Aug. 19, 2006: Bud Talkinghorn

Homegrown terrorism and the Iraq rationale

Iraq gets a drumroll each time a new homegrown terrorist cell is uncovered. The West's "invasion" of Afghanistan gets mention as well. The West simply has to stop interfering with the godly Taliban and al-Qaeda's moves to entrench themselves as the government, the Arab street maintains. Even our Canadian Muslims largely believe we should have backed the terrorist Hezbollah.

I have tried to put myself in the place of these people. Many turn out to be highly educated, therefore, one doesn't have to descend to the dolt level to try empathy. So I look at Iraq through their eyes and say the "crusaders" are defiling the Muslims' culture. Yet didn't they liberate Iraq from a monstrous Baathist regime? Consider the repression that the Shia and Kurds suffered under Saddam's iron-fisted control. So that liberation should count as a good thing. Than there is the endless slaughter between Sunnis and Shia. That surely must be a bad thing -- something that the Coalition want to defuse. Finally, if the Coalition had succeeded, the Iraqis would have a democratic society, with all that that implies economically and socially--just what our homegrown terrorist lads enjoy in Britain, the USA and Canada. None of that is going to happen if the fanatics of both sects continue their carnage and massacres. Monday's death total from sectarian violence was 57 known dead and 148 wounded. More victims are expected when the bombed-out apartment building is fully excavated. The bloodshed is now so common that the news of it was a two paragraph column on page A-11 of The Globe and Mail ( Aug. 14 ). Our Canadian Muslims, at least, must see this evil for what it is. The perpetrators must be seen as hell-bound. Otherwise they are beyond redemption themselves in a civilized society. Maybe I've slipped completely off the empathy radar screen, but Christians could not see Timothy McVeigh sitting on the left hand of God discussing chemical compounds and his glorious accomplishment.

Obviously, I have failed to penetrate the Islamists' rationale for terrorism against one's own citizens. But then my loyalty to Canada's society is not shrouded by religious blinkers. My ancestors got over that around 400 years ago during the 30 Year religious War, unlike 84% of British-Muslims polled, who said they were Muslims first and British a distant second. These folk talk about the Crusades as though they happened yesterday.

If my minister started raving about murdering the infidel Christians (or Muslims) amongst us, I would turn him in, pronto. However, there is an enormous Canadian-Muslim denial of the radicalism that infuses too many of their mosques, youth centers and chat rooms. You can't even get the majority to openly admit that their fanatics were behind Sept. 11--"Mossad or the CIA did it", is their mantra. Until our Islamic community gets deeply involved in thwarting these murderous plots and casting out the extremist imams, they will always be suspect. They have to do it, because there is no way the rest of us can fathom their nuanced ideological positions on jihad.

In fact, I never cease being astounded by the Muslim world's indifference to the Muslim-on-Muslim wars that have left millions dead or critically wounded in Algeria, Sudan, Egypt, Somalia, and Iraq. There is no condemnation about these atrocious internecine wars in the UN, except the occasional "tut, tut". I gather that the assembled thug states hold to that old maxim, "Those who live in glass houses...."

© Bud Talkinghorn



Piety, politics and pure murder

There are in the current renaissance of Islamist wrath many echoes from the past. Deciphering the complexities of the Middle East is not for historical slackers. Still, as a history-dipper over the years I have spotted certain commonalities to this present chaos. One element that stands out through the centuries of Islamic history is the presence of eternal warfare. It was the sword of Islam, wielded by the purest-of-the-pure, that conguered North Africa and goodly parts of Europe. If these crusaders hadn't been stopped at the Gates of Vienna and at Tours in France, we of European stock would all be bowing to Mecca today. The Christian crusaders of the 11th and 12th centuries were pikers by comparison. Most of their ragtag armies only succeeded because the Muslim tribes around their routes were at each other's throats. Nevertheless, these feeble attempts at colonization have been etched in the Islamic memory. Long, long revenge memories were the fuel for their past violence and it hasn't changed much today. Only the face of the invader has changed. Once the Christian "crusaders" are eliminated, they can get back to the serious business of killing each other.

Islam might portray itself as the religion of peace, but politics always managed to stick a shiv in that pretence. Different Muslim states/fiefdoms would employ the hashshashin--better know by our corrupted spelling, "assassins". These were the prototype for today's suicidal jihadis. In one encounter they were trapped in a vizir's fortress. To show their loyalty and courage, one after another of the Hashshashins would throw himself off the ramparts. Their beseiging opponents were quite impressed, to the point that they fled. Those were role models for our more current amateur shahids (shaheeds?). As though the endless tribal blood feuds didn't complicate Middle Eastern affairs enough, along came a schism. Suddenly the majority Sunni faith had a serious contender, the Shia, Westerners rarely got past the similarities of their puritanism, denigration of women and their violent zealotry, but for Muslims, you either belong to their branch or you are an apostate. Seeing gray areas is discouraged.

For much of the 20th century, the Sunnis ran the show in the Middle East. Iran was the one country where the Shi'ites were in control, but so long as the CIA-imposed Shah Pahlavi kept the mullah fundamentalists down, things went smoothly. Then came the revolution with Khomeini installing a theocracy. Two cannon-fooder wars--a draw--with Iraq in the 80's did nothing except steel the Iranians' desire for stamping their ideology across the entire Middle East. The ferocious Hezbollah bombardment of Israel is matched by the Shi'ites patience in Iraq. They could have started their revenge suicide attacks on the Sunnis long ago. Ironically (Do the Muslims get irony?) Syria is at once feeding Sunni jihadis into Iraq to kill Shia, while arming the Shia in southern Lebanon. That anomaly never seems to come up in the UN. Meanwhile, it is believed that Iran is harbouring Sunni Taliban and al-Qaeda fugitives. These contradictions keep the Western intelligence agencies off kilter. "Where is the pattern? Where is the master plan here?", they wonder.

If you want to see Islamic democracy in action, consider the elections in Algeria. When it appeared that the Islamic Salvation Party would win and impose a theocracy, the army cancelled the election. That set off a vicious civil war, which led to 160,000 dead. One of the reasons that a truce was called was the top military/spiritual leader came to the conclusion that perhaps every single Algerian had to be wiped out for purity to reign. This was too much for even his most hardened terrorist followers. Time for a truce, time for sanity. Unfortunately, that sanity has not penetrated the minds of al-Qaeda's Iraqi jihadis. The Shi'ites' patience exhausted, the fuse is lit for a Hobbesian "war of all against all". The coalition can't even contain the mini-sectarian strife occurring now. Soon it will be come time for them to sit it out.

It is certainly time to re-evaluate our "root causes" myopia--poverty, humiliation, colonialization. You can claim that for most of Asia and South America, but they are not blowing up children to make some point, neither is there pure nihilism. The "root cause" is a messianic eruption of fundamentalism. It unfortunately has also infected those Muslims who are most educated and seemingly assimilated to the West. I remember an al-Qaeda plot broken up in Pakistan. The main suspects were a cardiologist, an engineer, and another professional. Educational levels cannot be a profiling instrument anymore.

Hence, the so-called moderate Islamic associations and mosques must step up to the plate. They know who the extemists are, far better than we. Failure to do so will lead to even greater alienation from the Canadian public -- a public that is shown by polls to be less sympathetic to Muslims as the internal threat builds. The chasm between us will grow expotentially if there were a catastrophic sleeper attack.

© Bud Talkinghorn



The AIDS pessimism of Margaret Wente

Wente wrote an anti-AIDS conference piece for The Globe and Mail. She wrote that she was glad the "AIDS circus was finally leaving town, and that the impossibly bombastic Stephen Lewis was going with it." Her column certainly dropped a bomb on the AIDS' conference. She came right out and said that the plague was never going to stop because African men were not behind the fight. That basically they were a promiscuous, no-hoper bunch. My comments on this come from an English medical report in 1985. A top British epidemiologist was lecturing in Zambia's main medical teaching hospital. He tried to show that HIV was the culprit in AIDS and that sexual contact was the primary cause. The Zanbian medical student burst into raucus hoots and laughter. Three decades after AIDS has claimed millions of victims that laughter still persists. Paul Theroux writes in his travel book, "Dark Star Safari--A journey from Cairo to Capetown" that the level of AIDS ignorance has hardly abated. He was also a two time Peace Corps volunteer in Africa, (Malawi and Uganda). The entire continent seems to be sliding backwards in fact. He recalls a conversation with a Norwegian AIDS lecturer. When Theroux asked what her two year stint accomplished, she said "Nothing". During the entire time in Lusaka, she was harassed by interns who wanted to have sex with her. "They even sleep with 13 and 14 year old girls", she claimed. She was never returning. That had been the eye-opener for her.

Then there is the position that the South African Health Minister holds. She believes that a good diet of lemons, garlic and beetroot will cure AIDS. "Retroviral drugs are poison" is her "professional" position. Mbeki, her President, believes that poverty causes it. This from a country that should have been (after 25 years of AIDS knowledge) a rare African success story. I'm afraid Wente has it right. Until attitudes change among African men, the drugs will be a sideshow. Female emancipation is a long, long way off. Meanwhile, the little head will continue to lead the big one. The irregular use of the anti-viral drugs by both sexes is yet another problem. In many cases it will only create a new super strain of AIDS. But all this is too politically incorrect to discuss openly. "You are blaming the victims", the activists cry. Damned right I am.

© Bud Talkinghorn--"Get a life" takes on a whole new meaning with Africa.

Aug. 17, 2006:#1 The AIDS Industry -&- More

The link is for the second item, only. It is lengthy and definitely worth reading.


Understanding the AIDS industry , Michael Fumento, National Post, August 17, 2006
www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/editorialsletters
/story.html?id=073d214f-0c19-4510-bcee-e21657c2b908

Michael Fumento is author of The Myth of Heterosexual AIDS (1990) and a senior fellow specializing in health and science at the Hudson Institute in Washington, D.C.

[....] The entire science of epidemiology -- which began when London physician John Snow mapped out cholera cases in his city and found they clustered around a single water pump -- depends on identifying risk factors to ameliorate them. In Snow's case, he simply removed the pump handle and the epidemic ended.

He was lucky he didn't have to deal with activists carrying signs reading: "Pumps don't cause cholera; ignorance and prejudice cause cholera!" [....]

Yet, even the current AIDS budget swamps spending on malaria and tuberculosis, which together kill about twice as many people annually as AIDS does. Antiretroviral therapy for AIDS cures no one and while it costs relatively little in the Third World -- $300-$1,200 per year -- compared to North America, TB can be cured with $65 of medicine. Malaria in Africa and Asia can be prevented for a pittance by spraying DDT, yet environmental activists and the European Union have essentially blocked its use in those areas that need it most.

Alas for these victims, they don't have a politically correct disease. And for that they must die.

You won't see this reported in the Mainstream Media (MSM)

Bestselling author and syndicated columnist Michael Fumento reports: The Myth of Heterosexual AIDS - A Nine-Year Retrospective of Fear and (Mostly) ... "the harm from the disinformation campaign that was the myth of heterosexual AIDS."
www.fumento.com/pozaids.html

[....] Almost invariably, non-drug abusing heterosexuals were being infected by drug-abusing ones. Yet this distinction of who was infecting heterosexuals was simply ignored not only by the media but by many public health departments. In 1987 I called such departments in many major cities and they didn’t even know what I was talking about. The question had simply never come up.

The major exception was New York, where officials knew this was indeed the most crucial question regarding how far the epidemic would spread. As a result, they made it a policy to carefully interview all men who claimed to have been infected by a woman. They found that practically nobody fell into this category. Indeed, one of the few men they were convinced truly had no risk factors other than vaginal intercourse proved to have been a minor actor in gay pornography!

Thus while other health departments were reporting female-to-male transmissions left and right (and do so to this day) simply because whenever a man said he got HIV from sex with a woman they took his word for it, New York was screening these people out with careful interviews. Later it scaled back and then essentially ceased the interviewing process, inevitably leading to New York male "heterosexual transmission" cases going through the roof.

"I was appalled," said Sonnabend, who had worked for the Department of Health in the 1970s. "A number that was about 18 suddenly became 400 or 500, just because they stopped interviewing." [....]

As a medical journalist, I can say with authority that the CDC has some of the best, most scrupulous researchers in the country. But those are the career people, not the political appointees. The words of one CDC researcher who isn’t in the AIDS section and declined (most strongly) to be identified, apply to all sectors of our Public Health Service. "If they’re high up in the AIDS part of the organization, they almost have to be one of the bad guys." [....]

Read Michael Fumento’s additional work on AIDS and on the media. Read an excerpt from his book, The Myth of Heterosexual AIDS, Exploding Myths (National Review, December 13, 1993). Michael Fumento is a health and science writer who has authored four books, including The Fat of the Land: Our Health Crisis and How Overweight Americans Can Help Themselves.



Politically incorrect -- won't be reported in the MSM

Of morals and medicine -- "the Catholic Church is the global leader in caring for AIDS patients", Father Raymond J. de Souza, National Post, August 17, 2006
www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/issuesideas
/story.html?id=306eef6f-e86f-48ce-a143-d2a4548db064

[....] People may not use condoms in the brothels, but it's not because the Catholic Church is against the condoms. We are, it should be remembered, against the brothels. [....]

Virginity before marriage and fidelity during marriage is hardly a Catholic invention, even if today the Catholic Church is sometimes lonely in defending the ancient wisdom on sexual morality. And it remains the case, as with all sexually transmitted diseases, that nothing would deal a blow to the spread of AIDS as effectively as an outbreak of moral virtue. Yet the international AIDS community views talk of morality, abstinence and chastity as something altogether irrelevant, and perhaps dangerous. [....]

BRITISH airport operators are considering plans to introduce a screening system ... , Ben Webster and Simon Kearney, August 16, 2006
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au
/wireless/story/0,8262,4-20145164,00.html

[....] Neil Fergus, part of the Wheeler review of airport security, said ethnicity and religion would play a part in profiling, but only as much as any other factor. "Your systems would fail completely if you were reliant on stereotypes. It's the whole package, the age is potentially much more relevant than physical characteristics or apparent ethnicity." [....]

SNC-Lavalin in project to develop 'clean' coal
www.canada.com/nationalpost/financialpost/story.ht
ml?id=6f52d267-b5f9-4871-a007-d30d69dcadfd

How big can Lavalin get?
www.canada.com/nationalpost/financialpost/story.ht
ml?id=d7087d30-a18e-4f8c-b107-68ccb448fc35


U.S. Coast Guard arrests reputed Mexican drug cartel leader -- Javier Arellano Felix
www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/story.ht
ml?id=6841ece6-93b7-4e02-a180-54c429d68ae4

[....] The Arellano Felix family gang was once Mexico's most powerful and feared drug cartel, running a vast smuggling operation out of the gritty border city of Tijuana. The gang lost some of its power in 2002, when its enforcer, Ramon Arellano Felix, was killed in a shootout with police and his brother, Benjamin, the cartel's mastermind, was arrested. Members of the Arellano Felix organization, including Javier, were indicted in the United States in 2003 for racketeering, conspiracy to import and distribute cocaine and marijuana and conspiracy to commit money laundering. The indictment also accuses the organization of committing 20 murders in the United States and Mexico.

Ottawa wise to Quebec 'games' -- summer 2005 memo: Internal documents: Province pushes 'the envelope' in its foreign relations, Jack Aubry, CanWest News Service, August 17,
www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/story.ht
ml?id=a1dadbaa-711c-4b84-8f06-6537186a3029

[....] But in an internal memo dated the summer of 2005, a Foreign Affairs official wrote Quebec was pushing the "envelope" when it came to its international role.

"The Quebec government has tried hard to expand the envelope of its international relationships, including with EU [European Union], institutions to which they are not accredited," said the memo, originating from Nicole Sondergaard in Brussels.

The heavily censored memo notes Quebec has been "more astute" than Foreign Affairs in recognizing the public affairs benefits of being active in the EU "political-media culture." [....]

Search: Paul Martin

Aug. 16, 2006: #1

Freedom of speech ... squelched

Freedom of speech is tolerated ... only if it is the accepted speech ..... accepted by all the leftist stakeholder groups


Chronicle Herald, Nova Scotia -- Cape Breton University prof suspended for website -- He is accused of violating school’s harassment, discrimination policy , Aug. 14, 06, Holly Fraughton, The Chronicle Herald, via Instapundit and the Bearblog (www.sleepyoldbear.com/Bearblog/)
thechronicleherald.ca/NovaScotia/521864.html

[....] The trouble began after Shane Wallis, student co-ordinator of the university’s sexual diversity centre, read two open letters Mr. Mullan posted on his website.

The letters, written nearly two years ago and addressed to the bishop of the Anglican Church of Canada, criticized the church’s acceptance of same-sex marriage.

Mr. Mullan said he believes "our society’s obsession with homosex is undermining the very liberal foundations of our society," because it stifles freedom of speech.

"I have no desire at this point of my life to recriminalize homosex behaviour, but what is happening is that not only must I be nice toward it, I must be affirming toward it."

He also believes the "homosex" lifestyle can have negative health effects. [....]

There is more -- worth reading.

By the way the "diversity centre" is obviously not a "diversity of opinion" centre.

Most people I talk with espouse the same idea as the prof -- that they simply don't want to be forced to--and criticized if they don't--affirm homosexuality. Think of the AIDS conference. That is not a spot where anyone with another opinion on AIDS would have been acceptable. (Of course, that is why I didn't attend.)




Subcommittee on Economic Security, Infrastructure Protection, and Cybersecurity
and the
Subcommittee on Emergency Preparedness, Science, and Technology
of the
United States House of Representatives Committee on Homeland Security , David B. Harris, Senior Fellow for National Security, Canadian Coalition for Democracies, Bellingham, Washington, 8 August 2006
canadiancoalition.com/HarrisDavid20060808
/TestimonyHomelandSecurity.html

[....] Since coming to power in January 2006, the minority Conservative Government of Stephen Harper has committed itself to confronting those who would impose terrorist warfare and subversion upon Canadian democracy and Canada’s liberal-pluralist allies. Under the current Canadian regime, achievements in the struggle with extremist Islam – the predominating foreign and domestic enemy – have assumed various forms.

Abroad, Canadians are in combat on the Afghan Front, and their Government has set its face firmly against attempts to intimidate our country into withdrawal from that mission. In the terror war’s Lebanese salient, the Harper Government has sponsored effective humanitarian efforts, while all the time asserting explicitly Israel’s right and duty, as a sister peace-loving democracy, to end the killer-sanctuary that our Hezbollah enemy has long enjoyed under Syro-Iranian dominion of Lebanon. In this, the Canadian Prime Minister is doubtless aware of Hezbollah’s record of undertaking targeting reconnaissance in Canada against Canadian sites.

At home, it is to the credit of a predecessor Liberal Government that it brought in a new, post-9/11 Anti-Terrorism Act, and the current Government has vigorously supported efforts to guarantee internal security. Indeed, the eighteenth person was last week detained in connection with an alleged largely-homegrown Toronto-area Islamic terrorist ring accused of preparing mass-casualty attacks. Accusations claim that those concerned – all of them Canadian residents, and most of them Canadian citizens – sought to use three times the explosives detonated in Timothy McVeigh’s 1995 Oklahoma City outrage. Meanwhile, Crown prosecutors prepare their case for the unrelated January 2007 trial of Momin Khawaja, a young Canadian Muslim who worked for a time with our Department of Foreign Affairs, and is now claimed to have had a role in British terror-cell preparations.

[....] the present Canadian Government has inherited a dangerous and unacceptable situation from the preceding thirteen years of federal leadership.

The Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) director some years ago first alerted us to the presence of fifty terror organizations in Canada, the second-highest number in any country after the United States, itself. In June, the Deputy Director Operations of Canada’s intelligence service warned a Canadian Senate subcommittee that Canadian residents include those who are “graduates of terrorist training camps and campaigns, including experienced combatants from conflicts in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Chechnya and elsewhere.” He offered that “Canadian citizens or residents have been implicated in terrorist attacks and conspiracies elsewhere in the world,” some having “been involved in plots against targets in the United States, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Singapore, Pakistan and other countries.” [....]

Ottawa not our boss, Charest tells French -- 'We are a people and a nation' , Jack Aubry, CanWest, August 16, 2006
www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/story.ht
ml?id=b48f96ce-9a55-4d7b-9458-6354419134ed

OTTAWA - Quebec is on equal footing with the federal government on the international stage and the province's distinct place in Canada is similar to France within the Europe Union, Premier Jean Charest said in a recent interview with a French magazine.

Mr. Charest told Express, a weekly newsmagazine in France, that asymmetrical federalism in Canada gives Quebec a unique political status apart from the other provinces and that his government is able to express itself "without inhibition" on the world stage.

"There is no doubt that we are a people and a nation. And I see no contradiction in the fact that we, Quebecers, are also Canadian, like the French are French, but also European," said Mr. Charest, pointing out that Quebec federalists are just as aggressive as separatists when it comes to defending Quebec's identity.

[....] "We are a nation but don't take it in the meaning of a country [....]

Canada is not the European Union so the above is a false analogy.





Lester Pearson would not be impressed , Dan Gardner, The Ottawa Citizen, August 11, 2006, posted by SeanMcElroy, 8/16/2006 08:35:49
tinyurl.com/qoue5 [for the original]
www.canoe.ca/mb2/messages/cnewsf/11940.html

[....] For the whining left, America is always wrong, especially when there's a Republican in the White House.

Israel, too, is always wrong except when it's giving away the store. As for the UN, it is a sacred institution, a repository of principle and wisdom with an unblemished record of bringing peace and security to the world.

It's hard to say what Lester Pearson would have made of the whining left.

The real Lester Pearson, that is.

The veteran of the First World War. The champion of NATO and Israel. The man who got Canadian involvement in the Korean War upgraded from a minor naval contribution to a major ground force. The fierce anti-Communist who always saw the defence of Europe as the central mission of Canada's military and the struggle against the Soviet Union as the great imperative of Canadian foreign policy.

What that Lester Pearson would say about the whining left, I don't know, but I'm guessing he wouldn't be too happy with the way his name is being tossed around these days. [....]

Aug. 15, 2006: #2

AIDS Conference

Several articles on the AIDS conference here
www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/features/aids/index.html

Sample, Stephen Lewis: We always underestimate Africa
www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/features/aids/story.ht
ml?id=3fdb7233-b524-449a-98fc-4b7e6e869e82&k=3040



How did the grandmothers come to appear at the AIDS conference? The Stephen Lewis Foundation paid for them to come -- "Grannies, Lewis upstage Keys after AIDS parade", Chris Cobb, CanWest, Aug. 14, 06
www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/features/aids/story.ht
ml?id=9253c933-e26b-4743-ad55-5c0f82793917&k=43976

Three hundred African and Canadian grandmothers paraded through the streets of Toronto Sunday [....]

The Stephen Lewis Foundation launched its Grandmothers to Grandmothers campaign in March of this year in an effort to mobilize support for African grannies.

In an emotional address to the women, Lewis said the gathering had been historic and exceeded anyone's expectations.

"I never imagined that there would be such a profound uniting of forces the forces of the African grandmothers and the Canadian grandmothers," he said.

I'm afraid that last statement seems disingenuous to me. Bring on the emotion with the Stephen Lewis grannies. They get a trip; he gets publicity and to bash the government ....... what does it do for AIDS?





The Stephen Lewis Foundation: Board of Directors
www.stephenlewisfoundation.org/about_who.htm

The backgrounds of the directors include such descriptors as:

appointed, community organizer, works for social justice, helping immigrants, aboriginal peoples and women of colour, Immigration and Refugee Board member, the David Suzuki Foundation, the Coady International Institute at StFX University, Executive Director of Medecins Sans Frontieres Canada, worked on humanitarian and community development projects, commitment to social justice and activism, Executive Director of Calmeadow, a Toronto-based microfinance NGO, appointed as the Secretary-General's Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa, experience in all aspects of professional fundraising ...


It sounds to me as though the foundation had been designed for this conference -- a leftist political meeting with AIDS as the pretext and the object to denigrate the Conservative government and to prepare the way for more of the Lib/Left/NDP social do-gooders ... from what I have read and listened to. (IMHO, of course.)


Women and AIDS , NatPost, Aug. 15, 06
www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/editorialsletters/story.ht
ml?id=e75a3f75-89be-402d-be36-6cd8150069cf

[....] Socially sanctioned male promiscuity is a major factor, especially in sub-Saharan Africa: While women in AIDS-afflicted countries are expected to remain loyal to their husbands, adultery is often seen as acceptable for men. As a result, many wives are unknowingly exposed to the disease by unfaithful partners who bring it home from extramarital encounters.

Western governments and activists are typically hesitant to address these sensitive underlying problems for fear of appearing racist. As Ms. Burkhalter puts it, "International experts instead focus on long-term development strategies such as economic empowerment and expansion of girls' education," while "foreign donors prefer public awareness campaigns to hands-on help in getting rapists and batterers off the street and into jail." But since all the public awareness campaigns in the world will not prevent a woman from being raped, non-consensual sex will remain a major contributor to the spread of AIDS until third-world governments get serious about cracking down on offenders. And in some cases, that will only happen once international pressure compels them.

The international science community can only do so much. To save women's lives, their governments and societies must also begin looking out for them. [....]

Israel won't be the scapegoat -- "The scapegoating of Israel is a result of the cult of victimhood that has taken hold of large swaths of the Arab and Muslim worlds." , Jordan Michael Smith, Aug. 14, 06
www.ottawasun.com/News/Columnists/Smith_Jordan_Michael
/2006/08/14/1753172.html

[....] Besides Cyprus, Israel is the only country in the Middle East given a ranking of "free" by Freedom House, the esteemed non-partisan organization. Arabs and Muslims living in Israel are treated like second-class citizens, and they still have more rights than they do anywhere else in the Middle East. Israel is "a strong democracy, a symbol of freedom and an oasis of liberty," as Bill Clinton once said.

An oasis. That must always be remembered. Israel has accomplished this with a tiny population and a puny, resource-unfriendly piece of land. And since its birth it has been surrounded by enemies bent on its extinction.

Now you see why Arab and Muslim countries scapegoat Israel. Because it exists. Because it succeeds. Because by focusing on Israel, they can ignore the fact that 50% of women in the Arab world are illiterate, and more than 10 million children in the Arab world don't attend school (April 2005 UNICEF report). [....]

Freedom of speech & the Left

Stanley Kurtz: Message for the Belgian Government, The Corner, Aug. 14, 06
corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=
MWYyMTZhN2EwMjRlMmE3ZTQ0NTVlOTFjNTAyNWRjYTM=

A number of us here in the United States have witnessed, with growing concern, reports of the government of Belgium's harassment of the weblog, "The Brussels Journal." We consider The Brussels Journal to be an invaluable source of information and opinion on matters European. By no means are all of us necessarily in agreement with everything that appears on The Brussels Journal. Nor are all of us by any means traditional Christians. Nonetheless, Americans recognize The Brussels Journal as one of the few web-based sources of European news and opinion from a conservative and Christian point of view, and we consider it essential that all sides of political and cultural questions be permitted a place in public debate. [....]

Search: Professor , expressions of racism

Check what John Jay Ray has written on leftists, racism and free speech. (below or later)



UN and the Middle East "Peace"

, Anne Bayefsky, Aug. 14, 06
www.eyeontheun.org/editor.asp?p=233&b=1

The most frightening part of U.N. Security Council resolution 1701 on the Lebanon war is that the United States agreed to allow the U.N. to play a pivotal role in the battle of our age - between democracy and terrorism, freedom and bondage, dignity and intolerance.

Kofi Annan's wide grin, as he stood side-by-side with Secretary Rice on Friday, said it all. He won. But America and freedom's cause lost. [....]

Inco was open to CVRD bid following Teck offer -- Sought white knight , Carrie Tait and Boyd Erman, Financial Post, August 15, 2006
www.canada.com/nationalpost/financialpost/
story.html?id=4165058b-c4c3-4264-9541-7eb61b75e652

[....] "Inco would have gone out and beat the bushes to find anybody they could to come in and help them with an offer for Falconbridge," said Kerry Smith, an analyst at Haywood Securities Inc. "Presumably, the one that was able to respond in a timely fashion was Phelps Dodge."

Teck's bid expires at midnight tomorrow and CVRD's sudden emergence in the bidding war makes it virtually impossible for the Vancouver-based company to wrap up its bid tomorrow. Its bid -- composed of $40 in cash and 0.5821 of a Teck share -- was worth $85.99 at yesterday's close. [....]

They came from Walthamstow -- "Yet with British Muslims, the young have become far more devout and separatist and hopeless than their parents." , Michael Coren, National Post, August 15, 2006
www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/editorialsletters
/story.html?id=baec6405-e56b-4b85-a761-d0b6c5127140

[....] Racism has always been an issue but seldom as bad as social workers would have you believe. The Hindu and Sikh communities, for example, have faced the same problems as their Muslim cousins but have generally done extremely well. There are very few Hindus and Sikhs in British jails, but almost 10% of the prison population is now Muslim. A third of Muslims have no job qualifications, the highest of any minority group in the country. And more than 100,000 of Britain's 1.6 million followers of Islam believe in the mass slaughter of non-Muslim British civilians.

But we cannot and must not connect disadvantage, even the self-imposed kind, with political extremism. The case of Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh proves that. [....]

Aug. 15, 2006: #1

Sacha's love letter: His father gave us the Charter of Rights. So what is Sacha Trudeau doing writing obsequious agitprop for a communist thug? , Jonathan Kay, Aug. 15, 06
www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/issuesideas/story.ht
ml?id=1fd67d79-e2da-4009-9eb0-5c2ca91a3b0a

[....] Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, this messianic propaganda style has survived in just two places -- North Korea and Cuba. Or so I thought, until I woke up on Sunday and spotted a museum-quality specimen devoted to Fidel Castro on the pages of the Toronto Star. Had I seen it in The Onion, I would have thought it a fine parody. But the persistently earnest author -- none other than Alexandre ("Sacha") Trudeau -- apparently meant every word.

[....] Throughout the 20th century, there were many other ideologues who preferred "reason, revolution and virtue" to the boring give-and-take of democratic politics and due process. Their ranks included not only murdering despots such as Lenin, Mao and Castro himself, but also starry-eyed fellow travellers and apologists such as Sartre, Fanon and Trudeau pere. Thankfully, the failure of the Soviet experiment has driven both tribes into history's dustbin.

Sacha is a rare exception. Yet from the casual way he throws out his nauseating obsequies, he doesn't appear to understand just how historically discredited his message has become. He is more than naive -- he is ignorant. [....]

Lengthy and worth reading.



Gunter Grass

Another public intellectual and moralist bites the dust.

A useful idiot -- re: Gunter Grass: Herr Conscience, Robert Fulford, Aug. 14, letter, Aug. 15, 06 by Allan MacRae, Calgary
www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/editorialsletters
/story.html?id=f2c3a647-bab2-4573-bebc-ce75fbba6636

[....] The basement bar of the Metropole Hotel in East Berlin was full of beautiful Stasi hookers -- readily available, but with the caveat that you could expect to be recorded on video, and be blackmailed later into purchasing shoddy East German equipment.

That Grass, who lived in West Germany, did not condemn this vile persecution of the East German populace, and indeed was an apologist for the East German regime, is unforgivable. There is a special place in hell for "useful idiots" like Gunter Grass, and some Canadian politicians like Stephen Lewis and Ed Broadbent may share that uncomfortable accommodation.

Fulford on Gunter Grass

Gunter Grass: Herr Conscience , Robert Fulford, Aug. 14, 06
www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/issuesideas/story.ht
ml?id=acbf04de-f593-49a9-8f7b-fc12be619603

[....] He's never hidden his membership in the Hitler Youth.

But the SS is another matter entirely. It carried out the most obscene crimes of the Nazis and marked forever anyone who belonged. [....]

The SS (it stands for Schutzstaffel, meaning "protective echelon") began as Hitler's private guard and turned into a national police force that ran concentration camps, murdered political opponents and aroused terror in every corner of Germany. It expanded to include the Waffen-SS, an elite combat force that won a reputation for unscrupulous ferocity. The Nuremberg war crimes tribunal declared the SS a criminal organization.

[....] Grass was no communist, but he looked benignly on communist East Germany and favoured appeasing the Soviets. He believed the U.S. started the Cold War. He was the kind of Western intellectual Lenin meant when he used the phrase "useful idiots."

There will be more details in Gunter Grass's autobiography, While Peeling the Onion, out in September. [Note below. Another source calls it "Peeling the Onion".]



Freedom of speech, the Left & John Ray

Stanley Kurtz: Message for the Belgian Government, The Corner, Aug. 14, 06
corner.nationalreview.com/post
/?q=MWYyMTZhN2EwMjRlMmE3ZTQ0NTVlOTFjNTAyNWRjYTM=

A number of us here in the United States have witnessed, with growing concern, reports of the government of Belgium's harassment of the weblog, "The Brussels Journal." We consider The Brussels Journal to be an invaluable source of information and opinion on matters European. By no means are all of us necessarily in agreement with everything that appears on The Brussels Journal. Nor are all of us by any means traditional Christians. Nonetheless, Americans recognize The Brussels Journal as one of the few web-based sources of European news and opinion from a conservative and Christian point of view, and we consider it essential that all sides of political and cultural questions be permitted a place in public debate. [....]

Search: Professor , expressions of racism

Check what John Jay Ray has written on leftists, racism and free speech, among other topics.



John Jay Ray has more than one homepage, list here.

MONOGRAPH on Leftism
jonjayray.tripod.com/leftism2.html

What appears below is an attempt to analyse most aspects of Leftist political thinking and display the psychological and sociological roots of such thinking in an historical context. Such a large subject requires a lot of pages but there is also a much briefer article giving just the basics of the theory here . See also my blog for daily updates to the story. Parts of the account given here have also appeared in . Front Page Magazine [....]

THE MOTIVATIONS OF POLITICAL LEFTISTS By John J. Ray (M.A.;Ph.D.)
University of New South Wales, Australia
Summary

It is now clear that Rightists are not opposed to change but that "Western" Leftists seek it eagerly -- so attitude to social change is the defining characteristic of the political Left rather than of the political Right. Rightism ("conservatism") and Leftism are not opposites or mirror images, however, so Rightists in general are neither for nor against change. The archetypal Leftist in the economically successful "Western" democracies (a "liberal" in contemporary North American terms) is a keen advocate of change not for its own sake but rather to fulfil his/her ego needs -- needs for self-advertisement, self-promotion, excitement, influence and ultimately power. And the prime source of power is the state, so Leftists love the state. Leftists/liberals do nonetheless dislike neo-liberal (pro-market) change because it threatens their access to power. The old Soviet system showed that, once they have gained power, Leftists suddenly become very opposed to change. Change is just an instrument they use to gain their ultimate goal of power. And why is power sought so single-mindedly? Why the single-minded egotism? At its deepest level, Leftism appears to be psychopathic -- with the psychopathic disregard for all norms, morals, standards and ethics in the ruthless quest for personal praise and satisfaction.

It is because of their quest for power that Leftists come into conflict with conservatives. History shows that what has always motivated conservatives is resistance to government power -- in particular government encroachment on individual rights and liberties. So conservatives may either favour or oppose change to promote that cause.

A description of the political attitude domain in terms of two dimensions rather than a single Left/Right dimension is rejected on both empirical and theoretical grounds. The pervasiveness and evolutionary origins of egotism and reality denial generally are also briefly considered.

(A short index to this monograph can be found Here
jonjayray.tripod.com/leftism2.html#1343

How enjoyable to read what Ray has written after a surfeit of the activists and social do-gooders of this world. Stephen Lewis and tribe, take note!

Dissecting Leftism -- "Most Leftists are haters hiding behind a mask of compassion. Unfortunately, the mask fools a lot of people... " , John Ray's blog out of Australia -- excerpts from two articles.
dissectleft.blogspot.com/

August 15, 2006
IRAN AS A NEW NAZI GERMANY

Top Leftist an ex-Nazi: "It's enough to make an old man cry. Just days before publication of his long-awaited autobiography entitled Peeling the Onion, Gunter Grass, bleeding-heart figurehead of the German Left, has confessed he was once a member of the Nazi SS. [....]

Two comments on that website:

"All the worth which the human being possesses, all spiritual reality, he possesses only through the State." -- 19th century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Hegel is the most influential philosopher of the Left -- inspiring Karl Marx, the American "Progressives" of the early 20th century and university socialists to this day.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch)

August 14, 2006 [....]

BRITISH RETHINK ON IMMIGRATION? -- excerpt below

Sitting in his two- bedroom house just outside Bucharest, the Romanian capital, last week, Irinel Spatara, 42, was dreaming of a better life. He is one of the tens of thousands planning to travel to Britain when Romania and Bulgaria join the European Union.... However, it emerged yesterday that the ambitions of Spatara and others may be thwarted. John Reid, the home secretary, is said to be lobbying for possible restrictions on arrivals from the two countries seeking work. His rethink follows internal estimates by the government that 60,000-140,000 Romanians and Bulgarians could arrive in Britain in the first year after accession. A leaked government report warned last month of the increasing strain on schools, housing and the National Health Service.

Reid's move comes after one of the most significant changes in immigration policy since Labour came to power. After years of the government insisting that immigration was an unqualified good for the economy and there was "no obvious limit" to the numbers the country could hold, Reid suddenly announced last week that it was time for the country to discuss possible quotas. This has delighted the government's critics. They say previous attempts to encourage a "mature debate" about immigration levels have often been quashed with accusations of racism. [....]

More here

Ray's Homepages -- and there are several.

Aug. 14, 2006: #2

Has this been mentioned at the AIDS conference? The system for years has downplayed morality ... Think herpes, STD's, lowered self-respect and increased popularity for all the wrong reasons, and of course, AIDS.

'Risky' casual sex rife among youngsters warns survey
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jht
ml;jsessionid=VJLA3YVBMUOL1QFIQMFCFFOAVCBQYIV0?xml=
/news/2006/08/14/usurvey.xml

Casual sex is rife among young Britons, who are putting their health at risk by not using condoms with new partners, a new survey has said today.

The survey, BareAll06, found that nearly a third of 16 to 24 year olds lost their virginity before the age of consent and that, of those, 38 per cent do not always use a condom with a new partner.

The most common reason for not using a condom (44 per cent) was because the girl is on the pill, while the second most common reason (17 per cent) was being too drunk. [....]

Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose ... Memory Lane 1996 AIDS conference

1996: "Among the notable no-shows will be Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien" -- Elizabeth Taylor was there., AnnieO_01, 8/14/2006 12:33:08
www.canoe.ca/mb2/messages/cnewsf/11904.html

Among the notable no-shows will be Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien, who is breaking a tradition under which the leader of the host country officially opens the conference.

Chretien blamed a scheduling conflict, but Canadian AIDS activists believe he wants to avoid publicity over a looming crisis in funding for the government's national AIDS strategy.

Conference organisers say Chretien's refusal to participate also kept South African President Nelson Mandela away. He had been expected to attend but protocol dictated that he turn down the invitation after Chretien dropped out

The difference between PM Harper's not attending and ex-PM Chretien's? Harper is a Conservative Prime Minister. I remember that ex-PM and Conservative Brian Mulroney couldn't get a break from the mainstream media. Conservatives are hammered whatever they do, but especially, when they don't jump for AIDS, celebrities, Stephen Lewis and the rest .

Obviously, for the MSM, booing the Health Minister was acceptable; no-one criticized this breach of etiquette. In fact, it is endlessly reported as though it were perfectly acceptable, as long as it is a leftist talkfest. I just heard a few words from ex-Pres. Clinton who will be interviewed endlessly ... and , what is more, he will be treated with respect. The crust of the media to treat their own decent PM so cavalierly ... The gall of Clinton ... He should be hiding in a berry patch after his escapades ... Was that with/or without protection? No-one will bring up his words, "I did not have sex with that woman" ... will they? As they say in the boonies, "some example" for the young ones.




News You Can Abuse , Rand Simberg, Aug. 14, 06, via Instapundit August 14, 2006
www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=081406D

The venerable Reuters news agency was caught last week publishing a faked photo. There are at present several disturbing things about the incident and what it means for the future of news.

First, it wasn't the first time [....]

... it took bloggers to point out ...

[....] But photos have, rightly or wrongly, in fact become one of the means by which we now judge whether a news story is credible. [....]

How, then, to know if a published photo is, in a paraphrase of the old commercial, real, or Memorex?

There are no obvious easy solutions to this problem, other than the traditional ones for validating evidence -- chains of custody. Press photographers could be required to use certified cameras that time stamp pictures in an encrypted way that doesn't permit modifying the stamp. They could go to accredited image processors who would verify the validity of the original picture from the camera (perhaps even uploading it to a certified notary storage site), and describe any image processing they performed, at risk of loss of accreditation if they pull any funny business.

Memory Lane

Al Muhajiroun /Saviour Sect- banned rally called for Islamist Britain - Flyers showed rocket launcher and Muslim fighter in front of Downing Street -- Banned rally was booked at community center as EID religious festival celebration November 19, 2005
www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/1289

MIM: An example of the confusion around the rise of new Islamist groups in the UK can be seen in the Saviour Sect and what is now being touted as the newly launched Ahl Wal Al Sunnah al a Jamma, both which consist of followers of Al Muhajiroun and very likely have an overlapping membership.

Islamic extremist rally calling for Islamic Britain is banned

There is more than one article.



Memory Lane: Solution

Multiculturalism served to dilute our sovereignty -- The idea of Australia being a multicultural community has served only to dilute our sovereignty and our national identity., by govinda Saturday May 20, 2006 at 12:02 AM, via Australians got it right posted by Moxie38, Aug. 14, 06
melbourne.indymedia.org/news
/2006/05/112854_comment.php

Three Cheers for Australia

Muslims who want to live under Islamic Sharia law were told to get out of Australia, as the government targeted radicals in a bid to head off potential terror attacks.

A day after a group of mainstream Muslim leaders pledged loyalty to Australia at a special meeting with Prime Minister John Howard, he and his ministers made it clear that extremists would face a crackdown.

Treasurer Peter Costello, seen as heir apparent to Howard, hinted that some radical clerics could be asked to leave the country if they did not accept that Australia was a secular state and its laws were made by parliament.

"If those are not your values, if you want a country, which has Sharia law, or a theocratic state, then Australia is not for you," he said on national television.

"I'd be saying to clerics who are teaching that there are two laws governing people in Australia, one the Australian law and another the Islamic law, that is false. If you can't agree with parliamentary law, independent courts, democracy, and would prefer Sharia law and have the opportunity to go to another country, which practices it, perhaps, then, that's a better option," Costello said.

Asked whether he meant radical clerics would be forced to leave, he said those with dual citizenship could possibly be asked to move to the other country. Education Minister Brendan Nelson later told reporters that Muslims who did not want to accept local values should "clear off".

"Basically, people who don't want to be Australians, and they don't want to live by Australian values and understand them, well then they can basically clear off," he said. Separately, Howard angered some Australian Muslims on Wednesday by saying he supported spy agencies monitoring the nation's mosques.

America and Canada... ARE YOU LISTENING?

Aug. 14, 2006: #1

Breakdown of law and order ...

Obeying the law — Dalton’s going to think about it , By Arthur Weinreb, Associate Editor, Thursday, August 10, 2006
www.canadafreepress.com/2006/weinreb081006.htm

On Tuesday, Justice David Marshall of the Ontario Superior Court issued his latest ruling concerning the land dispute in Caledonia. Marshall ordered that negotiations between the province and the natives cease and that the natives who are illegally occupying the land be removed. (The province has just announced that they will be appealing Judge Marshall’s ruling).

The natives, to no one’s surprise, refused to comply with the order, saying in effect that white man’s laws don’t apply to them. But what did Dear Fearful Leader,otherwise known as Dalton McGuinty, have to say about the lawful order of one of Her Majesty’s justices? [....]

Inadequate security


RCMP unable to pursue organized crime -- report: Lacking manpower ,
www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/story.ht
ml?id=9108679b-3359-4691-911f-b339ab860903

OTTAWA - The RCMP squad that tracks down dirty money and goods obtained through crime cannot pursue the majority of cases it knows about due to lack of manpower, internal documents reveal.

According to an internal evaluation obtained by CanWest News Service, for each case the Mounties' Integrated Proceeds of Crime (IPOC) unit chooses to tackle, "at least four or five others" are ignored because the manpower isn't there.

[....] significant organized crime figures [....]

outlaw motorcycle gangs and Italian, Russian and Asian organized crime.

Although the Conservative government announced in its spring budget $37-million to expand the RCMP's training facilities in Regina and $161-million for prosecutors and 1,000 officers, it is unclear exactly where that money will go. In addition, the Commissioner's testimony revealed the amount likely won't be nearly enough to fulfill the promise.

Malone said the fact IPOC hasn't had a boost since 1996 means numerous cutbacks have been made to operations.

Linda Williamson: Snakes on a plane , Aug. 13, 06, via CNEWS Forum , rosemarie59, 8/13/2006 11:48:22
www.canoe.ca/mb2/messages/cnewsf/11889.html
www.torontosun.com/News/Columnists/Williamson_Linda
/2006/08/12/1751771.html

[....] You’re banned from bringing a bottle of water on board because it could be a bomb in disguise. So instead you’ll buy one on the plane. No biggie.
But where does that bottle of water come from?

“It comes from a caterer’s truck that is driven through a gate where it isn’t inspected — and it gets put on the plane,” says Kenny. Banning liquids “would be fine if the stuff being brought on the plane was being inspected — but it’s not.”

Kenny’s committee has been warning for nearly five years that our airports are plagued by organized crime — criminal gangs involved in thievery, drugs, smuggling. It’s only a matter of time, he argues, before they form an alliance with an Islamist terror group wanting to place weapons or bomb components aboard a plane. (His committee heard evidence that Pearson alone may have been infiltrated by five to seven gangs.) Screening — and training — of these workers is vastly inadequate. [....]

Kenny reminds us that terrorist bombs have already been placed on planes in Canada — twice. [....]

And what has been and still is the mainstream media's big story? The Prime Minister is in the North; he did not attend the command performance of collective hand wringing, the AIDS Conference in Toronto.




The AIDS conference--a few questions not asked

While I would wish AIDS on nobody, I have to shake my head at the hoo-ha that has characterized the opening of the AIDS' conference in Toronto. It did not take the opening speaker long to single out PM Harper as callous and (the secret that does not dare speak its name) homophobic. The fact that he sent his Health Minister does not count. Enough. Here are the questions not being asked, and therefore, not answered, as far as media reports go.

a) Why after 25 years of AIDS being identified in Uganda and the Congo does the continent still suffer from this preventable disease? One that has blown out of control in southern Africa?

b) Why was Prime Minister Harper singled out, when South Africa's President Mbeki has gone on record as refuting the HIV as precursor to AIDS? He holds the novel idea that poverty is the real culprit. Or Mugabe, who gives some treatment only to his loyal followers?

c) Why does the gay community of Canada have so many new cases, when the education on it has been deafening for decades?

d) Who exactly is paying for this extravagant conference?

e) Why does Stephen Lewis insist on demanding retroviral drugs for millions of Africans, when most of that money should go to preventive measures? It worked in Southeast Asia. Is he admitting that the sexual promiscuity which afflicts all of southern Africa is so engrained as to be a permanent feature?

f) Why have the new treatments not been the focus, rather than the plea to empty our wallets for another failed scheme?

g) Why has CBC zeroed in on, and repeatedly mentioned, the 100 African grandmothers--brought at government expense--rather than question why some of them are caretakers for four of their children's children? What caused those four to die? Their own behaviour?

h) Finally, when does the concept of some individual responsiblity for becoming infected kick in?

Bud Talkinghorn--Prime Minister Harper sends his Health Minister, Tony Clement, who is heralded as a man deeply involved in stopping AIDS; yet, Min. Clement is roundly booed by the crowd. His real crime was not being left-wing enough, I gather.


My comment: a timesaver

At least seven times over a two hour period, at a conservative estimate, CBC railed against PM Harper over not attending the AIDS conference. It will be the same all day. The coalition of Liberals, MSM, NDP, assorted leftist groups and the usual hangers on, combined with an international group flown to Toronto to badmouth our PM and try to get money will be reported on ad nauseam today. Enjoy the sun. You know what they're going to say. PM Harper didn't attend the AIDS love-in and bitch session. Oh, woe. The fact that the Minister of Health, Tony Clement was there made absolutely NO DIFFERENCE. The object is to malign the Conservative government. Stephen Lewis makes great sport of it. Who appointed this man? A fool?




Memory Lane: Previous AIDS conference news

How much did it cost to fly 20,000 people in for an AIDS talkfest? Could that money have been better spent? There could have been communication via the internet and telephone. Maybe these people simply wanted a conference and a trip? But Canadians are so 'nice' and they wouldn't say that, would they?

Is enough being done to prevent Aids? , 17 July, 2002, 10:47 GMT 11:47 UK
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi
/talking_point/2082351.stm

There are comments on both sides; I happen to agree with these. Except for children born with AIDS and those who have been infected via blood transfusion, it is a behavioural disease.

[....] I've got a good father dying of prostate cancer and a friend with lung cancer. Ask me if I'm willing to pay more to stop a behaviourally-induced disease in Africa or one that kills people in the USA at a ratio of probably 50:1. It's my tax money and if you don't mind, I'd rather it go towards stopping cancer in the world. Is that saying I don't think Aids is a terrible disease? Of course I do. But you can't give me a valid reason why I should be more worried about Zimbabweans and those from Botswana than my own people. You say it should be because of the turmoil it will cause - Rwanda had 1,000,000 killed just a few years ago. Turmoil is already alive and well there! I pray for the Aids sufferers, but my hand is going out to my own people first. [....]

The US taxpayers should not have to bear the burden of paying for drugs for Aids sufferers all over the world. Aids/HIV is a behavioural disease (except for the case of transfusion victims). Those who CHOOSE abstinence before marriage and faithfulness in marriage have no need to fear. Those who CHOOSE to engage in sexual promiscuity and intravenous drug use have plenty of reasons to fear. People still have not admitted to themselves that sexual promiscuity and intravenous drug use is [sic] the over-riding cause of Aids/HIV. [....]

Alliance for Microbicide Development Weekly Digest
72.14.207.104/search?q=cache:tJrbcWP-1LsJ:
www.microbicide.org/publications/digest
/news.digest.vol5no28.pdf+news,+Toronto,+AIDS
+conference,+promiscuous+or+promiscuity&hl=en&gl=
ca&ct=clnk&cd=5



The safety of residents and protestors are being sacrificed to fear, says Rondi Adamson, Aug. 13, 06
www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar
/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=
1155382991698&call_pageid=
968256290204&col=968350116795

It seems to me a fairly basic tenet of common sense, that bad behaviour should not be rewarded. This is true for children and adults alike. Yet for six months, a band of Six Nations protestors in Caledonia, and some assorted non-native hangers-on, have seen their bad behaviour indulged. [....]

Bob Rae & Power

Bob's brother works for or did work for the Desmarais' Power Corp.

Chretien's daughter, Desmarais family donate thousands to Rae , Tim Naumetz, CanWest News Service, August 14, 2006
www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/story.ht
ml?id=80fa404b-5b8c-4813-a8c9-503d21146eb4

France Chretien-Desmarais, her husband, Andre Desmarais, and his millionaire parents at Montreal's Power Corp. have donated $18,500 to Bob Rae's Liberal leadership bid [....] wealthy donors who gave $1,000 or more.

Bob Rae, are you kidding? , GTAsprawl, 8/13/2006 19:34:34
www.canoe.ca/mb2/messages/cnewsf/11896.html

Yes, who can forget Rae. The man who somehow managed to double Ontario's debt from $45 billion to $90 billion in merely 5 years. He must have taken fiscal policy education from Mulroney and Trudeau.

Husky sheds its 'dog' tag -- 'Everything has come together for them' , Claudia Cattaneo and Jon Harding, Financial Post, August 14, 2006
www.canada.com/nationalpost/financialpost/story.ht
ml?id=509f85af-595d-4c97-a8dc-b19a3d9ac075

Husky, to everyone's surprise, lunged to surpass stalwart Shell Canada Ltd. as Canada's third-largest integrated oil-and-gas company by market capitalization.

The value of Husky in the stock market is now around $34.5-billion, trailing Imperial Oil Ltd. at $43.8-billion and Suncor Energy Inc. at $43.3-billion, but ahead of Shell at $32.8-billion and with a huge lead on Petro-Canada, at $25.8-billion. [....]

Not bad for an investment of just over $800-million by Li Ka-shing, Asia's richest man, who controls 70% of Husky's stock either directly or through his company, Hutchison Whampoa Ltd.

The Li group first bought a 52% stake in Husky from Nova Corp. in 1986 for $487-million. [....]

Search: the SAGD [steam assisted gravity drainage] , persuaded to sell , a deal between Husky and the Chinese




Sensible appointment -- re: Khan , Aug. 13, 06, Ezra Levant
calsun.canoe.ca/News/Columnists
/Levant_Ezra/2006/08/14/1753561.html

[....] He is a true Muslim moderate, and one of the few Canadian Muslims willing to say so publicly, even at risk to himself.

[....] That is, he shows better and more discriminating judgment than the rest of his party, who, under Jean Chretien and Paul Martin, would consort with even the most radical Muslim elements. Even now, the Liberal party has allowed its other Muslim MP from Mississauga, Omar Alghabra, to issue extreme statements to the press, whitewashing Hezbollah terrorism and claiming Israel deliberately hurts civilians.

Khan's agreement to work for Harper is a minor political victory. But it is actually an important step in strengthening moderate Islam in Canada. The Liberals have agreed to tolerate Alghabra and his ilk.

Perhaps that's another reason why Khan felt more at home with Harper and his.

Peter Worthington: This 'war' must be won , Aug. 14, 06
www.torontosun.com/News/Columnists/Worthington_Peter
/2006/08/13/1753038.html

In Canada, we reject the idea of authorities tapping phones or checking e-mails, etc.

But the reality is that we have to sacrifice some rights to privacy for the greater security of the country.

And we have to trust our security forces — CSIS, RCMP, provincial and local police intelligence, even military intelligence — more than we usually do, and certainly more than editorialists, commentators, political activists and civil liberty buffs would prefer.

[....]In fact, a case can be made that Canada’s security, as well as Britain’s and perhaps America’s, depends on Muslims who know better than anyone where extremism is being fomented, what’s being said in the mosques, and perhaps what’s being planned.

Search: the tipoff for the arrests in this suspected airline-boming plot , the source of this terror threat



Report: Terror infiltrates London schools -- "a number of links between an alleged terrorist attack and a number of area universities", LONDON, Aug. 13 (UPI)
www.upi.com/NewsTrack/view.php?
StoryID=20060813-073404-3556r

Such evidence is said to confirm that the nation's universities have become a recruiting area for terrorists, attracting student-age Muslims.

Brunel University Professor Anthony Glees has said that over the past 15 years a number of extremist Muslim groups have been discovered at over 20 British institutions, the newspaper said, and the universities have done little to address the problem.

RCMP plan move to old JDS space , August 12, 2006, Alex Hebert
www.ottawasun.com/News/National
/2006/08/12/1750580-sun.html

The federal government announced yesterday its plans to relocate the RCMP National Headquarters -- a choice that has been a long time coming with its fair share of controversy.

The headquarters will move from its Vanier Pkwy. location to the old JDS Uniphase campus located at 3000 Merivale Rd. in about two years. [....]

Wilfully blind to terror's source, Lorne Gunter, National Post, August 14, 2006
www.canada.com/nationalpost/news
/issuesideas/story.ht
ml?id=8d028aa1-4eaa-425f-9621-eacfda7c9fd9

[....] It increases the chances we will be victims of terror attacks when we pretend not to see the real impetus of almost all current terror.

Of course the problem is not with Islam itself, only with how a large minority of Islam has metastasized in recent decades. [....]

Yet only Muslims can rid their faith of the cancer within without a war.

So much for peace ... Get ready for the next war ...

Hamas Columnist: Hizbullah's Victory in Lebanon Opens the Door for a Third Intifada , August 13, 2006, Special Dispatch Series - No. 1246, via newsbeat1
memri.org/bin/latestnews.cgi?ID=SD124606

In his August 7, 2006 column in the Hamas semiweekly Al-Risala, under the title "Victory in Lebanon – Towards a Third Intifada," Ibrahim Abu Heija' encourages Hamas to use what he sees as Hizbullah's victory as a springboard for a third Palestinian intifada.

The following are excerpts from the article:(1)

"The Greatest Beneficiary [of the Victory in Lebanon] Will Ultimately Be the Palestinian Resistance"

"What has become evident from the ongoing battles in the proud and resistant south of Lebanon is the confirmation of Israel's failure in achieving its goals and the confirmation of the decline in its deterrence capability in comparison with what it was before it got embroiled in the Lebanese quagmire – despite the bloody slaughters that Israel committed against unarmed civilians...

"What is noteworthy here is not only the collapse of the Israeli defense doctrine in the face of a well-organized community possessed of faith and will, such as Hizbullah, but what is more important in the Israeli loss is to examine the consequences of the victory and its implications on additional levels.

"Hizbullah, which achieved the victory, will be the least of those who benefit from this victory, due to certain considerations relevant to the Lebanese arena, which is based on sectarian division. This does not mean that it will not gain greater strength and legitimacy than it had before, particularly since the Israeli aggression, as is evident, proceeds without direction and without any reckoning of consequences, and therefore gets itself entangled in guerilla warfare, in which Hizbullah is unsurpassed in its skill, and has a Syrian and Iranian backing that denies it nothing in terms of arms, money, support, and protection.

Baby bomb plot chilling: Keelty , Aug. 14, 06
www.smh.com.au/news/national
/baby-bomb-plot-chilling-keelty
/2006/08/14/1155407701800.html

[....] Scotland Yard police are questioning a husband and wife who allegedly planned to hide a liquid bomb in their baby's bottle to bring down an airliner, newspaper reports said.

They are among the 23 suspects arrested over the plot to blow up airliners headed for the United States in mid-flight.

Mr Keelty today expressed dismay at the alleged plan to use a child in a suicide mission.

"The phenomena of suicide bombings as a new way of taking part in terror attacks is in itself concerning, but to think or imagine that anybody would use an innocent child to join them is even more disconcerting," he told the Nine Network. [....]

National Review Online asked “What should Americans be thinking about the foiled London terror plot?”

article.nationalreview.com/?q=
OWE3ZmVmMWJjMjY1MjhiZjE1YzExN2I1YmUzYzNlZWY

Plans Destroyed -- A terror plot foiled; experts react., by Daniel Pipes, National Review Online, August 11, 2006
www.danielpipes.org/article/3846

[....] (2) Airplanes represent an outdated target because passenger screening techniques quickly adapt to threats. As soon as terrorists implement new techniques (box-cutters, shoe-bombs, liquid components), security promptly blocks them. (One cannot but wonder, however, why creatively, cops invariably lag behind criminals.) Conversely, trains, subways, and buses, as shown by attacks in Madrid, London, and Bombay, offer far richer opportunities for terrorists, for access to them can never be so strictly controlled as to aircraft.

(3) Massive terror plots of this sort (another example: the "Toronto 17" arrested in June) are unwieldy and more easily uncovered than small-scale terror that involves only one or two persons. The Beltway Snipers, who in October 2002 terrorized the Washington, D.C., area, offer a prime counterexample. [....]

"Illegals to be held on prison hulk"
www.danielpipes.org/blog/640

The Australian acquired tender documents issued by the Australian Customs Service to build an armed, purpose-built prison ship to hold illegal asylum-seekers (and fishermen) intercepted in national waters for up to a month. Worried that patrol vessels must make long voyages returning to port after intercepting each illegal boat, customs seeks to lease a civilian vessel to serve as a floating detention centre. The ship will be leased for A$10 million a year. The specifications are of interest: [....]

Mother lashes out at Taliban at slain son's funeral
news.sympatico.msn.cbc.ca/National
/ContentPosting.aspx?feed
name=CBC-CANADA-V2&newsitemid=
soldiers-afghanistan&showbyline=True

"I make this simple request to the Afghan people: Reach out and grab on to the help we offer to you in good faith. Together, and only together, can we succeed," she said.

"To one and all, I have this request. Please support our troops, they need you standing behind them."

Cpl. [Christopher] Reid, 34, a member of the Edmonton-based 1st Battalion of the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, was killed by a roadside bomb near Kandahar on Aug. 3, weeks before he was scheduled to return home.

Dedicated soldier

At the funeral service, he was remembered as a fun-loving and dedicated soldier.

To all serving in Afghanistan, thank you. For those who have died, requiescat in pace.


How I spent my summer vacation, by Iggy, Arthur Weinreb, Aug. 8, 06
www.canadafreepress.com/2006
/weinreb080806.htm

While arrogance is a job requirement for the leader of the Liberal Party, his absence from Canada in itself would be no big deal if Ignatieff spouted the party line on foreign affairs; the one that says there is no difference between right and wrong; between terrorist groups and sovereign nations; only "neutrality" where Canada can be the "honest broker" whatever that trendy phrase means.

Photos: Congratulations, Canada Free Press on your politically incorrect exclusive.

Have you seen these men? -- CFP was the only site to run with the pictures of the AWOL Egyptian students , By Douglas J. Hagmann, Northeast Intelligence Network, & Judi McLeod, Thursday, August 10, 2006
www.canadafreepress.com/2006/hagmann081006.htm

A proud Canada Free Press moment , By Judi McLeod, Friday, August 11, 2006
www.canadafreepress.com/2006/judi-mcleod081106.htm

I just heard that all the students have been located.




This is simply shocking. There is a petition in support of these men. Read their story here. Border Patrol, via newsbeat1, Aug. 13, 06
local2544.org/

Border Patrol Agents Railroaded by OIG & U.S. Attorney - 08-06-06 If you think the Federal government won't go after you with everything they have for doing your job, you need to read this story. As we all know, it's usually the hardest working agents who get into the most "trouble". Ms. Kanof, the AUSA who went after these two agents said this, in support of her case: "It is a violation of Border Patrol regulations to go after someone who is fleeing" and "The Border Patrol pursuit policy prohibits the pursuit of someone." Yes, Ms. Kanof, that's why we refer to it as the "Border Patrol Non-Pursuit Policy". Any smuggler worth his salt knows that he should run like hell when he sees the red and blue lights come on, and that we generally aren't supposed to chase him. OIG, the AUSA, and some local agencies have no higher glory than going after a Border Patrol agent. These two agents obviously made a few mistakes (not reporting that you fired your weapon is usually a 5-day suspension), but twenty years in prison? Read the entire story here

[.... Note that there is an update and a suggestion.] Please click here to sign the petition.

The story sounds like shoddy treatment ... but read and decide for yourself.



Standing guard -- "his team has put a "significant dent" in the number of aliens crossing into his sector, with the daily count dropping from 150 to fewer than 20.", Jerry Seper, WashTimes, Aug. 13, 06
www.washingtontimes.com/specialreport
/20060813-122221-1268r.htm

[....] 'Eye-opening' service

All of the 6,199 Guard troops stationed in the border states volunteered for the mission. Among them is Spc. Travis Arnold of the Wisconsin National Guard, who also served a year in Iraq. He says he plans to help secure the border for two years.

"This certainly has been an eye-opening experience," Spc. Arnold says. "Immigration is not a huge issue in Wisconsin. It was the sheer number of people coming over that border that surprised me the most. I had no idea how many people jump that fence every day." [....]

Last year, the Tucson sector accounted for about half of the 1.15 million illegal aliens apprehended on America's southern and northern borders -- about 1,300 arrests every day. [....]

When you hear someone say that Canadians are a kinder, gentler, compassionate society ... think "blinking fools". The dole works here too.

Terror on the dole, By David Cohen, Evening Standard, 20 April 2004
www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/londonnews
/articles/10329634?version=1

[.... Abu Malaahim, the IT specialist] I would like to see the Mujahideen coming into London and killing thousands, whether with nuclear weapons or germ warfare. And if they need a safehouse, they can stay in mine - and if they need some fertiliser [for a bomb], I'll tell them where to get it."

[.... Sayful Islam] He would go on to marry, have two children and find work as an accountant for the Inland Revenue in Luton. He was thoroughly uninterested in politics.

THEN he met Sheikh Omar Bakri Mohammad at a local event. Within two years, he had swapped his decently paid job as an accountant for an unpaid one as a political agitator. [....]

He no longer works, even though he is able-bodied, he admits, preferring instead to claim housing benefit and jobseeker's allowance. He smiles sheepishly and says the irony is not lost on him that the British state is supporting him financially, even as he plots to "overthrow it".

[....] According to Sayful, the aim of al-Muhajiroun ("the immigrants") is nothing less than Khilafah - "the worldwide domination of Islam". The way to achieve this, he says, is by Jihad, led by Bin Laden. "I support him 100 per cent."

Does that support extend to violent acts of terrorism in the UK?

"Yes," he replies, unequivocally. "When a bomb attack happens here, I won't be against it, even if it kills my own children. Islam is clear: Muslims living in lands that are occupied have the right to attack their invaders. [....]

Teen stabbed to death at party, Sarah McGinnis, Calgary Herald, August 13, 2006
www.canada.com/calgaryherald/news/story.ht
ml?id=095d3d0c-dea9-43a0-9bec-
872c2ade7258&k=58153

Two parties at neighbouring houses in which both sets of parents had left town escalated into a deadly stabbing late Friday in an upscale section of Hawkwood.

[....] Raul Pavon Flores, 18, has been charged with second-degree murder and attempted murder.

Years ago, parents did not leave teenagers home alone, for any reason. They knew. Tempus fugit ... and along with it, common sense. I have heard of teens who, when they heard that a teenager was home alone, would descend on, party, and trash the place. Surely, that should tell parents that teens have a problem with balancing being liked, friends, the home and their own safety.



Just as the Middle East, for Canada's MSM, has no terrorists, only militants, in the US, the News Media and FBI refuse to call Seattle attack on Jewish Center terrorism
www.freerepublic.com/focus
/f-news/1674980/posts


Operation Traffick Jam: Nine are charged in alleged sex ring -- Asian women forced into prostitution, prosecutors say , Scott Gutierrez, Apr. 11, 06
seattlepi.nwsource.com/local
/280920_forcedsex11.html

[....] One of the main suspects, Yong Jun Kang, 36, of Seattle, told a police informant that the women were smuggled in shipping containers, and sometimes taken across the border from British Columbia. Some agreed to pay as much as $50,000 for the trip, court documents say.

[....] Most of the suspects are Chinese citizens. The women came from China, Korea, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, Japan, Taiwan and Laos, officials said. [....]

These names are mentioned: Pengquan Xie, Zheng Qu, Zhenhua Liu, Bing Wang, Liancheng Ning, Kesheng Zhu, Rujing Jiang

What does that list tell you about security in Canada?



Media

Stop the Muslim propaganda machine - STOP! , June 7, 06, Burton Front -- re an editorial in the Daily Gleaner (Irving newspaper) of June 6, 06
burtonfront.blogspot.com/2006/06
/stop-muslim-propaganda-machine-stop.html

The editorial in the Fredericton Daily Gleaner yesterday was classic exempt media pablum. Their headline, "People of all religions deserve respect" was another example of media duplicity in all its patronising glory. Yep, I said patronising. Who the hell do the writers of the Daily Gleaner think they are fooling? Who in the world were they addressing with their editorial? And, where were the Gleaner editorials about respecting Christian minorities in Iran, Saudia Arabia, Yemen, Egypt, Turkey, Pakistan and Indonesia. Where? I will tell you where: nowhere! [....]

Bingo!



Global Transformations -- re: Globalization
www.polity.co.uk/global/authors.htm




Diversion -- via a friend. Thanks, J. To be taken with a grain of salt.

These quotes were taken from actual USA Federal employee performance
evaluations ...

"Since my last report, this employee has reached rock bottom and has started to dig."

"His men would follow him anywhere, but only out of morbid curiosity"

"I would not allow this employee to breed"

"This employee is really not so much of a has-been, but more of a definite
won't be"

"Works well when under constant supervision and cornered like a rat in a
trap"

"When she opens her mouth, it seems that it is only to change feet"

"He would be out of his depth in a parking lot puddle"

"This young lady has delusions of adequacy"

"He sets low personal standards and then consistently fails to achieve them"

"This employee is depriving a village somewhere of an idiot"

"This employee should go far, and the sooner the better"

"Got a full 6-pack, but lacks the plastic thing to hold it all together"

"A gross ignoramus - 144 times worse than an ordinary ignoramus"

"He certainly takes a long time to make his pointless"

"He doesn't have ulcers, but he's a carrier"

"I would like to go hunting with him sometime"

"He's been working with glue too much"

"He would argue with a signpost"

"He has knack for making strangers immediately"

"He brings a lot of joy whenever he leaves the room"

"When his IQ reaches 50, he should sell"

"If you see 2 people talking and one looks bored, he's the other one"

"A photographic memory but with the cap over the lens"

"A prime candidate for natural deselection"

"Donated his brain to science before he was done using it"

"Gates are down, the lights are flashing, but the train isn't coming"

"Has 2 brains, one is lost, the other is out looking for it"

"If he were any more stupid, he'd have to be watered twice a week"

"If you give him a penny for his thoughts, you'd get change"

"If you stand close enough to him, you can hear the ocean"

"It's hard to believe that he beat out 1,000 other sperm"

"One neuron short of a synapse"

"Some drink from the fountain of knowledge, he only gargled"

"Takes him 12 hours to watch 60 Minutes"

"The wheel is turning, but the hamster is dead"