January 2008 - Archived News Commentary

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Archived News Commentary
for January 2008

Thursday January 31, 2008

Blog2 - Elements of Farce in Harkat bail hearing today

Blog2 - Mohamed Harkat's arrest: Report and Photos

Wednesday January 30, 2008

No Post

Tuesday January 29, 2008
Our kinder, gentler world
About Tasers, Rudy's false 9-11 image, Bush's mastery of newspeak, using nukes to prevent the use of nukes, SPP-ing and RFID-ing North Americans, plus JNF-ing the Canadian Parliament. Click on the date to go the article

Monday January 28, 2008
Monday blahs or maybe just sick of the news
I'm feeling weary and ineloquent today, so am just going to give you some good links to follow. Click on the date to go the article

Sunday January 27, 2008

No Post

Saturday January 26, 2008
Getting kicked around by "civilized" nations
About detention for years without charges, torture cover-ups, and Uncle Sam's system of punishment and reward Click on the date to go the article

Friday January 25, 2008
Manley, Wallin, Burney, the emptiest of talking heads
The Globe and Mail reveals a sad, sad example of that in the trio's pretend complaint against Harper that he doesn't allow his people to speak freely ... Click on the date to go the article

Thursday January 24, 2008
Israel loses the PR war
The Gaza Siege must end!
Canada's national newspaper, the Globe and Mail, has been decidedly pro-Israel for quite some time, but in reporting on the Gaza exodus into Egypt it has said something entirely revealing about the Israeli military's inhumane treatment of Palestinian civilians: Click on the date to go the article

Wednesday January 23, 2008
Exodus! Thousands of Palestinians crossed the Rafah border into Egypt after gunmen breached the wall overnight You gotta see the BBC photos! As you know I'm against violence, but I'm not against knocking down walls. Click on the date to go the article

Tuesday January 22, 2008
Hush, little baby, don't say a word Canada doesn't dare sass the US or Israel Click on the date to go the article

Monday January 21, 2008
Saying I told you so
... about the Manley report and the fake Al Qaeda fishing expeditions. Plus the skinny on what was really in that ministry building Israel killed a lot of civilians to demolish, and a message from Fidel Castro on the price of everything including Bush's Epiphany Gift. Click on the date to go the article

Sunday January 20, 2008
Keeping up appearances
Spain and Canada compensating for not helping in Iraq, doing their part to make the fake war on terror seem real
First, let me say for the zillionth time that you can't believe what you read in the mainstream. They publish as fact things that are just popular notion. There is no real investigative reporting. Not only do they focus on what they think sells - which means they embellish - they are dumbing down as well, probably because they are stingy with pay.

So, I wasn't surprised when a link in a CBC article about Canada's official spy souvenir shop had pieces missing. Here's the correct link in case you're interested. I looked at the stuff on display as long as I could before cracking up. Click on the date to go the article

Saturday January 19, 2008
No Post

Friday January 18, 2008
In with the new!

Or as new as I can make it since I seem to have reached a plateau in HTML skills.

Please feel free to leave a comment if you encounter any difficulties with the new site. Or leave a comment just because you'd like to.

So ... It seems Bush is feeling the heat over the US sagging economy. I learned something from him - when people wrinkle up their foreheads and slacken their lower lips, watch out for gross insincerety.

These free market people! When they see their methods causing disaster, they just do more of the same. The object is and always has been that people buy stuff, so they're going to give them a little more of their own money with which to go shopping (or, more accurately, to pay the interest on their loans and maxed-out credit cards). It's a brilliant way of getting more tax dollars into corporate coffers, but it doesn't stop inflation or home losses.

Bush is a criminal (neo) con man of the worst sort, but he'll probably live out the rest of his days in front of his TV with a bag of pretzels, along with his pal Jack Daniels, and man's best friends who, instead of doing the Lassie thing when he hits the floor, will sit there staring at him, no doubt contemplating how long they've got to eat all the pretzels and lick the salt off his face before he comes to.

According to the Wikipedia story, the dogs looked alarmed when Bush came to, so he must not have been out long enough.

Anyway, while the Bush bunch has murdered hundreds of thousands of people and starved many more, and Stephen Harper supports this, no legal consequences are likely to result. Cuz he's, like, important, right? Even the former director of the Canadian Red Cross gets all remaining charges dropped, in spite of hundreds having contracted HIV and hepatitis from blood issued under his watch. Meanwhile, in Alberta a young guy is criminally charged for taping a movie in a theatre.

There's a good chance he was going to give it away on the Internet - to people who can't afford to pay the exhorbitant cost of going to a movie theatre. But he's now officially an undesirable, a fall guy for the real pirates who will continue raking in the dough. And Bush, Harper and Perrault will be honoured at tea parties held by little old ladies wearing tiaras.

Bizarro World often overlaps with reality, so we need to keep our wits about us at all times! No sense trying to kid ourselves; we live in upside down times. Neale Donald Walsch, author of the book "Conversations with God" (which I've never read) made a good point in a video of his that I came across at the public library, and actually got most of the way through. He said: "We observe what is, and then we lie about it."

What we see happening in our world is painful and hard to comprehend, but if we start trying to pretend we don't notice, then they'll have us living in 1984. I offer one of my hedges against brain cell disruption - Cryptic crosswords - as a technique you may use if you haven't forumulated one of your own. Sudoku is also good. I've filed it away for future indepth attention.

Staying focused in the present helps me to see between the news lines, for one thing. The National Post, for instance reports thus:

Israel flattens Hamas ministry in Gaza Strip.
Israel bombed the Hamas-run Interior Ministry in Gaza and closed border crossings with the strip on Friday, sharply escalating what it called a campaign to halt Palestinian rocket attacks.

Notice they say: "...what it called ...". It would appear that even the right wing National Compost has intuited that the feeble nuisance of Qassam rockets is not the reason Israel is hammering away at Gaza. No sir. When and if there's any peace agreed to, Israel wants to let go of as little as possible of what it calls the Holy Land.

Here's the reely Bizarro part: 110 rockets got fired into what is called Israel during the past week, yet 33 Palestinians were killed. No Israelis are reported killed or injured.

On other feral fronts: U.S. Defence Secretary Robert Gates has been trying to blame anybody but the US for the mess in Afghanistan, but if he thinks NATO isn't doing a good enough job, well, he should know that good help is always hard to find, eh? America is the smartest and bestest and ballsiest country in the whole world, and If it wants something done right, they should do it themselves, eh? Please do send the slackers home!

Oh, apparently Harper was afraid I would say that. So he's been saying that Canada is the "present company excepted" in Gates's arrogant whine.

Oh yeah? Nobody else thinks that. But Canada wasn't supposed to be there for combat anyway - not until Harper and ~~Hitler~~ Hillier decided to live out their dreams of being Murkins. In fact, the Toronto Star says: <... Gates may well be right when he says that Canadian and European troops in Afghanistan are not well equipped to fight a counter-insurgency campaign. But what has been lost in the controversy over his impolitic remarks is that we did not sign on to fight insurgents – there or anywhere else.>

So there.

More talking out of school: Dion is offending right wingers with his insistence (for election purposes only) that Canada go back to playing a reconstructive role in Afghanistan. He's turned a Sun Times writer into a contortionist trying to prove our soldiers are fighting a "defensive" battle, not an "offensive" one, since they don't die from an exchange of bullets, but from roadside IEDs - which although passive and only harmful to those who trespass, he nevertheless wants to see as offensive.

That's an example of observing what is and then telling a lie about it. Canada is a foreign invader assisting a pre-emptive war, which can't be anything else but an offensive action. The fact that the Afghan resisters can't afford bullets, doesn't make their defence an offence!

Dion's also got the Pakistan embassy's knickers all twisted at his comment that maybe Pakistan needs help with its porous border, saying that "It shows a lack of understanding of the ground realities."

What it is really is bad timing. After all it was only in December that a "top U.S. general said that attacks along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border had dropped more than 40 percent since July and that the United States and its allies were making progress in the fight against the Taliban." (IHT)

Knowing when to say what in Bizarro World is very, very tricky.

Still on the subject of what's bizarre: Ottawa's criminally charged Mayor Larry O'Brien still hasn't stepped down from his seat in council or even from his high horse. He's busy complaining that the Ontario government cares about keeping crack addicts alive - you know, to give them a chance to recover and lead productive lives. The only product Larry seems to support is over-crowded jails - the better to justify privatization.

With Scary Larry's objection to "acting like Big Brother" does anybody believe the treatment centre he dreams of will be publicly controlled? Only those who have slipped into Bizarro World - and there seem to be a number of city councilors in that condition. If any facility is constructed, Larry will most likely be a major shareholder, and the centre will be a regional one, designed for maximum profit, because he's an old coot who enjoys playing "Big Daddy". The police will be instructed to round up as many customers as possible.

I don't wish ill on anybody, but if by some wharping of the ethers Larry ends up convicted of influence peddling and actually does time, will he hope for some bleeding heart, leftist, Big Brother compassion?

Okay, no more putting it off. Time to upload the site.

yayacanada

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Thursday January 17, 2008
Just imagine ...
Words you won't hear out of Harper's mouth in his "condolences" to the families of soldiers killed in Afghanistan:
'Just imagine in your minds what they could have done' Thousands attend funeral for 7 high school basketball players ...

(1) YYC: I'm getting close to being able to upload the new site design - another day should do it - but just had to stop and consider the difference between mourning for dead soldiers and mourning for young accident victims.
When soldiers die, there is always an attempt to justify having placed them in harm's way with words like, "He was doing what he wanted to do" or meaningless statements such as, "They made the ultimate sacrifice for our freedom".
Nobody wants to think about what a dead soldier might have become in life had his or her government thought to seek out saner, more creative alternatives.

(2) Thanks to Ron for pointing me to this link:
ActiveStills.org: Photos of demonstrations in Palestine against Israel's Apartheid Wall

yayacanada

Wednesday January 16, 2008
No Post

Tuesday January 15, 2008
Still working on the new site design. Should be ready for upload in another day or so.

In the meantime, please try out the new Comments feature and see how you like it.

Thanks to "Beesting" here's a nice, one-size-fits-all-politicians photo for your amusement. Looks like Dion, but isn't him. It's Roland Koch, a German politician who's been accused of xenophobic campaigning.

Canpalnet-Ottawa has some bumph on Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Bernier's romp through the Middle East. I like the pithy little comment below the headline: <A team from the Canada Israel Committe (CIC) lobby group will accompany Bernier. Hell, Canada could save a few bucks by leaving Bernier at home and just sending the CIC...>

Ron Saba has taken the brave step of challenging the RCMP to investigate "government malfeasance" with regard to its complicity in what Saba calls "tax fraud", or in other words, the Jewish National Fund's registered charitable status while being "in possession of stolen property". He's right; they are, and the government is wrong to support the JNF.

He has also written an important letter to Bernier on the subject to the Foreign Minister:

From: Ron Saba, Montreal Planet Magazine
Sent: Tuesday, January 15, 2008 12:01 PM
Subject: E-mail to Min Bernier on JNF possession of stolen property in occupied West Bank

Maxime Bernier
Minister of Foreign Affairs
Government of Canada

Honorable Minister,

re: Your Government is helping the JNF violate International Law and long standing Canadian Foreign Policy

In a 1991 CBC documentary, JNF Toronto admitted it is in possession of stolen property in the illegally occupied West Bank. [These] videos document this: Video Video

Please also take note that since the bylaws of the JNF are racist, the Canadian Government should never have awarded charitable status to the JNF. Time and time again, MPs, cabinet ministers and government officials have been made aware of the racist nature of the JNF and the JNF's complicity in ethnic cleansing. On this, there is a well documented paper trail [...].

By awarding and maintaining charitable status to the Racist JNF, the Canadian Government is subsidizing the operations of a racist organization which is in possession of stolen property in the illegally occupied West Bank.

In effect, your Government is helping the JNF violate International Law and long standing Canadian Foreign Policy.

You must act immediately to revoke the the charitable status of the Racist JNF.

This e-mail now becomes part of the well documented paper trail.

yayacanada

Monday January 14, 2008
No Post

Sunday January 13, 2008

Video: Iran - People like us

Reader Letter: Bush is setting the stage for war on Iran - only we the people can stop it

From: "Marc"
Sent: Sunday, January 13, 2008 4:21 PM
Subject: It's now twelve minus one second

It's now twelve minus one second on the clock of eminent danger of nuclear massacre and the whole world knows and is witnessing who will press the trigger, no matter how they try to hide behind a Hollywood scenario.

President Bush, after being freshly pumped up by Israel experts, is now openly orienting the focus on a new coalition that should attack and massacre Iran this time.

The world watched Iraq being destroyed and looted by the US and saw hundreds of thousands civilians killed and massacred if not tortured, not counting thousands of US soldiers dead or injured for life. The others have orders to kill without even knowing the reason why they are there in the first place. Was it WMD?

The next target is locked and guns are loaded like a "bush", primed with fuel and waiting for the slightest spark from surrounding arsonists.

The Bush name will become famous and that's a fact but not for saving the world like he says he is doing right now. The world and history will remember Georges W. Bush as the one behind the third atomic bomb that was launched toward a sovereign state and it's people, but contrary to Japan, Iran, like Iraq, didn't even have to attack first like Pearl Harbor.

An incident is being staged right now and all the world knows it will happen at sea, much like the Vietnamese scenario. Does Georges care? He is told what to do and that's it. Will he do it? Did he hesitate for Iraq, answers that question all too clear.

What can prevent the clock from making the last tic? The Internet. It's our last chance. If all of us send a clear, loud and unmistakable message, we could stop and even reverse the clock. We could save hundreds of thousands lives and put an end to the madness that rules North America for over 6 years now. If we all take five to write a creative message to our leaders, we will change the course of history.

Thanks to care in the name of humanity.

yayacanada

Saturday January 12, 2008
Making progress on the new site design. Pausing just to share an email I received today:

From: Ron on Saltspring Island BC.
Sent: Saturday, January 12, 2008 2:47 PM
Subject: Good luck!

Been reading you for, must be a couple of years .....Thanks so much for your efforts. Don't get disheartened with all the negativity. It is darkest just before the dawn. Just expect the hundredth monkey to wake up at any moment.

Looking forward to your new blog.

YYC: Hi Ron from Saltspring Island BC. It's good to hear from your neighbourhood, and to know you're not worried.
     I can almost hear that hundredth monkey starting to come to. What a great image to hold onto in these dark days!
     I've received some other lovely emails expressing concern and offering help and advice. Don't need any help - yet - but I'm heartened just to know people give a hoot.
     I think the rebuild is going well. Maybe folks will be pleasantly surprised, or at least not disappointed.
     Thanks again for writing. You've spurred me on!
     By the way, I'm cautiously pleased with the new "guestbook" for visitor comments I purchased from Bravenet. I hope you and other readers will feel free to use it, once it's up and running, to make your own comments about the news and contribute relevant links and announcements of events in your area.

yayacanada

Friday January 11, 2008
Turning over a new website
I don't think of myself as the New Year's resolution type, but apparently I must be since I'm busy right now rummaging through this website with an eye to changing it and therefore my own daily existence.

It's time to dump some heavy luggage and retrieve at least a part of the life I had before I got so intensely involved in activism in late 2002.

There has been such a proliferation of single issue actions since then, and petitions for everything under the sun, that I can no longer keep up with all of them. So I've decided not to try to choose among them.

This site has got to be restricted to straight blogging, with an occasional full length article, or I fear I shall go mad. The daily news alone is a terrible drain on the psyche, as I'm sure you've experienced yourself.

In a few days, this website will have no past - with the exception of a few major items - and no future. It will essentially begin at January 2008 and deal as much as possible with the big picture and my impressions of current events as bandied about the Internet.

I'm going to try to install a guestbook as well, so that readers will have a place to post their own comments, event announcements and interesting links they wish to share.

That's where I'm headed in this new year. I hope I can stick with it and I hope you'll stick with me. See you again in about a week - maybe sooner.

yayacanada

Thursday January 10, 2008
No Post

Wednesday January 9, 2008
Politics needs a good exorcism
StraightGoods: Creating the Schreiber public inquiry Harper must be dreading David Johnston's report on terms of reference, which is due this week.
YYC:   I don't know about you, but this article gives me the impression that Johnston isn't all that independent. Just kidding. Of course he isn't. His mother and Harper's ought to have warned their sons about playing with bad boys.
     Speaking of bad boys, Straight Goods has links to a couple of relevant items. The first one I found laughable; the second worries me not a little.
      DailyMail: Pope's exorcist squads will wage war on Satan Father Paolo Scarafoni, who lectures on the Vatican's exorcism course, said interest in Satanism and the occult has grown as people lost faith with the church. He added: "People suffer and think that turning to the Devil can help solve their problems. We are being bombarded by requests for exorcisms."
     Yeppers, if you believe in demons, ghosts and goblins, you are going to meet up with them sooner or later. But putting faith in the electoral process has allowed a much more concrete kind of monster to emerge - vote fraud:
   NYT: Can You Count on Voting Machines?
     Basically, if you see an electronic voting machine in Canada's next election, run for the nearest exit.
     Seriously, thanks to "greathouse" here's a link that illustrates the acute anxiety caused by electronic voting machines: TruthNews: Voter Fraud Against Paul Confirmed in Sutton, N.H.
     The Paul fraud has not yet been objectively confirmed, but quite a few Americans are convinced of it. They really believe Paul is America's "last hope", and are devastated to think he might not win. A couple of the comment posters, however, seem to know that the people themselves, are their own last hope.
   Governments the world over are increasingly controlled by corporate conglomerates that are quite happy to blame all of the world's ills on humanity itself, quite ready and able to cull anyone unable or unwilling to satisfy their devilish greed through slave labour and consumerism. The following is confirmation that the groundwork has been laid to turn this into policy:
     KDR: The Apocalypse, From Paul Ehrlich to Al Gore - The Population Bomb Part 5
The purpose behind blaming humanity itself for a perpetually emerging apocalypse ... is very intertwined with both sustainable development and world government.
     At some point, humankind will wake up to its plight and decide to act fearlessly on the assumption that "They can't kill us all". Then will there will be sufficient non-compliance to cripple the monster. But why not now?

yayacanada

Tuesday January 8, 2008

(1) The LAV is an excellent piece of equipment
Five Canadian soldier deaths from rollovers is no big deal (The Whig).
Give your kids the gift of a short lifetime. Let them grow up to be "tradeoffs". They'll die loving it.
CanWest: Latest victims from Valcartier

(2) And speaking of tradeoffs ...
The Whig: While meeting the leaders of Israel, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and other regional countries beginning tomorrow, Bush is expected to try to bolster the troubled peace process between Israel and the Palestinians but is also likely to seek backing for U.S. concerns about Iran.
YYC: (Underlining mine.) More indication that Bush is paving the way for a pre-emptive attack on Iran, and Time is happy to help out with that. The worst that Iran is likely to do, if the US/Israel don't intervene, is apparently raise the price of oil.

(3) Loose lips, tight lips - equally icky kissers
CTV: Top general says no evidence Iran behind IEDs - and - CTV: No proof Iranian gov't behind IEDs: Afghan diplomat
YYC: How do these jokers keep their faces straight? Remember Allcon Petie the parrot, one of Bush's little echoes, desecrating Christmas - a traditional day of truce - by rattling his little tin sabres against Iran? Iran was sending weapons into Afghanistan, he said, as if he had the slightest grip on reality.
     Remember Libcon Paul Martin coming right out and saying in an official statement at the Brussels NATO Summit in 2005 that Iran had nuclear weapons? Do you think the Dion bunch will ever refute that?
     Do you seriously see any difference between the Libcons and the Allcons? Canadian voters need to think about whether or not they want irresponsible blurters running our country.
     And while we're at it, let's not forget the eagerness of some folks in the news department at the CBC who gave Petie's blather an assist by actually suggesting Iran is killing Canadian soldiers!
     Something else we should wonder about: if they can throw all caution to the wind regarding Iran, why are they are so gosh darned tight lipped regarding the more likely sources of weaponry? Could it be the finger points toward the west?
     There's a lot of profit to be made from chaos, don't you know.

(4) Canadians vote Democrat in US election
SeattlePI: Is it worse to be a woman than a black man? In a contest that pitches a black man against a white woman, voters are plumping for the man.
YYC: Good question, but I would imagine that being a black woman is the most difficult, which may explain why there ain't any running.
     I strongly suspect, however, that neither Clinton nor Obama has a chance. A poll (CP) suggests that if Canadians could vote in the States they would support a Democrat regardless of colour or sex, as if any Dem in office would be better than a Repug.
     Strangely, here at home it's not likely we would elect a black or a woman as prime minister, but apparently we do have the sense to know that a majority for any of the major parties would be bad news for the country (TorStar).
     In Ottawa, however, we allowed the media to pick our mayor and got exactly what we deserved. (See below)

(5) What struts like a rock star and is twice as unfit for municipal office?
NPost: Ottawa mayor feeling the pressure over bribery charges ... councillors are becoming uncomfortable with the situation. [Alex Cullen] said if the mayor doesn't do something soon, he thinks councillors will take matters into their own hands. Councillors cannot oust the mayor from office, but they can bring political and public pressure on him to step aside or give up some of his power.
YYC: Scary Larry says: "I feel like a rock star ... It must be a bigger story than I thought". Duh ...how astute is that!
     One can only hope that the media that focused almost exclusively on O'Brien prior to the election - to the point where voters hardly knew there was anyone else other than the incumbent running - can find some redemption now in focusing on what's right and proper.
     Good on Alex Cullen for daring to speak out after the city lawyer told councillors to stay mum. I'm happy to help keep up the pressure. You can too.
     What's good for a city employee (being suspended when charged with even minor offences) is even better for a silly rock star.

(6) How far would some corporations go to switch us all over to expensive bottled water?
Newsfeed/Recorder: Boil-water advisory lifted in Kemptville It was imposed by the health unit after a trace amount of E. coli was discovered in a water sample Friday ...
YYC: Just wondering.

(7) Extraordinary deal? Not likely
TorSun: Study: Private hospital costs public The Ontario Health Coalition is calling for a moratorium on the building of privately financed hospitals following complaints of poor patient care and allegations of spiralling costs at Brampton Civic Hospital ... "...no one in the government has ever answered for how you can sign a deal like that. It's extraordinary."
YYC: Sneaky government deals are made with corporations all the time. The religion practised by modern governments is extreme capitalism, not democracy.
     They don't seem to mind rolling us back to medieval conditions where people were afraid to go to a hospital. Profit trumps excellence in public services, and the taxpayer is encouraged to pay more and expect less.

(8) No moral ground left for Israel
Thanks to John:
Cook: Evidence of Israeli "Cowardly Blending" Comes to Light A new report, written by a respected Israeli human rights organisation, one representing the country's Arab minority not its Jewish majority, has unearthed evidence showing that during the fighting Israel committed war crimes not only against Lebanese civilians -- as was already known -- but also against its own Arab citizens. This is an aspect of the war that has been almost entirely neglected until now.
     The report also sheds a surprising light on the question of what Hizbullah was aiming at when it fired hundreds of rockets on northern Israel.
YYC: If it's true, it's diabolical on the part of the Israeli military. It's inhuman. It's way beyond words.

yayacanada

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