main focus of the scare tactics to try and funnel more of our tax dollars into the private sector involves pointing out that our wait times have been greater than those in the US, which is confirmed in the study,

"But when you look at the actual number, it was a little over three per cent waiting for medical treatment, which is a tiny proportion when you look at the big picture, although doctors and patients might disagree with that," she said.
Lead author Dr. Karen Lasser said that, while Canada gets negative press about long wait times for medical procedures, the health system seems to work better.

"No one ever talks about the fact that low-income and minority patients fare better in Canada," said Lasser, a primary care doctor at Cambridge Health Alliance and an instructor at Harvard Medical School. "Based on our findings, if I had to choose between the two systems for my patients, I would choose the Canadian system hands down."

***

"The take-home message is: When you compare Canada to the United States, Canada is spending a lot less money to get better results," said Deber, who specializes in health policy, management and evaluation.

"There are small improvement in places that could be fixed and could be made better. But on average the system is working quite well."

Now let's hope that our media have the courage to hold our politicians to account on the findings of this study, although I am definitely pessimistic, as big business loves big business.

Take the message of this study, remember it, pass it on to friends, hopefully we can save what we have left before the likes of Campbell, Klein (and successor), and Harper can irrepairably destroy one of the greatest institutions we have as Canadians.

CTV Article

Bilderberg Conference

2006-05-30T11:21:00.000-07:00

For anyone who doesn't know what the annual Bilderberg Conference is (and I had no idea until quite recently), I would recommend checking out this link to the Wikipedia entry. Since 1954, the very powerful of the world have been meeting roughly annually at this event (The first one was held in Holland in a hotel called the Bilderberg, hence the name).

Heads of state, Henry Kissinger, Donald Rumsfeld, CEO's of major world corporations and banks, EU commissioners have been among the guests at this event, which is ultra-secret and the goings on are never discussed.

The secrecy surrounding the event and the demographic in attendance have led many to believe that these are meetings of the world's "power brokers" that are spelling out our fate behind closed doors in a completely undemocratic fashion with absolutely no accountability to the public.

I obviously have no real idea on what goes on here, but I have to say I find the idea a bit creepy.

This year, our own new PM, Stephen Harper is going to be hosting the annual conference in Ottawa. Seems rather appropriate considering how much secrecy has surrounded the first few months of his term. I sure hope that someone will have the courage to ask what implications this conference has for Canada and what sort of message he's sending.

Story on Last Year's Conference from the Asia Times.

Canwest Story on this Year's Event in Ottawa.

BBC Story Providing Further Details on the Bilderberg Group.

Nice Touch

2006-05-25T11:54:00.000-07:00

[Democracy Watch coordinator Duff] Conacher says the new Accountability Act also deletes from the ethics code a clause requiring politicians, their staff and senior public servants to "act with honesty."

CBC Article

Democracy Watch report.

Long Live the Inquisition

2006-05-25T09:04:00.000-07:00

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - The United States government, not any court, is the best judge of whether to keep programs such as its controversial effort to eavesdrop on citizens a secret, an assistant attorney general said on Wednesday.

It's quite strange to be watching a fascist state materialize right in our midst. Journalists can now be prosecuted for reporting on government activities, uncontrolled spying is taking place and trying to be justified. The world's only current superpower is trying to bring the use of torture for political reasons back into the mainstream. Institutionalized practices to separate the upper and the lower classes are rampant and the middle class is disappearing.

It's strange to parallel this time to historical 'dark ages', but it definitely seems that with as much wisdom as one can have in the present moment without the benefit of hindsight, it certainly appears that humanity is heading for a low. It's interesting to see how this sort of thing evolves.

We hear about how ancient Rome and Greece were indeed much more advanced technologically, politically and philosophically than the times that followed. It appears that we may be headed for another such downswing.

Don't Believe the Hype

2006-05-25T08:26:00.000-07:00

OTTAWA (Reuters) - A Canadian newspaper apologized on Wednesday for a story that said Iran to force Jews and other religious minorities to wear distinctive clothing to distinguish themselves from Muslims.

The conservative National Post ran the story on its front page last Friday along with a large photo from 1944 which showed a Hungarian couple wearing the yellow stars that the Nazis forced Jews to sew to their clothing.

The story, which included tough anti-Iran comments from prominent Jewish groups, was picked up widely by Web sites and by other media.

"Is Iran turning into the new Nazi Germany? Share your opinion online," the paper asked readers last Friday.

But the National Post, a long-time supporter of Israel and critic of Tehran, admitted on Wednesday it had not checked the piece thoroughly enough before running it.

"It is now clear the story is not true," National Post editor-in-chief Douglas Kelly wrote in a long editorial on page 2. "We apologize for the mistake and for the consternation it has caused not just National Post readers, but the broader public who read the story."

Asked about the Post story last Friday, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said Iran "is very capable of this kind of action." He added: "It boggles the mind that any regime on the face of the Earth would want to do anything that could remind people of Nazi Germany."

A spokesman for Harper said the prime minister had started off his comments with the words "If this is true."

These are the kind of shenanigans that are shaping world opinion/policy. I hate to think of how much this stuff is unreported, but here's a small example. Are the National Post and all the other CanWest mouthpieces going to publish a front page retraction to match the front page propaganda? I am skeptical.

This seems especially dubious for Harper to be jumping on the "media bandwagon" villifying someone after refusing access to himself on the grounds that the media is biased against him.

Long Live the Empire

2006-05-24T15:04:00.000-07:00

President George W. Bush has bestowed on his intelligence czar, John Negroponte, broad authority, in the name of national security, to excuse publicly traded companies from their usual accounting and securities-disclosure obligations. Notice of the development came in a brief entry in the Federal Register, dated May 5, 2006, that was opaque to the untrained eye.

Link.

The Culture of Fear Hurts Us All

2006-05-24T12:23:00.001-07:00

After the recent theatrical release of the hyped-up United 93, one version of the story of the fated downed airliner, I mused that I could imagine the paranoia and fear surrounding flying increasing exponentially. Imagining such comments to those of middle-eastern descent along the lines of "You're not planning on blowing up the plane are you?", etc, and cringing at the increased feelings of prejudice that are a result of the perpetuated stereotyping of certain ethnic groups.

Just yesterday, I read in the National Post about a man who was flying to London to see his grandmother, who was dying very quickly. The article specified that he was of South Asian descent. He had never flown before and was understandably quite nervous. To distract himself before the flight, he called several friends on his cell phone from the waiting area in the airport. Apparently this was too much for the other passengers to handle, and several of them reported the man to the officials as being suspicious. After boarding the plane, the man was detained by security and escorted back into the airport where they informed him that he would be refused access to the flight for the sake of the other passengers' comfort. He was told to go re-book with another airline. He returned home and because of the delay, his grandmother subsequently died and he was not able to see her before this happened.

This is a horrible ending to this story. Let's all try and keep our heads about what kind of fear is helpful and what kinds tear our social fabric apart. No matter how much parts of society advance, it seems there have always been scapegoats.

The Culture of Fear Hurts Us All

2006-05-24T12:23:00.000-07:00

Posting Frequency

2006-05-23T08:14:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone who reads and browses this blog, I was away from May 19th to the 22nd, and subsequently did not add any posts during this time. I will try and resume postings today.

Weird

2006-05-17T15:39:00.000-07:00

(CBS/AP) The city council in Black Jack, Mo., has rejected a measure allowing unmarried couples with multiple children to live together. The mayor said those who fall into that category could soon face eviction.

Olivia Shelltrack and Fondrey Loving were denied an occupancy permit after moving into a home in this St. Louis suburb because they have three children and are not married.

The current ordinance prohibits more than three people from living together unless they are related by "blood, marriage or adoption." The defeated measure
would have changed the definition of a family to include unmarried couples with two or more children.

Story here.

The Cheques Are Going to Start Bouncing

2006-05-16T15:23:00.000-07:00

"Imagine this: you are deep in debt but every day you write cheques for millions of dollars you don't have -- another luxury car, a holiday home at the beach, the world trip of a lifetime. Your cheques should be worthless but they keep buying stuff because those cheques you write never reach the bank! You have an agreement with the owners of one thing everyone wants, call it petrol/gas, that they will accept only your cheques as payment. This means everyone must hoard your cheques so they can buy petrol/gas. Since they have to keep a stock of your cheques, they use them to buy other stuff too. You write a cheque to buy a TV, the TV shop owner swaps your cheque for petrol/gas, that seller buys some vegetables at the fruit shop, the fruiterer passes it on to buy bread, the baker buys some flour with it, and on it goes, round and round -- but never back to the bank. You have a debt on your books, but so long as your cheque never reaches the bank, you don't have to pay. In effect, you have received your TV free. This is the position the USA has enjoyed for 30 years."

Good article here on a bit of the background of the situation that has gotten us into the mess that may soon unravel.

This Could Be Fun

2006-05-16T14:21:00.000-07:00

Things must be starting to look sort of grim for the mainstream press to be reporting on the impending financial crisis in the US. And the more it is reported, the more the rats start to flee the sinking ship, leaving fewer to bail and keep it afloat, and it sinks even faster.

From yesterday's BBC website:

The US dollar is plunging in world currency markets - and bringing down share prices in its wake.

But why is the dollar under pressure - and what would be the consequences for the US economy if it continues to fall?

Behind the problems of the dollar lies the huge and growing US trade deficit, and the large Federal budget deficit.

A fall in the greenback could hit Asian countries whose governments hold huge foreign currency reserves in dollars.

***

Together, the East Asian countries have accumulated foreign currency surpluses of nearly $1 trillion, much of it held in US Treasury bonds denominated in dollars.

Thus they are funding both the budget gap and the trade gap.

These huge global imbalances are threatening to derail the world economy, the IMF and other international organisations have warned.

***
In the first place, a rapid fall in the dollar, if it accelerates, could cause short-term problems for the US economy.

The higher price of imported goods could lead to a hike in domestic inflation, and it could take several years before consumers switch back to buying more US goods.

High inflation, combined with the stronger-than-expected growth of the US economy, could force the US central bank, the Federal Reserve, to keep raising interest rates.

They have already been raised 15 times, and now stand at 5%, partly on fears of a growing housing boom.

But the fears of inflation are also likely to affect the interest rates on long-term bonds, which determine mortgage rates.

The rising mortgage rates, while they may eventually dampen the housing boom, will also give a further boost to inflationary pressures.

***

As the value of the dollar falls, their reserves of the currency also reduce in value, as do the yields on the US Treasury bonds held by many of their central banks.

In buying such bonds these governments are, in effect, underwriting the large US Federal budget deficit as well.

This deficit is set to increase as the baby boomer generation faces retirement.

The Asian governments and investors may be tempted to sell many of their dollar holdings in order to protect themselves - but this would have the effect of weakening the dollar further.

And it would force the Fed to raise interest rates even more to protect the dollar.

I wonder if this will be the beginning of the end of the world's experiment of purely speculatory currency?

The Worst Kind of Pushers

2006-05-16T13:03:00.000-07:00

For anyone who's ever suspected that the drug companies would rather see you sick than healthy (at least in your own eyes), here's a good article exposing some of the techniques used to sell drugs. I personally think that many of the things that are termed an illness these day are the product of an unhealthy lifestyle and remediation would require nothing more than some serious effort and soul-searching to get in touch with what it means to be human (physically and otherwise).

Here's also a link the 2006 Bitter Pill Awards (exposing drug company manipulation of consumers).

Control Freak?

2006-05-15T14:57:00.000-07:00

It seems that Mr. Harper's treatment of his own party is shaping up to be much in line with the socially conservative patriarchal view of society held by many of the party members.

Instead of decentralizing power as promised, Mr. Harper has funnelled more and more control straight into the Prime Minister's Office. The PMO now pre-approves everything Tory ministers and MPs do in their political lives. They've been ordered to speak less to the media, and banned from gassing about the government's plans.

When they do speak (to order lunch, maybe) they have to stick to the government's five priorities — the federal accountability act, GST cuts, child care, crime and medical waiting lists — virtually idiot-proof subjects. Big Daddy's boys aren't just on message; they're all message, all the time.

Big Daddy is right. Have you had a look at the Prime Minister's Office website lately? It looks like an ad for the Conservative Party with the only visible member being Mr. Harper, as his mug is plastered all over it. Have a look: http://pm.gc.ca/eng/default.asp. Compare this to the Conservative Party website: http://www.conservative.ca.

For years openly scornful of reporters (“he blames the media for the 2004 loss,” one insider explains), the prime minister has now declared war on the parliamentary press gallery. The PMO no longer advertises the time and location of cabinet meetings, which means reporters can no longer scrum ministers as they leave the weekly brain mash.

As a result, they've resorted to buttonholing ministers as they climb into their limos. The PMO recently volleyed back by asking cabinet ministers not to park their limos near the members entrance to the House of Commons, so as not to tip reporters that a cabinet meeting is in session. Mr. Harper himself has allegedly resorted to sneaking up to the meeting on a freight elevator. All these antics make the nation's business look like a high-level game of sardines.

Mr. Harper bypasses the national media more and more — taking last minute trips, covering up visits by foreign statesmen such as the president of Haiti, waiting three days to reveal that Canada has renewed its commitment to NORAD, the North American Aerospace Defence Command — and instead travels the country to talk to local TV stations.

What have we got ourselves into. For the guy who was so critical of the Liberals voting as a block in the past and who has been a major proponent of the Parliamentary free vote, either he's one good liar, or all that (minority government) power has gone to his head. Are we supposed to believe that if he was given a majority government, there would be no influence on other Conservative MP's in their voting directions?

In recent days, rumours have begun to circulate that Mr. Harper has even limited his ministers' opportunities to speak in cabinet meetings. Instead, he has begun to meet them privately beforehand, hear their proposals and then make their presentations himself. That's Big Daddy, for sure.Naturally in partisan Ottawa, a lot of people claim Mr. Harper's love of command and control makes them nervous.

Greg Weston, Ottawa columnist for Sun Media, has been covering Parliament Hill for 30 years. “I don't need the PMO to do my job,” he says. “But the control concerns me. This is the way they're going to be running the country. It's not just early game jitters. This is part of a deep-rooted belief set. It's almost a culture.”

To thwart the Harper team, Mr. Weston has urged reporters to ferret out the home numbers of cabinet ministers, and to hound them in restaurants and in public. But in Harperville, it isn't where you talk that's a problem: it's talking, period. Talking invites debate; debate implies uncertainty; uncertainty is not prime ministerial. The name of this show is Big Daddy Knows Best.

Mr. Harper and his crew claim (without citing evidence) that only the media care about how much access the media get. A more accurate and potentially more damaging charge is that Mr. Harper treats the media — and therefore Canadians — like children. Mr. Harper and his team are betting a majority of Canadian voters prefer it that way.

Just the kind of person we should have directing the country. A control freak with a hidden agenda who sees the citizens of Canada as meddlesome.

“Harper's very message oriented, as we all are. But that's one of the great ironies of this: Political discourse has gone all to hell around here as a result. The bandwidth of political discussion in Canada and Ottawa is now extremely narrow — in the sense that all of the messaging that comes out of the PMO is written by a very small number of people. It destroys political discourse, because all the rest of us are doing is repeating bullets.” Dissatisfaction in the back benches is growing.

I sure hope it grows enough to put a crack in this facade. Hopefully at some point in the not too distant future we'll see the secrets start to leak out, as we're now seeing south of the 49th.

Pretty Good Listen

2006-05-15T11:19:00.000-07:00

Listen to a pretty decent quality streaming version of Neil Young's new album Living With War at his website here.

Way to go, Neil.

Review from Livedaily.com:

Another political album from an aging Boomer, but what about the music? Neil Young has never been afraid to take risks, and that daring streak has led to some less than interesting fare from time to time (see: the 1980's catalog). But when he is on, he is on, and "Living with War" is turning out to be one of those moments, agenda be damned. This is a genuine rock and roll call-to-arms, Neil Young style.

Finally

2006-05-12T15:08:00.000-07:00

If nothing else, hopefully this will help Americans to wake up the fraud that is their government. As if any more was needed to see the fraudulant dictator-wannabe cabal that currently occupies the White House.

From Think Progress today:

CongressDaily reports that former NSA staffer Russell Tice will testify to the Senate Armed Services Committee next week that not only do employees at the agency believe the activities they are being asked to perform are unlawful, but that what has been disclosed so far is only the tip of the iceberg. Tice will tell Congress that former NSA head Gen. Michael Hayden, Bush’s nominee to be the next CIA director, oversaw more illegal activity that has yet to be disclosed

A former intelligence officer for the National Security Agency said Thursday he plans to tell Senate staffers next week that unlawful activity occurred at theagency under the supervision of Gen. Michael Hayden beyond what has been publicly reported, while hinting that it might have involved the illegal use of space-based satellites and systems to spy on U.S. citizens. …

[Tice] said he plans to tell the committee staffers the NSA conducted illegal and unconstitutional surveillance of U.S. citizens while he was there with the knowledge of Hayden. … “I think the people I talk to next week are going to be shocked when I tell them what I have to tell them. It’s pretty hard to believe,” Tice said. “I hope that they’ll clean up the abuses and have some oversight into these programs, which doesn’t exist right now.” …

Tice said his information is different from the Terrorist Surveillance Program that Bush acknowledged in December and from news accounts this week that the NSA has been secretly collecting phone call records of millions of Americans. “It’s an angle that you haven’t heard about yet,” he said.

This could get ugly (I hope!). I'm pretty curious to see how absurd this gets. Hopefully there will be a tipping point when whistleblowers start coming out of the woodwork to expose the Bush admin. for what it is.

2010 Crackdown

2006-05-12T09:10:00.000-07:00

I don't know how many of you have heard that Gamie Graham (Vancouver's chief of police) is now reviving the idea of installing public cameras in the city to monitor the citizens, but I think this is something we need to make our voices heard on.

"We live in a dangerous world and we're about to host one of the biggest sporting events in the world, and we want to be careful. "
"There are people in the world and there are situations unfolding in different parts of the globe, and there are people who want to do us harm."

said Chief Graham in an interview with the CBC. I am not aware of studies on the issue, but it seems to me that the more the state, whether through laws, police or military, intervenes in the lives of otherwise peaceful people, the stress level of the society increases as a whole.

I suppose it should be seen coming that in the final 3.5 years before the 2010 Olympics, there will be enormous pressure to institute new policies in the name of safety and security, which is the most common justification that states have used throughout much of modern history to take away rights from their citizens.

It seems that we often forget that we are supposed to give rights to government, not the other way around.

What are anyone's thoughts?

Going, Going, Gone?

2006-05-11T16:32:00.000-07:00

In an article entitled "Bush May Have Crossed the Line by Tracking Every US Phone Call" in today's Times, it was revealed that

[Bush's] Administration has covertly collected domestic phone records of tens of millions of citizens.

According to the [USA today] newspaper report, the NSA used data secretly handed over by the country’s three largest phone companies — AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth — to try to build a database of every call made within the US — the largest database assembled anywhere in the world, one source said.

The programme is significantly different from — and potentially far more damaging politically than the secret, warrantless wiretapping programme revealed in December.

Hopefully the system's not so broken that this won't be used to boot him out of office.

No-Spin Zone Indeed

2006-05-11T16:12:00.000-07:00

A new poll conducted in Pennsylvania by Zogby International and commissioned by OpEdNews.com asked some of the questions the corporate media has failed to ask. The answers are surprising. One revelation is this: the single greatest predictor of an American's political views is whether she or he watches Fox News.

Article here.

Faith No More

2006-05-11T15:01:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Mike Whitney and the Smirking Chimp for this article:

Why is George Bush destroying the dollar?

Or is it Bush? Maybe, it is the Federal Reserve, the privately owned group of 12 central banks that prints our money and sets the policy?

A UK Telegraph article on Tuesday "Dollar Drops as great Sell-Off Looms" explains the current dilemma. The dollar is falling against the euro and the Asian currencies while gold and energy prices continue to skyrocket. "Greenback liquidation comes amid growing concerns that global central banks and Middle East oil funds are quietly paring back their holdings of US bonds." David Bloom, a currency expert at HSBC, said the dollar was vulnerable to a steep sell-off as investors begin to refocus on America's yawning current account deficit, now 7% of GDP". (UK Telegraph)

Just to add some perspective to this topic; Argentina's economy collapsed when its trade deficit reached 4% of GDP. The US deficit is at an unprecedented level.

Normally, we could say that these are the predictable effects of market forces, but that's not the case here. After all, we know that Bush insisted that the lavish tax cuts be made permanent even though it was understood that such action would undercut the dollar. So, what is going on here; why does Bush want to kill the goose that laid the golden egg?

There are two ways to weaken the currency; either print more money which dilutes the supply, or create new debt which lowers the value.

Bush has done both simultaneously and with such gusto that it's a wonder the dollar hasn't crashed already. He's expanded government spending by 35% and produced humongous $450 billion per year tax cuts. Add this to the projected costs of a $2 trillion war and the dollar was bound to get hammered.

At the same time Bush has been spending us into oblivion, the Federal Reserve has kept the printing presses humming along at full-throttle doubling the money supply in the last decade. Almost half of all greenbacks are now located outside the country, which means that if the dollar becomes less attractive to investors those greenbacks will come flooding back to America and plunge the country into recession.

Regardless of one's political leanings, there is an obvious and demonstrable attempt to savage the currency by the political and banking establishment.

Why?

The real force behind Bush's actions is the Federal Reserve. No one has any illusion that our paper-mache president, who even boasts about not reading the newspapers, is making complex policy decisions about geopolitics and finance. As a privately owned institution, the Fed has its own agenda which runs contrary to the interests of the American people. Many people fail to realize that it was Greenspan who cooked up the massive increases in Social Security in 1983 to help Reagan reduce the soaring interest rates that were caused by his tax cuts for the wealthy. Ever since then, Social Security payments have gone directly into the general fund; paying for roads, social programs and war. This was the Fed's clever way of creating a flat tax directed exclusively at the poor and middle class.

The Federal Reserve has engineered many similar coups, the most impressive being the huge stock market bubble of the late 1990s. Greenspan kept the cheap money flowing into the Wall Street Casino (and refused to even increase marginal rates on stock purchases) while PE's skyrocketed and the bubble expanded to Hindenburg-proportions.

Following the explosion, which left tens of thousands of Americans stripped of their retirement and savings, Greenspan breezily noted that it is not the task of the Fed to stop bubbles.

Really? The European Central Bank (ECB) takes an entirely different tack intervening whenever it is clearly in the public interest. Greenspan's recalcitrance has nothing to do with principle; he was simply acting on behalf of constituents in the investment community.

Currently, the Fed has created the largest equity bubble of all time; the $9 trillion housing bubble, slapped together over the last 3 years by lowering rates to an unbelievable 1.5% (at one point) and facilitated through shabby lending practices. As rates continue to rise to satisfy America's need for $2 billion cash inflows from foreign lenders every day, the carnage from the housing-bomb is bound to be extensive and agonizing.

The Federal Reserve has always served the singular interests of the ruling class, the only difference now is that the present clash is designed to drive the wooden-stake into the heart of the middle class and create a permanent American oligarchy.

Bush has purposely generated another $3 trillion in debt ensuring that the dollar will fall mightily and working class people be left with a trifling of their life savings.

6 months ago, the Federal Reserve, anticipating the day when the foreign inflows would dry up, eliminated the M-3, their public record of foreign purchases of dollars and securities. It all sounds very abstract, but what it means is that we no longer have any way of knowing how quickly foreign banks are dumping their greenbacks. This means that the American people will be left holding the bag once again; stuck with an inflationary dollar while foreign investors bail out.

The Federal Reserve gave Bush the go-ahead on his "war of choice" just as they cheerily endorsed the budget-busting tax cuts. They've doubled the money supply and done everything in their power to shift middle class wealth to corporate kingpins and American plutocrats.

Still, this doesn't explain why they appear to be intentionally savaging the dollar?

Here's the key: We are not a "capitalistic" system or a "free market" system, that's all just philosophical mumbo-jumbo. In practical terms, we are a "Dollar system" and the greenback must continue to dominate the world oil trade or the Federal Reserve, the IMF, the World Bank and all the privately owned global institutions will crash and burn. That's not their plan; their plan is to perpetuate this debt-pyramid into infinity; integrating dissident states into an expanding and predatory neoliberal network.

The face value of the dollar doesn't matter to the men who print the money. The actual value is constantly manipulated to shift wealth from one class to another. (via bubbles and inflation) What really matters is who controls the system and the means whereby others are coerced to participate. In the last decade the amount of dollars stockpiled in foreign banks has gone from 53% to nearly 70%; this is a monopoly that the US intends to defend by every means possible. To maintain this monopoly, the Federal Reserve has linked arms with the oil industry (and the US military) in its effort to control the world oil market. This has become an "existential" issue for the corporate elites who run American foreign policy. If the dollar is not supported by access to the world's dwindling oil supplies, then there is no incentive for foreign banks to accumulate the anemic dollar. (Oil is sold exclusively in US greenbacks)

By this standard, we can see that Bush's fictitious war on terror is really just a smokescreen for a global resource war that will decide which economic system prevails.

Will it be the dollar system, with its wars and gulags spread across the planet? Or will some other system emerge, some non-ideological incarnation of socialism that redistributes wealth according to people's needs like we see in Venezuela?

The future of the dollar may be decided sooner than any of us had imagined. Iran's Mehr News Agency announced that the long-awaited Iran Oil Bourse (OIB) will open sometime next week on Kish Island challenging head-on America's monopoly on the sale of oil in dollars. Iran's plan is a direct attack on the greenback as the world's "reserve currency". The US must preserve that advantage because it allows it to maintain massive deficits as well as a national debt of $8.4 trillion without fear of economic collapse or hyper-inflation. The opening of the bourse guarantees that central banks around the world will convert some of their reserves into euros precipitating a sharp decline in the dollar's value.

This may be the most serious threat the dollar has ever faced. The fundamental economic law of "supply and demand" ensures that the bourse means hard times for the greenback. This explains why the Bush administration is cobbling together a feeble coalition of European allies (England, France and Germany) to push a resolution through the Security Council expressing their "serious concern" about Iran's alleged nuclear programs.

Washington is looking for international cover to conceal its battle-plans. The hawkish members of the administration want to preempt the opening of the bourse with a unilateral attack (nuclear?) on Iranian facilities.

Even if Washington succeeds in stopping Iran's plans to compete in the oil market, it's still a bumpy road ahead for the greenback. The dollar is under growing pressure from overspending and mismanagement. The prospect of diminishing foreign inflows and a fragile housing market are telltale signs of an inflationary cycle.

America is now facing a slow-motion meltdown that could escalate into a widespread run on the dollar. Attacking Iran will only aggravate the situation and push tenuous states towards new alliances. (China, India, Venezuela and Russia have already expressed support for the new bourse) Military action will do nothing to relieve America's enormous account imbalances or lesson the vulnerability of the ailing greenback.

The problems facing the dollar are purely systemic. The privately owned central banks in the Federal Reserve cannot be trusted to decide monetary policy any more than the oil giants can be trusted to decide foreign policy. When the public interest is excluded from policy-making, catastrophe is inevitable.

Expect the greenback to follow a long-downward spiral.

Nicely Done

2006-05-11T12:01:00.000-07:00

For all of you who like the story of Robin Hood and didn't sympathize with the Sheriff of Nottingham,

[a] GANG of anarchist Robin Hood-style thieves, who dress as superheroes and steal expensive food from exclusive restaurants and delicatessens to give to the poor, are being hunted by police in the German city of Hamburg.

The gang members seemingly take delight in injecting humour into their raids, which rely on sheer numbers and the confusion caused by their presence. After they plundered Kobe beef fillets, champagne and smoked salmon from a gourmet store on the exclusive Elbastrasse, they presented the cashier with a bouquet of flowers before making their getaway.

The latest robbery is part of a pattern over the past several months, suggesting that the thieves deliberately set out to highlight what they perceive as the inequality inherent in German society. [emphasis added]

Perceive? If they're part of the current world economic model, that takes the real wealth created by workers and transforms it into phony monetary wealth for the moneylenders, I would say that they have pretty reasonable cause for these beliefs.

However, the authorities do not agree. Bodo Franz, a police spokesman, said: "They get off feeling they are just like Robin Hood. There are about 30 in the group. But whatever their motives, they are thieves, plain and simple."

This may be plain and simple theft, but it pales in comparison to the institutionalized, legal theft of the world's wealth by the powerful money managers.

Carsten Sievers, the manager of a luxury supermarket in the wealthy Blankenese area of Hamburg, recently watched the robbers run off with trolleys full of expensive foodstuffs, including Kobe beef which, at more than £100 a pound, is always on their illicit shopping list.

In another recent swoop, the gang emptied a groaning buffet table in a top restaurant into sacks, while one of their number held up a sign saying. "The fat years are over" - the title of a hit film currently doing the rounds in Germany.

In internet statements, the gang have made a point of saying their booty is distributed to Hartz IV recipients - the poorest of Germany's long-term unemployed.

***

When the gang robbed the gourmet store in April - triggering a massive police investigation that cost £20,000 in taxpayers' money without an arrest being made - they left a note behind saying: "Without the abilities of the superheroes to help them, it would be impossible for ordinary people to survive in the city of the millionaires."

***

Mr Franz said: "They try to make crime fun but are politically motivated."

What a thought. The police think that there is political motivation behind this and it's not just for fun. Why should this group of people want to effect change to a system that is bleeding us all dry to enrich a small class that is more powerful than one could ever imagine?

Way to go guys!

What Is The Nature of Our Mandatory Public Schooling?

2006-05-11T10:57:00.000-07:00

I'm going to try, over the next little while, to have this be an evolving post, trying to illustrate the development, in the early 19th century of mandatory state schooling in Prussia, its adoption in America (and Canada in a large part), its true purposes, and its evolution and consequences in terms of the self-sufficiency (or lack thereof) of the general population and the lack of ability to think critically and effictively about the things that are fundamental about the organization of our society.

Depending on how I do with this and how long it takes, I may also try and show how universities, at different points true vestiges of human discovery, are ever-increasingly used as tools to further political-economic agendas.

Put On the Blinders and Run

2006-05-10T16:57:00.000-07:00

From the e-economic newsletter in the Free Market News:

For those of us who are dismayed at the decision by the [U.S.] Federal Reserve to no longer publish the M3 numbers, which is the broadest measure of the money supply, alert reader Tom McC. thinks like we do, but with a nautical bent. He says "I refer to the government's refusal to publish M3 statistics going forward as the Depth Gauge gambit, as it is akin to disconnecting the depth gauge as a means of combating flooding in a submarine."

An interesting read.

Link

HIGHLY Recommended Reading

2006-05-09T13:17:00.000-07:00

Article from May 4 Georgia Straight:

Link

Let's Get the Bad Guys

2006-05-08T14:03:00.000-07:00

Well, for all of you out there that thinks Canada is soft on terrorists - and we must be since I can't even remember the last one we convicted - finally some good news today, from the Globe and Mail:

The Canadian judge heading the Air-India inquiry is being asked by the Stephen Harper government to consider new ways to try terrorism suspects -- including a parallel system where cases would be weighed by three-judge panels instead of the standard judge or jury.

Since it was announced one week ago, Mr. Justice John Major's commission has been chiefly described as a means of bringing "closure" to families whose loved ones were killed more than 20 years ago.

But his job is more broad and forward-looking than just that: He is to perform nothing less than a full review of the Canadian criminal justice system as it applies to terrorism prosecutions.

Well, this certainly seems a good first step, considering the number of repeat terrorist offenders we've been dealing with.

Defence lawyers say they are alarmed by any implicit suggestion that Canada's legal system is incapable of prosecuting terrorists. "There is a discussion that a single judge or judge and jury, somehow, are not up to the task," said criminal lawyer Marlys Edwardh. ". . . There is no evidence that that concern is justified."

The inquiry comes amid rising doubts that the Canadian criminal justice system is capable of bringing terrorists to justice. Last year's acquittal of two Vancouver men, the alleged ringleaders of the 1985 Air-India bombing, outraged relatives of the 329 victims. Last month, a U.S. State Department report criticized Canada for failing to convict anyone under the anti-terrorism laws passed in 2001.
Now, the government itself is wondering whether the system needs fixing. It has ordered Mr. Major to examine "whether the unique challenges presented by the prosecution of terrorism cases . . . are adequately addressed by existing practices or legislation, and, if not, the changes in practice or legislation that are required to address these challenges, including whether there is merit in having terrorism cases heard by a panel of three judges."
Such changes could open up a Pandora's box of thorny legal questions, and lead to a change in current laws intended to keep spy "intelligence" separate from Crown "evidence," as well as a Charter of Rights and Freedoms principle that every accused is entitled to a jury trial.

Well, obviously there's something wrong with our system if we didn't find them guilty. In every trial surrounding a heinous crime, the defendants are always guilty. Even Perry Mason knew that! And with the defender of freedom itself, the US, telling us there's something wrong with our justice system, we'll just have to start rootin' out the problems and make sure we start getting convictions.

Anyone else think there's a problem with Canada even considering taking away its citizens' Charter rights in order to "save us from terrorists" on the advice of the US? Creepy. Let's make sure Harper is booted out of here as soon as possible. If he gets a majority, we're going down the tubes like never before.

The History of Being Duped

2006-05-08T12:48:00.000-07:00

Not much comment on this article from the Baltimore Chronicle, it speaks for itself:

While the Administration faces accusations that it overhyped post-9/11 threats to national security, the media have been slow to stitch together a similar pattern in Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's connection with the pharmaceutical industry, a connection that built his personal fortune on a series of panics stretching back to the mid 1970's.

Most recently, the panic over avian flu has been fanned almost universally by news outlets, despite expert caution that the virus itself has yet to mutate into any form transmittible between humans or between birds and humans.

Nonetheless, the Government has stockpiled two billion dollars worth of Tamiflu. This drug was developed a decade back by Giliad, of which Rumsfeld was the CEO, the company then transferring all marketing and sale rights to the Roche Company.

Earlier, the current Secretary of Defense successfully marketed aspartame, a suspected carcinogen, as "Nutrasweet," on which he earned some ten million. Before that, he exploited scare tactics on the swine flu, to the extent that President Ford ordered massive inoculations in 1976. When fifty people died from the drug, its administration was suspended, but not before Mr. Rumsfeld pocketed an estimated five million.

Much of the swine flu story and its dubious provenance has been documented by a Johns Hopkins medical professor, Arthur Silverstein, in his book Pure Politics and Impure Science, subtitled The Swine Flu Affair (JHU Press,1984). His account emphasizes how President Ford's desire to win election on his own rendered him susceptible to pressure from the pharmaceuticals to inoculate all Americans, 220 million people, against the Swine flu despite only one clearly documented fatality.

It became a $135 million program which had reached 40 million before the accumulation of fatalities and a linkage to several cases of Guillain-Barre syndrome or paralysis saw suspension of the vaccine. The pharmaceutical companies had pre-arranged for the government to assume any liabilities.

Aspartame had such a mixed record in various lab tests that the FDA refused approval several times. However, with the election of Ronald Reagan, Arthur Hayes Hull, Sr., a friend of Rumsfeld, became a commissioner on the FDA.
Another crony appointment secured the votes necessary for approval. Today a $330 million class action lawsuit under RICO provisions mentions Rumsfeld as the CEO of G.D. Searle Company in 1977.

The current scare, commented NBC News' chief science and health correspondent Robert Bazell just this past February, closely resembles the 1970's scare, except this time around the price tag in Bush's request for funding is $7.1 billion.

Is the entire American media machine really that slow, as is suggested, or could it, just possibly, be intentional? Hmmm.

Irony?

2006-05-08T12:05:00.000-07:00

Ever wonder what's happening with Saddam Hussein? Remember all the hoopla, when the man that George W. Bush in 2003 said "has proven he is capable of any crime," was finally dragged out of his so-called "spiderhole" amid promises of peace and justice for the Iraqi people?

There have been little bits and pieces that I have seen either in the newspaper or on television newscasts, giving the impession that to this day, the trial in Iraq charging Mr. Hussein with war crimes dating back 15 years is still in progress.

Today, I decided to see if I could find any information on what was happening. There didn't seem to be much current information from the normal news sources, but I did manage to find an article, published by Jurist (a Web-based legal news and real-time legal research service based out of the University of Pittsburgh Law School) entitled A Farce of Law: The Trial of Saddam Hussein.

The article is written by Curtis Doebbler, an American member of Saddam Hussein's legal defence team. Mr Doebbler claims that Hussein's trial is unfair and orchestrated by the United States, and that the rule of law has been irreparably damaged as a result.

From the article:

The violations of unfair trial are too numerous to mention here, but include almost every provision in article 14 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights that could be violated at this juncture of the proceedings.

The inequality of power can be illustrated simply in dollar values. The United States has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars supporting the prosecution of the Iraqi President; the defense lawyers are working as volunteers with hardly enough money to travel to Iraq. The inequality of power can also be illustrated in minutes, days, weeks, and months. The prosecution alleges to have been collecting evidence since at least 1991 — which, of course, could only be true if it were the United States government doing the collecting — and has at least been doing so since April 2003 when dozens of American lawyers and Iraqis who had not lived in Iraq for years were shuttled in to build a case. The defense lawyers, despite requesting visits with their client since December 2003 when he was detained, have to date not been allowed the confidential visits that are necessary to begin to prepare a defense. No visits were allowed with the most senior lawyers until after the trial had started and
at each visit American officials exercise the authority to read any materials brought into the visiting room despite the fact that all meetings remain under close audio and visual surveillance. As if this were not enough, evidence has been withheld from the defense lawyers. They have been denied access to investigative hearings; they have been denied prior notice of witnesses, and they are prevented from even visiting the site of the alleged crime.

All of these rights of the defendant are part of the right to a fair trial under both Iraqi law and international law. This law is merely violated with impunity. The extent of this impunity was evidenced on 24 January of this year when judicial clerk Riza Hasan attempted to return a more than fifty-page brief that had been submitted to the IST claiming that “the judges did not want it.” Perhaps he was explaining why none of the eight motions which have been before the IST for months, including motions on illegality of the IST and disqualification of specific judges, have never received a written reply.

The interference with the independence of the tribunal has permeated all its aspects. Four out of five judges who started the cases have been removed, two by publicly announced interference connected to the United States occupying powers. In September 2005, four prominent statesmen wrote the UN Secretary-General advising him of the threat to participants in the trial in Iraq. These warnings were ignored. Several weeks later two defense lawyers were murdered in a manner suggesting possible involvement of the authorities in Iraq. More recently a possible defense witness was killed when his whereabouts were disclosed to US authorities. Even US President George W. Bush has declared that the trial is on track and that the Iraqi President will be executed.

Such statements coming from judges of the IST also indicate a clear lack of impartiality. In a film by Jean-Pierre Krief for Arte France and KS Visions that was shown in France in 2005, a judge of the tribunal states that the Iraqi President who was then about to go on trial before them had “persecuted the Kurds. He killed them, wiped many of them out. He also used chemical weapons with the aim of committing genocide against this race, against this people, to eradicate them as a nation. He also went after the Shiites due to their religious beliefs.” Another judge states that the President is “one of the worst tyrants in history.” These are not the statements of an impartial judge who in the inquisitorial system of justice is both the evaluator of law and fact.

It certainly seems like there are good reasons that this not be allowed to reach a mainstream audience. There are still those who are not aware of the complete lack of respect for international law or human rights shown by the current US administration. Make no mistake, this is a group that is going to unheard of lengths to dupe all of us into allowing a power scheme like no other come to fruition.

US: Government creating "climate of torture"

2006-05-05T10:05:00.000-07:00

This is the title of a new report published by Amnesty International that was released simultaneously in the US and the UK on May 3rd.

Some excerpts:

"Although the US government continues to assert its condemnation of torture and ill-treatment, these statements contradict what is happening in practice," said Curt Goering, Senior Deputy Executive Director Of Amnesty International USA. "The US government is not only failing to take steps to eradicate torture it is actually creating a climate in which torture and other ill-treatment can flourish -- including by trying to narrow the definition of torture."

The report reviews several cases where detainees held in US custody in Afghanistan and Iraq have died under torture. To this day, no US agent has been prosecuted for "torture" or "war crimes". "The heaviest sentence imposed on anyone to date for a torture-related death while in US custody is five months -- the same sentence that you might receive in the US for stealing a bicycle. In this case, the five-month sentence was for assaulting a 22-year-old taxi-driver who was hooded and chained to a ceiling while being kicked and beaten until he died," said Curt Goering.

"While the government continues to try to claim that the abuse of detainees in US custody was mainly due to a few 'aberrant' soldiers, there is clear evidence to the contrary. Most of the torture and ill-treatment stemmed directly from officially sanctioned procedures and policies -- including interrogation techniques approved by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld," said Javier Zuniga, Amnesty International's Americas Programme Director.

The report also lists concerns surrounding violations of the Convention against Torture under US domestic law, including ill-treatment and excessive force by police, cruel use of electro-shock weapons, inhuman and degrading conditions of isolation in "super-max" security prisons and abuses against women in the prison system -- including sexual abuse by male guards and shackling while pregnant and in labour.

"The US has long taken a selective approach to international standards, but in recent years, the US government has taken unprecedented steps to disregard its obligations under international treaties. This threatens to undermine the whole framework of international human rights law -- including the consensus on the absolute prohibition of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment," said Javier Zuniga.

Justice, American-Style

2006-05-04T08:48:00.000-07:00

I opened the google news page this morning and saw this headline:

9/11 families glad Moussaoui won't die a martyr

Reading down the article a bit, it was specified that,

[f]amily members of victims of the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington hailed a Virginia jury's decision to put al-Qa'ida conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui in jail for life rather than make him a martyr through execution.

Elizabeth Jordan, 37, who also lost her husband in the terrorist attacks, said life in prison was appropriate because Moussaoui "doesn't value death or see it as anything wrong".

Although this does not necessarily represent the majority of opinions in America, it really struck a chord with me, reminding me of the seeming "Biblical Punishment" (A legitimate, biblical function of government is to punish those who do wrong. And when they do, they function as God’s agents to punish evil. That is part of how God administers justice.) justice style that permeates the US, setting it apart from other places where a functioning society/rehabilitation of criminals might be the desired product of the justice system.

It seems to me that the death penalty is a prime example of this mentality of an "eye for an eye". In the case of Moussaoui, in which it has been implied that on some level he was seeking martyrdom through death for some cause, it would no longer be desirable to kill this person, as this would not be inflicting the most hardship on this person. Nevermind his mental condition, nevermind that during the trial, he had a stun belt under his clothing in case he got out of line, severly impairing a sense of fair trial, some evil has been commited and it is necessary to find someone to inflict the most punishment possible on.

This type of mentality severely hinders the argument for the death penalty that its purpose is to remove those who are beyond help from society permenently. Why not just find out what a person's biggest fear is and subject them to it for the rest of their life. That'd show 'em.

What Climate Change?

2006-05-02T14:20:00.000-07:00

For those who have been peripherally paying attention to the Conservative government's withdrawal from Canada's involvement in the Kyoto Protocol and development of a "made in Canada" solution as part of the Asia-Pacific Partnership and are thinking, well, maybe they have a better solution that is more suited to Canada's specifics, it seems this is merely hopeful.

From April 26th:

It is not legally binding and does not set caps on carbon emissions.

"The key principles of the Asia (Pacific) Partnership are very much in line with where our government wants to go," [Environment Minister Rona] Ambrose said at a briefing yesterday.

This is akin to saying:

"Well, we think the Kyoto Agreement doesn't really suit Canada's direction at this point. We're all for doing our part to help out the planet we're in the process of destroying, except maybe we could try some other approach that doesn't involve any incentive to change or targeted results. But we're still really interested in trying something. Maybe we can still get an A for effort even if nothing actually happens."

The David Suzuki Foundation adds a little more to the issue:

“The Asia-Pacific Partnership is little more than smoke and mirrors,” said Dale Marshall, the Foundation’s Ottawa-based climate change policy analyst. “The pact contains no targets, no timelines, no penalties and favours a voluntary approach to addressing greenhouse gas emissions.”
On Tuesday, federal Environment Minister Rona Ambrose said Canada is considering joining the breakaway group of six countries – the United States, India, China, Australia, South Korea and Japan – which joined forces last July. Researchers for the Australian government have concluded that full implementation of the Asia-Pacific Partnership alone would still result in a doubling of global emissions by 2050.

Those in the Conservative Party have been quick to point out that under the previous Liberal government, emissions have increased 24.4% above 1990 levels. Now doesn't seem exactly the best time to pull the "Well they did it, why shouldn't we be allowed to" argument when a quarter of the species on the planet (and subsequently billions of humans) face extinction in the next 40-odd years due to climate change, according to Nature magazine and the UN.

Attack Ad Proves True

2006-05-02T11:45:00.000-07:00

Remember all the controversy back during the winter 2005-2006 election campaign when someone in the Liberal camp accidently let slip one of their attack ads that was never meant to be aired? It mentioned something about the Conservatives allowing "Soldiers with guns. In our cities. In Canada." The Liberals were subsequently publicly embarrassed, with the event no doubt bolstering the Conservative campaign. I felt a bit sorry for the Liberal party, as it was not officially meant to be released (according to party officials).

Anyways, it's been a few months since the voters elected a Conservative minority government and then this, from the CBC website:

More than 500 soldiers carrying guns will fan out through Winnipeg streets beginning Sunday, in the largest urban-warfare training exercise in the Canadian military's history.

The military says it's important because soldiers are finding themselves patrolling civilian areas more often, in places like Afghanistan.

Letters have been sent to 58,000 homes in three neighbourhoods where the drills will take place.

Now I have to say I'm surprised that this is taking place, but I'm even more surprised how relatively scarce this story is in the media. After the hoopla surrounding the Liberal campaign ad, there's nary a mention of the bizarre prophecy and the event itself. Yes, there is the article cited above, but a google news search for "soldiers" and "Winnipeg" only yields 9 results, a significantly low number in my opinion.

And while the drill is being performed with the intent of bolstering the urban technique of the military for increasing urban operations in places like Afghanistan, I have to say that this exercise raises my eyebrows and makes me think of our neighbours to the south and our new Prime Minister's ambitions to further integrate with and emulate them. The US has been waging class warfare on its own citizens for decades and as a consequence has the world's largest prison population (absolute & per capita) and an elaborate apparatus for suppressing domestic dissent. With all of Stephen Harper's talk about getting tough on crime, we should all be keeping these things in mind. Canada has not been a militaristic society and normalizing a domestic military presence has many intended and unintended consequences.

This is by no means to say that I think this is what will happen or that there is even any intent in this direction, but given the bizarre lack of media reference so far and the fact that this event is unprecedented, it seems worthy of note.

One of Many Examples

2006-05-01T12:52:00.000-07:00

I sure hope that Canada's war on terror/democracy spreading/nation building/insert other lie here efforts in Afghanistan go at least as well as America's effort to help rebuild the lives of the Iraqi people.

From yesterday's New York Times:

A $243 million program led by the United States Army Corps of Engineers to build 150 health care clinics in Iraq has in some cases produced little more than empty shells of crumbling concrete and shattered bricks cemented together into uneven walls, two reports by a federal oversight office have found.
The reports, released yesterday, detail a close inspection of five of the clinics in the northern city of Kirkuk as well as a sweeping audit of the entire program, which began in March 2004 as a heavily promoted effort to improve health care for ordinary Iraqis. The reports say that none of the five clinics in Kirkuk and only 20 of the original 150 across the country will be completed without new financing.
Whatever the causes, the impact of the failure on the American effort to rebuild Iraq is enormous, said the inspector general, Stuart W. Bowen
Jr.
"This was the most important program in the health sector," Mr. Bowen said in an interview. "It sought to fulfill a strategy to get health services to rural and remote poor in Iraq."

Now the lead contractor Parsons, and its subcontractors have a quarter of a billion dollars of the US public's money and the Iraqi's have, well, not a hell of a lot, but I guess they must be getting used to that.

How Could Anyone Take US "Democracy-Building" Seriously?

2006-05-01T12:20:00.000-07:00

WASHINGTON -- President Bush has quietly claimed the authority to disobey more
than 750 laws enacted since he took office, asserting that he has the power to
set aside any statute passed by Congress when it conflicts with his
interpretation of the Constitution.

Among the laws Bush said he can ignore are military rules and regulations,
affirmative-action provisions, requirements that Congress be told about
immigration services problems, ''whistle-blower" protections for nuclear
regulatory officials, and safeguards against political interference in federally
funded research.

Phillip Cooper, a Portland State University law professor who has studied
the executive power claims Bush made during his first term, said Bush and his
legal team have spent the past five years quietly working to concentrate ever
more governmental power into the White House.

''There is no question that this administration has been involved in a very
carefully thought-out, systematic process of expanding presidential power at the
expense of the other branches of government," Cooper said. ''This is really big,
very expansive, and very significant."
In his signing statements, Bush has repeatedly asserted that the Constitution gives him the right to ignore numerous sections of the bills -- sometimes including provisions that were the subject of negotiations with Congress in order to get lawmakers to pass the bill. He has appended such statements to more than one of every 10 bills he has signed.

''He agrees to a compromise with members of Congress, and all of them are there for a public bill-signing ceremony, but then he takes back those compromises -- and more often than not, without the Congress or the press or the public knowing what has happened," said Christopher Kelley, a Miami University of Ohio political science professor who studies executive power.

I know Bush's approval rating is low and getting lower, but this is pretty big. There's so much going on behind this current US administration, it's overwhelming. I'm hoping here that whatever can be used to rally public opinion in the US against this group will come to light in time for impeachment or whatever's coming so that Bush & Co. isn't just replaced with those that have escaped the net, but have the same agenda.

I know a lot of this isn't reported too much in the mainstream press, but there are very big things at stake. Bigger than at any point in human history previously.

Here's a list of examples of some of the signing statements that Bush has appended to Bills that he has first signed into law:

March 9: Justice Department officials must give reports to Congress by certain dates on how the FBI is using the USA Patriot Act to search homes and secretly seize papers.

Bush's signing statement: The president can order Justice Department officials to withhold any information from Congress if he decides it could impair national security or executive branch operations.

Dec. 30, 2005: US interrogators cannot torture prisoners or otherwise subject them to cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment.

Bush's signing statement: The president, as commander in chief, can waive the torture ban if he decides that harsh interrogation techniques will assist in preventing terrorist attacks.

Dec. 30: When requested, scientific information ''prepared by government researchers and scientists shall be transmitted [to Congress] uncensored and without delay."

Bush's signing statement: The president can tell researchers to withhold any information from Congress if he decides its disclosure could impair foreign relations, national security, or the workings of the executive branch.

Aug. 8: The Department of Energy, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and its contractors may not fire or otherwise punish an employee whistle-blower who tells Congress about possible wrongdoing.

Bush's signing statement: The president or his appointees will determine whether employees of the Department of Energy and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission can give information to Congress.

Dec. 23, 2004: Forbids US troops in Colombia from participating in any combat against rebels, except in cases of self-defense. Caps the number of US troops allowed in Colombia at 800.

Bush's signing statement: Only the president, as commander in chief, can place restrictions on the use of US armed forces, so the executive branch will construe the law ''as advisory in nature."

Dec. 17: The new national intelligence director shall recruit and train women and minorities to be spies, analysts, and translators in order to ensure diversity in the intelligence community.

Bush's signing statement: The executive branch shall construe the law in a manner consistent with a constitutional clause guaranteeing ''equal protection" for all. (In 2003, the Bush administration argued against race-conscious affirmative-action programs in a Supreme Court case. The court rejected Bush's view.)

Oct. 29: Defense Department personnel are prohibited from interfering with the ability of military lawyers to give independent legal advice to their commanders.

Bush's signing statement: All military attorneys are bound to follow legal conclusions reached by the administration's lawyers in the Justice Department and the Pentagon when giving advice to their commanders.

Aug. 5: The military cannot add to its files any illegally gathered intelligence, including information obtained about Americans in violation of the Fourth Amendment's protection against unreasonable searches.

Bush's signing statement: Only the president, as commander in chief, can tell the military whether or not it can use any specific piece of intelligence.

Nov. 6, 2003: US officials in Iraq cannot prevent an inspector general for the Coalition Provisional Authority from carrying out any investigation. The inspector general must tell Congress if officials refuse to cooperate with his inquiries.

Bush's signing statement: The inspector general ''shall refrain" from investigating anything involving sensitive plans, intelligence, national security, or anything already being investigated by the Pentagon. The inspector cannot tell Congress anything if the president decides that disclosing the information would impair foreign relations, national security, or executive branch operations.

Nov. 5, 2002: Creates an Institute of Education Sciences whose director may conduct and publish research ''without the approval of the secretary [of education] or any other office of the department."

Bush's signing statement: The president has the power to control the actions of all executive branch officials, so ''the director of the Institute of Education Sciences shall [be] subject to the supervision and direction of the secretary of education."

Now I'm Angry!

2006-04-28T10:38:00.000-07:00

Now Canada's Information Commissioner John Reid, after reviewing the new Conservative Accountabilty Act is saying the act actually makes the government less accountable and makes it easier to hide information from the public. Although I would expect dirty tricks from Stephen Harper's top-down corporate-government model, this is going at the root of what his campaign was based on, as if restricting media access and barring government officials from speaking publicly wasn't enough.

According to today's Toronto Star:

OTTAWA - Prime Minister Stephen Harper has done a complete about-face,
introducing plans that would increase government secrecy after campaigning on
openness, says Canada’s information czar.
The proposed Accountability Act,
now being debated in the House of Commons, will actually make government less
accountable when it comes to making information available to Canadians,
Information Commissioner John Reid said Friday.
In a special report to
Parliament, Reid said no government has ever put forward "a more retrograde and
dangerous" set of proposals to change the Access to Information Act since the
legislation first came into effect in 1983.
The Accountability Act, and
other reforms being proposed, will "increase the government’s ability to cover
up wrongdoing, shield itself from embarrassment and control the flow of
information to Canadians," says the scathing report. Reid noted that while in
opposition, Harper railed against the Liberals for failing to reform a system
that encouraged civil servants to withhold information and allowed abuses such
as the sponsorship scandal to flourish undetected.
But the Tories are now
guilty of the same abusive behaviour as they try to make government less
transparent, he said.
“The new government has done exactly the things for
which its predecessor had been ridiculed,” says the report.

Can somebody please explain to me why the Harper government seems to be getting more popular at the polls? This is just making me sick. MP's that hide from their constituents and are unable to speak freely without Harper's approval, shooing the media away from anything controversial, and now this. We better hope that this stuff gets spread around, and maybe a few more scandals just in time for the next election. We cannot let this guy have a majority!

Better Not Get Hurt if You're Serving in the US Army

2006-04-27T08:17:00.000-07:00

I saw this referenced on another blog that I read, and it seemed so ridiculous, I wanted to relay it here:

Army specialist Tyson Johnson of Mobile, Ala., had just been promoted in a field
ceremony in Iraq when a mortar round exploded outside his tent, almost killing
him.
"It took my kidney, my left kidney, shrapnel came in through my head,
back of my head," he recounted.
His injuries forced him out of the military,
and the Army demanded he repay an enlistment bonus of $2,700 because he'd only
served two-thirds of his three-year tour.
When he couldn't pay, Johnson's
account was turned over to bill collectors. He ended up living out of his car
when the Army reported him to credit agencies as having bad debts, making it
impossible for him to rent an apartment.
"Oh, man, I felt betrayed," Johnson
said. "I felt like, oh, my heart dropped."

The Bully Makes the Rules

2006-04-26T15:41:00.000-07:00

I keep hearing this rhetoric about the four poor teachers in Merritt who crossed the picket line in a strike by their own union. It keeps getting pointed out that the picket line-crossing teachers were law-abiding, which is one of the spun buzzwords of the Campbell government that makes laws to impose its bully aganda onto those who might say otherwise. Now Jinny Sims and the big bad BCTF (Have unions ever been made to look good in the news? I really wonder why that is...) are being portrayed as monsters who would dare punish a law-abider.

Anyways, I think it should be pointed out that this last "illegal" strike was not the first time the BCTF has clashed with the Campbell government. While it was fairly widely reported in labour newsletters, there wasn't much talk, as far as I remember, and there isn't much today, about how the International Labour Organization (ILO), the branch of the UN concerned with workers' rights condemned the legislation declaring teaching an essential service and thereby removing the right to legally strike. This is from the last time the Liberals did this, back in 2001:

The Committee notes that this complaint, by contrast to Case No. 2166, concerns the
education sector, which it does not consider as an essential service in the strict sense of the
term where the right to strike could be restricted or prohibited [see Digest, op. cit.,
para. 545]. Recalling that the right to strike is one of the essential means through which
workers and their organizations may promote and defend their economic and social
interest [see Digest, op. cit., para. 475], the Committee concludes that the provisions of Bill No. 18 which make education an essential service are in violation of freedom of
association principles and should be repealed.

Gordon Campbell the bully makes internationally illegal laws to get what he wants. Unions are one of the best and only methods we have to stand up to tyrant employers. Jinny Sims is not a gangster. She is standing up for principles that are enshrined by the United Nations.

No Surprises Here

2006-04-26T13:54:00.000-07:00

At least we can rest assured that the Harper government is living up to its name as a typical conservative government.

From today's Globe and Mail:

OTTAWA — Low- and middle-income families will realize the smallest net
benefit from the Harper government's $1,200-a-year child-care payment in part
because the Conservatives are scrapping a separate assistance program.
The
Conservative plan for meeting the country's child-care needs is to give families
a direct payment of $100 a month, $1,200 annually, for every child under 6. The
specifics of how that plan will be unveiled are expected to be in next Tuesday's
budget.
But the young-child supplement of the Canada Child Tax Benefit, which
currently pays $20.25 a month to parents who do not claim child-care expenses
for their preschool-age children, will be eliminated at the same time. The
benefit is due to increase in July to $249 annually.
The [Caledon] [I]nstitute
has calculated that the families who will benefit most from the child-care
allowance, after taxes and clawbacks, are those making $200,000 a year or more
with one parent at home. They will keep $1,076 of the $1,200
annually.
Families with two working parents and a combined income of $30,000,
by contrast, will keep just $199 annually of the new payments.

While highly frustrating, I can't say that I'm that surprised by this latest seeming gift to the wealthy.

Short but Sweet

2006-04-25T14:22:00.000-07:00

The Harper government has decided to bar the Canadian public from viewing
today's ceremony to repatriate the remains of four soldiers killed in
Afghanistan on the weekend, evoking parallels with the Bush administration's
controversial policy of barring photographs of the coffins of U.S. soldiers
killed in Iraq.
The statement from Mr. O'Connor's office said the decision was made "on behalf of the Government of Canada."
Knowledgeable military officials, who were not authorized to speak to journalists, said they were not aware of any specific privacy requests that came from the Canadian Forces.

Childcare and Hatred: Harper Family Values

2006-04-20T13:21:00.000-07:00

According to yesterday's Globe and Mail, the Harper Conservatives are recruiting the help of several socially conservative lobby groups in order to promote its childcare plan of offering $1200 per year to parents instead of any form of subsidized daycare.

I would assume that the groups being recruited to spread the message would share some of the same values as the current government, so from the few groups listed in the Globe and Mail article, I decided to check out the websites of a couple of the groups.

In a link directly off the main page of the Canada Family Action Coalition, one of the to-be-enlisted lobby groups, is a document entitled "Stop homosexual presentations in your child's school,":

How Parents May Stop Homosexual Presentations Made to their
Children in School

1.
Write a letter to your child's principal and teacher politely
expressing your concerns about the promotion of homosexuality in your child's
school.
Be aware that such topics as family diversity or anti-bullying are
used as a cover to promote the homosexual agenda.

a)
It's important to state in your letter that you object to your child being
involved in any presentation which portrays homosexuality as a normal, equal
lifestyle choice. Because many school boards have a so-called "equity" policy on
homosexuality, it will always be portrayed sympathetically.

b)
Request that you be notified of any presentation by school
staff or outside presenters which includes or is likely to include a homosexual
component.

c)
Specifically request in your letter that
you be advised well in advance of any outside presentation because the school
may subsequently argue that presenters are from outside the school and "we
weren't aware that they were going to include a homosexual element in their
presentation." This is unlikely. School personnel are usually well aware when a
presentation is going to include homosexuality. If they don't know, then it is
their responsibility to ask in advance and then inform you.

d)
Request in your letter that the teacher and principal
inform any other teachers who work with your child, of your request about the
homosexual issue. Ensure that your child communicate with you any breaches of
this request.

e)
Request the teacher keep your letter on
file in the classroom and request that the principal place one in the official
Student Record file in the office.
2.
Follow up your letter with a
phone call, email, or, better yet, a personal interview with the teacher and
principal. This makes it more difficult for the teacher and principal to argue
that they "forgot" to follow your instructions. When you visit the school, ask
to see your child's Student Record and check to be sure your letter is on file,
as requested.

That this group is aligned with the social values of the Conservative Party and that they would be elicited to promote a social program on behalf of the government speaks volumes about Stephen Harper's toleration of hatred.

The Profits of Fear

2006-04-18T12:51:00.000-07:00

What do you get when you combine the information from this Oct. 31, 2005 CNN article:

The prospect of a bird flu outbreak may be panicking people around the
globe, but it's proving to be very good news for Defense Secretary Donald
Rumsfeld and other politically connected investors in Gilead Sciences, the
California biotech company that owns the rights to Tamiflu, the influenza remedy
that's now the most-sought after drug in the world.

"I don't know of any biotech company that's so politically well-connected,"
says analyst Andrew McDonald of Think Equity Partners in San Francisco
[referring to other US politicians who stand to gain by sales of Tamiflu].

these excerpts from a speech by the US president on Nov. 1, 2005, just one day after the above article:

While avian flu has not yet acquired the ability to spread easily from
human to human, there is still cause for vigilance. The virus has developed some
characteristics needed to cause a pandemic: It has demonstrated the ability to
infect human beings, and it has produced a fatal illness in humans. If the virus
were to develop the capacity for sustained human-to-human transmission, it could
spread quickly across the globe.

[In addition to funding vaccine research w]e're also increasing stockpiles
of antiviral drugs such as Tamiflu and Relenza. Antiviral drugs cannot prevent
people from contracting the flu. It can -- but they can reduce the severity of
the illness when taken within 48 hours of getting sick. So in addition to
vaccines, which are the foundation of our pandemic response, I am asking
Congress for a billion dollars to stockpile additional antiviral medications, so
that we have enough on hand to help treat first responders and those on the
front lines, as well as populations most at risk in the first stages of a
pandemic.

and this article from today's Tacoma News-Tribune:

Federal health officials at a meeting Friday in Tacoma downplayed the risk
bird flu poses to humans, contrasting earlier warnings from the federal
government.
“There is no evidence it will be the next pandemic,” Dr. Julie
Gerberding, head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta,
said of avian flu. There is “no evidence it is evolving in a direction that is
becoming more transmissible to people.”

But Gerberding noted that, though the disease has killed “gazillions of
birds,” it has killed about 100 people out of about 200 sickened worldwide. The
victims were in intense, daily contact with sick flocks, often sharing the same
living space. Two people have become infected from person-to-person contact.

She did not say what had changed the thinking of health care officials
about bird flu, but said that, at this point, there is “no reason to think it
ever will” pass easily between people.
Given those facts, bird flu, like
SARS, swine flu and other once widely publicized health threats, might never
become a significant human illness.

You get yet another example of the many ways that governments and industry team up to funnel wealth from the powerless masses to the powerful few. On top of the over $1 billion of taxpayer money used to by Tamiflu, there would also be a significant increase in individual sales, as people's fear is exploited to relax them into complicity in the voluntary and involuntary transfer of their money to the already wealthy.

Part 3 or Enough is Enough

2006-04-18T09:31:00.000-07:00

Perhaps I should of called this blog Stephen Harper's Lies and Deceit...

Another short story here illustrating the lunacy we are descending into. From today's Globe and Mail:

Prime Minister Stephen Harper is choosing which Conservative MPs will
become chairs of Commons committees, reversing a parliamentary reform that he
championed while leader of the Official Opposition.

Opposition members are concerned that the role of MPs will be significantly
weakened as a result, because the chairpersons' loyalties will be to the Prime
Minister rather than the MPs on the committees, who may at times wish to publish
reports critical of government policy.

Well, this seems to fit with what we've seen so far concernign Mr. Harper's view on anything that might criticize his policy. Silence the media. Silence the military. And now begin the appointment of loyal Commons committee members that won't possibly have anything bad to say about the direction of government, more and more subject to the oversight of the PM's tightly-controlled "hub and spoke style management."

To add insult to injury, the new practice of appointment is to be tested next week when Saskatoon-Wanuskewin Conservative MP Maurice Vellacott is expected to be appointed chair of the Commons aboriginal affairs committte. I had not previously heard of Mr. Vellacott, but this article, also from today's Globe and Mail gave me a little insight:

Maurice Vellacott drew fire in 2004 for defending two Saskatoon police
officers convicted of leaving a drunken aboriginal man on the outskirts of town
on a -25 winter evening.
Now, the outspoken Conservative MP says he is
Stephen Harper's choice to lead the Commons aboriginal affairs
committee.
Stories of young native men turning up dead in the snow outside of
town led to the firing of the Saskatoon police chief in 2001 as local aboriginal
people accused the police of driving natives out of town and leaving them to
make their way home.
No police officers were charged in relation to the
deaths, but officers Ken Munson and Dan Hatchen were convicted of unlawful
confinement when Darrell Night alleged he had survived such treatment.
In the
summer of 2004, Mr. Vellacott held a press conference announcing the creation of
a legal defence fund to help the two men clear their names.
Letters to the editor and a local columnist criticized Mr. Vellacott's
actions, which, combined with other statements, led one Saskatoon writer to
describe the local MP as someone who is "on the far right" and "no longer part
of the mainstream."
Mr. Vellacott, an evangelical pastor, is perhaps best
known as a vocal critic of legalized abortion, a subject he has frequently
raised in press releases and in the House of Commons. He is one of a handful of
MPs who has proposed private member's bills to criminalize abortion.

Sure sounds like the right guy for the job. I'm glad that the era of Liberal patronage appointments is over. What a joke.

Accountability Part 2

2006-04-17T09:01:00.000-07:00

Not 15 minutes after making my last post, I have come across some more wonderful news from the Harper camp. Doubtful that many have heard of Mark Tushingham. Indeed I hadn't before today, and if our Prime Minister has his way, it's doubtful that many will hear his name anytime soon. Mark Tushingham works for the Oil, Gas and Energy branch of Environment Canada, and as evidenced in this article, a novel penned by Mr. Tushingham must contain too many government secrets:

Mark Tushingham's new book is called Hotter than Hell, but yesterday he was
plunged into the icy reality of the new Conservative communications regime,
where ministers, MPs and the media are encountering strict new controls over the
flow of information to the public.
Shortly before Tushingham was due to give
a luncheon speech in Ottawa about his novel — a futuristic account of Canada and
the U.S. at war over water resources in a globally warmed world — he received an
email from the environment minister's office, warning him not to attend the
event.
Paradoxically, the incident takes place during the same week the
Conservatives unveiled new "whistleblower" protection, designed to shield
outspoken public servants from intimidation and threats to their livelihood.
Also yesterday, the government said it was axing 15 research programs
related to the Kyoto climate-change protocol and aimed at reducing the
greenhouse gases thought to cause global warming.

Tushingham was also warned not to speak to reporters and spent much of
yesterday in hiding, said his publisher, Elizabeth Margaris, head of
DreamCatcher Publishing. Margaris flew into Ottawa from New Brunswick
specifically to introduce her author at the luncheon, only to learn upon her
arrival that he was not allowed to speak.

Margaris was visibly shaken by the gagging. "Isn't this outrageous?"
Margaris said. "This has never happened to me before."

The PMO insists that the information chill in Ottawa is more perceived than
real — a product of a media culture that got too accustomed to the hyper-availability of former prime minister Paul Martin's
regime. [emphasis added]

What the hell is going on? Are public book burnings next? Too accustomed to the hyper-availability of Paul Martin's regime? Are we in the twilight zone? This is scary folks. This government is not showing that it deserves our trust.

In a final note, I suggest having a look at this article from last Friday's Globe and Mail. Here's the thesis statement:

People who work for cabinet ministers could still walk out
the door and take a job with a lobbying firm through exemptions in the
government's proposed federal accountability act.

Even though I don't agree with Mr. Harper's politics, and would never vote Conservative, I had given him the benefit of the doubt that perhaps his portrayal of himself as honest might have been sincere. I stand truly disappointed.

For Stephen Harper, Accountability and Censorship Go Hand in Hand

2006-04-17T08:26:00.000-07:00

When the Conservative Party was elected to form the current minority government, one of the major, if not the most prominent plank in its platform was the restoration of a standard of accountability in government, an apparent reaction to scandals that plagued the outgoing Liberal government. Sounds like a reasonable idea to most, I would imagine.
However, with seeming increasing frequency, Mr. Harper believes that increasing government accountability is possible while severely limiting the amount of information (ie. censoring) that is able to reach the public regarding the operation of government.
I was first quite disturbed that Mr. Harper's government was

ending the third-floor interviews [with the press] because the crowded area was not
safe for reporters and the traditional shouting of questions did not help
either the politicians or the media look good.

After allowing his ministers a new back way out of cabinet meetings so that reporters would not necessarily be able to ask questions, on March 28,

[l]ess than a half dozen of the 26 ministers came through the new waiting area
for the media after the cabinet meeting, including Finance Minister Jim
Flaherty, who held a brief scrum with reporters and photographers scrambling for
position at the top of a marble staircase.
As he answered questions on a wide
range of topics, Mr. Harper appeared visibly annoyed when he was asked about his
new media rules.
"I'm available regularly to answer questions if there are
questions of substance," he said.
Reporters who asked about the lack of
access to ministers received short answers, and Mr. Harper would signal to his
press secretary Dimitris Soudas to call the next reporter's name. Mr. Soudas has
been assigned to control which reporters are allowed to ask questions during the
Prime Minister's press conferences.

Is this for real? Since when did press interaction with government ministers have the purpose of making everyone look good? Perhaps Mr. Harper is confusing the press with a royal scribe. They are not there to make him look good. If anything, just the opposite should be true. Any healthy democracy must have a press that is not afraid or barred from challenging power structures.

I was just pondering what else might be next when I read this, just from this last weekend:

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has forbidden Canada's top military brass from
speaking publicly for fear of detracting attention from his government's top
priorities.
A top military officer said the Prime Minister's Office recently
told Chief of Defence Staff Gen. Rick Hillier his speaking engagements had to be
approved and his speeches would be vetted by Harper's staff.
Hillier was
told to advise his top generals, admirals and commodores that the order applies
to them.

Detracting from his government's top priorities? What might those be? Lying to the public? Putting up smokecreens? I must say that these are very disappointing developments to me, reminiscent of a certain administration south of the border that has been shown to have had very much to hide and to be most unaccounable indeed.

The Morally Bankrupt Should Not Be Trying to Make a Withdrawal

2006-04-16T21:36:00.000-07:00

I happened to flip to CNN over the weekend and saw one of the many viewer polls that seem to be so prominent in this era of TV "news entertainment". This particular poll was referring to the recent much-publicized enrichment of uranium by Iran. The question being posed was along the lines of:

How should the current situation in Iran be dealt with?

Diplomacy
Sanctions
Military Actions

Now here are three very different choices, but to me this seems like the now-too-common practice within the mainstream media to premise an outcome and the make it seem as though there are several different choices that could be taken to arrive at said outcome. To even engage in this question is to assume that the outcome is valid and to take at face value the premise that Iran has been bad and needs some sort of disciplinary action by the world community (read the United States). From all I can gather, this enrichment of uranium for stated peaceful energy purposes is the only action that is being stated as being the problem. According to Paragraph 1 of article IV of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), the UN document regulating the spread of nuclear technology amongst the world's states,

Nothing in this Treaty shall be interpreted as affecting the inalienable right
of all the Parties to the Treaty to develop research, production and use of
nuclear energy for peaceful purposes without discrimination and in conformity
with Articles I and II of this Treaty.

With Articles I and II stating, respectively:

Each nuclear-weapon State Party to the Treaty undertakes not to transfer to
any recipient whatsoever nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices or
control over such weapons or explosive devices directly, or indirectly; and not
in any way to assist, encourage, or induce any non-nuclear-weapon State to
manufacture or otherwise acquire nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive
devices, or control over such weapons or explosive devices.
Each non-nuclear-weapon State Party to the Treaty undertakes not to receive
the transfer from any transferor whatsoever of nuclear weapons or other nuclear
explosive devices or of control over such weapons or explosive devices directly,
or indirectly; not to manufacture or otherwise acquire nuclear weapons or other
nuclear explosive devices; and not to seek or receive any assistance in the
manufacture of nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices.

As far as I can tell, and I imagine it would be quite widely circulated if it were not the case, Iran has not breached any of the conditions of the NPT. All I have seen is a repeated fear-mongering that Iran's enrichment of uranium for any purposes whatsoever is a necessary step in the potential creation of a nuclear weapon. Does anybody else see the problem with this logic? In the words of British Labour Party MP Jeremy Corbin, written in a letter to the Guardian:

Saying Iran is a step closer to a nuclear bomb is akin to saying that Britain
will invade France due to the breakdown in negotiations over the CAP [Common
Agricultural Policy].

Also from the same letter:

Inherently the technologies of nuclear energy and nuclear weapons are similar,
but not necessarily a stepping stone, as nuclear activities can be monitored to
ensure they remain peaceful - the aim of Mohammed ElBaradei's current visit.
Iran's breakthrough was in its civil nuclear programme; failure to differentiate
paves the way for another illegitimate war in the Middle East. Iran's
announcement is not a breach of international law or regulation. Whatever our
views of nuclear energy, Iran is allowed to be in the nuclear club as a
signatory of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. It voluntarily halted its
uranium enrichment plans to negotiate additional protocols to the NPT. But when
negotiations landed them before the security council, Iran overturned its
voluntary ban and resumed enrichment.

So what does one suppose is going on? With an ongoing war nextdoor in Iraq that was started on completely false grounds, with claims such as:

Members of the Congress of both political parties, and members of the United
Nations Security Council, agree that Saddam Hussein is a threat to peace and
must disarm. We agree that the Iraqi dictator must not be permitted to threaten
America and the world with horrible poisons and diseases and gases and atomic
weapons. Since we all agree on this goal, the issues is : how can we best
achieve it?

How similar does this sound to the CNN poll referenced above? Who is wanting to get on the same ride all over again? Who will this benefit? Has anyone been following how much financial gain has been had by US Corporations, many with close ties to the White House, during the Iraq war and subsequent "rebuilding". This is just one angle of the slew of not publicly disclosed reasons for the removal of Saddam Hussein. More on this later.

Stephen Harper: Misleading or Delusional About Crime?

2006-04-13T16:36:00.000-07:00

As it is well documented that governments can try to induce fear into the population in order to implement otherwise unpopular measures. Harper's big focus on crime seems to be one of these pushes, or else he is just out of touch with the facts. In either case, we should be weary of what measures he may try to bring forward under the guise of "protection."

This from The April 4 edition of the Globe and Mail:

Harper wrong on crime
BRUCE KETCHUM -
Tuesday, April 4, 2006
White Rock, B.C. -- Re Harper Outlines Crime-Fighting
Efforts As Parliament Looms (on-line edition -- April 3): According to the full
text of Stephen Harper's speech to the Canadian Professional Police Association
(available on the Prime Minister's website), he said that our way of life is
"threatened by rising levels of crime." Statistics Canada, in its latest crime
statistics report, released last July, states that "the crime rate has generally
been falling since 1991" and that the 2004 rate was 12 per cent lower than a
decade ago.
Mr. Harper goes on to say that "the homicide rate is on the rise
as well." What he should have said is that, again quoting the same Statscan
report, "Canada's homicide rate rose 12 per cent in 2004 after hitting a 36-year
low the year before" (my italics).
In discussing crime in cities, the Prime
Minister clearly wants to leave the impression that it is on the rise,
"especially in the city of Toronto" as witnessed by "growing media reports."
Instead of relying on tabloid journalism as the basis for federal government
decision-making, Mr. Harper should refer to his own statistical agency, which
reports for 2004 "large decreases in reported crime in the census metropolitan
areas (CMAs) of Toronto, Hamilton, Ottawa and St. Catharines-Niagara."
It is
apparent that Mr. Harper's propensity for hyperbole was not entirely left behind
when he assumed the role of Prime Minister.
We expect better.

What Have We Learned?

2006-04-13T14:14:00.000-07:00

Came across this article today, and even though it's a few months old, thought it might not be a bad start, just to see what's at stake here and what we are doing to ourselves. These are excerpts:

Is it possible that global civilisation might collapse within our lifetime
or that of our children? Until recently, such an idea was the preserve of
lunatics and cults. In the past few years, however, an increasing number of
intelligent and credible people have been warning that global collapse is a
genuine possibility. And many of these are sober scientists, including Lord May,
David King and Jared Diamond - people not usually given to exaggeration or
drama.

The new doomsayers all point to the same collection of threats - climate
change, resource depletion and population imbalances being the most important.
What makes them especially afraid is that many of these dangers are
interrelated, with one tending to exacerbate the others. It is necessary to
tackle them all at once if we are to have any chance of avoiding global
collapse, they warn.

Many societies - from the Maya in Mexico to the Polynesians of Easter
Island - have collapsed in the past, often because of the very same dangers that
threaten us.

Unlike these dead societies, our civilisation is global. On the positive
side, globalisation means that when one part of the world gets into trouble, it
can appeal to the rest of the world for help. Neither the Maya nor the
inhabitants of Easter Island had this luxury, because they were in effect
isolated civilisations. On the negative side, globalisation means that when one
part of the world gets into trouble, the trouble can quickly be exported. If
modern civilisation collapses, it will do so everywhere. Everyone now stands or
falls together.

The enormity of such a scenario makes it hard to imagine. It is human
nature to assume that the world will carry on much as it has been. But it is
worth remembering that in the years preceding the collapse of their
civilisation, the Mayans too were convinced that their world would last
forever.