Klein Makes Me Feel Safe

Trust Me Says Klein. There is nothing to Fear but Fear Itself.

“There’s no need for Albertans to be concerned,” said Klein, adding should a threat arise, the province is ready. “We do have an emergency plan and a security plan in place.” But how a potential threat will be dealt with or how the province would react to an attack, the premier admitted he does not know. “I don’t know what that security plan is and they won’t tell me,” said Klein.

Yeah Right. He doesn't know the plan but assures us he has one. I feel secure.

Sounds like Rona Ambrose's Made In Canada Green Plan. Oh yeah she worked for Klein once.

Maybe Klein will sign up to Warren the Moron's I Am Not Afraid Campaign. Maybe Molsons will sponsor it since the logo looks like something from a beer commercial.

I am an Albertan and I am afraid that we don't have a security plan.



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The Beautiful Game

I have watched a few FIFA World Cups off and on over the past few years. Not having a Canadian team in the game sort of makes it hard to feel participatory. No cheers for Canada

And despite the Stanley Cup and the NBA playoffs in North America, the rest of the world is preparing for the World Cup of Football, which unlike 'World' cups in the US of Eh is really a World Cup. Stop Everything: The World Cup is On!

Like the Olympics it happens only every four years and grabs the attention of millions. Even in Canada. World Cup brings best out of Toronto

What makes it the Beautiful Game, well it is the least expensive sport, it is a democratic sport anyone can play, as the left wing South American writer Eduardo Galeano noted, and even the poorest of the poor can rise out of the ghettos of the world to make it in the game.

Of course like all sports the FIFA World Cup of Soccer is big business, very big business.

But strange bedfellows are made in the world of Canadian Broadcasting when it comes to this years cup. The result is we get to watch all the games.

Rogers Sportsnet holds the rights for the World Cup, but will share game broadcasts and the studio show with bitter rival TSN. More amazing, the biggest game of all — the final on July 9 — will be on CTV, parent network of the aforementioned bitter rival.

For the game schedules click here. And it will be HD digital for really clear in your face viewing.

Here is a couple of good beginners guide for those who don't watch football (only called soccer in North America to differentiate it from the CFL/NFL game)

Why you should care about World Cup

NAMING THE BEAUTIFUL GAME It's Called Soccer

Certainly the Stanely Cup playoffs have grabbed my attention this year, with unprecidented exciting hockey not seen since the Oilers heyday of the eighties or back during the Montreal Canadians dynasty.

And the CFL was hot this year with Edmonton winning. And the NFL Superbowl was no slouch either. That is the other 'football'.

And of course playoffs in any sport is sweeter and more meaningful when your team is playing.

Which is why I will be watching the FIFA World Cup.

I finally have a team I can cheer for while I await Canada's day at the Cup.

Yep the Ukraine is in it. Like the Oilers they are an underdog. Making it all the sweeter when they win.

Ukraine Out To Garner Respect In Its First Cup Appearance

They have several star players but none as well known as striker Andry Sehvchenko, who has been picked up by Chelesa.

They have a dynamic coach who has brought the team together, choosing young players for speed and depth. They have made the Cup. Nazdarovev.

Anatolii Tymoschuk has told skysports.com that Ukraine will command the respect of their World Cup finals opponents.

With Shevchenko reminding Ukrainians of his namesake the Great Ukrainian National Poet and Hero Taras Schevchenko, the spirit of the country is with them.

Will they win the Cup who knows, they played fifth ranked Italy to a draw, but that is not the point. They are in the cup. Lets see how far they get. And as I said now it gives me something to watch and team to cheer for.

The are playing in Group H against Spain, Tunisia and Saudi Arabia, and I believe they can take it. And I am not the only one. Group H shows World Cup balance

Ukraine

Prediction — This is one of the tournaments true sleepers. They could have a potential meeting with France, a country with which their footballing talents are often compared to. And with their defense and finishing up front, it could mean au revoir Les Bleus.

Jeez getting old you turn into a sports nut.

Or perhaps its the war times, forcing us all to take out our visceral aggressions in sports, to deal with the stupidity of war and the politics of fear.


Also See:

Sports

Ukraine

Football



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We Are All Flintstones

Praise the Lord the Christian Bible believers were right. We didn't come from apes.

Yep the Flintstones had it right. We did come from stones, no wonder we rock n roll.


Australian Coastal Mounds May be Fossils of Earth's Oldest Life

The evidence prehistoric ameoba dung.

Others argue that primitive microbes formed the piles. The new study supports this second notion. Abigail Allwood's team trudged a 10-kilometer-long stretch of stromatolites and identified seven different types with exotic shapes. Some look like upside-down ice cream cones, others like egg cartons. Allwood told Nature magazine podcast interviewers that the formations are too complex to be chemical, although she acknowledges that their biological origin is unproven.

"Any one structure, even any one group of structures is not conclusive evidence of life in itself," she said. "The way I approached this was to look at a very large number of structures over a region and as I walked along the outcrops I began to notice that rather than just one type of structure there were actually several different distinct types and realized that they were distributed in patterns so that actually they look very similar to reefs. But they're obviously not coral reefs. They're reefs entirely built by microorganisms."

Also See:

Creationism

Evolution

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Teeny Tiny Tories

Scientists have discovered the ancestors of the Harper Conservatives.

Studies reveal pygmy dinosaur species

and of course the discovery was in Germany.

Harposaurus Sr. and Harposaurus Jr.

Also See:

Dinosaurs

Evolution

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666 in the news

Perhaps it is the millipede that is the Great Beast.

666-Legged Creature Rediscovered

Out of the past crawls leggiest bug

Although Illacme plenipes was discovered by a government scientist in 1926 in the same area of San Benito County, it hadn't been seen since. The leggiest female had 666 legs on half a millimetre width

Also See:

TSX 666

666, Crowley, Great-Beast, Satan, Anti-Christ, 6/6/06, Omen, Evil, Live, Christian, monothesism, religion, apocalypse, armageddon, endtimes

They Bombed Zarqawi Like Saddam

US airstrike kills Iraq terror chief al-Zarqawi

Given the Americans atrocious history of lack of scoring hits using precision bombing I think the partying over this should wait for the DNA evidence.

How They Got Zarqawi

The terrorist responsible for some of the most gruesome killings in Iraq was killed in a joint U.S.-Iraqi military operation Wednesday, after the U.S. and its allies had finally located him. A well-placed intelligence source in Jordan told TIME that the CIA was tipped off after Jordanian intelligence learned of a meeting that Zarqawi planned to hold in the town of Baquba, north of Baghdad. His safe house was targeted in an air attack, and, says the same source, the Jordanian-born leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq was killed in the bombing.

Remember they claimed they got Saddam and the Bathist leadership in the same kind of hit back in the early days of the war.

Al-Dura Farm, Baghdad

The war opened on March 20 with an attempted attack on Saddam Hussein. This strike was the beginning of a pattern that would be repeated many times. The U.S. military targeted a facility in the mistaken belief that the Iraqi leadership was there; instead of “decapitating” the regime, this strike resulted in fifteen civilian casualties because of faulty intelligence.

A human intelligence source provided the CIA with information on Saddam Hussein’s alleged location at a farm in al-Dura, a district of southeastern Baghdad.⁵⁹ Two F-117A Nighthawk aircraft dropped four EGBU-27 2,000-pound penetrator bombs at 3:15 a.m. on a reported bunker at the farm. Moments later, the rest of the farm was hit with up to forty cruise missiles (Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles, or TLAMs) in an attempt to kill Saddam Hussein.⁶⁰ The U.S. military later acknowledged there was no bunker at the farm, and Saddam Hussein broadcast a television interview days later.⁶¹ The attack resulted in one civilian killed and fourteen wounded, including nine women and a child.⁶²

And the US success at using CIA drones to kill Osama bin Laden well I rest my case.


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Nazanin

And while I am at it here is a link to Nazanin Af Shin-Jam's site with three cuts from her upcoming album; Nazanin, to be released in July.

Pop World Beat and call to revolution in Iran. Not bad, for a Former Miss. Canada, Miss. World runner up.

And like all of her sites even this one contains info on her cause celebre; Nazanin Fateh




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News Scoop: Nazanin Fateh

It turns out I have a scoop, no one else has covered the all Party MP news conference in Ottawa on Tuesday over the issue of Nazanin Fateh.

2 women unite in desperate cause

NAZANIN FATEHI: The Kurdish woman awaits execution in an Iranian prison for killing the man who tried to rape her NAZANIN AFSHIN-JAM: The Canadian model is leading a growing international campaign to spare the jailed woman's life

Along with Nazanin Af Shin-Jam,was Liberal MP Belinda Stronach who led the pack of MP's but no press release is on the Liberal web site.
Alexa McDonough was there for the NDP, ditto no press release.
Josée Verner was there for the Conservatives and again no press release.

Nor was there any coverage in the MSM so you can only read about it here. the press conference was coverd on CBC Newsworld and has not been archieved.

You see this story was swamped by the news coverage about the so called Terrorist Conspiracy. The life of a girl in Iran is worth less newsprint than the comic book accusations that so called terrorists planned to behead the PM.

I would call that a classical example of sexism in the media.



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CIA Creates Fortress Europe For Torture

This is interesting, the CIA plants a story in the US Media in advance of being criticized.

US Disappointed at New Report Criticizing CIA Tactics

June 06, 2006

The United States Wednesday expressed disappointment over a new report saying that secret U.S. transfers and detention of terrorist suspects in Europe violated international law. The State Department said intelligence cooperation among the United States and European allies saves lives.

The report commissioned by the Council of Europe is the latest in a series of critical assessments in the past year of cooperation between the CIA and European counterparts in the transfer and detention of terrorist suspects.

Here is the original report from the European Council released only Yesterday!

PACE committee: US has woven clandestine ‘spider’s web’ of detentions and transfers, with collusion of Council of Europe member states

Strasbourg, 07.06.2006 – The United States has progressively woven a clandestine “spider’s web” of disappearances, secret detentions and unlawful inter-state transfers – spun with the collaboration or tolerance of Council of Europe member states, the Legal Affairs Committee of the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly (PACE) said today.

In a draft resolution adopted at a meeting in Paris, based on a report by Dick Marty (Switzerland, ALDE), the committee said hundreds of persons had become entrapped in this web – in some cases when they were merely suspected of sympathising with a presumed terrorist organisation.

The parliamentarians said this knowing collusion of member states took several different forms, including secretly detaining a person on European territory, capturing a person and handing them over to the US or permitting unlawful “renditions” through their airspace or across their territory.

“It has now been demonstrated incontestably, by numerous well-documented and convergent facts, that secret detentions and unlawful inter-state transfers involving European countries have taken place, such as to require in-depth inquiries and urgent responses by the executive and legislative branches of all the countries concerned,” the committee said.

The committee called on Council of Europe member states to review bilateral agreements signed with the United States, particularly those on the status of US forces stationed in Europe, to ensure they conformed fully to international human rights norms.

The report is due for debate by the plenary Assembly – which brings together 630 parliamentarians from the 46 Council of Europe member states – in Strasbourg on 27 June 2006.

Draft resolution and recommendation
Mr Marty's explanatory memorandum (PDF)
Mr Marty's explanatory memorandum (HTML)
Graphic image of global ''spider's web'' (JPEG)
Information for the press
Video of the press conference
Summary of Mr Marty's explanatory memorandum
Special file

And of course the countries used are the NEW members of the EU, those countries that joined America's Coalition of the Blackmailed in their war on Iraq.


European states ‘in CIA’s spider’s web’

14 Nations Aided CIA in Abductions, Report Says

However for the CIA this is the continuation of the Cold War, sans the Soviet Union. They have merely transfered their dirty black operations from focusing on Russia, to using the East European countries as their dungeons for the War On Terror.

That is the same Cold War, which they used to justify their covert support of former Nazi's such as Bundesfueher Gehlen and his former SS division, because they had agents in Russia.

Appointing Hayden Makes Perfect Spook Sense

Early last year, the National Security Archive “posted the CIA’s secret documentary history of the U.S government’s relationship with General Reinhard Gehlen, the German army’s intelligence chief for the Eastern Front during World War II. At the end of the war, Gehlen established a close relationship with the U.S.,” writes Tamara Feinstein. “The documentation unearthed by the [Nazi War Crimes and Japanese Imperial Government Records Interagency Working Group] reveals extensive relationships between former Nazi war criminals and American intelligence organizations, including the CIA. For example, current records show that at least five associates of the notorious Nazi Adolf Eichmann worked for the CIA, 23 other Nazis were approached by the CIA for recruitment, and at least 100 officers within the Gehlen organization were former SD or Gestapo officers.” General Reinhard Gehlen was a big time war criminal, responsible for organizing the Iron Guard in Romania, the Latvian Vanagis, and the Croatian Ustashe, groups responsible for brutal atrocities against the “untermenschen” of Eastern Europe (not only Jews, Roma, homosexuals, and communists, but anybody who opposed Nazi rule).

Of course, that the CIA embraced Nazi murderers (including the notorious Claus Barbie) should come as no surprise. “Certain American industrialists had a great deal to do with bringing fascist regimes into being in both Germany and Italy,” William E. Dodd, U.S. Ambassador to Germany, noted in 1937. “They extended aid to help Fascism occupy the seat of power, and they are helping to keep it there.” William Randolph Hearst, Sr., the Mellon-Davis-Duke Alcoa monopoly, the Du Pont corporation, ITT, General Motors, Standard Oil of New Jersey, the anti-Semite Henry Ford and the Ford Motor Company, and of course the Bush crime family and no shortage of Wall Street bankers and financiers all supported and bankrolled the Nazis. Remember, the CIA’s first covert op was conducted in the name of the United Fruit Company and it has worked diligently in the service of corporations ever since.

This made headlines again this week with the realease of newly declassified CIA documents.

Why Israel's capture of Eichmann caused panic at the CIA
Guardian Unlimited, UK - 15 hours ago
Newly declassified CIA documents show the Americans and the German BND knew Eichmann was hiding in Argentina at least two years before Israeli agents snatched ...
CIA used former Nazis as spies, did not act on war criminals Hindustan Times
CIA ignored tip to arrest Eichmann to preserve Cold War stability Telegraph.co.uk
Files show CIA didn't pass tip on EichmannInternational Herald Tribune

In Somalia it turns out that once again the CIA's War On Terror has only made things worse. Its just not the CIA's week. Truly the Spy Who Came In With A Cold, or The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight.

Efforts by CIA Fail in Somalia, Officials Charge
New York Times, United States - 12 hours ago
... The officials said the CIA effort, run from the agency's station in Nairobi, Kenya, had channeled hundreds of thousands of dollars over the past year to ...
CIA role in Somalia may have backfired Denver Post
Somalia militia flaunts control Chicago Tribune

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Irony Redux

Here is another example of a real life definition of Irony/Ironic.

GM plant wins laurels, no promises
A General Motors Corp. factory that is scheduled to close in 2008 is turning out the highest-quality vehicles in North America

Yep my devils dictionary definition of capitalist planning; cutting your nose to spite your face.

Also See: GM

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