Two Hours Wait For A Bag

The security paranoia has gotten so bad that the Vancouver International airport was shut down for a security check for two hours because a bag got lost.

It's not terrorism we have to fear but the fear and terror that is inculcated in our new authoritarian security state.

I think I'll stick to trains and buses.



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Good On Ya

A blow for smokers rights. Ignore the stupid law and let the businesses who haven't the guts to fight it take the fall. I like it. That Sean Penn what a bad boy.

Sean Penn listens to a question as he smokes a cigarette during a news conference for the film 'All the Kings Men' at the Toronto International Film Festival in Toronto, Sunday Sept. 10, 2006. (CP PHOTO, Adrian Wyld)

Penn's smoking to cost swanky hotel $600 in fines

CTV.ca News Staff

The swanky downtown Toronto hotel that allowed actor Sean Penn to light up and smoke a cigarette during a Toronto International Film Festival news conference, will be levelled with more than $600 in fines.

Images of Penn lighting up, then puffing casually away during the event at The Sutton Place Hotel made headlines around the world on Wednesday.

Though Penn -- who was in town for the premier of All The King's Men -- won't face charges, Ontario's Health Promotion Minister Jim Watson confirmed the hotel will be issued two tickets. One is for $240 for failing to post no-smoking signs, and another is for $365 for not attempting to stop Penn from smoking.

Also See:

Smoking

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surgeon-general, second-hand-smoke, smoking-ban, smoking-at-home, US, children&second-hand-smoke
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An Honest Politician

Finally an honest politician. Honestly.....Hungary PM: we lied to win election

The prime minister of Hungary has confirmed the legitimacy of a leaked tape recording in which he says his government lied to win April's election and "lied in the morning; lied in the evening" during office.





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Tories Get Tough On Crime Logic

Ya gotta love the Conservatives. They stay on message. Despite the massacre last week at Dawson College the Prime Minister, the Minister of Public Safety, and the Justice Minister all say the same thing.

Justice Minister Vic Toews has spent the last few months touring the country as the government's champion of law and order, the paladin of uncomplicated, retributive justice. Lock the criminals in jail and keep them there. Enough of liberal molly-coddling.

"Canadians are fed up with the soft approach to crime that has been taken for so long. They want their government to get tough on criminals and send a clear message that violence will not be tolerated in our communities ...I believe that violent offenders deserve more than a slap on the wrist. People who commit serious crimes deserve a harsher penalty than sitting back and enjoying the comforts of home."

Problem is what kind of minimum sentence do you give to a guy who commits a random act of violence and then dies in the shoot out.

Also See:

Gill



shootings, Montreal, DawsonCollege, CGEP, gunregistry, gun-contol, murder, crime, Canada, Quebec, Harper, Conservatives, Government, Toews, hitandrun, Toronto, cars, driverslicences, car, registry, Kimveer, Gill, Dawson, College, CGEP, Montreal, Massacre, shooting, crime, Columbine, video, videogaming, gaming, firstpersonsooters, Doom, Quake, Reich, emotionalplague, vampirefreek.com,Goth

Hillier's War

General Hillier in the fine tradition of all Colonel Blimp type military brass using the troops to gain prestiage has his war.

And the result is this. Canadians killed at much higher rate than NATO allies: report

Also See:

The Vimy Myth

Afghanistan

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Papa Devil

Before Mad Magazine had its fold up back page there were heretical fold ups of the Pope.....Call them the popular comics of the Reformation.




When protestantism originated, that is the religious protesters; the heretics, the Waldensians, and other radical anabaptist sects who had been hunted and killed by the Catholic Church Inquisition.

They used these pictures and coins to depict the Pope as the devil. Just a little sectarian blasphemy I thought I would share with you. In light of the Popes recent comments on Medival philosophy of the same time period. And since he was in charge of the modern day Inquisition they seemed appropriate.

Just say the devil made me do it.

For an excellent overview of the popular anarchist revolutionary spirit of the Reformation see Murray Bookchins the Third Revolution.







Waldensian Coins of the two headed pope turn him upside down and he is the Devil

"Dubbelkop Van Paus en Duivel" (Double-head - Pope and the Devil) - Anonymous - c. 1600 - Catarijneconvent Museum, Utrecht, The Neederlands.



Title / Description: Devil & Monk-Bagpipe
Location / Provenance: Germany
Date: 1525
Object Type: image - woodcut
Commentary: Negative images of monasticism abounded in the Middle Ages, but most aimed to lampoon and criticize corrupt monks and monasteries that were not living up to their vows, or abused their privileges. Erasmus, too, poked fun at monasticism as shallow and overly-focused on external piety. The Protestant Reformation went much further, launching a full-scale assault on monasticism as inherently corrupt and unnecessary. This image combines the older medieval tradition with the new Protestant message: monasticism must be abolished because monks are the tools of the devil. Here, a demon plays a bagpipe that nobody could fail to identify as a monk's head. Part of the message could be missed now, centuries later, for in the sixteenth century the bagpipe was commonly recognized as an instrument that signified lust. Protestant propaganda against monasticism seized on the idea that vows were seldom observed by monks and nuns--especially the vow of celibacy, and numerous accounts were published that described in detail how the cloisters were dens of iniquity. It became commonplace to reveal, for instance, that the remains of buried infants and fetuses could be found in great numbers inside cloisters. Many graphic accounts of what "really" went on in monasteries and convents, written by former monks and nuns, became a popular genre of Protestant propaganda literature. [Woodcut by Erhart Schon]
Source: Eire, Carlos M. N. , Private slide collection.





Title / Description: Catholic clergy in Hell
Location / Provenance: Germany
Date: 1540's
Object Type: image - woodcut
Commentary: This woodcut by Matthias Gerung focuses on one of the simplest and most appealing messages of the Reformation: the corruption of the Catholic church, and especially the corruption of its clerics. Divine wrath consumes the corrupt Catholic clergy as they are swallowed whole into the mouth of Hell.
Author of Commentary:Carlos Eire
Source: Eire, Carlos M. N. , Private slide collection.

Also See:

Pope

Catholic Church

Gnostic

Antinominalist Anarchism

Support Our PeaceMakers

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Mike Duffy Makeover

Prime Minister Harper appears on Mike Duffy Live, Monday night.

Scoop Alberta style. Yep while the Press Gallery continues its low intensity war with the PMO the CTV/Global/Bell network has made peace with the PM. In this case a remade Mike Duffy appears to have scooped an interview. He is skinnier, pockfaced and decidedly right wing of opinion.

Opps I'm sorry thats not Mike its David Rutherford of Corus Media group; Qr77 Calgary/CHED radio Edmonton fame. " I have biases like everyone else and I don't hide them."

The right wing mouthpiece of the Reform wing of the Conservative party. Man if you lived here and ever listened to this guy well you would know that all that comes out of either Klein or Harper, or Manning before him, is pure policial wisdom. Mike wasn't on the show today Rutherford was, with a fawning interview with his old Calgary pal Harper.

It was political softball. Not hardball. Rutherford empitomizes the right wing talk show hosts that dominate the Corus Radio, Canwest, Global media universe in Canada.

Given these guys are pals well watch for yourself and see.

In a one-on-one interview with the Western Standard in June, Prime Minister Harper responded to the controversy by saying the gallery has made it easier for him to communicate his messages. "I'm free to pick my interviews when and where I want to have them," he told the Standard. "The great irony is, the result is precisely the opposite of what those doing it claim to be seeking. They say if I don't do it their way, I'll somehow gain more control over my media relations. Well, I've got more control now."

It's just like the Klein regime, which also favours CTV affiliates in Alberta giving them preferential access to the Premier for years. Paying for his fireside chats to be broadcast on the private network. It appears Harper is doing the same old Klein trick.

So if the CBC is liberal lefty media in Canada can we be forgiven for calling CTV, Corus, Canwest, now the voice of the right. Was Duffy really ill or is this an ousting of the Liberal dominated political reporting in a shift to the right. A testing of the waters to see if Rutherford has TV personality, he doesn't but hey it forced him to tone down his opinions in favour of letting others speak.

Oh and for my rightwhing friends like BBS and Dazzling Dino who always comment on how our troops in Afghanistan never were there for peacekeeping, read Harpers lips...he says "Our troops were in Kandahar doing peacekeeping, handing out candy to children" when the nasty Taliban killed them.

So one day its peacekeeping the next its warmaking. Yep this mission is clear to all of us now. Thanks CTV.




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Untested Tool

"Ignatieff is an untested tool." said Robert Fife, CTV's Ottawa Bureau Chief on Mike Duffy Live today.

Yep I agree he is a tool. As much as Harper is. Of US foriegn policy in Canada and around the world.

If the Liberals elect him leader, please please do, then the difference between them and the Conservatives will be this....




Also See

Liberal Leadership Race


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RCMP Lies Lead To Torture

The first and most important thing we learned from the O'Connor report on the Maher Arar case was..

No evidence Mr. Arar has committed any offence or is a threat to Canadian security.

So this brings into disbute all those currently being held in Canada's secret prison, who have also been identified as potential security threats.

He also found "troubling questions" about the role played by Canadian officials in the cases of three other Arab-Canadians, Ahmad El Maati, Abdullah Almalki and Muayyed Nureddin. All were tortured in Syria after traveling there on personal business, and all suspect that the RCMP and/or Canada's spy agency collaborated with their captors.

Was it really a case of post 9/11 hysteria that led the RCMP to jump to conclusions in the Arar case. Was it incompetence, a failure to clarify information from dubious sources. Or was it something more sinister, racial profiling of a political nature.

That is what we don't know from today's Arar Report because of State Secrecy.

Among other things, O'Connor's report found:

• American officials "very likely" relied on the inaccurate information from the RCMP when they decided to send Arar to Syria, a country known to have aggressive techniques for interrogating suspects.
• There is no evidence that Arar committed any offence, nor is there anything to suggest he is a threat to Canadian security.
• Canadian agencies wrongly accepted information from Syrian sources about Arar after his detention, without determining whether it might have been extracted using torture.
• In order to protect themselves and portray Arar in an unflattering light, Canadian officials leaked inaccurate details about Arar to news media.
• Officials from the RCMP gave a sanitized summary of the Arar case to top government officials in order to cover up RCMP mistake.

What we do know is that after 9/11 the State Security Bills passed by the Liberal government went too far in giving a free hand to the State and its police, the RCMP, and its secret service, CSIS, to spy, harass, arrest and create secret files on Canadian citizens. Reports they shared with the CIA and other American agencies. Reports they lied about and covered up. And their sources of information were tainted since they came from the Secret Police operating in a country that is a dictatroship, Syria.

Meaning that there is NO real oversight of those who have been given the power of life and death over us in the name of security. Heads should role over this, including bueracrats in the government, the Head of CSIS and the RCMP, members of the Department of Foreign Affairs who failed to act on Arar's behalf.

The key players in the Arar affair

There needs to be an emergency debate in the house to get rid of the existing security act that allows for racial profiling.

The Americans refuse to accept any responsibility for their actions in this despicable affair. But in light of the expose of the secret CIA jails and use of torture and rendition, this should add fuel to the debate south of the border.

Never forget it was the Liberal Government with the collusion of the Conservatives who did this. And if Ignatieff gets in as leader of the Liberals this will remain their policy.

See:

Arar

Liberal Leadership Race

CIA



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Pyramid in Ukraine

Bronze Age pyramid found in Ukraine

The discovery of a Bronze age pyramid in the Ukraine, pre-dating Egyptian pyramids and those of South America gives credibility to the assertion of a young amatuer pyramidologist that there may be a pyramid in Bosnia.

Indiana Jones of the Balkans and the mystery of a hidden pyramid ...


With this latest find it appears that pyramid culture, like monument builders was a distinct development in human civilization. Challening two assumptions, first that people in ancient Europe were primitive and underdeveloped and second that they were nomadic and war like. See Kurgan Peoples.

In fact this discovery also gives greater credence to the controversial theories of archaeologist Maria Gimbutas who claimed that the earliest Indo-Europeans came from the Ukraine. Ukrainian scholars have claimed that a distinct Kievan (the Rus) culture existed early than it is credited with by Western scholars.

Indo-European Origins in Southeast Europe

Followed by expansion into India as well as Persia.

If this pyramid is older than those found in Egypt then this discovery may indicate that Indo-Europeans arrived in the Nile region coincidental with similar movements of Semitic and African peoples at the time.

3rd millennium BC - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia




Archaeologists in Ukraine have unearthed the remains of an ancient pyramidal structure that pre-dates those in Egypt by at least 300 years. The stone foundations of the structure, which probably resembled Aztec and Mayan ziggurats in South America, were discovered near the eastern city of Lugansk.

It is thought they were laid about five millennia ago during the early Bronze Age by animists who worshipped a sun god. The “pyramid” is in fact a complex of temples and sacrificial altars topping a sculpted hillside with steps on its sides.

Viktor Klochko, head of the excavation, said the discovery was of international significance. “This is the first monument of its age and kind found in eastern Europe,” he told the Guardian. “It changes our whole conception of the social structure and the level of development of the cattle breeders and farmers who were the direct ancestors of most European peoples.”

SEE:

The Monument Builders

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