Ad-Scandal $$$, Borders Coyotes & Terrorists -- Mideast Climate Change -- Gender Roles Iraq

Liberals told to give up on ad-scandal cash Jack Aubry, Feb. 28, 05, CanWest

OTTAWA - The top-ranking bureaucrat at the Public Works Department in November, 2002, advised the Liberal government it should give up on recovering overpayments from subcontracted firms involved in the sponsorship scandal, a government memo says.

Obtained by CanWest News Service through the Access to Information Act, a draft memo written by then-deputy minister Janice Cochrane to her minister, Ralph Goodale, recommends the issue of subcontracts, and recovering overpayments, be dropped by the department. [. . . . ]

Canada, like the US, "can't afford to lose time getting control over the illegal immigration pipeline"

The northern border isn't much better. Do read.

This story ought to have led the news on every network. But Adm. Loy's Mexican bombshell didn't generate widespread media coverage because it was buried in written testimony instead of being delivered in telegenic soundbites

Close Mexican border to terrorists -- mentions "an internal community of illegal aliens" -- "H.R. 418" John B. Roberts 11, editorial, Washington Times Mar. 1, 05.

John B. Roberts II served in the Reagan White House. He writes frequently on terrorism and national security.

CIA Director Porter Goss' warning that al Qaeda might try to use "chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear weapons" in his Feb. 17 testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee overshadowed a more urgent intelligence warning. At the same hearing, Vice Admiral James Loy, deputy secretary of Homeland Security, testified that al Qaeda has changed tactics for inserting terrorist teams into the United States.

According to Adm. Loy, al Qaeda plans to use Mexico's professional people smugglers — known as coyotes — to infiltrate terrorists across our southern border. Adm. Loy's information is based on recent interrogations and has been confirmed by ongoing counterterrorist operations. [. . . . ]

You will be delighted to know that our PM Paul Martin and his government . . . . . well, I don't know exactly where the whole plan is at this point -- but NAFTA and border seem to figure -- and you know what that means to Canadians, don't you? Business possibilities for all, of course.




Pigs are flying -- persistence pays off -- Congratulations to Dubya for sticking to his guns on democracy

EDITORIAL -- Mideast Climate Change March 1, 2005

It's not even spring yet, but a long-frozen political order seems to be cracking all over the Middle East.

[. . . . ] The Bush administration is entitled to claim a healthy share of the credit for many of these advances. It boldly proclaimed the cause of Middle East democracy at a time when few in the West thought it had any realistic chance. And for all the negative consequences that flowed from the American invasion of Iraq, there could have been no democratic elections there this January if Saddam Hussein had still been in power [. . . . ]

This came from a friend; thanks JK for a break:

Sign of Progress in Iraq

A reporter did a story from Iraq, on gender roles, several years before the recent war there.

She noted then that women customarily walked about 5 paces behind their husbands, and weren't happy with that custom.

She returned to Iraq recently and observed that women still walk behind their husbands, but now seem to walk even further back and are happy with the old custom. She approached one of the women and asked, "Why do you now seem so happy with that old custom that you hated then? -- "Land mines," said the woman.