Baird Pushes Aside Native Elder

As seen on TV. In his rush to shake hands with the Premier of B.C., gotta get that photo op , Federal Conservative Environment Minister John Baird pushed aside the outstretched hand of the Haida Elder and ignored him through out this announcement;Ottawa vows $30-million to protect Great Bear

And just to clear the air, how much are they giving? Canada To Spend $25m On Rainforest Plan

Hmm it seems there is some conflict over how much that cheque was for....

Groundbreaking Great Bear Rainforest Agreement Secures $120 Million

Canada gives $100m to save Spirit Bear Rainforest



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Environment


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Retro Tories

To be a conservative is to of course engage in retro-politics, to want to live in some golden age past.

Which must be the reason the New Conservative Government of Canada retrofit announcement was just a retrofit of the Liberals original EnerGuide program, and not nearly as effective as the NDP's retrofit plan.

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Skool Daze

It seems that building schools in Afghanistan is key to winning hearts and minds.

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AP) - The Taliban said it will open its own schools in areas of southern Afghanistan under its control, an apparent effort to win support among local residents and undermine the western-backed government's efforts to expand education.

Canadians, Taliban in fight for young minds Schools going up in south of country

Afghan girls received school bags during the inauguration of a village primary school, built by Canadians, in Sparwan Ghar, 38 kilometres west of Kandahar, Afghanistan, on Saturday.

Of course it would help a lot if Pakistan's Military Intelligence Agencies were not funding and supporting the Taliban.

Since the Taliban schools are not schools but Madrasa for training insurgent fighters.

Afghan education minister says Taliban plan to set up schools is 'political propaganda'

Atmar described the Taliban as "enemies" of education, saying its militants had burned 183 schools in the past year, caused the closure of 396 others, forcing 200,000 students out of class. He also said 61 students and teachers had been killed.

"If they want to build schools, why are they burning our (government) schools?" he said.

Atmar dismissed the Taliban plan to open its own as "political propaganda," saying they did not control the provinces where it plans to set them up.

He said the government would have the "legitimate right" to attack Taliban schools that became centers of terrorism.

The Taliban's attacks on state schools in the past few years have chipped away at one of the main successes of Afghanistan's democratic revival: a huge foreign-funded development drive that has seen a fivefold increase in the number of children attending school.

Quetta is now the headquarters of the Taliban movement. What role are Pakistan’s intelligence agencies playing to sustain their presence?

President Musharraf relies on the religious party Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam, or JUI, which dominates this province, Baluchistan, as an important partner in the provincial and national parliaments.

At a madrasa, called simply Jamiya Islamiya, on winding Hajji Ghabi Road, a board in the courtyard proudly declares “Long Live Mullah Omar,” in praise of the Taliban leader, and “Long Live Fazlur Rehman,” the leader of JUI.

Members of the provincial government and Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam are frequent visitors to the school, the local opposition party member said, asking that his name not be used because he feared Pakistan’s intelligence services. People on motorbikes with green government license plates visit at night, he said, as do luxurious sport utility vehicles with blackened windows, a favourite of Taliban commanders.

Increasing Pakistani role seen in Taliban resurgence

The all-powerful Inter Services Intelligence (ISI), which had for long "used religious parties for Pakistan's domestic and foreign policy adventures", is extensively providing support to the Taliban.Western diplomats in Pakistan as well as Afghanistan say the ISI and the Military Intelligence are actively supporting a Taliban restoration in an effort to assert greater influence on the country's "vulnerable western flank" (read the porous Pak-Afghan border regions).

According to the New York Times, this is motivated not only by an Islamic fervour but also by a longstanding view that the jihadist movement allows them to assert greater influence in Afghanistan's border region.

According to the paper, so great is the ISI influence that even families who have lost their sons in suicide bombing missions against American and NATO forces in Afghanistan, say of the deaths on conditions of anonymity because of pressure from Pakistani intelligence agents.

The paper quoted a former Taliban commander as saying that Pakistani authorities jailed him when he refused to go to Afghanistan to fight against the NATO and Afghan forces, adding that for Western and local consumption, his arrest was billed as part of Pakistan's crackdown on the Taliban in the country.

According to Pakistani and Afghan tribal elders, former Taliban members who have refused to fight in Afghanistan have been arrested, or even mysteriously killed, after resisting pressure to re-enlist in the Taliban.

"The Pakistanis are actively supporting the Taliban," said a Western diplomat in Kabul, adding that he had seen an intelligence dossier highlighting a recent meeting on the Afghan border region between a senior Taliban commander and a retired colonel of the ISI.

Civilians on the border fear ISI

Carlotta Gall, a New York Times correspondent, who was manhandled and punched on December 19 by Pakistani agents who broke into her hotel room in Quetta, said Pakistanis and Afghans interviewed on the frontier — frightened by the long reach of Pakistan's intelligence agencies, spoke only with assurances that they would not be named. Even then, they spoke cautiously.

Despite this, they were visited by the ISI because the goons who broke into her hotel room copied data from the computers, notebooks and cellphones they seized, and tracked down her contacts and acquaintances.

They have been lucky not to have been killed so far because the ISI has a built a hideous reputation for bumping off people they see as being inimical to hardline Pakistani interests.

Some months back, Hayatullah Khan, a Pakistani journalist who exposed as lie the Pakistan military's claim of an attack on a terror camp (which was actually conducted by the US) was killed in cold blood.

See:

Baluchistan

Musharraf

Pakistan

Our Allies In Afghanistan Oppress Women

Womens Oppression Continues In Afghanistan

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Richardson On The Ticket

So who will place Bill Richardson on their ticket as Vice President? Obama or Clinton.

Bill Richardson, the avuncular governor of New Mexico, an internationalist with a gold-plated resume, on Sunday announced his intention to seek the Democratic presidential nomination, making history as the first Latino to have a credible chance to lead a national ticket.

Obama needs him more than Clinton does.

And this is just another 'first' in what appears to be a lot of firsts that will be occuring in the 2008 Presidential Race in the US.

First 'African'-American, not an American civil rights leader, running for President. First Woman, literally and figuratively as in First Lady, and now the first Latino.


As Russell Sadler says over at Blue Oregon;

"Obama, JFK and McCall were successful leaders because they were gifted with the ability to put into words what many people were thinking in a way that produces genuine empathy.

Democratic Party presidential candidates have not displayed this quality in decades. Among the present pretenders for the nomination, Sens. Joseph Biden and Christopher Dodd and Rep. Dennis Kucinitch do not display it. John Kerry and Al Gore? Nope. John Edwards displays it, but his base of support is too narrow. That leaves Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton. Unfortunately, her greatest strength is also her greatest weakness -- experience. The Republicans are in disarray. More than half the party is still in denial about why they lost control of Congress. A Clinton candidacy will be a lightning rod that will unite the Republicans, allowing them to paper over their differences to attack an old foe and get back in the game. That will be more difficult to do with Obama, who really represents a different generation."

Which is why Clinton made her abrupt announcement on the weekend, after having been coy about 2008 since 2004.

Hillary Clinton's abrupt announcement on Saturday that she is running for the presidency is a sign that her campaign is already in trouble. The most obvious answer is: panic. Since Barack Obama made his announcement last week, the Clinton camp must have felt a slippage in support, in terms of money and talent, that led it to announce the formation of her exploratory committee so abruptly.

It's going to be an interesting two years in American Politics.

This contrast was reflected in their announcement speeches. Obama attacked a politics that "has become so bitter and partisan'' and pledged himself to "our common interests and concerns as Americans.'' Clinton spoke proudly of her ability to take on partisan foes. "I have never been afraid to stand up for what I believe in or to face down the Republican machine,'' she said. "I know how Washington Republicans think, how they operate and how to beat them.''

The Democrats come out swinging with high profile candidates as the Republicans wallow around the trough looking for someone who looks not guilty.

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US Politics


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Mercenaries Now Subject To US Military Law

Do not be misled by the headline, this is about Mercenaries; private armies, not about Haliburton and Bechtel. And now that the damage is done the military finally applies the Military Code of Justice to these creeps. And the media still calls them contractors, deliberately confusing the public about the fact that these guys are privatized military and security forces made up of ex military and CIA personnel. Iraq is the model of the new market state, complete with privatized armies.

"A state that privatizes most of its functions will inevitably defend itself by employing its own people as mercenaries-with equally profound strategic consequences. " Phillip Bobbit

Accountability for Military Contractors Since the start of the Iraq war, military contractors have operated in Iraq without legal status or accountability. However, according to Brookings scholar Peter W. Singer, this may all change with a tiny section in recently passed legislation. "With the addition of just five words in the law...contractors' 'get out of jail free' cards may have been torn to shreds."

The UCMJ Change and its Applicability to Private Military Contractors

Over the last few years, tales of private military contractors run amuck in Iraq — from the CACI interrogators at Abu Ghraib to the Aegis company's Elvis-themed internet "trophy video" — have continually popped up in the headlines.

Unfortunately, when it came to actually doing something about these episodes of Outsourcing Gone Wild, Hollywood took more action than Washington. The TV series Law and Order punished fictional contractor crimes, while our courts ignored the actual ones. Leonardo Dicaprio acted in a movie featuring the private military industry, while our government enacted no actual policy on it. But those carefree days of military contractors romping across the hills and dales of the Iraqi countryside, without legal status or accountability, may be over.

Getting tattled on to the boss is certainly fine for some incidents. But, clearly, it's not how one deals with suspected crimes. And it's nowhere near the proper response to the amazing, awful stories that have made the headlines (the most recent being the contractors who sprung a former Iraqi government minister, imprisoned on corruption charges, from a Green Zone jail).

See:

Iraq

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Clear Eyed View of the Quebec New Right

An excellent piece From the Mind of a Netjin on the new right in Quebec and it's links to Von Mises liberal-tarianism.

Of course we have seen this movie before. The Harpocrites, including the Harper himself and Ambrose, Solberg, Kenney, Anders, etc. et. al, ad nauseum, claim to be libertarians.

And how quickly they abandon that pretext once in power. As the new right in Quebec will abandon their libertarian pretext, to set about slashing social programs paid for by the working class, and becoming the new business state.

Quebec's "Clear-Eyeds" Hit The Big Screen

Centred around Mario Dumont, Lucien Bouchard, the Action Democratique du Quebec, the Manifesto for a Clear-eyed Vision of Quebec and Quebec City shock radio CHOI FM and its slogan "Liberty, I shout your name", Quebec's young and dynamic right is attempting to kick start a new Quiet Revolution, but this time they want a libertarian one. This still minority but rapidly growing movement doesn't rally around independence from Canada, they rally around independence from the state. More precisely, the social democratic state as it exists in Quebec, the Quebec model as it is termed.

The reason I'm mentioning this is because the left in Canada often considers Quebec the progressive bastion, but this could change. In the future, we might not hear "Vive le Quebec libre !" so much, but more "Vive le Quebec libertaire !"

I too have blogged on this move to the right by ADM and Bouchard et. al, declaring the Quebec working class lazy and unproductive, which is just another way of saying we are going to tighten our belts around your necks.

As for the left considering Quebec the bastion of social democracy, and that it is secure, this is a valid criticism, though misguided. If the Left in Quebec views the right as unimportant it is because of their relative political positions. Dumont's Reform Party in Quebec Drag appeals to certain classes of people, whose power base in Quebec while 'respectable' is overwhelmend by the left state they live in. And like the right in Quebec their origins were in the Social Credit Party.

However the Left's preoccupation with pushing the PQ, BQ and nationalists to the left, does mean they ignore the new right at their peril.

For instances the longest most continous and successful assault on unionization, the right to work (sic) movement is strongest in Quebec and linked to that provinces faux libertarian movement.

And then there is the so called 'libertarian' radio host who is now an independent Quebec MP in the house of commons; André Arthur, and true to form he is ignoring the state while collecting his Parliamentary salary. Arthur told reporters Monday night that he has no intention of muting his style in Ottawa. Ha, ha, oh please stop it.

His silence in the house since his election last year has been deafening. But as I said once these faux libertarians get into power they drop all pretences and become the same old right wing mouthpieces for their special interests.

Mr. Arthur is a federalist and leans to the right in his views. Since taking the job, he has supported the government's budget, its approach to the Kyoto Accord and its decision to renew Canada's commitment to the war in Afghanistan for two more years. "I must say that I'm quite impressed with the kind of government they've given Canada for the last months," he told the Hill Times. "Here's a guy, Harper, who does what he says and says what he does. That's a long time in Canada since we've seen that. It's marvellously refreshing. It gives confidence to voters."

You would be forgiven forgetting that there are actually two independent MP's in the house, since it appears there is only one real outspoken libertarian MP and that is Garth Turner.

See:

Duh Oh

Quebec BQ vs Conservatives

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CIBC Says Opp's

Do you think the CIBC will lower service charges for having screwed up, of fire anyone? Nah....

For the second time in three years, the ability of the CIBC (TSX:CM) to protect confidential data has come under scrutiny after a computer file containing information on up to 470,000 Talvest Mutual Funds clients was lost in transit between offices. In 2004, it was disclosed that the bank had for three years been inadvertently sending faxes containing confidential information to scrap yards in West Virginia and suburban Montreal.

And CIBC is not the only one who has breeched your right to privacy.

As for the credit card information at HomeSense and Winners, senior representatives from the Canadian banks held a conference call with major Canadian card issuers, VISA and Mastercard, to discuss damage control Thursday.

A senior banking executive confirmed information has already been used for fraudulent activity and the banks had received thousands of calls about the compromised credit card information.

TJX Co. Inc., based in Framingham, Mass., said they became aware in mid-December of a security breach during which the credit and sales transaction information of "significantly less than millions of holders" was removed from company databases.

The company said computers that handle customer interactions and store information, including credit card numbers, were illegally accessed at several store locations in December. Stores belonging to the TJX chain also accept American Express and Discover credit cards.

The compromised information was from transactions that took place in 2003 and during the period between mid-May and December 2006.

The problem is of course that privacy laws in Canada are a paper tiger.

Regardless of any potential amendments which may be made to PIPEDA in the near future, businesses should, in order to avoid privacy liability under PIPEDA: obtain legal advice in the event that they suffer security breaches (or "involuntary disclosures" of personal information under their control) prior to deciding whether or not they should be notifying the individuals whose information is at stake, credit agencies and other entities such as relevant government agencies or banks of the security breach;

And you can be in charge when a criminal breech of privacy occurs and just go on your merry way complete with payout package....

CRA commissioner resigns in wake of reports of privacy breaches

The head of the Canada Revenue Agency has told his staff he intends to resign his post in April.

"I have come to a stage in my personal and professional life where it is wise to reflect on what I have accomplished," agency commissioner Michel Dorais writes in an internal e-mail dated Jan. 12.

"It has become clear that the time is now ripe for me and my family to take on a new direction, outside of the federal government."

Dorais's resignation follows several media reports that detailed privacy abuses at the agency, including the leak of Liberal MP Ken Dryden's personal tax information and confidential tax information mistakenly mailed out to the wrong recipients.

CRA employees who are found guilty of disclosing confidential tax information - a violation of the Income Tax Act - face fines of up to $5,000 or jail time of up to 12 months. Under the Criminal Code of Canada, breach of trust by a public officer is punishable by a maximum prison sentence of five years.

See:

Nice Job If You Can Get It

Criminal Capitalism

CEO's

CIBC

Banks

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Little Mosque Bombs

As I predicted once you lost the audience outside of GTA....

the ratings for Little Mosque on the Prairie have dropped from 2.1 million viewers for the first episosde down to 1.2 million for episode 2.

And CBC has six more shows in the can...it can only decline further, it just is not funny.

It now has the same amount of viewers as Corner Gas, which is also about Saskatchewan and actually made in Saskatchewan, unlike LMOTP, which is made in a Toronto back lot.

The producers continue to show a lack of prairie understanding, for instance making goat curry jokes when everyone out here knows that we favour lamb curry, being that lamb is plentiful out West. Including the hallal lamb that I get from my local butchershop.

And last time I checked the Prairies included Alberta.

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TV

CBC


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A Sad Story

This is a sad story....in more ways than one....a dumb idea for an attack blog ends up struck dumb by lack of support.....

Courtesy Big Blue Wave....

Friday, January 12, 2007

New Blog: Stop the Greens!

In my search for blogs to add to Opinions Canada, I happened upon this one, Stop the Greens!, a blog devoted to trashing the Green Party of Canada.

I'm not really for or against the Greens. I figure they will split the vote on the left anyway. I'm just bemused by the concept of a blog devoted exclusively to making another party look bad.

I just thought I'd offer that up to the blogging community. Maybe someone will find it useful or interesting.

UPDATE: Looks like Alex is giving up. He says he's not getting enough support.

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Blogs




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TANSTAAFL Except in Alberta

There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch

-TANSTAAFL - except in Alberta....

The King has left the building.....

Here is a lesson in Ralphonomics, gone but not forgotten. Business as usual in the Kingdom of Alberta.

Alberta government departments spent nearly $1 million on catering and coffee service in the year ending March, 2006, according to the “blue book” which records grants, supplies and services.

Betting is big business in Alberta, it funds the province and is in turn funded by taxpayers. In last springs budget Horse-racing in Alberta got a $45 million horse racing subsidy

It is after all the sport of Kings and Ralph considered it one of his favorite sports, being the gambler he was.

The heads of Horse Racing Alberta make more money than the premier - and they're being paid with taxpayer's dollars, claim the Alberta Liberals.

And this is really rich....literally....now imagine if the Federal Liberals or Conservatives did this, why the outrage in Ottawa. Oh yeah, there they have an opposition that can bring down the government, here we have a One Party State.

20-year oversight
Alberta Grits demand action after finding Tories haven't filed financial reports since '87
Alberta Grits are demanding an overhaul of the province's election finances disclosure law after Elections Alberta revealed the Tories haven't filed required financial reports for nearly two decades.

The situation involves a secret "foundation fund" the party was allowed to keep after the financial disclosure law was passed in 1978, provided it filed annual reports on transfers from it.

Deputy Electoral Officer Bill Sage told the Sun he failed to notice that the statements stopped coming.

"I was responsible for it. I was the director of financial operations at the time. It was something that escaped me and I didn't realize it until just recently."

Yeah it was supposed to happen twenty years ago....I wonder whose son this guy is that he can blythely say he was responsbile for the oversight , after he was told by the reporter looking into this, and forget to tender his resignation.....wait sorry this is Alberta not Ottawa.

Finally the ultimate lobbyist gets the ultimate lobbyist job, move over Rod Love here comes Ralph.....

Ralph hooks up with 'straight-talkers'
Less than a week after leaving provincial politics, former Alberta premier Ralph Klein has joined a top law firm to advise clients on business opportunities in the booming province.

Too late though comes this announcement after the horse has left the barn....

Stelmach promises registry for lobbyists





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Alberta

PC

Klein

Stelmach



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