Kyoto, "Student", Fiscal Imbalance, Media, Security, Memory Lane Pathways

The Marshall Rothstein pages via SmallDeadAnimals -- and Please sir, may I have more? -- A Question, Mr. Justice, Feb. 25, 06



Memory Lane:

Would the Ad Hoc Committee to Review a Nominee for the Supreme Court of Canada please read and comment on this.

Update: We Do Not Have Judge-Made Law

In the words of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, the Honourable Beverley McLachlan:

In a pluralistic constitutional democracy, majorities are not permitted to impose their moral values, their conception of the good life, at the expense of those who do not control political life. . . . This activity of interpretation is more than simply deciding what these and those words mean . . . Rather, it involves assigning meaning where it is unclear, applying straightforward laws to complex situations, harmonizing laws that appear to be in conflict, and determining whether challenged laws are constitutional. All this is high level, specialized, intellectual work. (The National Post, June 18, A1, 2003)

So, judges do not impose values, they just "assign meaning where it is unclear"? Can we have meaning without expressing values? Does this sound like some sort of Orwellian Doublespeak?

Throughout the ages, marriage has involved a male and a female as the social unit most suited to ensuring the best start for the next generation and, with it, civilization's continuance. What is not clear? Only with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms did that clarity become a problem -- necessitating judicial expertise -- much judgely cogitation and expense. The problem with values is that if the majority must not impose theirs, yet, by judicial fiat the values of a minority are imposed upon this majority -- in the choice of children's textbooks or in accepting--even touting--a "lifestyle" in the schools and in our taxpayer-funded CBC, to give but two examples -- then it seems logical to conclude that it is the minority who are imposing their moral values on the majority. Was a Roman Catholic school not ordered recently to reinstate an openly practising homosexual teacher (the Vriend case), despite his obvious flouting of Roman Catholic teaching--flouting his employer's own value system--that practising homosexuality is a sin, although being homosexual is not? Is the imposition of minority values superior? Or is this reading too simplistic on my part? NJC

The Freshman -- Talib in Luce Hall Chip Brown, Feb. 26, 06, The NY Times.com via Small Dead Animals





Worth reading from the Financial Post, Feb. 28, 2006

Paul Boothe: Fiscal imbalance is about accountability -- Re: Defining and discussing vertical imbalance and horizontal imbalance

http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/story.html?id=4cadebb7-8fb9-4335-846c-8b90f6161256

Terence Corcoran: Harper looking green over Kyoto

http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/story.html?id=8e3c66e5-6c95-450e-bccc-7485d521d773

Ian Murray: The Kyoto bubble -- Energy companies benefit from Kyoto, energy consumers lose. It's no time for government to get involved.

http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/story.html?id=cf361c8d-c416-4633-a958-ad9b8fbf7680




Sean Silcoff: Lavalin stock: up a bridge too far? The engineering giant touched $100 yesterday Financial Post, February 28, 2006

Stock price not too high according to SNC president and chief executive Jacques Lamarre

[. . . . ] SNC is not one of those companies that makes a lot of front-page headlines, but the 95-year-old firm has delivered steady returns, particularly with the recent boom in industrial construction projects, driven by high commodity prices, including oil and gas. The company, which has projects in 100 countries, increased its backlog to $8.1-billion worth of business at the end of 2005, up 29% year over year, after winning contracts to build steam generators, power systems and cooling plants in Ontario, Poland and the Middle East. Canada accounted for just over half its $3.8-billion in revenue last year. International revenue was diversified, with Africa accounting for more (13% of the total) than the United States or Europe (10% and 8%, respectively).

Net income in the fourth quarter rose 43% over the previous year, to $43.9-million. The latest dividend increase puts its 84 cents-per-share annual payout (before a 3-for-1 stock split announced Friday) at almost twice the 2003 level. [. . . . ]

Africa? Where would the money come from for construction? Isn't Africa too poor to afford medicines to ameliorate the affects of illnesses? I thought Stephen Lewis was out begging for money for Africa and AIDS. What were the plans for Africa that the ex-PM and his global governance gang kept talking about, anyway?



Mainstream Media

Note use of "Steely-eyed". How would Jean Chretien, Paul Martin, Pierre Trudeau have been described if they were not feeding the media maw? Of course, they or their MP's always did -- through the back channels, if nothing else.

Reporters strike war-footing with PMO, but Harper won't be dictated by national media -- Steely-eyed Prime Minister Stephen Harper doesn't seem to care that the honeymoon is so over with the media. Bea Vongdouangchanh, February 27th, 2006

Members of the national media may already be on a war-footing with Stephen Harper and his staff over regular access to the centre of Canadian political power, but the new Prime Minister doesn't care.

Some newspaper columnists and reporters are flummoxed by the steely-eyed Prime Minister Harper (Calgary Southwest, Alta.) who is holding imperial pressers in the Commons foyer, who fired his director of communications in a snap last week and who won't be dictated to by the national media. [. . . . ]

Might I suggest the mainstream media look through Memory Lane and do a bit of digging for information that they chose not to investigate adequately in the past. [Perhaps it would have hurt their friends? relatives? ... someone important to their careers and perqs? ]Then there are items under the iceberg's surface that they should be digging into.

Memo to CBC's Julie Van Dusen: Your face doesn't have to show onscreen for your tone to be revealing ... it tells all about your personal views, imho. What are your networks or is it relative(s) or boyfriend(s) or just plain malice that makes your hatred of Conservatives and Stephen Harper so naked?

Memo to Keith Boag: Trying to paint Stephen Harper as an introvert on the National News last night? Actually, Stephen Harper is working, not talking, I suspect.

Tonight, find a new topic; try using your rusty journalistic skills to research Kyoto, for example ... or border security (CEUDA report, among others), corruption (military procurement) ... and other items which you now have time for now that PM & Team are not at the bottom of the stairs in the House to feed you your Pravda "story" and its slant for the day.



Try, for example, looking into some areas that might prove interesting in the following.

Memory Lane:

Kyoto items

Resignations fly over Kyoto Bueckert, CNEWS, July 20, 05 -- under the main heading: "Tunnel Update-Drug Route, Canada Excels! Marijuana Quality, Monitoring Everything? Kyoto Setback, Prostitution Korea & Canada"

Climate Experts Speak Out in New Video - Science underlying Kyoto Protocol seriously flawed -- or "Climate Catastrophe Cancelled: What You're Not Being Told About the Science of Climate Change" April 13 / CNW Telbec

Videos:
Part 1 (9.11MB) 4:20 minutes
Part 2 (16.3MB) 6:21 minutes
Part 3 (7.82MB) 3:26 minutes
Part 4 (12.4MB) 5:10 minutes
Part 5 (9.55MB) 5:16 minutes



Re: AgustaWestland lawsuit, the military and .....

OTTAWA - Reg Alcock, the Treasury Board president, says he is reviewing a new ... Chopper cutoff RAISES risk of LAWSUIT -- Lockheed Martin disqualified, ...

Military Aircraft Collection :: View topic - Ottawa delays signing ...... That's when preliminary motions from the lawsuit are scheduled to be ... this and they did," said Gord Cameron, an Ottawa lawyer acting for AgustaWestland. ...

www.militaryaircraftcollection.info/Forum/ viewtopic.php?p=789&sid=4334ebf748b6d8e1fee2e0f2474ae2a6

Security

Canada's plan for a super spy in the sky -- $20M experiment aimed at detecting, tracking moving objects as small as a truck David Pugliese, July 20, 05

This strikes me as too important not to bring to people's notice, given the fact that immigrant Chinese have been allowed to work for Canada's research establishment. In fact one was fired? / de-hired? within the last couple of months, was she not? Perhaps she was with something else, but I distinctly remember posting on one immigrant's removal. (a Leung? Yeung? You'll have to search.) Have you not thought about the security aspect of allowing relatively recent immigrants from China to work on scientific or security related projects? Are any with the NSERC, for example, or does it not matter?

The federal government could have a means of monitoring everything from traffic gridlock to suspicious vessels approaching Canada if an experiment being conducted by Ottawa defence scientists is a success.

The $20-million project, to be carried on board the Radarsat 2 satellite scheduled for launch next year, will determine whether the movement of objects on the Earth's surface can be detected from space.

Ultimately the Canadian Forces wants to use satellites to keep tabs on something the size of an enemy armoured personnel carrier or truck, a capability that only exists at this point in the fertile imagination of Hollywood screenwriters. [. . . . ]

Propaganda & Security

There has been the entry of much money into Canada, into Canadian businesses and now, China's propaganda network is coming to television: see FHTR: Feb. 25, 06, "Hello, Comrades, this is your Rogers cable program". There is more on FHTR on that date "Not Politicized: Justice, IRB, China-CRTC-Rogers TV, Cuba, Ports, Cartoons, Etc"

FHTR: Feb. 22, 06 -- "More on ports: Hong Kong tycoon, ports, control of shipping, Panama, et cetera" -- There are several articles from that date on security and ports that are important both to the US and Canada -- plenty of scope for research by the mainstream media.

How China's Propaganda Machine Works
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2003/7/3/134334.shtml

China Controls the People by Keeping Them Ignorant
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2003/7/7/133353.shtml

How China's Propaganda Machine Tries to Fool the World
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2003/7/8/133729.shtml




Then there are the 2010 Olympics and Distinguished Citizens -- from comments on Small Dead Animals by maz2 (one of the commments in this post, The Other Culture Of Entitlement)

Press Release: (COMB) Canadian Olympic Marketing Board Award for the most vacuous, a*s-kissing, sycophantic prose ever published in a Canadian MSM(?) rag: ["Press" amended from "pess" by ed.]

If you are in the right mood, this could be a hoot -- from the comments by maz2, characterized as "barf alert". Forewarned is ... By the way, where are Maurice Strong and Paul Martin today? Also, what is Jean Chretien doing?

Gilles Patry, rector of the University of Ottawa, best explained the purpose of the awards in his opening remarks:“As Canada’s university, we feel an obligation to recognize and celebrate Canadians who have demonstrated national and world leadership, and few Canadians have had more impact on their nation and the world than those we honour tonight.” [....]

The inaugural leadership awards were graced by the presence of prime-minister-in-waiting Paul Martin ....

[....] The inaugural recipients of the leadership awards: Maurice Strong, Hilary Weston and Stephen Lewis and the recipient of the Meritas-Tabaret Award, Paul Tellier, are individuals who, to a great extent, define leadership in Canada. Each one has developed clear goals and values. Each one has uncompromising adherence to principle. Each one exemplifies integrity and confidence. Each one has a vision for a more decent, humane and civilized community. They have taken that vision and transformed it into action. And in so doing, they have shaped the definition of leadership in this country.

Although individual Canadians have been honoured for their accomplishments or their commitment, not many are honoured for their leadership. It seemed only fitting that Canada’s university should celebrate Canadian leadership in a formal and enduring way. Institutions of higher learning, by their very nature, mould the people that will become the leaders of tomorrow. The University of Ottawa, in the heart of Canada’s capital, is strategically placed to recognize leadership and shape the leaders of the future.

http://www.gazette.uottawa.ca/archivearticle_e_87.html

Memory Lane & Related

Multiculturalism, IRB, Vietnamese Immigration via Philippines, Vietnamese Asian & Other Criminal Gangs in Canada

I read this week that Canada needs truckers; one part of this concerns importing truckers from Vietnam.


Another popular skunk at the garden party If you thought there might be an alternative to the Irving Press or CBC and Liberal/leftist propaganda, think again. Even our seats of learning are biased, it appears. The Maritimes have been key to keeping Liberals/leftists in power, imho, with media control well in hand. See what you think after reading this trip down a December 05 Memory Hole.



Bud Talkinghorn

Let us now praise moderate Muslims

The letter to the editor from Amir Sanizadeh (National Post, Feb. 25) was refreshing. I can only hope that in his acceptance of Canadian values he represents the vast majority of Islamic-Canadians. Enough, he says of the radical imams, the jihadi-inspired and the whinings of Muhammed Elmasri. He reminds his co-relgionists that they came here for not only economic success, but also for the freedoms afforded by Canada. Be they Sunnis or Shi'ites, they don't have to worry about being blown away while attending mosque. The silence from the Islamic community about their appreciation for being allowed to settle here has been worrisome. Instead, we keep getting demands for sharia law or anti-semitic rhetoric from the Canadian Islamic Congress, child of and led by Muhammed Elmasri. Even if the average Canadian Muslim criticized Canada for doing so little to save their black brethern in Darfur, that would be a welcome step. This genocide is being committed by an Arab Sudanese government. Surely, the message of peaceful Islam is being defamed by this slaughter. Anyway, a tip of my hat to Mr. Sanizadeh for his stance.

© Bud Talkinghorn



Strange doings in the Conservatives' policy department

Lorne Gunter in The National Post (Feb. 29 A-12) questions what is transpiring on various Conservative election pledges. Notwithstanding their minority status, the Conservatives seem to be reneging on some key promises. Now they are going along with the Kyoto Accord and picking a judge from Cotler's list. Another left-leaning judge is not needed in the Supreme Court. But perhaps the greatest disappointment is the back-sliding on abolishing the absurd gun registry. Gunter reports that Harper has elevated Maryantonette Flumian to a high post in the civil service. Flumian was responsible for allowing the gun registry to balloon into the billions when she was in charge. Equally distasteful was Stockwell Day's decision to take on Scott Newark as senior policy advisor for the gun registry. Newark, once an executive director of the Canadian Police Association, supposedly got the CPA to back the gun registry in exchange for Alan Rock's promise to do away with the "faint hope" clause for murderers. As well, Rock promised to set up a national database for DNA. When Rock reneged on those promises, Newark still remained an apologist for the gun registry. A strange pick by Day in an attempt to abolish this white elephant. If the Conservatives can't keep this one promise, will they keep any others? Stay tuned.

© Bud Talkinghorn