The Week That Was

I took some time off this week. I could say I was being productive, well sort of. I read, I shopped for Xmas. and I got caught up in playing an online multiplayer role playing game; Fallen Sword.

In other words besides being busy at work I goofed off instead of blogging. Mind you that does not mean I did not pay attention to the wonderful world of politics this week. And so I will do a little update here of the week that was. Or at least my interpretation of it.

LIARS CLUB

Well after hearing Karlheinz Schrieber tell his side of the cash for Thiesen weapons systems story, apparently paying off Brian Mulroney after he left office but making the deal while he was in office. It got all very complicated. Before the Star Chamber of the Ethics Committee of Parliament Schrieber insisted that the Liberals had been wrong all along. As had Stevie Cameron. It had nothing to do with Air Bus. Nope it was all about Thiesen and their Light Armoured Vehicles that they wanted to manufacture in the Maritimes. It was about weapons. And Mulroney took cold hard cash to promote weapons. A weapons system that he himself kaboshed when it turned out that it would cost taxpayers a 100 million dollars.

So this week BM showed up before the Star Chamber and contradicted Schrieber. He didn't get $300,000 in thousand dollar bills, he got $225,000. And he kept $75,000, the initial retainer, in a safety deposit box. But he did eventually declare and pay taxes on $300,000. He did meet Schrieber twice while in office, once for coffee at 24 Sussex Drive and once at his PM get away cabin. But shucks that was just a social call, anyone of us could have visited him.

The whole thing showed that both these characters are liars and scoundrels. It just so happens that one of them was once the PM. The other a gun runner.

Now anywhere else in the world a gun runner putting a PM of a country on a retainer to sell weapons would raise an eyebrow or two.

But not in Canada. And it wasn't about Airbus. At least they both agreed on that. Nope it was about Theisen and promoting LAV's. And the deal was cooked up while Mulroney was still in office but concluded once he left. And with cold hard cash there is no paper trail.

Now lets not forget that this was the same Brian Mulroney who got appointed a director of Archer Daniel Midlands, and that company was plagued with a price fixing scandal at the time. And low and behold if ADM didn't buy out Robin Hood Mills of Canada, thanks to Mulroney's FTA with Reagan.

Thats the kind of guy Mulroney is and was. So we should be shocked that he would be a gunzel for a gunrunner?

CTV YOUR BIAS IS SHOWING

For weeks prior to and finally the week of the Star Chamber revelations of Karl and Brian, Craig Oliver of CTV Question Period and Mike Duffy sounded like Conservative hacks. First they complained this was all old news. Then as revelations were made by Karl, Mike dismissed them. Both of them characterized the hearings as a clown show. In fact they insisted, despite facts proving it was anything but, on reporting it as such. Now what got their knickers in a twist?

Surprising and shocking revelations that came from Karl as reported on all the other channels became irrelevant ramblings according Mike. He spent more time dismissing Karl than the Conservatives did.

SMOKE AND MIRRORS

Wednesday the Taser report on the RCMP was released but it was lost in all the news coverage of the 'Waiting For Brian' Story. On Thursday as the Mulroney Royal Entourage came before the Star Chamber, the Conservatives finally released their Pavier Report on Polling.

Remember that. Well this could be why they delayed the report and then released it on the day Brian was testifying. Tories spend more on polling now than Liberals did
Meanwhile Stockwell Day was nowhere to be found on Parliament Hill. Neither Wednesday when the damning Taser Report came out, calling it a lethal weapon.

RCMP watchdog demands tougher rules on Tasers
Canadians 10 times more likely to be Tasered to Death by Police then Americans

Nor was he around on Friday when the RCMP Investigation Report came out.

Task force says RCMP should be 'separate entity'


RCMP JUST ANOTHER PUBLIC SERVICE

The Task Force revealed that the RCMP is just another group of public sector workers. Yes there was the usual media and pundit comments about the iconic nature of the RCMP, blah, blah. But when you look closely at the report you see that the RCMP is no different than any other public sector workers. They are over worked, putting in unpaid overtime. The force has allocated for increased staffing but never hired personnel. RCMP officers are doing data entry that should have been done by data entry clerks, but of curse those positions were never filled. Working Alone is dangerous for most workers, and many provinces have Working Alone legislation. Of course the RCMP deaths recently in the North shows that these workers share something in common with their civilian counterparts. Due to cost savings, the bottom line, they are put in the way of danger that has ended up with fatalities. Cost cutting, cutbacks, unfilled positions are all the legacy of the neo-con attack on the public sector in the nineties. And the RCMP are public sector workers just like their civilian counterparts. The report talks about the need for civilian oversight, for making the RCMP autonomous and giving them access to the the oversight commission for complaints. What it failed to recommend was a real grievance procedure and an authentic new form of staff relations, that is they failed to recommend unionization of the RCMP.

CSIS BEAT THEM TO IT

The revelation that the CIA destroyed waterboarding torture tapes reminded me that CSIS did the same thing with its wire tapping of the Air India conspirators twenty years ago. Nice to know Canada leads the way. Of course the CIA says it did it to protect the identities of its agents. Did CSIS do it for the same reason?

HYUK, HYUK, IT'S HUCKABEE

As your faithful wag predicted here Huckabee has come from the second tier to be a real threat to the leading Republican Presidential Candidates. That's because they believed their own press. While Huckabee appeals directly to the base of the party. He is one of them. And while he is he is also a Red Tory. A socially liberal politician in right wing garb. The Republican establishment hates him and have begun attacking him, as have media pundits like MSNBC Chris Matthews, that reminds us Huckabee endorses the Second Amendment because folks need guns to protect themselves from the Government. Watch for more smears as Huckabee support rallies in Iowa.

On the Sunday Talk Shows south of the Border the has been McCain who polls below Paul sometimes and is neck and neck with Thompson for falling out of the top tier, is being lauded as the guy who will win New Hampshire. Don't count on it. I predict given New Hampshire's libertarian bent that Paul will surprise folks more than any McCain comeback. After all he raised $3 million dollars online, in one day. A record for any politician. And that money makes him richer than McCain. As for Thompson, glad he didn't give up his acting career.

As for Democrats, Iowa will go to the guy who looks like JFK and talks like RFK. No not Obama, John Edwards. He has the machine in the state, and is everyone's number two choice. In Iowa being number two makes you number one in the caucus's and he has the organization to pull it off. Look for an upset.

PATRIARCHY KILLS

The death of teenage girl in Toronto made headlines. Her father allegedly killed her for being, well a Canadian teenager. You see she rejected her 'religious' faith. Or at least the symbol of womens oppression in that faith.The headscarf. No she wasn't Amish. She was a Muslim. Heck she could have been Christian or Jewish, or a Hindu. It matters not. These are all patriarchal religions who believe in the Father God, and God is the Father. Hence women and children and animals remain chattel to the husband. Secular, pluralist society is being besieged by the identity politics of the oppressors. Thousands of years of religious oppression led to the enlightenment and the revolutionary modernism. Today the forces of humanism face a determined opposition from those who would proclaim their backwards anti-human morality as justified in the name of cultural understanding and inclusiveness. Religion is Political, and always has been, and the battle for freedom is about freedom from religion, not just freedom for religion. Those who would claim that it is only Islam that is intolerant should look to their own holy books, to the divisions between men and women in their synagogues, temples, and churches that exist today. This could have happened to any teenage girl in Canada whose parents are religious zealots. In fact it is the reason we also have young girls and women having babies while denying they are pregnant, which has often ended in tragedy.


There we go a week of rants in one day.




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Veils A Red Herring

Lord Kitchner's Own asks; Where's the by-election Veil story???

The Montreal Gazzette put this in the end of an article on the by-election. Though I had seen another CP item on it last night.

A handful of voters in Saint-Hyacinthe and at least one in Roberval voted with veils or scarves covering their faces to protest against a decision by Elections Canada to allow the practice, provided the voters furnished two pieces of identification or were vouched for by a registered voter from the constituency.

The Star likewise;

Controversy in the lead-up to the vote over a decision by Elections Canada to allow veiled women to vote without showing their faces, which all political parties argued was an unreasonable measure to accommodate Muslim women, met with muted protest. Local news reports said half a dozen Quebecers, including one man, showed up to vote with their faces covered.

In a interview with the McQill Daily published the day before the by-election Jack Layton said;

There has been no request from veiled women to stay veiled when they vote, let’s be extremely clear about that. I’ve been reminded by my Muslim friends of this: they de-veil.... They de-veil for their driver’s license, their health card, for purposes related to civil society – which is of course what voting is all about. Given that there was absolutely no request for permission to do this, we feel that the Chief Electoral Officer did not make the best decision.

And he was right as one of the early stories on this issue revealed, but was way way down at the bottom of the CP story.

Wahida Valiante, national vice-president of the Canadian Islamic Congress, said she was surprised by the debate because it hasn't come up among Muslims in her Waterloo, Ont.-based organization.

"It just came from nowhere," she said.

"I'm really confused as to who was consulted, what happened."

She said she didn't believe the Muslim community was involved.

Actually no one requested the clarification it was provided by Elections Canada as part of other clarifications arising from the new voting act past by parliament.

July 26, 2007
New Canada Elections Act Provisions Now in Effect

July 30, 2007
Electors MUST Prove Their Identity and Residential Address When They Vote!

August 30, 2007
Reminder Card and Details of New Voter Identification Rules Will Be Delivered to All Electors

September 5, 2007
Electors MUST Prove Their Identity and Residential Address When They Vote!

September 6, 2007
Elections Canada Reiterates the Statutory Requirements Regarding the Identification of Electors Wearing Face Coverings

IMPORTANT!

Changes have been made to the Canada Elections Act.

All electors MUST prove their identity and residential address when they vote. For more detailed information on voter identification, visit www.elections.ca.

There was no veil controversy it was all a bit o' political slight of hand. Harper using a bit of Mulroney blarney politics.

On Monday, speaking in Canberra, Australia, Prime Minister Stephen Harper blasted the agency for the second day. He said Elections Canada has defied Bill C-31, which was passed by Parliament in June, by allowing Muslim women to wear veils and burkas while voting.

He said it's not the first time the agency has gone against the will of the elected Parliament.

"I'm obviously very disappointed with this decision. Parliament has just passed a law and its intention is very clear -- the intention is to have photographic identification of voters. I'm disappointed with Elections Canada and I don't think it's the only case where Elections Canada is giving a ruling on the laws they wish they had, rather than the laws that are actually on the books."

The Harper Index tells us why this was a big red herring used to veil the real issue the Conservatives have with Elections Canada.

The battle for rural Quebec may have been manifested in the veil controversy as well. "Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, facing elections as early as this year, is taking a stand against veiled Muslim voters, helping him tap into a growing backlash against immigrants," write Bloomberg News reporters Theophilos Argitis and Alexandre Deslongchamps.

"The feeling on this issue was so powerful no party was willing to oppose the Conservatives on this," said one Parliament Hill staffer, who asked not to be named. The Bloc was quickest to join the Conservatives in opposing veils at the polling booth, but soon the NDP and Liberals agreed as well. "No one was going to hand this issue to them."

At the same time, veils may have given Harper an opportune means of distraction. Daniel Tencer wrote in the online edition of Maissoneuve that the controversy successfully took attention from investigation into Conservative election spending, as well as exacting vengeance upon chief electoral officer Marc Mayrand for raising the issue.

Tencer writes: "It has everything to do with Elections Canada's assertion that the Conservatives went $1.2 million over the legal spending limit in the last election. The Globe describes today how defensive behaviour by some Conservative MPs after the January, 2006, election tipped them off to the practice of 'in-and-out' transactions, in which the federal Conservative organization sent money to local candidates and then siphoned it right back to the federal campaign, thus avoiding federal spending limits. Several weeks ago it emerged that Harper's Conservatives are now involved in a lawsuit against Mayrand, the same person Harper attacked over veiled voting, regarding Mayrand's decision not to recognize the 'in-and-out' spending as legitimate. At a House of Commons committee hearing yesterday into the practice, the Ottawa Citizen reports, Conservative MPs deflected allegations of corruption by challenging the opposition parties to open their campaign spending books for the past decade."

SEE:

Black Bloc Can Vote

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Black Bloc Can Vote

Says Elections Canada.

Nothing in law requires visible face, Elections Canada says

After all we are over in Afghanistan fighting for womens rights.....to be veiled.

I don't understand the outcry over this it is a family value after all.

Constitution of Afghanistan 2004

Family is a fundamental unit of society and is supported by the state.

The state adopts necessary measures to ensure physical and psychological well being of family, especially of child and mother, upbringing of children and the elimination of traditions contrary to the principles of sacred religion of Islam.

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Postcard From Syria

From a travel article about Syria comes this striking example of culture clash.

There are some peculiarities to get used to when travelling in an Arab nation. We giggle watching Arab TV chat shows, where a burqa-clad host interviews a burqa-clad guest, testing TV's role as a visual medium.

In public, men vastly outnumber women, yet some girls wear tight jeans, sprout piercings and wear close-fitting Western tops, which no one seems to mind. G-strings and flimsy underwear are sold alongside scarves and burqas in the market. In restaurants, a menu is offered to my wife without prices. Despite the widespread poverty, there is no shortage of German luxury limousines zipping along the potholed streets.

On the Al Jazeera TV network, we see US President Bush and then British prime minister Tony Blair talking about tackling the isolationism of Syria. We feel like sending them a postcard from Damascus.

And speaking of Burqa's and G-Strings it is a hot topic in secularist Muslim Turkey as well.

Debate on g-strings takes the Islamic community by storm Hürriyet

A very lively debate among religious columnists continues around the topic of the religious legitimacy of covered women wearing g-strings, reported the daily Hürriyet yesterday. Discussions about the religious compatibility of burka and g-strings are getting lots of attention from Islamic columnists. İlhami Atmaca, a columnist at Renkli magazine, was the initiator of the argument, by dedicating a whole piece to the topic, first explaining about the sexual motivation a g-string can give to a woman, then connecting this to covered women. Atmaca who defines the g-string as a “demoralization tool” drew strong reaction from female columnists with his controversial article. Halime Kökçe, editor in chief of Gerçek Hayat magazine – and also a columnist – wrote, “Information concerning the choice of undergarment of covered women is of extreme privacy and it is not possible for a truly pious man to get hold of such knowledge.” Another reaction came from Nigar Tuğsuz, a writer in the same magazine with Atmaca, who said, “Invading privacy neither makes you famous nor makes your readers more moral.” On another side of the debate Professor Saim Yeprem, ministry of religious affairs high commission committee member, former President of the Ministry of Religious Affairs Mehmet Nuri Yılmaz and researcher and journalist İsmail Nacar all agree that such matters should not be cared about, as what is inside a woman's burka is private in Islam and the real sin is the curiosity that concerns the issue.

Though I am sure the Koran never mentioned G-Strings.

Sura 24:31 in the Quran is the key to this entire debate. Shakir's translation of this sura goes as follows: "And say to the believing women that they cast down their looks and guard their private parts and do not display their ornaments except what appears thereof, and let them wear their head-coverings over their bosoms, and not display their ornaments except to their husbands or their fathers... and let them not strike their feet so that what they hide of their ornaments may be known; and turn to Allah all of you, O believers! So that you may be successful."

This is the crux of the matter and reading this translation, its pretty clear that veiling is compulsory and the woman is not to show herself except to her husband or close relatives.

I bet these would be popular in the Damascus market.


SEE

National Pest Gets It Wrong

Hajibs and Habits

Spot The Contradiction

Breaking Out Of The Cultural Burka

Catholic Hajib

Watch How You Dress

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HIJABS AND HABITS

Expressing our oppression as women in solidarity with our sisters. And since this call for solidarity comes from a Catholic there is no difference between the hajib and the habit. Both are symbols not of liberation but of patriarchy.

I am calling out to every woman in this world who, regardless of her ethnic origin, religious background or even sexual orientation, will recognize my voice as female, feminine, and therefore will feel and acknowledge the resemblance, the sorority. I am calling on to you my sisters because some of us are suffering today and I believe that we, as loving sisters, must show them we will not turn our backs on them. Muslim women are indeed women like us, mothers, daughters, and sisters. The most common thought when a Muslim woman is seen wearing a Hijab (headscarf) is to assume that it is a sign of oppression and that this woman is not free of her own choices. Yet in the “Western” world (of what I know myself from France and Canada) wearing a Hijab is certainly a very difficult and courageous act because it is the visible and unmistakable sign of a religion that has become synonymous with terrorism since the 9/11 attacks. But “terrorism” has no race or religion. The Muslim community, Islam, have nothing to be forgiven for. The actions of some people cannot justify the generalization of a whole group. I think History has proven this point many, many times. People from my father’s family have perished in concentration camps during World War II along with Jewish people, communists, homosexuals, and many other oppressed groups rejected solely because of their existence. This situation is not different. As human beings we cannot accept this injustice: we cannot condemn and reject Muslims on account of their nature. I was raised a Christian and as such I will address the Christian community, in particular the Catholics. Oh my sisters and brothers I am asking you, for the love of Jesus (peace be upon his head) himself: who is the good Christian? who is the good Catholic? I will tell you. The good Catholic is the one who hid his Protestant neighbours on the night of August 24, 1572 at Saint Barthélémy, France. An estimated 70,000 Protestants were killed in France, 3,000 in Paris. Yet a lot survived because good Catholics extended their hands to their Protestant brothers and sisters. The same good Catholics, good Christians, saved their Jewish neighbours from deportation during World War II. The good Christians today, I have no doubts, will reach out their hands onto their Muslim brothers and sisters.
All I am asking of you is to follow my lead in a peaceful and symbolical gesture: let us wear a Hijab for a day. Let us show our solidarity and love for our Muslim sisters who choose to wear it every day, not as a sign of oppression, but as a sign of courage and honesty.

Nuns should wear the habit

After reviewing A Nuns Habit, which lists poorly devised reasons for not wearing the habit, I feel encouraged to write on the subject. In short, my opinion remains that all religious sisters and nuns should wear the habit of their respective orders. No longer should these women, who have given their lives to the service of God and the Church, be dressing like laypeople. It is time to return to the ancient practice of wearing a distinct habit - this is not fulfilled by wearing laypeople's clothing!

The habit inspires women to leave their lives and gives themselves to God. The same is true for men who are inspired by the garments worn by priests and monks. To enter a religious order, one does not just experience a change of heart and soul, rather, there is also a change in the physical realm. For example, many religious orders require the women to adopt a new name when they become a nun in addition to wearing the habit.

See:

Spot The Contradiction

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Muslims and Christians Refuse To Play Ball

Hmm, I wonder if it was because the women priests wouldn't wear hajibs.

A soccer game bringing Muslim imams and Christian priests "shoulder to shoulder" on a field in Norway was cancelled Saturday because the teams could not agree on whether women priests should take part.

See:

Witches Play Mullahs To A Draw

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Spot The Contradiction

France opposes Turkey joining the EU because it is a Muslim country. But Turkey banned the Islamic headscarf for women before France did....And France declares it is doing this to remain secular, which Turkey does to.....go figure.....




SEE:

Breaking Out Of The Cultural Burka

Catholic Hajib

Watch How You Dress

Why We Fight

The War For Women's Rights

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