"Free" Speech, Shivs? Daycare, Propotional Representation, The Valedictorian-Saudi Soldier, Diplomatic Immunity, Little Guy JC, Media, Innu Parents &

The following gives a more complete idea of what is in this post.

"Free" Speech, Shivs Being Sharpened? Daycare as Subsidizing Counter-productive Uses of Labour, PR as Power Sharing Coalitions, The Valedictorian-a Saudi Soldier, Diplomatic Immunity, Little Guy from the Street Gang, The Media, Innu Parents Padlock School, Let it Bleed: on the CPC, Liberals will rule forever


The Universities: Centers for Intellectual Exploration of Ideas through "Free" Speech -- or Stalinist "re-education"?

Robert Fulford: Harvard's "Summers performs the loyalty dance" -- "a self-criticism meeting" -- 'free' speech

[. . . . ] The incident adds up, one way and another, to a defeat for free speech and honest inquiry at the heart of American academic life. To paraphrase a famous statement about the persistence of evil: All it takes for stupidity to triumph is for those who know the truth to remain silent in the face of proud ignorance. [. . . . ]

Are the Liberal Shivs Being Sharpened?

That's my prognostication. For the PM -- chicanery on the way up -- shivs on the way down.

All eyes on Ignatieff Peter C. Newman, National Post, Feb. 26, 05

[. . . . ] The real star at [next week's Liberal convention ] the gathering will be Michael Ignatieff, who has been asked to deliver the keynote address. [. . . . ]

Liberal kingmakers often ignore the clamouring of ambitious Cabinet members and opt instead to pluck from obscurity an untried but inspiring outsider.

That's political sorcery of the highest order. Instead of having to defend the corruption and patronage of the ancien regime, the freshly-minted leader can innocently declare: "Who me? What Sponsorship Scandal? This is moi, a new guy with new ideas."

Thus does discontinuity rule. [. . . . ]

Ken Dryden's daycare boondoogle -- a letter -- Daycare "subsidizes counter-productive uses of labour" National Post, February 26, 2005 [Sorry, I lost the link -- or never got it. Check the letters page. ]

Re: Parents Need More Than Tax Credits, letter to the editor, Feb. 25.
In regards to Kim Adamson's letter calling for more subsidies for daycares, if both parents have careers, they earn enough to pay for their own daycare. If they have low-paying jobs and can't afford daycare, then their labour would be more efficiently employed by having one parent look after the kids at home. [. . . . ]

"Unlike companies that compete in producing numerous products and services for niche markets, political parties in PR systems collude through power-sharing coalitions that agree on a common government policy or program"

Lawrence Solomon: Vote for experimentation and change -- Proportional Representation Feb. 26, 05, Financial Post

Lawrence Solomon is executive director of Urban Renaissance Institute and Consumer Policy Institute, divisions of Toronto-based Energy Probe Research Foundation. (Andrew Coyne is a member of the board of Energy Probe.) www.Urban-Renaissance.org

Proportional representation has the virtues of the marketplace, my friend and colleague at the National Post, Andrew Coyne, stated earlier this week in criticizing Canada's current winner-take-all electoral system. "One of the great things about markets is that the majority doesn't rule," he wrote. "I don't have to buy the shoes that most people like: I can buy the shoes that I like. If 5% of the population prefers that kind of shoes, 5% of the market is what they get." [. . . . ]

On Proportional Representation, Andrew Coyne wrote PR: as simple as one person, one vote -- or Original article: Moving past first-past-the-post Andrew Coyne, National Post, February 23, 2005

[. . . . ] What is, or should be, that basic unit? Let me suggest one that has several centuries of philosophical spadework in its favour: not ridings or parties, but the individual. That's why we give every person one vote. It's the basis of [. . . . ]

Search: "What's so special about political parties, anyway?", "What's so special about ridings?", "seats apportioned by race or gender"



Also, Coyne is simply brilliant when he can appeal to the funny bone while writing on "equalization".

The new equalization: from all, to all on www.andrewcoyne.com. The original article was in the National Post here The new equalization from all to all -- Everyone thinks he can improve upon equality. National Post, Andrew Coyne, Feb. 16, 05.

Everyone thinks he can improve upon equality. Everybody's got a better idea. Locke and Hume and Mill might have been all right in their day, but that doesn't mean we can't help them out a little, with our greater understanding of the complexities of life. Naive, undomesticated types who cling to the ideal of equality in its original sense, equality as equal treatment, are sent away with an indulgent smile and that quote about the law forbidding princes and paupers alike from sleeping under bridges.

Well, we certainly can't be accused of that, can we? Not in this country, where every case is special and every circumstance is unique -- unique, not in the way that other circumstances are unique, but unique in a uniquely unique way that makes it an exception to all the other exceptions. Consider, for example [. . . . ]

The Valedictorian

SAUDI 'SOLDIER' Stephen Schwartz, Feb. 24, 05
Stephen Schwartz is the author of "The Two Faces of Islam."

IN Alexandria, Va., on Tuesday, a 23-year-old Northern Virginia man of Saudi Arabian background named Ahmed Omar Abu Ali was charged with conspiring to assassinate President Bush.

Abu Ali and his accomplices are accused of plotting to kill the president by gunfire or a car bomb. The indictment also spells out such criminal activities as assisting and receiving support from Osama bin Laden's band of murderers.

Abu Ali was extradited to Virginia after many months in a Saudi jail. What's most remarkable about this case is the degree to which this would-be assassin is a Saudi creation.

In 1999, Ahmed Omar Abu Ali was the valedictorian for the Islamic Saudi Academy (ISA), a K-12 school with campuses in Fairfax and Alexandria, Va., that is directly controlled by the Royal Saudi Embassy in Washington. [. . . . ]

Search: textbook for 6-year-olds, Christianity and Judaism, de facto Saudi state religion, saudiinstitute.org "a network of born Muslims and American converts to Islam, headed by convert Randall (Ismail) Royer.", paintball jihad, fled to Saudi Arabia, freedoms, conspiracy




"Promises to crack down on misbehaving dips have fallen by the wayside thanks to a series of weak foreign ministers"

Stuck with diplomats behaving badly Greg Weston, February 22, 2005, Sun Ottawa Bureau

[. . . . ] I had a similar run-in with Foreign Affairs over a year ago when officials stalled my request for incident reports for almost four months. After kicking up a fuss in the minister's office, I finally got a three-line report which Ottawa police later said bore no relation to the actual diplomatic incidents for that period. (In short, officials were either incompetent or lying.)

[. . . . ] "Further, I have learned that another member of the (same embassy) with diplomatic immunity, was most recently accused of breaching Canadian law, and has been charged with uttering death threats, as well as obstructing and assaulting a peace officer." [. . . . ]

Little Guy from the Street Gang

The secret life of prime ministers Greg Weston, Feb. 20, 05, Sun Ottawa Bureau

A ferocious five-year legal battle costing taxpayers millions of dollars may soon solve one of the great political mysteries of our time:

What the heck was Jean Chretien really doing all those years he was sitting in the Prime Minister's Office?

After five years of duking it out with government lawyers, federal Information Commissioner John Reid has finally ruled that Chretien's prime ministerial appointment agendas can and should be made public under the Access to Information Act.

[. . . . ] That's when Chretien and his gang of publicly paid Justice Department bullies started beating up on Reid.

[. . . . ] If Reid does finally prevail and Chretien's agendas are released, it will certainly be interesting to see who was meeting with the former PM, especially during the years he knew absolutely nothing about the Adscam fiasco.

[. . . . ]




Klaus Rohrich: Why the Liberals will rule forever February 24, 2005

Klaus Rohrich is President and Creative Director of Taylor/Rohrich Associates Inc., a marketing and advertising firm that specializes in niche marketing residential real estate developments www.trmarketing.com. Email: letters@canadafreepress.com.

We are now in the 12th year of the Liberals’ rule and it’s beginning to feel more like a dynasty than a government. I don’t often encounter people who tell me that they like the Liberals or that they voted for them or that they agree with anything they do. Over the past decade, there have been scandals plaguing the party that appear to be too numerous to recount here, but suffice it to say that they provide ample evidence that Liberals are helping themselves to taxpayers’ money to achieve self-enhancing goals and abusing power. Yet election after election they manage to get back in.

It occurred to me that one of the reasons they manage to do so is that they have a powerful ally in the so-called mainstream media, which allows them to cover up their misdeeds or mitigate their severity if they can’t be hidden. Like their U.S. counterpart, Canada’s mainstream media is largely left leaning and will do anything, no matter how unsavory to ensure that the federal government does not fall into conservative hands. [. . . . ]

Search: passing grades, same-sex marriage, feminists, double standard, And That’s The Way It Isn’t, Centre for Media Affairs, study of attitudes, CRTC’s decision, middle of the road, kissing cousins, Canadian Media

Now, the PM has just appointed a friend to head the CRTC. This Mr. French (check for his first name) will know on which side his perqs are greased.




Innu parents padlock doors of school to protest education system CP, Feb. 26, 05

SHESHATSHIU, Nfld. (CP) - Innu parents padlocked the doors of the school in this Labrador community Friday, saying the provincial education system is failing their children.

The parents say they won't take the locks off until the province promises to improve the dismal educational record of Labrador Innu.

[. . . . ] Sheshatshiu is one of two Innu communities in Labrador. Very few Innu have graduated from high school and the dropout rate remains extremely high.

The study by Dr. David Philpott of Memorial University of St. John's found that 35 per cent of Innu children never attend school. [. . . . ]

If nothing has been done about this problem, how did PM Paul Martin get an agreement with an Innu chief on land claims? Did he give away the store? How did PM get the chief on side? Should one not ask?





Let it Bleed Blog: "nobody else has really asked them to dance" via Canada Free Press Blog

It's tempting to look at the latest poll numbers and start muttering about media hostility, a duped public, Liberal perfidy, etc., etc., ad nauseum. Why do more people like Mr. Dithers than Mr. Harper? It isn't because Canadians are dedicated to North Korean style health care. It isn't because they love being taxed to death. They don't seem particularly enamored of Paul's "stand" on homosexual "marriage". It isn't even because most journalists are left of centre. The Conservative Party has many policies that would be attractive to Canadians if it could only get them to pay attention.[. . . . ]

And let's be clear here: if you weren't here to experience it, you cannot begin to imagine how hostile the dominant media were to the Mike Harris Tories. But they not only won back-to-back majorities, they increased their share of the popular vote the second time around.

[. . . . ] At times it seems like the CPC is gunshy about explicitly stating its policies for fear of media disapproval. Get over it. They already hate you. But if you don't give the public a chance to figure out what you're going to do once in power, then you give the media (and their preferred political actors) the chance to define the debate [. . . . ]