Brief Tour of Chicanery, Hypocrisy & Corruption -- the Usual

What's Wrong with This?

A who's-who of Canadian Olympians and business elite will join the country's head soldier on a top-secret trip next week into one of the world's most dangerous war zones

[. . . . ] Among other invitees, the passenger log will include high-profile athletes such as speed skater Catriona Lemay Doan, hockey legend Guy Lafleur and wrestler Daniel Igali, as well as CBC comedian Rick Mercer.

[. . . . ] Defence industry representatives have been jockeying to get a much-coveted seat. Only Dew Engineering and Development Ltd. received an invitation to hop aboard the Airbus early next week. [. . . . ]

Anti-American Ambassador Frank McKenna not fit for Prime Minister's Job By Judi McLeod, Wednesday, October 5, 2005

[. . . . ] McKenna, who's been shooting from the lip ever since arriving in Washington, could cost ordinary Canadian citizens significant money.

Spewing his anti-American sentiment at a time when softwood lumber is on the trade table makes McKenna a serious threat to the Canadian economy.

[. . . . ] Handpicked for the job by Prime Minister Paul Martin--the same guy whose job he now seems to covet--McKenna is showing a bias that is unbecoming to the promised diplomacy that comes along with being Canadian Ambassador to Washington.

Waste and cronyism, corruption and abuse Bruce Garvey, National Post, Oct. 7, 05

[. . . . ] When all is said and done, it's all about the money. Millions and millions of it, soaked out of Canada's working stiffs by brutal levels of taxation, washing around Ottawa like a flood tide and dispensed by the governing political party at its discretion, a cheque here, a grant there. [. . . . ]

Behind it all lies the simple philosophy that, shrug, it's not our money. It's the taxpayers' money, your money, my money. And if it barely adds up to petty cash in the multi-zero world of government, where I come from it's big, big bucks.

Yet nobody ever gets fired.

Turning vice into virtue Andrew Coyne, Oct. 6, 05

Svend Robinson, late of the House of Commons, has let it be known that he intends to stage a comeback in the riding of Vancouver Centre. Well, it's not official yet, but you know. "I'm pretty close," Mr. Robinson told The Globe and Mail last week. "It would take something pretty significant for me not to go ahead now. And I just don't see what that would be."

Really? Think hard, Svend. Try to recall: What incident in your past might make you ineligible for public office?

Oh, that: the theft of a $64,000 ring, pocketed in a Richmond, B.C., auction house. [. . . . ]

Search: Dave Dingwall, Andre Boisclerc, Dalton McGuinty

Coyne is worth reading.




Princes of Darkness Jamie Glazov, FrontPageMag.com, Oct7-05

Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Laurent Murawiec, a Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute and the author of the new book Princes of Darkness : The Saudi Assault on the West. [. . . . ]

Murawiec: There's been a big problem with Saudi Arabia since, at least, 1973: the Saudis were a prime mover in slapping an embargo on oil on the US and all countries deemed to be friendly to Israel; they embargoed the US Navy in the middle of the tension of the Yom Kippur War; they took the lead in launching the great oil raid on the world economy, the quadrupling of oil prices that nearly tanked the world economy and did tank the weaker economies, those of the Third World. Friends! Allies!

Now there was a time when the deal between the Saudis and us made sense: [. . . . ]

Murawiec: Let's start with Wahhabism. It is not "an austere version of Islam." It's a deadly, simplistic, bigoted, brutal creed which relishes in forbidding everything in sight; it is an Islam that kept itself totally isolated from the great centers of the Golden Age, Damascus, Baghdad, Cairo, Kayruwan, Samarkand and Tashkent. It is a creed which returns to an imagined, and wholly fantastical, 7th century Islam. It makes a claim to being the exclusive repository of Allah's mandate. To Wahhabism, non-Wahhabi Muslims are infidels (kufr). Shiites are apostates who should be killed. [. . . . ]

Britain's Disappearing Pigs Jihad Watch

Pigs are disappearing all over England, but not because of some porcine variant of Mad Cow Disease: rather, the most implacable foe of the swine is turning out to be multiculturalism.

The latest assault came in the benefits department at Dudley Council, West Midlands, where employees were told that they were no longer allowed to have any representations of pigs at their desks. Some had little porcine porcelain figurines. Others had toys or calendars of cute little pigs. One had a tissue box depicting Winnie the Pooh and Piglet. All of this had to go, not because of new some new anti-kitsch ordinance, but because Muslims might be offended — particularly now, what with Ramadan beginning. [. . . . ]

When will Muslims be offended enough to act over this activity?

Arabian Sex Tourism by Daniel Pipes, FrontPageMagazine.com, October 7, 2005

Indian media have been publishing exposés documenting the foul behavior of Gulf Arabs in the southern Indian town of Hyderabad "Fly-by-night bridegrooms," by R Akhileshwari in the Deccan Herald and "One minor girl, many Arabs," by Mohammed Wajihuddin in the Times of India are two important examples. Wajihuddin sets the stage:

[. . . . ] These Viagra-enabled Arabs are perpetrating a blatant crime under the veneer of nikaah, the Islamic rules of marriage.

(I have silently corrected some typos). Wajihuddin then specifies the problem:

Misusing the sanctioned provision which allows a Muslim man to have four wives at a time, many old Arabs are not just marrying minors in Hyderabad, but marrying more than one minor in a single sitting. "The Arabs prefer teenage, virgin brides," says Jameela Nishat, who counsels and sensitises young women against the malaise.

The Arabs usually "marry" the girls for short periods, sometimes just a single night. In fact, Wajihuddin reports, marriage and divorce formalities are often prepared at the same time, thereby expediting the process for all involved. Akhileshwari notes that "their girl children are available for as little as 5,000 rupees to satisfy the lust of doddering old Arab men." Five thousand rupees, by the way, equals just a bit over US$100. [. . . . ]

RCMP Watchdog

Do you see much difference in this and what appears to happen with much government hiring? Check the very specific qualifications necessary in job advertisements -- seemingly tailored to fit . . . oh, the one intended to get the job.

Audit finds RCMP watchdog rigged job contests -- Qualifications tailored to favour selected candidates Glen McGregor The Ottawa Citizen; with files from The Canadian Press, Oct. 7, 05

The probe conducted by the Public Service Commission (PSC) found "significant staffing irregularities" at the Commission for Public Complaints Against the RCMP, with managers deliberately tailoring job requirements based on chosen candidates' resumes and manipulating government hiring rules to bring temporary workers on to permanent staff.

[. . . . ] The managers manipulated the competitions with tailor-made qualifications for the jobs, ensuring pre-selected employees won.

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