By Taki
April 21, 2003 issue
Copyright © 2003 The American Conservative
I only met Frum once, at a Conrad Black party, where he came up Uriah-Heep-like, actually looking more like the oily Peter Lorre in “The Maltese Falcon.” I know his kind. He will use anyone—including his wife, which he did in spreading the claim that he invented the phrase “axis of evil”—in order to advance his career. Like his icon Sammy Glick, Frum tries to make it by stepping on bodies, but he will end up like Glick, a marginal fellow who tells tall tales about himself. He reminds me of another David—Brock—both of them being ugly pipsqueaks who specialize in telling without having kissed.
We are now in a senseless war that was promoted by the neocons.
The Release of David Frum's Latest Book An End to Evil: How to Win the War on Terror
David Frum's new book An End to Evil,
co-authored with Richard Perle, aims to remind Americans what is at stake in the war on terror, and the coming wartime presidential election.
Invasion of the giant jellyfish
Thursday, January 19, 2006; Posted: 4:24 p.m. EST (21:24 GMT)A diver swims behind a giant nomura jellyfish in waters off Echizen, Japan.TOKYO, Japan (Reuters) -- A slimy jellyfish weighing as much as a sumo wrestler has Japan's fishing industry in the grip of its poisonous tentacles.
Vast numbers of Echizen kurage, or Nomura's jellyfish, have appeared around Japan's coast since July, clogging and ripping fishing nets and forcing fishermen to spend hours hacking them apart before bringing home their reduced catches.
Representatives of fishing communities around the country gathered in Tokyo on Thursday, hoping to thrash out solutions to a pest that has spread from the Japan Sea to the Pacific coast.
"It's a terrible problem. They're like aliens," Noriyuki Kani of the fisheries federation in Toyama, northwest of Tokyo, told Reuters ahead of the conference.
There are no official figures on the size of the problem, but Kani says the financial losses are obvious.
Spikes in population have occurred in the past, notably in 1958, but consecutive outbreaks in 2002 and 2003 prompted the government to seek reasons and solutions.
Scientists have suggested global warming might be a factor.
'Landslide Annie' trails
Voters support Anne McLellan personally, but refuse to vote Liberal. Don't count her out yet, though: She has won close contests before . . .
Archie McLean, The Edmonton Journal
Published: Friday, January 13, 2006EDMONTON - It's too early to count her out just yet, but Anne McLellan is in danger of losing her seat to Conservative Laurie Hawn, according to an Ipsos Reid poll conducted for The Journal.
The Liberal deputy prime minister -- nicknamed "Landslide Annie" for her close victories in four previous races -- has the support of 35 per cent of decided voters in Edmonton Centre, while Hawn is out in front with 42 per cent.
"It certainly says that Anne McLellan is behind at this point in the race, but it would be wrong to dismiss her just yet," said Peter Weylie, vice-president of public affairs for Ipsos Reid.
NDP candidate Donna Martyn has 15-per-cent support while Green Party candidate David Parker has seven per cent. Four per cent of voters are undecided.
The poll, conducted by phone between Jan. 9 and Jan. 11, asked 600 people in Edmonton Centre about their views on a wide range of issues in the riding. The margin of error is four per cent, 19 times out of 20.
McLellan still has immense personal popularity, but is battling the perception that her party is tired and corrupt.
Of those who support McLellan, 54 per cent say they will vote for her because of her personal attributes and not because of Liberal Party policies or leader Paul Martin.
Meanwhile, only 11 per cent of Hawn supporters say they are basing their vote on the local candidate. Instead, 84 per cent are casting their ballot based on Stephen Harper's leadership and the Conservative party's policies.
"Anne McLellan is a very, very strong candidate and she does resonate with her constituents," Weylie said. "Unfortunately, she doesn't have their favourite party banner behind her."
Mandel likes what McLellan has done
RACE FOR THE PRIZE
VUE Weekly, Canada -18 Jan 2006
By ROSS MOROZ. Anne McLellan is not panicking. Honestly, she’s not.
Also See:
Landslide Anne in Trouble
Laurie Hawn Chicken Hawk
Conservatives Turn Left
Liberals Abandon Redmonton
Redmonton Votes
Redmonton Not In The Bag for the Conservatives
Tags
Canada
Federal Election
Edmonton Centre
Anne McLellan
Politics
Edmonton
Conservatives
Liberals
Laurie Hawn
Gimme Your Vote PuuuulllleeeaassseeIn Alberta, strategic voting means NDP.
NDs have better platform, better chance than Liberals, says Eugene Plawiuk.
My Edmonton Strathcona Blog ArticlesQuebec's distinct view on guns
Gun control support is popular here
John MacFarlane, canada.com
Published: January 9, 2006MONTREAL -- Quebecers are a little off the wall when it comes to guns and gun control.
The province has the highest incidence of hunters in Canada, says pollster Christian Bourque of Léger Marketing. But apparently even our gun nuts are a distinct society – Quebecers tend to support gun control initiatives more fervently than anyone else in the country.
You know some of us are always suspicious when the state wants to disarm workers Buzz. You should be too. But I guess that's a working class value we don't share with the bosses from Bay Street or CAW.No need for gun debate in Saskatchewan
When you envision a Saskatchewan gun owner, what do you see? A flannel shirt-wearing, tobacco-spitting redneck driving a six-wheeled truck, like the yahoos in this Arrogant Worms song Let There be Guns.
The true picture is more nuanced than that.
The face of the anti-gun control movement in Saskatchewan has long been Dr. Ed Hudson . Hudson is best known for flaunting his 55
unregistered firearms in front of television cameras and pleading, "Arrest me! I'm breaking the law!" Hudson wants to be led away in handcuffs so he can take his fight against the gun registry to the Supreme Court of Canada and have the Firearms Act struck down.It won't happen in Saskatchewan.
That's because Saskatchewan's justice department, which argued against gun registration in the Supreme Court and lost, doesn't enforce the Firearms Act. Shortly after the high court's 2000 decision, Saskatchewan's justice minister thumbed his nose at the feds. Please, register your guns, he said through gritted teeth, but if you don't, we won't prosecute you.
This should be no surprise in a province with the lowest support for gun control in the country - 49 per cent, according to one 2003 Environics poll
Cutting a different deficit
The last time Canada stood on the brink of political change, the deficit on everybody's lips was fiscal, not democratic.The last of our three paths to reducing the democratic deficit -- electoral reform -- is the most interesting and the most challenging, especially for Harper. It leads us to the question of elected senators, and to a discussion of some form of proportional representation in the House of Commons, an idea most associated today with the NDP and Greens.
If he becomes prime minister, one of the easiest promises to keep on Harper's agenda may be to appoint senators elected by participating provinces.
REINVIGORATING DANGERS
Alberta backers of Senate reform might want to look at voting patterns in Quebec and Ontario over the last 15 years before getting too enthusiastic about invigorating the current body.
Even today, with Harper purportedly on the brink of a majority nationally, the polls show his party might have a tough time winning province-wide federal races in the provinces with the most Senate seats. And who is keen on a Senate full of Bloc Quebecois members? And what about the Triple-E concept that would give vastly more clout in Senate elections to some citizens over others?
Is it democratic for provinces of 12.5 million (Ontario), 3.2 million (Alberta) and 500,000 people (Newfoundland) all to have the same number of votes in the Senate?
Finally, what about the House of Commons, a body that has its own unpopular distortions favouring Maritime and rural constituencies at the expense of urban ridings like Edmonton's?
What about a House of Commons in which it is perfectly possible for the votes of two-thirds of Albertans to fill 100 per cent of the seats, leaving fully one-third with nothing but the consolation they have contributed $1.75 to the party of their choice.
Traditionally in our first-past-the-post system, parties that win power and even majority governments, despite the fact that 60 per cent of people vote against them, have no interest in some form of proportional representation that would elect Parliaments more reflective of the public's preferences.
If he wins, therefore, nothing would reinforce Harper's credentials as a democratic reformer more than a willingness to break that pattern.
Tags
Canada
Federal Election
Politics
Alberta
Edmonton
Edmonton Journal
Abolish the Senate
Harper
Conservatives
electoral reform
 Aochan, the snake 'seems to enjoy' being with Gohan, the hamster |
Their relationship began in October last year, when zookeepers presented the hamster to the snake as a meal.
The rat snake, however, refused to eat the rodent. The two now share a cage, and the hamster sometimes falls asleep sitting on top of his natural foe.
"I have never seen anything like it," a zookeeper at the Mutsugoro Okoku zoo told the Associated Press News agency.
The hamster was initially offered to Aochan, the two-year-old rat snake, because it was refusing to eat frozen mice, the Associated Press news agency reports.
As a joke, the zookeeper said they named the hamster Gohan - the Japanese word for meal.
"I don't think there's any danger. Aochan seems to enjoy Gohan's company very much," zookeeper Kazuya Yamamoto told the Associated Press news agency.
The apparent friendship between the snake and hamster is one of many reported bonds spanning the divide between predator and prey.
