Harper Micro-Management Disaster

Foreign affairs put Harper to test

In an interview, the prime minister concluded his longest foreign tour -- and his most serious predicament -- with the frank observation."One of the biggest surprises I've had in this job has been the degree to which foreign policy has really taken a lot of my time," he said as he prepared to board his plane for the return flight home.

Oh sure so he micro-manages Foreign Affairs, when he has a Minister to do that for him. Instead the PMO had to approve every little thing being done around the crisis in Lebanon, including the usual keeping their actions underwraps from the media. Our autocratic PM's involvement meant that this evacuation became a disaster in the waiting thanks to his micro-management. His useless trip to Cyprus was another photo-op, when in fact he could have sent his Air Bus there empty to pick up Canadians, and flown home on the Canadian Challenger. The Harper mission of mercy was a cynical political ploy, the reality is that the PMO screwed up the rescue mission by its inherent need to keep King Stephen's fingers in every pie. Now he has pie on his face.

Evacuation begins in earnest

The government reacted angrily to a report in Thursday's Globe and Mail that micromanagement by the Prime Minister's Office contributed to confusion and delays surrounding the evacuation of Canadians from Beirut.

Mr. MacKay leaped to the defence of the PMO and strongly criticized the story in a letter to the editor that he released to other media.

The report said there were not enough staff at the Canadian embassy in Beirut to cope with the thousands of frantic Canadians seeking help and described the difficulties in organizing an evacuation by water when there were no Canadian naval vessels in the area and many countries were bidding for the same commercial ships.

Federal sources said the situation was exacerbated by the Prime Minister's centralized command and communications policies and an edict from Sandra Buckler, the Prime Minister's communications director, that no information be released on the evacuation efforts.

Also See:

Israel

Lebanon

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Media Bias

Media Matters Finds Conservative Bias on Sunday Interview Shows

In the US on both Network and Cable News shows. Say it ain't so!

Come on this ain't news. Just compare US coverage of the News compared to BBC World or CBC all American news talk shows are to the right. Heck compare Hard Talk on BBC to Hardball on MSNBC, on Hardtalk they crucified Rumsfeld, he actually was sweating, especially when Tim Sebastian asked him about his trip to Iraq to seal a deal with Saddam. On Hardball Chris Mattews likes to run the ad where he gets Rumsfeld to stumble on an anwser....to a mundane light weight question.

While the world burns, floods, explodes in the US news is navel gazing stories about lost kids, car chases, etc.

When it comes to Sunday Talk and Politics News programing, well sheesh the only TV program that comes close to being capable being like BBC or CBC or heck even Question Period on CTV is the Daily Show. And it's on the comedy channel.



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A New Priority

The Harpocrites have replaced one of their Five priorities with another. Though of course it wasnn't part of their election campaign. That is they have replaced their priority about Health Care Wait Times with the new priority; Resolute Unquestioning Support For Israel.

Also See:

Israel

Lebanon


Lebanon, Canada, Protest, Israel, Lebanese, Day, Harper, politics, Middle-East,

The Death Of A Tory Majority

Its the shrug heard around the world.

Canadian government indifferent to Israel’s murder of eight of its citizens

And each death in Lebanon will be the death of a Majority for the Harpocrite Tories.

Left Behind in lebanon
And then there is that other constituency: Lebanese-Canadians. Canadians outnumber all other foreigners in Lebanon. The numbers actually range from the popularly accepted 40,000 to as many as 60,000. Mr. Harper would be unwise to write off the fair and personal concerns of this valued constituency. But today, Lebanese-Canadians are feeling they have been tossed aside by the PM. While they may have had some criticisms of Canada's evacuation plans, their enduring issue won't be evacuation. It will be the life and death of those who are left behind in Lebanon.

Mideast talk scorches PM
Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservative government is under fire for swiftly taking sides in the Mideast crisis while delivering a tardy response to evacuating Canadians whose lives are endangered in the war zone.


Also See:

Israel

Lebanon


Lebanon, Canada, Protest, Israel, Lebanese, Day, Harper, politics, Middle-East,

Lebanon Protest At Alberta Legislature

Hundreds denounce PM's stand
More than 500 people gather on the grounds of the Alberta legislature Wednesday to protest both the pace of evacuation of thousands of Canadians trapped in Lebanon and alleged Israeli aggression in its bombing of that country.

Photograph by : Chris Schwarz, The Journal

The Lebanese community in Alberta is one of the oldest in Canada.The first Mosque in Canada, indeed in North America, was built in Edmonton and now resides in historic Fort Edmonton Park.

Many of those original immigrants are buried in Beechmount cemetary, next to my relatives who came at the same time from the Ukraine.

The Harpocrite governments apologetics for Israel clearly show it is out of touch with Albertans and Canadians .

The irony is that the Harpocrites support of Israel is based on Born Again Christians who await the coming Rapture.

Israels best friend; Stockwell Day, is one of these.

These religious right wingers have no interest in Israel perse other than its existence portends the millenial belief of second coming of Christ as predicted in the Book of Revelations.



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You Can't Read This In India

Indian Bloggers May Get Reprieve
Some ISPs overcautiously blocked entire domains such as Google’s www.blogspot.com rather than the sub-domains that they had been instructed to block, Maheshwari said. Indian bloggers were thus denied access to a large number of blogs on these and other domains, he added.

After 2 days, India calls blog block an "error"

Well duh.

Of course this would never happen in Canada.


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Not His Day

Yesterday just was not a good day for Stockwell. Like I said here;...
Police shootings show need for gun registry to be maintained ...
and then there was the meeting with local Lebanese community members in Edmonton, which has the oldest Lebanese community in Canada.....Gov't not doing enough, local Lebanese tell Day
Finally despite all the assurances of the Harpocrites that the Passport issue is passe, well Stockwell had a photo op with Michael Chertoff and then got told off by the American Uberfuerher of Homeland Security.Day, Chertoff attempt to ease fears


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Gone Fishing

Ya gotta love the one party state that is Alberta.

King Ralph can first declare there will be no legislative sitting in the fall only to change his mind at the Calgary Stampede, cause like they have to pass some bills to help pay down deficits in healthcare and public education.

But wait can we hold that session early cause the King has to go fishing. No really. Only in Alberta does democracy take a back seat to fishing.

Heck he even canceled a trip outta the country, no not to participate in the Fall legislative sitting but to go fishing.

Oh and the kicker is that he gets to play hookey on the last day of this short five day session to....wait for it ....go fishing.

Legislative session conflicts with Klein's fishing trip


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The End of the Wheat Board

The Tories have it in for the Wheat Board. Ever since they were the Reform Party they have had an active front group; Farmers for Justice.

This little rump of border jumping farmers is now getting to have a private meeting with the Minister of Agriculture, but the majority of Farmers who are represented on the Wheat Board are not invited.

In light of the G8 reccomendation that the WTO meet in August to discuss farm subsidies what could this mean? The end of the Wheat Board in a back room deal by the Tories. Talk about lack of transparency and accountability, and the hidden sixth priority.

Art Macklin a farmer and board member of the WB warned about this back in April.

The U.S. and EU want to remove that decision from Canadian farmers. At the WTO talks, their negotiators have been clear that they want an end to the single desk selling authority of organizations like the CWB. Organizations that, in trade lingo, are called State Trading Enterprises (STEs).

The WTO position of the U.S. and EU, whose companies are some of our biggest competitors in the world market, would basically outlaw farmers' ability to have an effective organization able to compete with these companies. It would make it illegal for any farm group in any country to establish a marketing organization that had bargaining powers backed by legislation. It wouldn't matter whether 51 per cent or 100 per cent of the farmers democratically voted in favour of the concept, as it would be illegal under WTO rules.

Those companies are actively working behind the scenes to ensure that happens. On February 27, 2006, an organization calling itself 'Grain Vision' sent a letter to Chuck Strahl, Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food; and Minister Responsible for the Canadian Wheat Board urging the government to change its negotiating position at the WTO. The letter was also addressed to David Emerson, Minister of International Trade.

It stated; \"Cabinet needs to change this position (defending the CWB). We are asking you, as the Ministers responsible for the negotiating position, to immediately put the need for this change on the Cabinet agenda …We ask that you begin to provide greater consistency in Canada's negotiating position by allowing our agricultural negotiators to explicitly bring the monopoly powers of state trading enterprises into the discussions….For greater clarity, Grain Vision is recommending that the Government of Canada be prepared to discuss and negotiate the matter of exporting state trading enterprises at the WTO.\"

Predictably, 'Grain Vision' is driven by the interests of a collection of grain companies that stand to make a handsome profit from the end of the CWB. The list of companies signing the letter includes: Cargill Limited, Louis Dreyfus Canada Limited, Rahr Malting Canada Limited, Agricore United (a company whose largest single shareholder is ADM), Saskatchewan Wheat Pool (no longer a farmer cooperative), James Richardson International Limited. The letter was also signed by a handful of groups like the Western Canadian Wheat Growers and the Western Barley Growers. Those groups often claim to be a legitimate voice of farmers but in reality would not exist without the sponsorship largess of big corporations. Some urban chambers of commerce, some Alberta government mandated farm groups, the Grain Growers of Canada, and a few other groups also signed the letter.

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Flags At Half Mast

Pretty disgusting the failure of the Harpocrite government to lower the flag to half mast on Parliament Hill, with the death of another Canadian soldier in Afghanistan.

While the Pattison groups Save-On-Foods lowers the flags at their stores across the country in honour of the fallen Canadian soldier.

But of course the Conservatives will not because it would remind us once again of another of their foriegn policy faliures.

Also See:

Afghanistan





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