Liberal Thuggery Blatant-PM-Chretien, CBC $$$ to Liberals, UNSCAM, CERV-Emergency Preparedness-Politics, Buckhead

Liberal thuggery getting more blatant -- "who will benefit the most by derailing the inquiry "?

Liberal thuggery getting more blatant Klaus Rohrich

The news that lawyers for Jean Chretien are challenging Mr. Justice John Gomery’s impartiality and are thus attempting to oust him as head of the inquiry into the Quebec sponsorship scandal is yet one more manifestation of Mr. Chretien’s penchant for behaving like a thug. [. . . . ]

[. . . . ] If they are successful they will essentially stop the inquiry for good, as all the witnesses who have testified so far will have to be recalled and the entire process will be delayed by years or will be abandoned altogether. It will certainly be after the next federal election that a new commission would or could issue a report.

Just ask yourself, who will benefit the most by derailing the inquiry for an indefinite period?

[. . . . ]




Cabinets change, PMs don't -- Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

Cabinets change, PMs don't

[. . . . ] Paul Martin, his protests to the contrary, doesn't handle scandal much differently than Jean Chretien.

What he does is, well, nothing, until the scandal becomes so big that he belatedly accepts the resignation of the affected cabinet minister and then goes to back to being a bystander while the whole mess plays itself out. [. . . . ]

Chretien's failure created the climate for the sponsorship scandal. What's alarming here is that Martin, for all his talk about a new era in Ottawa, doesn't sound much different. [. . . . ]

Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (edit.) the balance of donations to the Liberals in the last election – (still) is that legal?

Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (edit.) the balance of donations to the Liberals in the last election – (still) is that legal? Jan. 11, 05, from What it takes to win

[. . . . ] A simple search for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation reveals that:

Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, of the Ottawa postal code K1Y 1E4(head office) gave $1,100.00 in "monetary" contributions to the Liberal Party of Canada. No other political recipients were listed in the search results.

But as most Canadians know, the “non-monetary” contribution should be listed as "priceless."

Some things money can buy, for all other election needs there’s your state broadcaster!

Ontario plays politics with emergency preparedness

Ontario plays politics with emergency preparedness 3 January 2005, Andrea Mrozek

[. . . .] On November 22, newspapers reported a renewed al Qaeda terrorist threat in Canada. A prime possible target: Toronto’s Union Station--the hub of city-to-suburb commuter traffic for about 235,000 Ontarians every day. There’s good reason for provincial politicians to pay attention to emergency preparedness. The question is: why aren’t they?

Some say the Liberals, led by Dalton McGuinty, are taking dangerous chances with the next cataclysm, whatever that ends up being. That’s because the province has quietly dropped the Community Emergency Response Volunteer (CERV) program. CERV--based on the American Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) program started in 1987--had been intended to provide civilians with emergency response training and emergency plans so they could back up first responders when disaster strikes. In other words: training citizen brigades to provide crowd control, traffic direction and simple first aid, and to help evacuate communities when minutes become critical.

[. . . . ] While only about 16 Ontario municipalities signed up for the voluntary CERV program, Runciman says the government “wanted to pursue it and grow it. We had hoped right across the province to provide additional encouragement, if it was necessary, to get more communities involved.” In Ontario, total costs were also quite low--$1 million of funding was set aside to be divvied up between the participating municipalities according to the number of volunteers--but the payoff of having a civilian response team in times of crisis, might prove invaluable. [. . . . ]

Are you getting it? Our government is still pretending there is no threat -- that Canadian security is fine. It is not.




UNSCAM: Saddam's Oily Deals -- Were Americans profiting from Oil-for-Food scams?

"Two Related Companies In The Oil-for-Food Business are Believed to Have Handled as Much as $4 Billion in Deals, Reselling Some Crude to Big U.S. Refiners Like Exxonmobil, Says Investigator"

Saddam's Oily Deals -- Were Americans profiting from Oil-for-Food scams? Mark Hosenball

Refiners Like Exxonmobil, Says Investigator

NEW YORK, Jan. 16 /PRNewswire/ -- Investigative officials in New York and Europe are looking closely at the dealings of numerous companies and individuals involved in the Oil-for-Food business in an attempt to learn who may have helped Saddam Hussein's regime beat U.N. sanctions. Newsweek reports in the January 24 issue (on newsstands Monday, January 17) that one businessman under scrutiny is Ben Pollner, a U.S. trader based in Switzerland.

In at least a few instances, the oil's provenance raises troublesome questions. Sources say Pollner bought millions of barrels from an obscure outfit calling itself Fenar Petroleum. Newsweek has obtained a copy of one Oil-for-Food contract that puts Fenar's offices at an address in Liechtenstein. But Fenar's phone number connects instead to a building near Hyde Park in London -- a building where one of Pollner's companies, Taurus Petroleum, has offices. The contract was signed on Fenar's behalf by Musbah Ladki, whom Newsweek has identified as a 48-year-old Beirut businessman. An ExxonMobil spokeswoman, acknowledging that her company bought Iraqi oil from Taurus, insists that any deals were "in full compliance with U.N. resolutions." [. . . . ]

Bloggers' counter-revolution

Bloggers' counter-revolution Phil Kent

What's the newest word getting into the dictionary for the new year? Miriam Webster's editors announce it is "blog" — defined as "a Web site that contains an online personal journal with reflections, comments, and often hyperlinks provided by the writer."

So hoist a glass to toast perhaps the most famous "blogger" of 2004 — a brilliant Atlanta lawyer nicknamed "Buckhead." He's the pajama-clad fellow, along with a follow-up host of other Internet truth seekers, who struck a telling blow at anchor Dan Rather and his CBS TV "60 Minutes II" by quickly analyzing and questioning the proportionally spaced fonts used in the so-called National Guard records of George W. Bush.

I congratulate those who are original, who delve and put two and two together. Most of us rely on the good journalists and we try to point readers to what we see as important in their work. I was going to name some but I don't want to leave any out. Any perusal of this site will give a very good idea of who are included.

Thanks to the journalists not in the government's clutches, whether their salaries come from taxpayers or not, whether they are associated with news media who overwhelmingly support one political party or not; thanks to those who try to do a decent job of journalism wherever employed. And thanks to those who have started news media online in Canada, The Western Standard, Canada Free Press, Canadian Coalition for Democracies and the Citizens Centre. Thanks to the think tanks for the research they make available. In fact, we all stand on the shoulders of those who have worked to inform and illuminate. Thanks to all from a blogger.