List of Articles that Follow:
* Gun Registry to RCMP?
* Gone with the Wind, the Marijuana and Whistleblower Bills
* "We have to respect the Privacy Act in this matter...We cannot discuss this matter of alleged government malfeasance because it is before the courts"
* Robbery at the Pumps
* Bringing democracy to Iraq -- Kuwait, after the Original Night Vision Show, Revisited
* Tough Love from an Occupier Redefined
* The Mistakes Made in the Iraq War are Costly
* Joe Clark, a traitor to his party will campaign for Scott Brison, another traitor.
* A UN Story
© Bud: Gun Registry to RCMP?
Stupidly, through panic over the backlash from their gun registry stance, the Liberals are trying to fob off their monetary responsibility for this albatross to the RCMP. Make them the bad guys. Pass the trash. That is not going to go down well with the public, nor the RCMP, as the transfer will waste hundreds of millions more and gobble up police time in mindless, if not totally useless, paperwork. But then we are already gobbling up police time, and money, with petty marijuana convictions, so why not?
© Bud: Gone with the Wind, the Marijuana and Whistleblower Bills -- Not Gone, Bill C-250 Designed to Curb Your Free Speech
Let's start with the marijuana bill. There are hundreds of thousands of Canadians who have picked up marijuana convictions, probably. The legal cost to those individuals for favouring cannabis over alcohol has far, far outweighed any benefit to society. Billions have been spent over the decades to try to suppress marijuana use. The result, endless quantities of qualtity weed at reasonable prices. To throw in an economic factor; the money stays in Canada, not in Mexico or in Colombia. If the government legalized it, taxed it, and sold it in acceptable primo blends (please, no Flin Flon Flim-flam), they might be able to afford a decent military, security service, and hospital care. Trudeau's LeDain Commission recommended legalizing marijuana in the early 70's. Trudeau didn't have the guts to tackle this issue . . . might scare the rural voter, so the recommendations were left to rot. A small joke there, as it is these same Canadian rural folk that produce some of the best weed today, it seems.
Now we have the Liberals reneging on their promise to introduce decriminalization for small amounts. They know that the supply out there is enormous, and that any serious enforcement might create a horrible culling of the professional class. Can you think of a professional category not included? And that includes policemen. The government could even lose a few of their secretly-toking backbenchers if the enforcement got too draconian. They know it is a losing proposition to keep the law the way it is. Possibly later it will be seen as the original multi-billion dollar boondoggle. But, for this crowd, it is purely a question of political expediency. Not human rights, not ethical standards, not even economic wastage; it always comes down to the unabashed expediency of "that vote-loser can rot again as an issue. The Yanks will like that a whole lot." I find our government's Sammy Glick attitudes a sad sign of the decay of our society. Their unctuous desire to pander to any lobby group that is leftish, along with the backbenchers' servile posture, makes a mockery of democratic principles.
The whistleblower legislation was to be the showcase of Martin's legislation, "We are going root out corruption. These scandals are outrageous. I want everybody who knows about these scams in government to come forward." Valiant words that meant nothing. Are you kidding? Far too many honest government and civil service people know where the bodies are buried. Encouraging whistleblowers would mean having to practise the hari-kari ritual -- at every headline. No, the old-fashioned methods of the threat of stalling someone's career, or dismissal "for cause", have kept most of the skeletons in the closet.
There were other important bills left to die on the order paper. It is rather hard to think what single bill of consequence the Liberals did pass under Martin -- other than Svend's private member's bill, the unnecessary Bill C-250 which is really designed to curb free speech, an NDP bill which suits the Liberals' designs perfectly. This new PM was on either the defense, or on the hustings, from day one. The stench of Chretien's legacy was wafting across the land. The new PM had to move quickly; after all, he was the second in command in Chretien's regime. Maybe if he ran against the wind long enough that residual taint might disappear. He kept his Martinite faction in the Cabinet, and banished the rest. After years of service and electability, candidates are tossed aside. Martin's hand-picked boys and girls are trotted out to be candidates. An ex-NDPer like Dosanjh is crowbarred into a riding that seemed potentially weak. Martin is a man who has absorbed the old ways too well to jettison them. As the master, Josef Goebbels, once said, "Tell a big lie, and tell it often." Martin's big lie is that he is going to correct the democratic deficit. His propaganda machine tells it often.
© Bud: "We have to respect the Privacy Act in this matter...We cannot discuss this matter of alleged government malfeasance, because it is before the courts"
Two of the greatest government escape routes ever invented. The Siamese twins of political unaccountability. When the Public Accounts Committee was looking into Adscam, they were told that Gagliano's expense account and phone records were protected by the Privacy Act. Even the pictures, adresses, and other information for the police to track down deportee absconders turns out to be private. Of course, it is private. The government allowed these bogus and mainly criminal people to escape deportation. There is a potential blackeye if they were caught. Might turn out they existed for three years on the lam by criminal acts. The National Post would blow this petty affair out of the water. No, it is better if they are not caught. The ethnic groups know who they are, but don't want to give them up. Think of the optics in the ethnic ridings if he turns out to be some local hero. Don't want to alienate the ethnic vote just before an election now, do we?
I have never read the Privacy Act, but from my reading and television gleanings I gather that the government sector is more protected than you or I. Businesses are held to account, at what will be great expense to them, You, the public, already have a government file on you that, on average, encompassed some 1,600 items of information the last I heard ot it. I can't remember 1,600 items about myself. What minutiae must it contain? Where did they get all this information? The government said that this information was necessary--for some ridiculous reason I have forgotten. They even had these huge files on three million dead Canadians. Under pressure from the opposition they promised to "break the information down into different files, completely confidental". I hope you were reassured. Privacy coming from the mouths of people who want you to have a national identity card and a biometric passport? Give me a break.
PS: If you don't know what the Liberals' propaganda machine is, just read News Junkie Canada for a bit --
like CBC, a dog with a bone, that one.
© Bud: Robbery at the Pumps
The Canadian way of selling gas smacks of collusion. While the Petroleum Association of Canada tries to bamboozle you with arcane graphs and stats, they cannot explain away why there were huge increases at the pumps in April, when crude oil prices went up 21%, but skyrocketed 32% for the consumer. This increase was not seen south of the border--maybe because the Americans have anti-trust laws with teeth. Years ago there was a CTV investigative report on gas prices here and in the States. While the U.S. had a 14 cent difference between the highest and lowest prices per liter, Canada had only a 4 cent gap. I guess when Canadian oil prices start to cut into the profitability of some well-connected company heads, we will see some action -- on another continent or island.
© Bud: Bringing democracy to Iraq -- Kuwait after the Original Night Vision Show, Revisited
The new war against Iraq may not be about oil; however, there was no question about Bush senior and his Gulf War's objectives. Part of the agreement for the U.S. to spend billions driving Saddam out of occupied Kuwait was that the Kuwaitis would make some changes in their autocratic rule. Giving the women the vote was one condition. After a few feeble attempts to carry that simple condition out, the Kuwaitis still have never done it. My point is not to condemn the Americans for looking out after their economic / fuel concerns; it for their naive belief that even a costly liberation from a monster would move these men to give up their own total power over their subjects -- especially, their women.
Democracy is even more elusive in Iraq, a country riven with ethnic and religious hatreds. They talk about the Crusader Christians coming to cut their throats, but deep down they really fear their Muslim neighbours doing just that to them. Kurds, Sunnis, Shi'ites don't generally see themselves sharing a peaceful kingdom with their fellow Iraqis; each group envisions having control. In the case of the Kurds, autonomy would suffice. The Kurds are not of Arab stock and besides, they are almost infidels in the eyes of the other branches of Islam. The Turks surely are not going to adopt them. They will be odd man out in the coming civil war. The saddest analysis I can come up with is for the Americans to crush all rebellions in a swift and brutal manner. To quote Teddy Roosevelt, "Speak softly and carry a big stick."
© Bud: Tough Love from an Occupier, Redefined
I once read about a British District Officer in Colonial Kenya, circa 1907, who had to quell persistent cattle theft by a northern tribe. He sent his white second-in-command to negotiate with this tribe. Instead of palaver, they tied him down on the ground, propped open his mouth and invited the village maidens to defecate into it. When the officer's death became known, this head District Officer took his troops to the village. He instructed his men to sodomize the maidens, (a Biblical eye-for-an-eye punishment, apparently), then burn down the village, and then, oh, the true horror, they had half their cattle carted away. There were no more incidents after that. Rather puts the Abu Ghraib "actrocities" into historical perspective.
© Bud: The Mistakes Made in the Iraq War are Costly
I am no armchair general who thinks he could have solved the Iraq problem. However, to this layman, there were serious mistakes made from the start. As liberating troops to a city, the first thing the liberators must do is establish order. Use any draconian method needed. Looters must be shot. Set up a strict curfew and lock Baghdad down at night. The hue and cry from the liberal left about "abuses"would start immediately; but that is nothing to allowing anarchy to reign for months. The slum looters from Sadr City whom you gun down for looting would only be a foe later on.
The other major mistake was in not using massive force to rout both the Sunni and the Shia from their bases in Falluja and Najaf. The retreat from Falluja and the importing of a Baathist general and Iraqi troops to crush the insurgents, get their weapons, and hand over the foreign jihadis was a disaster. Nothing of note has been done in any of these areas. The general even claimed that there were no foreign fighters in the city. Meanwhile, al-Sadr and his Shi'ite posse hide in mosques--sacred, yes, but also handy for storing their grenade launchers. Demand unconditional surrender or you will wipe them out. That method has a proven track record. Compromise with thugs, embittered Baathists, and the fundamentalists will explode in your face every time. Read your Middle Eastern history. See what, historically, they respect, and despise.
© Bud: Symmetry
Joe Clark, a traitor to his party will campaign for Scott Brison, another traitor.
Brison, who is now running as a Liberal, may wish that Joe not help -- although the symmetry of the ex-Tory leader and one who ran for the Tory leadership--now both Liberals--is perfect. I didn't think Clark could sink much lower, but the man has amazing powers to besmirch his tattered reputation further.
© Bud: A UN Story
Years ago a buddy applied for a job with UNESCO in Bangkok. He got the job as head of the computer section because of his extensive IBM experience. I remember Art telling of going to the UN building and listening to the UN people talk -- only about who was invited to what parties. Two years after working with the UN--BIG MONEY--he quit and took his Thai lover up north. One of the last letters I received was a description of how he tried to survive in the UN. He tried to set up a no-salary program that would, after hours, teach the Thais the basics of computers. He was refused outright. This was my first hint of what the UN was all about. After three years of living like a king in Bangkok--when overlanders were staying in $2 a night places--he suddenly quit and did move up country with his girlfriend. He wrote me and said, "I have had enough of this b******t." My letters to the Bangkok UN office never found him again.
