April 25, 2006

Re: Siddiqui attacks Harper & Bush / Sharansky's reply! Posted by HenryW on 07:33:26 2006/04/24
In Reply to: Re: Siddiqui attacks Harper & Bush posted by Al Gordon

This article is a great reply to Siddiqui - i.e. Bush stands up for what he believes - even though the polls are against him. And, it is fantastic to imagine that we have someone in Canada willing to stand up for what he believes, i.e. Harper and the new government.

http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110008281

THE SECOND TERM
Dissident President
George W. Bush has the courage to speak out for freedom.

BY NATAN SHARANSKY
Monday, April 24, 2006 12:01 a.m.

There are two distinct marks of a dissident. First, dissidents are fired by ideas and stay true to them no matter the consequences. Second, they generally believe that betraying those ideas would constitute the greatest of moral failures. Give up, they say to themselves, and evil will triumph. Stand firm, and they can give hope to others and help change the world.

Political leaders make the rarest of dissidents. In a democracy, a leader's lifeline is the electorate's pulse. Failure to be in tune with public sentiment can cripple any administration and undermine any political agenda. Moreover, democratic leaders, for whom compromise is critical to effective governance, hardly ever see any issue in Manichaean terms. In their world, nearly everything is colored in shades of gray.[. . . . ]

Plea for RCMP independence -- "a new Fraser Institute study by University of Calgary academic Barry Cooper" The Leader-Post, April 24, 2006

The title of this monograph is Bureaucrats In Uniform, subtitled "the politicization and decline of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police". Cooper argues the federal government has come to see the RCMP as just another government branch that is there to carry out the policy of the government -- or make it look good. [. . . . ]

Cooper uses his study to make another important point about the RCMP: like the armed forces, it is taking on too many "corporate" trappings like cost-recovery, commercial partnerships and marketing, and is being forced to downplay its true purpose: fighting crime. He argues convincingly that it should get back to basics and, in an interesting tangent, wonders aloud if the RCMP should get out of provincial policing and become a much smaller force that would focus solely on the enforcement of federal laws, like threats to national security and major fraud. [....]

Global wealth redistribution

From another member of the global guilt gang.

"His plan would compel each developed country to contribute a fixed 0.7 percent of its GNP (Gross National Product, a measure of a nation’s total wealth) towards global funding of the Millennium Development Goals."

Jeffrey Sachs–the director of Columbia University’s Earth Institute and Special Advisor to Secretary General Kofi Annan .... Sachs has been selling since early last year perhaps the largest global wealth redistribution program ever conceived to finance what are known as the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals. His Millennium Development Project Report, entitled "Investing in Development –a Practical Plan to Achieve the Millennium Development Goals", called for hundreds of billions of dollars of development aid to be transferred from the world’s most developed countries to the undeveloped countries of the world, with the lofty goal of ending poverty, disease, environmental degradation, malnutrition and illiteracy in one fell swoop. [Think globally ..... and plan a conference .... a splashy talkfest ..... on other people's money?]

[. . . . ] Professor Sachs is cut out of the same mold as Maurice Strong, who has been a highly influential presence at the United Nations for years until his recent alleged entanglement in the oil-for-food scandal. Both men are arrogant enough to believe that they have the true path to solving the world’s problems and are using the United Nations as their vehicle. [. . . . ]

Hence the tours and talk fests of the UN champagne socialists such as Stephen Lewis ... coming to a university near you. Teach them guilt when they're young and they won't look at any other reasons for poverty -- at home or abroad.

Why does the UN not address the corruption at the heart of Third World poverty? Oh, that might impact negatively on our fellows at the UN and on the next UN gabfest in one of the world's poorer nations ... held at a 5-star hotel and spa?



Time up for atomic clocks The Register 24 April 2006, Chris Williams, Posted by ShadowAce, 04/24/2006 on Free Republic

Scientists are plotting a new era of hyper-exact timekeeping, spelling the end of the atomic clock in its current form. Very accurate clocks are vital in telecommunications, GPS, and other modern technological applications. Traditional Caesium-based atomic clocks have been around since the mid-50s. They work by detecting microwave emissions from the Caesium atom, which occur at a very steady rate. Since 1967 that rate has been the fundamental frequency on which the international definition of a second is based. Prior to that, seconds had been defined in terms of the Earth's rotation, which is relatively variable. The new clocks will...

France's Sarkozy in new storm over immigration reuters, Apr. 24 2006, Posted on Free Republic by george wythe On 04/24/2006

French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy faced charges of xenophobia on Monday over his weekend comments on immigrants, thrusting the sensitive issue to the fore as rivals manoeuvre ahead of 2007 presidential polls. Sarkozy, who presents a tough new immigration bill to parliament on May 2, told new members of his Union for a Popular Movement he was sick of having to apologise for being French and said a small minority could not dictate French laws or customs. "If it bothers some people being in France, they shouldn't worry about leaving a country they don't like," Sarkozy said at the weekend,...

China 'Coal Man' Maurice Strong back on radar screen By Judi McLeod, Wednesday, April 19, 2006

Disgraced for his alleged ties in the Oil-for-Food scandal in the West, environmental expert Maurice Strong is prime PR for the Peoples Republic of China in the environmental protection spin department.

[....] The five-year plan stipulated that discharges of sulphur dioxide should be cut by 10 per cent, but compared with discharge levels from 2000, levels of the pollutant increased by 27% in 2005. [....]

There are other Canadian names mentioned, involved in power generation in China.


Background/update to item posted yesterday on Chinese spying in Canada:

More claims of Chinese spying emerge Australian Broadcasting Corporation,
TV PROGRAM TRANSCRIPT LOCATION: http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2005/s1408571.htm
Broadcast: 06/07/2005
Reporter: Tony Jones

TONY JONES: We can take you back now to our story on the defecting Chinese spies that have been popping up in Belgium and in Canada and we are joined now by Michel Juneau-Katsuya, a former senior intelligence officer with the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. He ran the Asia/Pacific Bureau which covered China on both counter-intelligence and counter-terrorist issues and he's currently the chief executive of the Northgate Group, a private security intelligence firm. He joins us now from Ottawa. Thanks for being there, Michel Juneau-Katsuya.

[....] TONY JONES: Canada is no stranger to reports of intensive spying networks and I believe you were in fact the author of a report into Operation Sidewinder, which I understand suggested that China in fact is one of the biggest security threats that Canada faces. Can you tell us more about Operation Sidewinder?

MICHAEL JUNEAU-KATSUYA: Well, what we were looking at specifically, we were looking at the relationship of the Chinese intelligence service with the organised crime, the Chinese organised crime, the Triads, and also the participation and the help of some tycoon and to try to see how China was trying to gain influence. One other thing we've noticed as well, which was quite important, is the process of acquiring Canadian companies - and this exercise took place also in England, Canada and Australia - where Chinese companies state-controlled Chinese companies are acquiring national companies, Canadian companies or Australian companies, and the danger in this exercise is that they gain quite a tremendous amount of influence. It's not necessarily control of the country, but, you though, when you start having billions of dollars you definitely go through the secretary and are not put on hold when you try to reach the premier or some state officials and that was one of our concerns, that the control - the economy control that they were starting to gain under total legitimate acquisition process was starting to be quite important. Why is it so concernful for us is that contrary to other foreign companies that would come and acquire another Canadian company, these companies were state controlled. So basically it's a foreign government acquiring influence and will eventually influence sort of national policies or regional economic policies that would definitely benefit them eventually. [....]

Wicked humor from the Guardian

The Guardian can sometimes be very funny, sometimes intentionally, but I never expected to see vicious satire at the expense of a left winger. Dea Birkett writes about the joys of having a nanny.

For E, who got a nanny this year ......... Is this a parody?



PandemicFlu.gov -- Avian flu via newsbeat1

See the menu for more.
Search: See a checklist of items to have on hand for an extended stay at home.

Topics on this page
* Overview
* Checklist, Guide, and Information Sheets
* Social Disruption May Be Widespread
* Being Able to Work May Be Difficult or Impossible
* Schools May Be Closed for an Extended Period of Time
* Transportation Services May Be Disrupted
* People Will Need Advice and Help at Work and Home
* Be Prepared
* Stay Healthy
* Get Informed