There were errors. (Details ...) Could not connect to Blogger.com. Saving and publishing may fail. Test connection now.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.
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| 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 ...
A tip o the blog to Dissonance and Disrespect for this.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.
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"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.
Legal redress sought over cartoons Aljazeera.Net
Canadian PM laments publication of Prophet caricaturesMalayala Manorama
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 cartoonsUh 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."
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.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.
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
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.
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
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.
Family debt soars as incomes stagnate
And nothing the new Conservative government will address this crisis. All they have offered is tax credits to the rich and an inadequate baby bonus. Tax credits do not put real money in your pocket, as ING would say. In fact they only help those who pay taxes, and result not in a lower pay cheque per se but as a balance against earnings on your annual income taxes. Instead a tax cut on those earning under $100,000 would put real money back in your paycheque.Canadians outspend their ability to repay, new report finds
Eric Beauchesne, The Ottawa Citizen; with files from CanWest News Service
Monday, February 13, 2006Cash-strapped Canadian families are racking up debt at an alarming rate and the record number of households declaring bankruptcy will continue to rise unless people tighten their belts now, a new report warns.
"The alarm bells are ringing louder than ever," says the Vanier Institute for the Family, in a report on the state of family finances in Canada released on the weekend.
"They rang for governments and for many businesses and they did something about it. It is now time for families to do something about their own situations."
The average household income is now about $55,000 a year, roughly the same as at the start of the decade and up only one per cent, or about $500, from 1990.
In contrast, average household debt now stands at about $70,920, up 16 per cent from 2000, and 40 per cent from 1990.
"On average, households are putting nothing away for a rainy day, for a bout of unemployment, or for retirement," the report says.The real hourly earnings of Canadians have increased by just a dime over the past decade and a half, the report says.
The marginal 10-cent-an-hour-after-inflation increase in hourly earnings since 1990 has been accompanied by fewer hours of work, says the respected social policy think-tank.
"As such, more members of cash-strapped families are stepping into the growing paid-labour market," it says.
While that has produced record levels of employment and dual-income families, their disposable income, after taxes and government benefits, has stagnated over the last five years.
With the booming real estate market and interest rates at historically low levels, Canadians have reduced their savings and taken on more debt, it notes.
The days of cheap debt, however, are coming to an end, it says, predicting interest rates will continue to rise over the short term at least.
Total debt per household is now equal to 125 per cent of disposable incomes, up from 91 per cent in 1990, an increase that has helped push insolvencies to record levels and will continue to do so.
Wouldn't boot Buzz, Layton saysToronto Star
NDP Leader Jack Layton says he wouldn't have suspended Buzz ...Canada.com Union-boss booting has Layton buzzing
Calgary Sun -
Delivered rude shockToronto Star
Buzz cut leaves split endsHamilton Spectator Why expel Hargrove? Globe and Mail -
Layton says he wouldn't have dumped Hargrove from partyCBC British Columbia (Audio) all 61 related »
Cheney, an experienced hunter, has not commented publicly about the accident. He avoided reporters by leaving an Oval Office meeting with United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan before the press was escorted in.
No End to Questions on Cheney Hunting Incident
Published: February 14, 2006The White House sought to explain why it took most of a day to disclose that the vice president accidentally shot a fellow hunter.
Cheney hunt trip 'victim' recovering in hospital
Although Mr Whittington should, according to hunting etiquette and safety procedures, have announced himself, primary responsibility for the accident lies with the man who pulled the trigger. In Washington, Mr Cheney's office said he had visited Mr Whittington on Sunday afternoon before returning to the capital.
This was perhaps the most high-profile piece of vice-presidential marksmanship since Aaron Burr shot and fatally wounded Alexander Hamilton, then serving as secretary of the treasury, in a duel in 1804 - the most famous such confrontation in US history.
White House takes heat over Cheney shooting mishapAnd the whole media debacle of White House avoidance gives new meaning to Duck and Cover.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House was bombarded with questions on Monday about why it failed to go public with news that Vice President Dick Cheney shot a fellow quail hunter until the day after the accident.The accident happened about 5:30 p.m. on a private ranch about 200 miles south of San Antonio, where the vice president has hunted previously. Whittington was treated on the scene by Cheney's travelling medical detail before being taken by helicopter to the hospital.
The accident was not reported publicly by the vice president's office until Sunday afternoon and then only after an account provided by the ranch's owner appeared on the Web site of the local newspaper, the Corpus Christi Caller-Times.
In a testy exchange with reporters on Monday, White House spokesman Scott McClellan faced dozens of questions about the propriety of a private citizen making public a shooting incident involving the vice president and whether Cheney had followed White House protocol.
Bush Knew of Cheney's Hunting Accident Saturday
Ranch owner Katharine Armstrong said no one discussed notifying the public of the accident Saturday because they were so consumed with making sure Whittington was OK. She said the family realized in the morning that it would be a story and decided to call the local newspaper, the Corpus Christi Caller-Times. She said that is when she discussed the news coverage with Cheney for the first time
Michelle Pilecki: Trying to Sort Out the Discrepancies in Cheney Shooting Story
When the Veep Shoots Someone
White House takes cover over shooting by Cheney
Globe and Mail -2 hours ago
WASHINGTON — It was a scene that seemed straight out of a political skit on late-night TV. An irate White House press corps peppered the official White House spokesman with questions, the way birdshot is aimed at a cornered quail. ...
Some pellets of hunting humourToronto Star
Cheney's Hunting Accident Provides a Bonanza for Joke WritersBloomberg
