Leaks

US slams 'prisoner abuse' leak And all the Americans can worry about is who leaked the story. Sort of like who leaked the story about Ambassador Wilson's wife being a CIA agent which has been swept under the rug. Which is what they would have liked happen to the Abu Ghraib story. Cheney Mishap Takes Focus Off CIA Leak


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Red Menace In Canada

So where do our Blogging Tories and Conservative activists on the right go to rest, recuperate and get their fix of political strategizing? Why to the U.S. of course, because as we all know the Right Wing brain is in the U.S.

Check out these right wing Canadian bloggers who went to the CPAC . No not the TV channel, the Conservative Political Action Conference.

No they did not go to a Libertarian conference, though they probably should have, then they would have had a rude awakening,.

Actually CPAC is the Republican PAC. They got autographs from Karl Rove and Ann Coulter...bestill my beating heart...lucky for them Dick Cheney didn't invite them quail hunting.

Now the RightWhingnuts in Canada like to dis the Left in this country for being Anti-American but the one thing the Left here does not do is go south of the Border to go to Political Action conferences held by the Democrats. The Democrats are far too rightwing for us.

And very few of the left work on Democratic campaigns as compared to our pals on the right who flock south like snow birds seeking out Republican campaigns to cut their teeth on.

So if their rhetoric sounds imported it is. And they accuse us and all Canadians of being Anti-American, they say it not because they are defending our friends south of the border, poor babies can't defend themselves from Canadian sarcasm and ridicule, but because they are defending their imported Republican politics.
Scratch away at their contentialist veneer and you will find not Tory Blue but Republican Red. It gives new meaning to the Red Meance.

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Ottawa, Alberta

Welcome to the world of Alberta politics on the national stage. As I wrote here this is the era of Cone of Silence politics when it comes to our paranoid secretive PM. Once a backroom boy always a backroom boy.

Wed, February 15, 2006

PM mum on meeting

Details of visit with Quebec premier under wraps

OTTAWA -- Prime Minister Stephen Harper's staff are treating his first meeting with a provincial premier like a state secret -- even keeping the location under tight wraps.

Harper will meet today with Quebec Premier Jean Charest at noon and his aides have advised that no pictures of the meeting will be allowed.

The traditional public comments usually made by heads of government after they meet in Ottawa have also been cancelled.

An official in the PMO told Sun Media that in an effort to bring a tone of seriousness to his discussions, Harper will not make himself available to the media unless he has something to announce.

An official in the PMO told Sun Media that in an effort to bring a tone of seriousness to his discussions, Harper will not make himself available to the media unless he has something to announce.

The official pointed out that there's no need for a picture of the duo since there will be no announcements made after Charest and Harper's tete-a-tete.

"This prime minister will take the mic and say something when he has something to say, something to announce, something concrete," said the official.

"Not everything is a photo-op."

Opps then I wonder how that official can explain this......

The two leaders met behind closed doors Wednesday (CP photo)

And then it gets better..... our new PM has nothing to say because.......

"He's a person who listens a lot," Charest told a news conference.

And he can hold private meetings without public knowledge of what was said 'cause well this guy did........

William Stairs, Harper's director of communications, defended the meeting. He argued that other PMs, notably Chretien, have held private meetings with premiers.

Oh dear now the PMO is using the Liberals, those morally bankrupt Liberals, who had no right to govern, especially the "Friendly Dictator" as an excuse to do the same.......Its not power that corrupts in Ottawa it's the PMO....

Why has Stephen Harper stayed out of sight?

Setting up shop 'a formidable task,' aide says of PM's lack of public action

GLORIA GALLOWAY

OTTAWA -- Stephen Harper will re-enter the public realm this afternoon to offer a few patriotic words about Flag Day before returning to the prime ministerial bunker and his preferred task of shaping government.

In more than a week since his controversial cabinet took the oath of office, Mr. Harper has made few forays into the world of cameras and digital recorders.

Harper gives new meaning to being a back-door man.

Mr. Harper, who attended a Flag Day ceremony on Parliament Hill yesterday, ducked out a back door to avoid questions from the media. Before his exit, a television reporter asked him about Mr. Martin's comments on Mr. Emerson. "You know my answer," Mr. Harper said. "Mr. Emerson will make a great contribution."

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Conduct Unbecoming

I think these two headlines say a lot about the Bush Regime. Disgusting behavior says it all. They show a regime that denies, covers up and then apologizes for behavior unbecoming......It only took Dick three days before he admitted he pulled the trigger. And Abu Gharib just won't go away. Just like Osama bin Laden won't go away.


'I'm the guy who pulled the trigger,' Cheney says
CTV.ca - 4 hours ago

Abu Ghraib Photos Show `Disgusting' Conduct, US Says
Bloomberg - 7 hours ago



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Is This Anyway to Treat a Beer?

What would Sir Alexander Keith Say?

Beer ad front man faces porn charges
London Free Press -
By CP. TORONTO -- The plug has been pulled on a beer advertising campaign featuring an over-the-top Scotsman after police laid child pornography charges against a Toronto commercial actor. Robert Norman Smith ..

As the Keiths TV ad says Is this anyway to treat a beer?



Alexander Keith's - Beer Funeral Commercial
If you're going to drink the pride of Nova Scotia be sure you do it with reverence and respect - lest you feel the ire of this surly kilt-clad Keith's-lover.



I don't think he would have got busted if he was just a Keiths-Lover......

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Blogger Problems

So I tried to post a comment on another blogger/blogspot.com blog and it waaaaassss soooooo sloooooowwwww. Then I tried to post here with a clever comment on the story in question and this is what I got.

Blogger Problem

This server is currently experiencing a problem. An engineer has been notified and will investigate.

Status code: 1-500-11

So we can assume that Blogger is again having problems today like it has for the past week. Well at least the 'engineer' has been notified......I feel so much better knowing that.

Oh yeah and I still get this stupid announcement every time I load a story into blogger

There were errors. (Details ...)

and of course when I go to republish my whole blog it tells me it has failed and wait ten minutes and try again. Where is that damn engineer?

Oh and this is happening fairly regularly too.....

Could not connect to Blogger.com. Saving and publishing may fail. Test connection now.

I think that this engineer guy/gal is just a myth or perhaps Google is outsourcing the work to China.


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Standard Western Racism

Not satisfied with insulting Canadian Muslims with its thinly veiled racism by republishing the Muhammed cartoons, see my comments here and here, now the Western Standard in the same issue has struck another low blow by insulting the wife of the Premier, with an anti-aboriginal racist slur.

It is well known that in Alberta Conservative circles that gay bashing, bashing natives and bashing East Indians is a popular past time. But this goes too far, the unnamed source clearly is a disgruntled insider who is tired of Kleins failure to exit the throne.

And so it is also a sexist slur, claiming that its all Colleens fault. Wow two count em two slurs in one article by an unamed source. The night of long knives is out for our dear Fuerher Herr Klein.

The comments were part of a column in the Western Standard magazine by writer Ric Dolphin. He suggested Colleen Klein wields too much influence over Premier Ralph Klein and his office.

Them there are fighting words Ezra

He then goes on to quote an unnamed source who said, "Once she [Colleen] stops being the premier's wife, she goes back to being just another Indian."

Klein's wife is Métis.

Comments on Klein's wife spark new controversy for Western ...
CBC News, Canada - 55 minutes ago
Aboriginals upset with Western Standard column CBC Calgary
Premier Klein's wife, Colleen, said to be devastated by magazine ... Canada.com
Alberta mag accused of racial slur against Klein's wife Edmonton Journal
Calgary Sun - all 10 related »

And it gets better because Ric Dolphin is no stranger to right wing controversial yellow journalism he was a reporter for the Alberta Report and their doppleganger the B.C. Report.

And this is far more the Report style of journalism than it is the Edmonton Journal or Calgary Herald that have both employed Ric in the past. They would not accept an 'unnamed' source for any such racist quote, but that is standard Report style journalism.

And it is Ric Dolphin wearing his outraged reactionary hat of the Alberta Report(er) that impunes Colleen with his sexist slur saying she has too much power over Ralph. This is that woman hating, sexist patriarchical slur that the Alberta Report specialized in. You know women who advance in society are not 'Real Women'. Even if they stand by their man. Nope this is that old adage that the woman is the power behind the throne, and that makes Ralph a whimp in the eyes of the butch right wing.

The Western Standard as I said before is a plagarized publication, a rehashed Alberta Report, complete with some of its old staff, and with a palagarized name, taking off on the popular American right wing paper the Weekly Standard.

And of course once again it is mindless right wing drivel that can insult thousands of Muslims and the Premier of Alberta and hence thousands of Tories in Alberta in one fell swoop. Yep that Ezra sure does spread the B.S. around.

Let's see whose up next to be smeared by this pathetic excuse for a newsmagazine, one that makes the news more than it reports it. Just like Alberta Report.


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Canada's Real Prime Minister

Is this guy. Really. And you thought you voted for some new Conservative party. Ha! Just look at who got the position of Canadian Ambassador to the U.S. Wilson to be next ambassador to the U.S.

Wilson to be US ambassador, CTV reports Globe and Mail

From Wednesday's Globe and Mail

Ottawa — Canada's next ambassador to the United States will be Mulroney-era finance minister Michael Wilson, The Globe and Mail has learned.

Mr. Wilson is expected to be appointed toward the end of this week or early next week, pending the agreement of the U.S. government, which is normally a formality.

The appointment is the latest example of former prime minister Brian Mulroney's influence on Stephen Harper's new Conservative government. Derek Burney, a former chief of staff to Mr. Mulroney who also served as ambassador to the U.S from 1989 to 1993, is head of Mr. Harper's transition team and was also rumoured to be in line for the job.

Mr. Wilson, 68, takes over from outgoing ambassador Frank McKenna, who tendered his resignation immediately after Mr. Harper won the Jan. 23 election.

Other members of Mr. Mulroney's inner circle who are close to Mr. Harper include senators Hugh Segal and Marjory LeBreton, both of whom have acted as advisers to the new Prime Minister.

Mr. Wilson was Mr. Mulroney's finance minister and is best known as the man who introduced the much-maligned goods and services tax in 1990. Besides finance, Mr. Wilson also served as minister of industry, science and technology and of international trade.

A tip o the blog to Dissonance and Disrespect for this.

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Conservative Conundrum

A less than impassioned criticism by the 'Prime Minister' of Ezra Le Rant and his Western Standard and the Jewish Free Press both of Harpers home town; Calgary.In fact it isn't a criticism at all it's a defense of Le Rant. Harper regrets publication of controversial Muhammad cartoons

"Free speech is a right that all Canadians enjoy; Canadians also have the right to voice their opinion on the free speech of others," Stephen Harper said in a written statement, his first comments on the incendiary cartoons since the furor erupted.

Well what did you expect, Le Rant is one of the young Turks who surround Harper, like Jason Kenney, Rob Anders, etc. all members of the Republican wing of the Conservative party.

Harper is in a conundrum, as is his Conservative party, as are Blogging Tories because Le Rant may have put Canadian troops in harms way with his publishing the cartoons. The rioting over the cartoons has seen assualts on NATO troops in Afghanistan. And his publishing the cartoons has made it into the world wide Muslim press.

Legal redress sought over cartoons Aljazeera.Net
Canadian PM laments publication of Prophet caricatures Malayala Manorama

Ezra Levant is an Idiot.

On Tuesday, Lt.-Col. Tom Doucette told CTV News that the decision of Western Standard, a Calgary-based magazine, to reprint the cartoons could endanger Canadian troops serving in Afghanistan. "What it might do is slow things down, i.e., in concentrated centres," Doucette told CTV. "If we get crowds gathering, then we will try to avoid that." His comments bolstered a similar warning from Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor. "It doesn't help. Radicals in Syria and Lebanon, Afghanistan and Iraq, they get people roused up because their religion's being offended," O'Connor said, the Ottawa Citizen reported Tuesday. "We don't need any more risk in the area than we have."PM 'regrets' publication of Muhammad cartoons

Uh oh now all those Blogging Tories that support our troops in Afghanistan will have to make a choice defend an idiotic provocatation that was unneccary and that will lead to endagering our troops, or denounce Le Rant for his deliberate and calculated attempt to increase his magazines circulation and his own profile. The later being more the case than a case for Free Speech.

Ezra Levant, publisher of the Western Standard, told CBC television the magazine decided to publish the cartoons because it considered them newsworthy. "We're not publishing them for their editorial merits," he said."They're boring cartoons. They're bland. They're not interesting. We're not running them because we share their views. We're running them because they're the central fact that caused Muslim radicals around the world to riot."

Ezra is all about Ezra being the news. The Western Standard has no more real circulation than Alberta Report before it. So this is all about Ezra in the news. Always has been. And Ezra ain't news.

And his publishing the cartoons is sheer opportunism not a question of fighting censorship. The Canadian media didn't censor the cartoons they just didn't run them because of good sense and good taste. Something that is lacking at the Western Standard.

But again as I said it's not about the cartoons or freedom of the press or freedom of speech its about Ezra. He thinks now that the Conservatives are in power he and his right wing pals should get more press and be referred to like his counterparts in the U.S. are.

It's a tempest in a tea pot feuled by faux right wing outrage.

And unlike Voltaire I cannot support Ezra's right to so called Free Speech.

As a right winger he has now shown himself as a fascist who would deliberately publish material he knows will provoke a negative reaction in order to prove his point that his self appointed enemies, Canadian Muslims, are terrorists and reactionaries. To Ezra and his Conservative pals all Muslims are radicals. He is practicing the Goebbels school of propaganda not Free Speech.

Levant, who is Jewish, had some harsh words for Elmasry. He described him as an "idiot" several times, and said he has no moral high ground to lecture him on journalistic integrity.
Levant pointed to controversial comments Elmasry made in October, 2004, when he said all Jews over the age of 18 are fair targets for suicide bombers. Elmasry made the comments on The Michael Coren Show, an Ontario program that runs on Burlington's Crossroads Television System.Elmasry later repeated the comments in a Globe and Mail interview, but eventually claimed he was expressing a widely-held Palestinian view, not his own personal belief."PM 'regrets' publication of Muhammad cartoons

Yeah Ezra is Jewish, so what. He is a perfect example of what he calls the self-hating Jew, he is Jewish when it is conveniant to be Jewish. Like now. Most of the other times he is just a regular WASP Right Winger like his other pals in the Calgary Conservative circle.

And yeah he uses a mistatement by his opponents to belittle them, like he has never done that and had to apologize. These are the debating tactics of a fascist. Never apologise never surrender. Ah, Dr. Gobbels would have been proud.

And Canadians deserved more outrage out of our PM rather than his weak tea 'regret'. Yeah we all regret your pal's in Calgary are idiots, but your job is not to defend them but to speak for Canadians whom they have insulted and outraged.





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Dick Cheney Murderer?

The joke making the rounds is that the VP of the U.S. shot a lawyer. Get it? It's based on that quote from the Merchant of Venice by Shakespere, "kill all the lawyers".

Unfortunately for Dick Cheney this may turn out to be just the case. As his 'hunting accident' , which is another way of saying his 'ineptness' may result in the death of his hunting companion who is a lawyer and fundraiser for the Republicans in Texas.

Texan shot by Cheney on hunt has heart attack

"Some of the birdshot appeared to have moved and lodged into a part of his heart and caused the atrial (fibrillation) and what we would say is a minor heart attack," hospital administrator Peter Banko said in a press conference.

Banko said Whittington, who before Tuesday had been described as suffering only superficial wounds and well on his way to recovery, would have to stay in the hospital another a week to make sure the remaining pellets do not cause more damage.

Dr. David Blanchard, the hospital's emergency room chief, said on Tuesday, "We knew he had some birdshot very near to the heart from the get-go."

Cheney's Late Disclosure of Hunting Incident Fuels Criticism

The announcement appeared to catch the White House officials and Cheney's staff by surprise. The vice president abruptly left a lunch with Senate Republicans after an aide slipped Cheney a note a half-hour before the doctor's 1 p.m. news conference.

For the second consecutive day, White House spokesman Scott McClellan faced a barrage of questions about why the Feb. 11 incident wasn't revealed until the next day, and then by the ranch owner calling the local newspaper. In past accidents involving President George W. Bush, such as when the president had a bicycle crash in Scotland last year, the White House press office issued a statement soon afterward.

Texas has the death penalty. Will the VP ever be charged for negligance, aggravated assault, or in the worst case if Wittington dies, manslaughter?

Doubtful this is Texas. And Cheney is a white guy. A powerful white guy. So the rules don't apply to him. Just like he didn't need to get a hunting license.

Already the second most powerful man in the United States, though some say the most powerful, has his ineptness being covered up. But with Whittington getting worse, suddenly the motives for the cover up get sinister.

And what went from oh its just an accident he will be out of hospital soon, now turns out to be a big lie too. The doctors knew Whittington had over 200 pieces of birdshot in his body, including near his heart, from "the get-go".

For Texas authorities the case is closed for now. The Kenedy County Sheriffs Department concluded ``this was nothing more than a hunting accident.'' The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department gave Cheney and Whittington warnings because they didn't have a $7 stamp for game birds on their hunting licenses, a new requirement.According to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, a significant portion of the 30 hunting accidents in the state last year occurred as a hunter was turning to fire at game. ``It's a classic example of what causes a hunting accident in Texas,'' said Tom Harvey, a department spokesman.

Yep stupid inept white guys with guns

Shooting required speedy disclosure

By every standard and by all accounts, the failure to promptly disclose the accident was wrong. Of course, the first priority when a person is shot and wounded is to make sure the victim receives the necessary medical care. That apparently was done at the scene by medical attendants accompanying Cheney. And the Secret Service reportedly notified the local sheriff's office of the incident on Saturday. The vice-president's staff also regarded the matter as serious enough to alert President George Bush on Saturday and to give the White House updates on the condition of Whittington.What makes little sense, however, was the White House's decision to defer disclosure of the shooting incident to the vice-president's office, and that office's decision to further defer to the owners of the ranch. Cheney did not check his official title at the Armstrongs' front gate. That was no private citizen who pulled the trigger, sending someone to the hospital. That act, though accidental, was committed by the country's second-highest public official. Neither Cheney nor the White House gets to pick and choose when to disclose a shooting. Saturday's incident required immediate public disclosure — a fact so elementary that the failure to act properly is truly disturbing in its implications.

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