Mar. 27, 2007: Bud Talkinghorn

Multiculturalism and the death of democracy

The liberal elite have succeeded in fostering the idea that the diversity that multiculturalism brings is a positive addition to Canadian culture. Look at all the colourful costumes and foreign delicacies that visible minorities have introduced into "white bread" Canada, they proclaim. Furthermore, they say, the widely divergent cultural attitudes towards equality and liberty that do not go along with our past beliefs will only make us more inclusive and expand democracy. Obnoxious cultural beliefs such as honour killings, forced marriages, female exclusion and genital mutilation, the dowry system and religious hatreds will wither away over time. That our greatest terrorist plots have been linked to Sikhs and Muslims (second generation at that) is put down to aberrations. Considering that the champion of multiculturalism, the CBC, was a target for car bombing is simply not discussed at all, nor was the CBC poll that showed only 73% of Canadian-Muslims could completely condemn the Toronto terrorist plot. So deluded was CBC that they even tried to paint this horrifying statistic as a plus.

The idea that our new Third World immigrants should welcome our Western concepts of female equality, rule of law, and scientific rationalism is quickly becoming passe. Any attempt to make these concepts stick is dismissed as racism or ethno-centric neo-colonialism. Shakespeare and all those dead old white historians and philosphers must not be elevated above aboriginal oral song poems nor any non-white traditional narratives. Somehow the contradictions between the abolition of Western values in favour of promoting a hodge-podge of immigrant customs are never logically explained as a good thing.

A case in point is the complete distruction of the National Organization of Women. This was a government funded organization that was supposed to advance the equality of all Canadian women, but turned into a claque of "women of colour", who excoriated what white women stood for. It went from being headed by Judy Rebbick, a New York Jewess, to Sunara Thobani, a transplanted East-Indian, to Barbara Grant-Cummings, a Barbadian-Canadian, to (name lost to me), an Aboriginal woman. Not only is this organization not reflective of all Canadian women, its voice is so stridently connected to leftist, racial identity politics that it doesn't even champion the concerns of visible minority women. Yet the left still demands that taxpayers keep on amply funding it. [Does it still exist?]

In his blog, entitled "How Multiculturalism Took Over America", Lawrence Auster (FrontPageMagazine.com, July 9, 2004) gives us the straight talk on what multiculturalism has wrought. His opening salvo is in the form of a supposition. He asks you to imagine a large population of Italian-Americans moving en masse into a Muslim country and demanding that the host country drop all public observations of its religion. When the majority religion gets upset, the Italians reply that they are merely enriching the country with diversity, and if they change some of their laws and traditional customs to accommodate we newcomers that will only doubly "enrich" them. Reverse this scenario and you have the Charter-driven Canadian model. We can't even rid ourselves of the gangsters and terrorists who gain entry into our country.

While Austen gives examples from America, most have applicablity to Canada. The liberal media and the universities have had the same pernicious effects on our Western culture. Lost to reason is that these visible minorities have fled their repressive and corrupt countries for life here. If they have to give up some of their more negative religious and tribal customs, that is the price they should pay. There is no reverse migration to their countries because most are failed, or semi-failed states, with no freedom or chance of economic growth. You only go to Saudi Arabia or any other totalitarian state if the company gives you a huge salary boost, plus a "hardship allowance". Yet we allow the negative aspects of these foreign cultures to entrench themselves in Canada. And as the massive influx of these cultures continues, they will eventually demand entrenchment of these beliefs into law.

I highly recommend the lengthy article by Lawrence Auster [see below], as he rigorously lays out the dangerous path we are on. Already, we have seen massive demonstrations in the United States calling for "No one is illegal". The immigrant lobbies and the loonie-left have picked up that refrain here. Our wonderful culture is under ferocious attack and we retreating on many fronts. We must stop this before it is too late. And it is already late in the day.

© Bud Talkinghorn


A must read

Lawrence Auster: How Multiculturalism Took Over America ... , FrontPage magazine.com , July 9, 2004

www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=14164

Some years ago the Harvard sociologist Nathan Glazer declared that "we are all multiculturalists now." One's initial response to such an unwanted announcement is to say: "What do you mean, 'we'?" Yet, even if "we" do not subscribe to that sentiment, it cannot be denied that over the last twenty years multiculturalism has become the ruling idea of America, incarnated in every area of society ranging from educational curricula to the quasi-official establishment of foreign languages, to mandated racial proportionality schemes in private employment and university admissions, to the constant invocations by our political, business, and intellectual elites of "diversity" as the highest American value. How, so quickly and effortlessly, did this alien belief system take over our country? In this article, I look at multiculturalism as an ideology that has advanced itself by means of a set of propositions. My intent is to examine the false arguments of the multiculturalists themselves, and to see how they have used these arguments to fool an all-too-willing American majority to go along with them.

The Fraud of Inclusion [....]

There is much more. For example from Lawrence Auster: continued , FrontPage magazine.com , July 9, 2004

Example 5.
The more outspoken multiculturalists—i.e., the articulate ideologues of the left—will admit that the cultures they want to "include" in the American culture are radically at odds with it. Diversity consultant Edwin J. Nichols teaches the following model explaining the divergent intellectual styles of ethnic groups:

The Philosophical Aspects of Cultural Difference:

European and Euro-American: Member-Object; the highest value lies in the object or in the acquisition of the object.

African, Afro-American, Native American, Hispanics, Arabs: Member-Member. The highest value lies in the inter-personal relationship between persons.

Asian, Asian-American, Polynesian: Member-Group. The highest value lies in the cohesiveness of the group.

Native American: Member-Great Spirit. The highest values lies in oneness with the Great Spirit.(5)

Observe how Nichols portrays the Western orientation in negative terms ("Member-Object," "acquisition") that suggest cold selfishness and materialism, while he describes the non-Western cultures in positive terms ("inter-personal relationship," "group cohesiveness," "oneness with the Great Spirit") that suggest warmth and humanity. Yet Nichols' very attempt to debunk the West and praise the non-West has the opposite effect from what he intends, since the unpleasant-sounding phrase "Member-Object" is really a way of describing the Western belief in objective truth—the very basis of Western religion, science, philosophy, law, and government. [....]

Auster explores the myths, ending with "Moderate Myth Number Six: The 'Equality' That Becomes 'Diversity'"



Nipigong, Myanmar -- Burma

Did you see the BBC news item showing the new Burmese capital, Nipigong? It is set in the middle of a nowhere dusty plain, with six lane avenues, sweeping gates (painted in garish colours) and wedding cake palaces--all stunningly grotesque. Something that even Ceaucescu couldn't have dreamed up. Right up there with Mobuto's new capital, whose international airport is now almost totally reclaimed by the jungle. The Burmese military junta will probably demand that you take a trip there before being allowed to visit Pagan. After all, they poured billions into it. The march of folly never ends.

© Bud Talkinghorn


"Go, tigers, go!"--Motto of the World Wildlife Fund

Well, don't go so far that big game hunters can't blow them pesky critters to smithereens. It seems that this champion of the salt water croc, the koala bear, and the tiger has limits to its largesse. It turns out that one of India's premier tiger sanctuaries was actually used as a shooting gallery. The top administrator admitted that he had fudged the tiger tally for years. There weren't 4,560 tigers in the reserve, but probably no more than a thousand and a half were left [1500]. The administrator said he sold licences to hunters. So much for the "Save the Tiger" fund.

Being a cat lover, I had actually contributed to this cause. Therefore, I took particular umbrage at this obscene fraud. Somehow the Aga Khan, who is one of the WWF's great sponsors, remained untarnished by this scandal. But Khan is a man who knows how to cultivate the leftist club of the U.N. Just to stay with the animal theme, he has many tentacles in high places.

You want to support the feline world? Put out a tin of cat food for the woods cats.

© Bud Talkinghorn



WWFKF

WorldWideFeedKittiesFund -- a new charity idea -- If you would like to improve upon this idea, leave a comment. It's for the good of the kitties.

All donations to the WWFKF charity gratefully accepted. We accept loonies, if you don't have millions ... or even hundreds to give away for the good of the kitties.

Memo to the GG: If it's good enough for millionaires and billionaires, it's good enough for Canucks, you know, the rest of us who live in Canuckistan. One of us who contributes to the WWFKF expects to be honoured with an Order of Canada, Humanities award. We're going to run a lottery -- a buck a ticket -- ticket to be drawn by someone with a spotless ticket drawing reputation, the owner of the local corner store, probably.

Note: This is a New Charity, developing, as we speak; official charity status, soon come, sure to come. If it's good enough for the Khadrs to set up a charitable foundation, to say nothing of coming to the notice of a former PM, it's good enough for those of us here for generations. We affirm that no money will be sent to jihadis abroad; all monies collected will be only for kitties ... well, maybe the odd liquid bash to admire and pet kitties. We save Heinz 57 kitties with liquid eyes.

Founded by Frosty, kitty lover, member of the hoi polloi and from the lower end of the charity spectrum.

Mar. 25, 2007: Poll question for you

Online poll:

Is Canada's New Government headed in the right direction on the environment?

Yes - 52%

No - 39%

Undecided - 9%

Express yourself online: Do you think Budget 2007 will achieve results that will help build a Stronger, Safer, Better Canada?

www.victoews.com

Mar. 25, 2007: A Dangerous Tolerance

The dangers of tolerance
Accepting views opposed to freedom and western lifestyle emboldens extremists , Licia Corbella, Mar. 25, 2007

calsun.canoe.ca/News/Columnists/
Corbella_Licia/2007/03/25/3828492-sun.html

In the same week Farzana Hassan was threatened with death, Quebec's chief electoral officer said Muslim women who wear the niqab would not have to show their faces to confirm their identities at the ballot box.

Excellent. A must read article


Giving in is not "reasonable accommodation"; it is appeasement.

Lift face veils or don't vote, Quebec tells Muslims
Faced with death threats, public outrage, chief electoral officer reverses decision Tu Thanh Ha, Ingrid Peritz, Bertrand Marotte, Mar. 24, 2007


www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/
LAC.20070324.QUEBEC24/TPStory/Front

TROIS-RIVIÈRES, QUE., MONTREAL AND SAINT-EUSTACHE, QUE. -- With three days left in one of the most tightly contested elections in decades, Quebec's electoral officer yesterday reversed his decision to allow Muslim women to vote without having to lift their face veils to identify themselves.

Chief Electoral Officer Marcel Blanchet invoked emergency powers to change his mind on one of the controversial minority-rights issues that have roiled the campaign and led to death threats, public outrage and repeated criticism by Parti Québécois Leader André Boisclair.

Mr. Blanchet said his office had been inundated with calls and emails about his decision to allow women to wear the niqab when they voted.

Search: resentment of minorities

Actually, Quebec is the only province that could get away with standing up to Muslims who are encroaching more and more upon the values and traditions of our society, apparently in order to replace them with theirs, the ultimate aim being to change our society. Many have stated they want to make the West Islamic.

This always starts in seemingly insignificant ways; up to now, Canadians have tried to accommodate them. Or it starts with with charges of "discrimination" and people have bent over backwards in fairness to accommodate this minority. It has to end. Thanks to Quebeckers who don't take much pushing from anyone, once they get their backs up, Quebeckers almost invariably win because they have a positive sense of their own culture, less likely to have been subjected to the global guilt classes so prevalent in anglophone schools. Quebec's response is good news for the rest of us. They have done us a service. The time has come for the rest of Canada, TROC, to develop a collective backbone. Based on our Judeo-Christian tradition, Canadians have a Western culture worth protecting, one of freedom and democracy. We all must protect it from those who would attempt to change it. Freedom needs light to breathe.

While campaigning in the Magdalen Islands, Liberal Leader Jean Charest supported the chief electoral officer's decision, saying it did not infringe on religious rights and remained an issue of proper identification of voters.

Shama Naz, a 30-year-old Montrealer who wears a niqab, said the issue has been blown out of proportion. She said Muslim women routinely remove their face veils for security matters. She has done so for her Medicare card photo, and each time she crosses the border to visit her father in New York State.

Related editorial: Voters and the niqab -- Muslim student's refusal uncovers debate , Mar. 24, 2007

www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/
LAC.20070324.ENIQAB24/TPStory/Editorials

Anyone who reads Frost Hits the Rhubarb may guess at the position of the Globe and Mail.




No nude drawings, no art credit , Michael Valpy, Mar. 24, 2007

www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/
LAC.20070324.UWO24/TPStory/National

Draw nudes or don't take the course. Refuse to draw nudes once you're in the course and you fail.

Ms. Mahmud brought a letter from the university's Muslim chaplain stating that prolonged exposure to the nude body of a person who was not one's marital partner was contrary to Islamic teaching. She was willing to take a zero for the part of the course that involved nude drawing. [....]

A report on discrimination against Muslim students made public this week by the Canadian Federation of Students calls it "one of the most egregious stories" of a university refusing to accommodate diversity

[....] "It's hard for us to see how equal treatment means we can say to some students, 'No, I'm sorry you have to read that novel that portrays homosexuality in a favourable light -- but, no, you don't have to do that drawing.' "

Which is evil?

The nude body or Iraq insurgents used children in car bombing: general , Mar 20, 2007

www.forumsvibe.com/elwoodpdowd/view
topic.php?t=3317&mforum=elwoodpdowd

Insurgents in Iraq detonated an explosives-rigged vehicle with two children in the back seat after US soldiers let it through a Baghdad checkpoint over the weekend, a senior US military official said Tuesday.

The vehicle was stopped at the checkpoint but was allowed through when soldiers saw the children in the back, said Major General Michael Barbero of the Pentagon's Joint Staff.

"Children in the back seat lowered suspicion. We let it move through. They parked the vehicle, and the adults ran out and detonated it with the children in the back," Barbero said.

... the first time he had seen a report of insurgents using children in suicide bombings. But he said Al-Qaeda in Iraq is changing tactics ...

A US defense official said the incident occurred on Sunday in Baghdad's Adhamiyah district, a mixed neighborhood adjacent to Sadr City, which is predominantly Shiite.

... parked next to a market across the street from a school, [....]

Mar. 25, 2007: Follow the money ...

Behind every good man, as the saying goes, there is a good woman.

Behind global warming guru Al Gore is global warming guru mastermind Maurice Strong.

[....] The untouchable “Father Earth” is chairman of the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX) the world’s first trader in greenhouse credits.

Search: depopulationist , Machiavelli , fire hazard , Chery , David Rockefeller

Source: Gore & Strong shadowship:
Somebody should turn the lights on , By Judi McLeod, March 23, 2007

www.canadafreepress.com/2007/cover032307.htm

Related:

# Gore Welcomed By Protesters During Toronto Visit

www.citynews.ca/news/news_9024.aspx

# Gore pays for photo after Canada didn't

www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/story.ht
ml?id=5961259b-de08-4532-850b-09d4753bed39

Mar. 25, 2007: Protection and Promotion

The right to promote means this will burgeon. The linguistic, native, academic and arts communities must be thrilled with this.

An important step in the fight for cultural diversity , Beverley J. Oda, National Post, March 21, 2007

www.canada.com/nationalpost/
news/editorialsletters/story.ht
ml?id=35e466f1-935a-46cd-97eb-bc1bb1dc6b62

Beverley J. Oda is the Minister of Canadian Heritage and Status of Women.

Canadians should enthusiastically welcome the UNESCO Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions, which came into force on Sunday.

[....] The Convention will be a valuable tool for our country and other signatories. This treaty, which reaffirms the right of states to adopt and maintain policies that encourage cultural expression, will help us promote the growth of cultural industries in Canada and around the world. By recognizing both the social and the economic nature of cultural goods and services, the Convention gives our artists and creators the flexibility needed to continue sharing their stories with Canadians and the rest of the world. In return, Canadians will be able to have rich and diverse access to cultural works from our country and elsewhere.

With the entry into force of the Convention on March 18, we are taking a significant step. However, we must now turn our attention to implementation. Once again, we are counting on the support of our partners within Canada and around the world. We will continue to demonstrate leadership internationally so that our position is well understood -- particularly at the First Conference of Parties, to be held by the summer of 2007. [....]

Ah, wonderful ... the right to set up multicultural, academic, education and native departments to teach a Heinz Ketchup of languages ... Rights to special schools coming up ... If you don't think that's coming, do a little reading. If almost no-one knows an almost dead language, if there is practically no language left to teach, and if those who know those few words are hardly literate, all the better. We'll create a reasonable facimile. The modern thousand varieties of languages coming up. Oh, yes, working Canadians may work to pay for it, particularly if you speak English. You may also pay for the ads the government will run to convince doubters that if one parent speaks the language of power in Canada, then they really should enrol their precious bundle and budding linguistic success story in their schools. They will be creating new schools to accommodate those new languages which they will staff, as well, and they will invite your child to attend too. Create a need and academics and bureaucrats will fill it. If there is no need, they'll create that for you too.


Note: I didn't even get into the plans by the arts communities. Scroll down FHTR the week beginning Jan. 29, 2006.

I suspect Min. Oda means well but she will learn, if she hasn't already.

Mar. 21, 2007: Totally absorbing

Update: Mar. 24, 2007

The day after the url above was posted, the website had disappeared. The website might have been down. It seems to be all right now, so try it again.

Total‘s CEO charged in Iran probe , Pierre-Antoine Souchard, AP, March 22, 2007

www.localnewsleader.com/elytimes/
stories/index.php?action=fullnews&id=84851

PARIS - An investigating judge filed preliminary charges Thursday against the chief executive of Total SA in a corruption case linked to a 1997 contract with Iran , the company and judicial officials said.

De Margerie, who replaced Thierry Desmarest as Total‘s CEO in mid-February, was released after two days of questioning in the case. However, he is forbidden to meet with certain people during the investigation, the officials said without elaborating.

De Margerie is also targeted in an investigation into Total‘s activities in Iraq.

[....] Total is suspected of having indirectly paid commissions into two accounts of a Swiss citizen of Iranian origin acting as an intermediary, according to judicial officials. Tens of millions of dollars allegedly passed through the accounts before ending up in an account of a Persian Gulf country, the officials said.

Double click to enlarge, back to return.




Total

transnationale.org

transnationale.org/companies/total.php

The list at the left below concerns the ethical rating of Total.




Technip is owned by Total and listed in the above screen capture. Technip is operating in Newfoundland. More here: Frost Hits the Rhubarb April 22, 2005

Search: Technip

There are several entries.

End of Update




Totally intriguing

Check carefully the Total menu at left and don't miss what is available if you move the sliders to reveal more information: ownership, CEO's-managers-directors (See 1999), world locations and manufacturing, subsidiaries owned, shareholder country and related information in revealing gifs explained at left.

And then, there is Addax & Oryx for added absorption

Mar. 21, 2007: Budget

Budget: Organized alphabetically by topic of interest

www.budget.gc.ca/2007/bp/topicse.html

I have noted a positive change in the government of Canada websites; we can actually find information since the advent of the CPC government.

Mar. 20, 2007: Bud Talkinghorn

Surveillance and Superbugs


Surveillance--courtesy of Britain's Big Brother

We saw this coming years ago, as a few thousand public area cameras were mounted in high crime areas of the British urban areas. Well, those "few" have swelled to a few hundred thousand cameras, and they are not just in in the slums of London or Manchester. They have been embraced by shire towns across Britain. In their highest density positions, you can be photographed hundreds of times in a given day. Not content with that Orwellian snooping, they have introduced loud speakers to the cameras, so they can command you (at ear-splittting decibel levels) to stop some behaviour--like stealing or vandalizing ... or surrepitiously picking your nose or scratching some more private bodily part. The almost laughable nanny state has morphed into something far more sinister. One of the great scenes in Orwell's "1984" was when Winston Smith was watching the state-mandated morning exercise on TV. Suddenly a harsh female voice screams from the TV, "Winston Smith, number 2995, you are not properly doing your exercises." As Smith's approved vice is smoking Victory cigarettes, he has to wheeze his way through the routine. Can Britain be far behind this once-fictious control mechanism?

Therefore, we should vigourously oppose our police introducing this method. It always starts off as a law and order issue, but can easily devolves into constant surveillance of your every day public outings. Next thing you know it is, "Citizen, you are walking your cat around the block without the designated pooper-scooper at hand. Go back to your house now."

© Bud Talkinghorn--It's a slippery slope indeed.

Wait until what you do in your free time is monitored for its impact upon the company's image. But hasn't that already happened to a teacher in BC who wrote a letter to a newspaper, in his private capacity, concerning homosexuality and affirmation of it? Dr. Kempling? Check.


Superbugs

No antibiotic bullets left to meet the new plagues

The National Post (Monday, Mar. 18, 2007) ran a truely frightening story entitled "Superbugs: just out there on the street". What we saw with SARS is happening again. The hospital "superbugs", such as C Difficile, drug-resistent staph, and E. coli and a very pesky pneumonia are moving on to your local mall. The implications of these deadly diseases becoming epidemic is almost beyond imagination. Soaring death rates, economic depression and self-imposed isolation of the populous are but a few of the dire consequences.

The overuse of antibiotics, insufficient drug research and the natural evolution of bacteria and viruses has caught us flatfooted. According to Dr. Robert Hancock, director of microbial diseases research for UBC, we are not prepared for these diseases. Antibiotic funding and research has not been given the priority it deserves. He quotes some interesting statistics. "One in twenty E-coli cases in intensive care is now virtually untreatable and AIDS funding has outstripped that of antibiotics by 7 to 1, AIDS in North America kills about 10,000 people a year, while antibiotic-resistent diseases kills 90,000." Most of those occur in hospital patients, so what will be the death toll when it lurks on public surfaces? Going shopping without a hazmat suit on will be considered fullfilling some death wish. Black Monday will be the new blue Monday at the work site.

It is time the federal and provincial governments start to address this looming crisis. Much more money and effort has to be put into finding stronger antibiotic drugs. The hospitals, in the meantime, must all start enforcing strict hygenic control. That can start with their staffs, who have been shown to be inexcusably lax about basic hygiene such as bathroom handwashing. Doctors have to refuse antibiotics for viral diseases. Immigration must begin to refuse entry to immigrants or refugees, who carry multi-resistent forms of TB, which Dr. Hancock states, "is the most deadly organism on the planet." We used to screen immigrants and refugees for TB, but that sensible health precation probably was overruled after social activists complained it was "too insensitive". I knew years ago that many diseases had shown resistence to Vancomycin, the top line antibiotic, but the extent of the problem was a mystery until now. I thank The National Post for this timely warning. Wash those hands, folks.

© Bud Talkinghorn


The article: Superbugs 'just out there on the streets'
Experts concerned , Sharon Kirkey, CanWest, March 19, 2007

www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/story.ht
ml?id=9ca023a3-c331-4666-aacd-03a3c97a55e6

[....] Community-acquired methicillin-resistant s.aureus (CA-MRSA) is emerging in daycares, schools and cruise ships. Nearly 500 cases have spread across Alberta and outbreaks have occurred in British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Ontario.

[....] And the superbug "hit list" keeps growing: E. coli, a major cause of wound, urinary and gastrointestinal tract infections are rapidly turning resistant to a growing number of drugs. One in 20 E. coli infections in intensive care units are currently virtually untreatable.

Pseudomonas aeruginosa, an organism that causes life-threatening pneumonia and post-surgery infections, is also becoming multi-drug resistant.

There are multi-resistant strains of tuberculosis, "the most deadly organism on the planet," said Dr. Robert Hancock, director of microbial diseases research at the University of British Columbia and a Canada Research Chair. [....]

Which is more important? To fund AIDS medication for people who apparently, are not changing their behaviour, whether in the West or in Africa, or to fund research to protect Canadians against stuperbugs? What would a prudent family member fund if it were his family vs the rest of the needy ones who won't learn in the face of all kinds of evidence that they should? Should we be funding AIDS victims amongst the community within which it is rising? You all by now must know which voting block that is. You could ask Stephen Lewis, Bill Clinton, or any number of AIDS activists who gathered for the Toronto guilt fest to criticize the rest of Canadians who aren't giving enough for the AIDS activists' pleasure, in Aug. - Sept. 2006. Of course, that might be pointless, for the activists insist AIDS is everyone's disease, not a particular group's. Well, by now, homosexuals, heterosexuals, druggies and those who read and learn, know how AIDS is spread. They have either changed their behaviour or ... well, why should the rest care? Fund the research that is going to help the great majority of Canadians.


Health care dollars - AIDS or Superbugs?

www.forumsvibe.com/elwoodpdowd/
posting.php?mforum=elwoodpdowd

Mar. 19, 2007: EU Declaration of Independence

Native Revolt: A European Declaration of Independence , Fjordman on Fri, 2007-03-16, via PuntedPosters / starboardside

www.brusselsjournal.com/node/1980

After the death last Sunday of Rinie Mulder, a 54-year old indigenous Dutchman who was shot by a police officer, non-immigrant citizens went on a rampage in Utrecht. Apparently Mulder intervened when Muslim youths harassed a pregnant native Dutch woman. Locals claim the police has failed to protect them for years. They say the authorities are afraid of the immigrants and tolerate their criminal behavior.

This issue is not just about Utrecht or Holland. Similar resentment against Muslim immigrants, but at least as much against their own authorities, is quietly brewing among the natives all over Western Europe.

It is insulting that two thirds of the Dutch, one of the founding members of the European community, voted against the proposed EU Constitution, and yet EU leaders will apparently just ignore this and force their massively undemocratic Constitution down people's throats anyway. [....]

This violence by Muslims is usually labelled simply as "crime," but I believe it should more accurately be called Jihad. Those who know early Islamic history, as described in books such as The Truth About Muhammad by Robert Spencer, know that looting and stealing the property of non-Muslims has been part and parcel of Jihad from the very beginning. In fact, so much of the behavior of Muhammad himself and the early Muslims could be deemed criminal that it is difficult to know exactly where crime ends and Jihad begins. In the city of Oslo, for instance, it is documented that some of the criminal Muslim gangs also have close ties to radical religious groups at home and abroad. As Dutch Arabist Hans Jansen points out, the Koran is seen by some Muslims as a God-given "hunting licence," granting them the right to assault and even murder non-Muslims. It is hardly accidental that while Muslims make up about 10% of the population in France, they make up an estimated 70% of French prison inmates.

Search: We demand that , multiculturalism , Muslim immigration , Europe is being targeted for deliberate colonization , If these demands are not fully implemented


This is a must read article.



A Moral Collapse

Free speech--but only for our enemies , David Frum, National Post, March 17, 2007

www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/issuesideas/story.ht
ml?id=cb35bf58-197b-40f2-9531-6f0dc7248235

.... So if it's legal to burn the American flag, surely it must be legal to trample the flags of murderous terrorist organizations, right? Right? Right??

But that's not how modern universities act. To them, Old Glory may be barbecue starter, but a terrorist flag is a sacred symbol.

Prodded by the local Palestinian student group, SFSU's student government voted to condemn [....]

There is obviously something profoundly wrong on American campuses -- and not only American campuses, as the unhappy history of Canada's Concordia University reminds us. Apologists for terrorism receive maximum protection for the most vicious bigotry, for menace and intimidation, and even outright violence. Yet that zeal for free speech vanishes altogether when opponents of terrorism engage in much, much milder forms of protest. This goes beyond double standards. It is a moral collapse. [....]

Mar. 18, 2007: Bob Stenhouse, Whistleblower, Arctic Map

Update and Related Mar. 19,2007:

Frost Hits the Rhubarb Nov. 19, 2006: 3 -- or scroll down this for the following: Frost Hits the Rhubarb Nov. 19 - 25, 2006

frosthitstherhubarb.blogspot.com/
2006/11/nov-19-2006-3.html

Search:

Memory Lane -- Whistleblowers and criminal activity -- criminal gang and triad related

[ex RCMP Staff Sgt.] Bob Stenhouse , Cpl. Robert Read

Frost Hits the Rhubarb October 6, 2005
Scam the Taxpayers, Get Half a Million -- But RCMP Get Fired for Doing Their Jobs -- Perhaps Too Well

frosthitstherhubarb.blogspot.com/2005/10/
scam-taxpayers-get-half-million-but.html

The link should have been:
www.macleans.ca/topstories/article.jsp?content=60484

Someone had changed the link to this:
www.nvweather.net/messages/organic_teas_290.html

Undercover Mountie -- a copy of an article published in Maclean's from Nov. 26, 01 by Robert Sheppard

One was a memo Stenhouse himself had written

[....]

One of the cases Read pursued involved three Taiwanese brothers who brought 3,000 Asian families into Canada under our much maligned immigrant investor scheme. The trio was linked to fraud, bribery and the Chinese mafia. [....]

Some background on the judge who made the decision against ex-RCMP Cpl. Robert Read: Justice, the Honourable Sean J. Harrington [....]

Frost Hits the Rhubarb February 15, 2005

Robert Read ex-RCMP: "Triads had infested Canada's immigration system" -- "a political silver bullet" -- NATIONAL SECURITY

frosthitstherhubarb.blogspot.com/
2005_02_13_archive.html

The Report: [There are two posts.]

38th PARLIAMENT, 1st SESSION -- Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates -- EVIDENCE: ex-RCMP Corporal Robert Read, ex-foreign service officer, the blunt ex-foreign service officer Brian Adams, Joanna Gualtieri, Canada's expert on whistle-blowing, civil servant Allan Cutler, et cetera, February 3, 2005 -- you may download it

[....] 38th PARLIAMENT, 1st SESSION -- Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates -- EVIDENCE from Allan Cutler and Selwyn Pieters; next, ex-RCMP Corporal Robert Read, ex-foreign service officer, the blunt ex-foreign service officer Brian Adams -- and more February 3, 2005, -- sections 1530 - 1550 only -- The excerpts above Read and McAdam are from further down in this file. Search their names if you are in a hurry.

Frost Hits the Rhubarb June 11 - 16, 2006

Whistleblower Profiles 2004

Search:
fipa.bc.ca/library/Whistleblower_Profiles_2004.doc
Notes from Edmonton Journal, Oct. 19, 2000

Bob Stenhouse

End of Update

---

Mountie trades badge for pulpit (10:05 a.m.)
‘It was God who inflamed my passion to stand up against injustice’ , Don Retson, edmontonjournal.com, March 16, 2007

www.canada.com/edmontonjournal/news/story.ht
ml?id=4766cd37-66b8-4c43-b1b7-69ef40131b86&k=79191

This is a good news story and there is more in the Edmonton Journal, Mar. 17, 2007.

Stenhouse learned about International Justice Mission (IJM) Canada from an article in The Journal by Canwest reporter Norma Greenaway.

IJM Canada uses retired or serving police officers and lawyers who go underground in countries like Cambodia, with its notorious child-sex trade industry.

There, as in other countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America, the investigators help local authorities rescue victims of sexual exploitation, forced labour and violence, and also prosecute the perpetrators.

The organization is purposely vague about its investigative methods, but makes no secret about its goal of trying to put an end to human trafficking for the purposes of feeding the sex or forced-labour trade.

A call to do justice -- As an undercover Mountie, Bob Stenhouse dealt with the darkest of the dark -- cases involving murder, outlaw biker gangs and sex crimes against children. New role as evangelical pastor a good fit for former RCMP officer, one of the RCMP whistleblowers , Don Retson, The Edmonton Journal, March 17, 2007

www.canada.com/edmontonjournal/news/religion/story.ht
ml?id=c6df29ed-1724-462a-85a7-3a3a88e6d723

CBC: The Fifth Estate - After the Cameras Went Away -- Listen to a Clip

www.cbc.ca/fifth/after_rcmp.html

www.cbc.ca/fifth/media/mountie.ram

In an earlier operation, IJM [International Justice Mission] was able to rescue 37 girls who'd been forced to work in brothels, also in Cambodia. One of the girls was only five years old while nine of the girls were between five and 10. That operation led to 13 prosecutions, resulting in six convictions, ranging from five- to 20-year prison sentences.

Sadly, McIntosh said Canadian pedophiles are among those who exploit children overseas.

Frost Hits the Rhubarb Nov. 19, 2006: 3

frosthitstherhubarb.blogspot.com/
2006/11/nov-19-2006-3.html

Search:

Memory Lane -- Whistleblowers and criminal activity -- criminal gang and triad related

Undercover Mountie -- Bob Stenhouse was a cop's cop -- until he broke the code and blew the whistle on the RCMP

Ex-RCMP Staff Sgt. Stenhouse

Stenhouse v. Canada (Attorney General) (FC) Reference: [2004] 4 F.C.R. 437




Crucial arctic map missing
Sovereignty issue: Can Canada prove it paid Norwegian for his discovery? , Nathan Vanderklippe, National Post, March 17, 2007

www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/story.ht
ml?id=5569b1be-64c5-48f6-8587-75596b554fa5

VANCOUVER - The country's record-keepers can't find a Scandinavian explorer's map that Parliament bought so it could plant the Maple Leaf on a trio of petroleum-rich Arctic islands, potentially opening a door for Norway to grab them back.

[....] The islands in question are Axel Heiberg, Ellef Ringnes and Amund Ringnes. Together, they make up the northwestern edge of the Canadian Arctic archipelago, a place where the winter sun disappears for months at a time and windchills regularly approach -100C. Named after Norwegian beermakers, they are uninhabited and desolate, home only to muskoxen, caribou and the occasional polar bear. [....]

Thin Ice-Saattuq, Mar. 17, 2007 on Global TV at 7 p.m. -- It was just about what you would expect from CBC. It featured the usual people: David Suzuki, Sheila Watt-Cloutier and others, with Tom Jackson narrating. There was no attempt at showcasing competing scientific conclusions about global warming, that is, other perspectives from scientists who see what is happening as part of a normal long-term cycle. The program was intended to make us worry about global warming and the Inuit way of life in the North. I have a hard time with stories of how the Inuit pursue their traditional ways and hunt for food ... while using modern inventions such as snowmobiles, guns, etc. Just which aspects do they wish to preserve? Or is it more a call for more taxpayer investment and who would dispense it? No mention of transparency nor accountability. One aspect of note in the program is the attempt by other countries to claim the water passage as not necessarily belonging to Canada; there were wonderful scenes of the North and of an island which Denmark claims.

Mar. 18, 2007: Foundation, Microinsurance, AKAM, Pakistan & Tanzania

Update to: Mar. 15, 2007: Missing screen capture
Banking, Aga Khan Fund for Economic Development, Citigroup, ABN-Amro, Pakistan, Habib Bank

frosthitstherhubarb.blogspot.com/2007/03/
mar-15-2007-missing-screen-capture.html

Scroll down that same webpage to a list of links to related points starting with:

Frost Hits the Rhubarb Feb. 25 2007
re: Global Development
Microcredit - CIDA - Aga Khan Foundation - Taxpayer Input - Public-Private Partnerships - Transparency - Ramifications - Private Microbank - AKCA / AKF

There are other links.


Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Awards $5.5-Million Grant to Aga Khan Foundation U.S.A. for an Initiative In Microinsurance -- Five-year grant will focus on microinsurance for the poor in Pakistan and Tanzania , InterAction.org Media, January 17, 2006 -- American Council for Voluntary Interaction -- here , Aga Khan Foundation U.S.A. Martha Sipple, (202) 293-2537

www.interaction.org/newswire/detail.php?id=4736

66.218.69.11/search/cache?p=
Gates+Foundation%2C+
grant%2C+%245.5&ei=UTF-8&fr=yfp-t-501&x=
wrt&u=www.interaction.org/newswire/
detail.php%3Fid%3D4736&w=
gates+foundation+grant+
5.5&d=Io7SnBIeOYg5&icp=
1&.intl=us

Washington, DC, January 17, 2006 – The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has awarded a grant of $5.5 million to Aga Khan Foundation U.S.A. (AKF USA) for a microinsurance initiative in Pakistan and Tanzania. .... improve the economic stability of microentrepreneurs and other poor families....

AKF USA will work with the Aga Khan Agency for Microfinance (AKAM) in implementing activities, first in Pakistan, where the Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN) has well-established institutions and a long history of innovation in financial services, insurance, social development and poverty reduction. In 2007, AKAM will begin program activities in Tanzania, where AKDN has also had a long-term presence.

The initiative is designed to create a replicable model for extending and deepening the impact of microfinance by providing affordable, comprehensive insurance products to poor and very poor microfinance clients. It offers the opportunity to test how microinsurance services could become a powerful and cost-effective tool complementing micro-lending and savings. [....]

The Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN) .... It is a group of private, non-denominational development agencies .... sub-Saharan Africa, Central and South Asia, and the Middle East. The Network’s nine development agencies ... compassion for the vulnerable in society. Its annual budget for philanthropic activity is in excess of US$300 million.

The agencies of the AKDN have been involved in microfinance for over 60 years, starting initially with small-scale micro-credit schemes for the poor. In 2005, these various micro-finance agencies were amalgamated under the Aga Khan Agency for Microfinance (AKAM) to deliver innovative services including micro-insurance, small housing loans, savings, education and health accounts, and support for small entrepreneurs seeking to develop businesses related to restored cultural assets. [....]

Mar. 18, 2007: Coal technology

Related: Frost Hits the Rhubarb Mar. 14, 2007
Updated: Mining, Copper-Gold, DRC, Gobi

frosthitstherhubarb.blogspot.com/2007/03/
mar-14-2007-updated-mining-copper-gold.html


The Precarious Future of Coal -- A new MIT report says that much more effort is needed to develop and test technology that will make clean-coal power plants economical and practical. , By Kevin Bullis, March 14, 2007

www.technologyreview.com/
read_article.aspx?id=18389&ch=energy

Energy experts from MIT have released a long-awaited report on the future of coal. [....]

The report, based on a study by 13 MIT faculty members, comes at a time when growing concerns about global warming are making it increasingly likely that governments worldwide will impose a price on carbon-dioxide emissions to force a cut in the release of this important greenhouse gas.

[....] The report challenged the idea, argued by some energy experts, that a new type of coal plant--one that converts coal into a gas before burning it--will make it easier and cheaper to capture carbon dioxide, compared with collecting it from the smokestacks of conventional power plants. The MIT experts say that several factors make the picture more complicated. Such coal gasification doesn't work well with low-grade coal, for example, and both the new and the conventional plants will require major changes to capture carbon dioxide, according to the MIT report.

As a result, the MIT researchers recommend that governments not support the new gasification plants over conventional plants.

Part I: China's Coal Future , By Peter Fairley, January 04, 2007

www.technologyreview.com/Energy/17963/

To keep pace with the country's economic growth, ­China's local governments, utilities, and entrepreneurs are building, on average, one coal-fired power plant per week. The power plants emit a steady stream of soot, sulfur dioxide, and other toxic pollutants into the air; they also spew out millions of tons of carbon dioxide. In November, the International Energy Agency projected that China will become the world's largest source of carbon dioxide emissions in 2009, overtaking the United States nearly a decade earlier than previously anticipated. Coal is expected to be responsible for three-quarters of that carbon dioxide.

[....] Gasification transforms coal's complex mix of hydrocarbons into a hydrogen-rich gas known as synthesis gas, or "syngas." Power plants can burn syngas as cleanly as they can natural gas. In addition, with the right catalysts and under the right conditions, the basic chemical building blocks in syngas combine to form the hydrocarbon ingredients of gasoline and diesel fuel. As a result, coal gasification has the potential both to squelch power plants' emission of soot and smog and to decrease China's growing dependence on imported oil. It could even help control emissions of carbon dioxide, which is more easily captured from syngas plants than from conventional coal-fired plants.

Despite China's early anticipation of the need for coal gasification, however, its implementation of the technology in power plants has lagged. The country's electricity producers lack the economic and political incentives to break from their traditional practices.

[....] Direct liquefaction produces more fuel per ton of coal than Fischer-Tropsch synthesis. Experts at the Chinese Coal Research Institute in Beijing estimate that the process captures 55 to 56 percent of the energy in coal, compared to just 45 percent for Fischer-Tropsch. However, direct lique­faction is also far more complicated, requiring separate power and gasification plants to deliver heat and hydrogen and considerable recycling of oil, hydrogen, and coal sludge between separate sections of the plant. And breaking down hydrocarbons to just the right length requires exquisite control of the operating conditions and a consistent coal supply.

Search: Inner Mongolia's coal capital, Erdos


Part II: China's Coal Future -- To prevent massive pollution and slow its growing contribution to global warming, China will need to make advanced coal technology work on an unprecedented scale. , By Peter Fairley, January 05, 2007

www.technologyreview.com/Energy/17964/

Carbon Power ....

Ironically, China's move to a more open economy has hampered efforts to deploy more innovative technologies. [....]

The Yantai power plant was based on integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) technology. IGCC plants resemble natural-gas-fired power plants--they use two turbines to capture mechanical and heat energy from expanding combustion gases--but are fueled with syngas from an integrated coal gasification plant. They're not emissions free, but their gas streams are more concentrated, so the sulfurous soot, carbon dioxide, and other pollutants they generate are easier to separate and capture. Of course, once the carbon dioxide--the main greenhouse gas--is captured, engineers still need to find a place to stow it. The most promising strategy is to sequester it deep within saline aquifers and oil reservoirs. [....]

The problem is that IGCC plants still cost about 10 percent to 20 percent more per megawatt than pulverized-coal-fired power plants. (And that's without carbon dioxide capture.) China's power producers--much like their counterparts in the United States and Europe--are waiting for a financial or political reason to make the switch. In part, what's been missing is regulation that penalizes conventional coal plants. And China's environmental agencies lack the resources and power to make companies comply even with regulations already on the books. Top officials in Beijing admit that their edicts are widely ignored, as new power plants are erected without environmental assessments and, according to some sources, without required equipment for pollution control. [....]

Buffett to PetroChina Dissident: You Can Always Sell Your Berkshire Stake Berkshire Hathaway Inc.'s Warren Buffett turned the tables on a shareholder who called on him to sell shares of PetroChina Co. because its government-owned parent operates in a nation accused of genocide. , March 9, 2007

www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=
20601109&sid=
aHFqv4n.uxwE&refer=exclusive

[....] The Berkshire shareholder, Judith Porter, submitted a ballot proposal aimed at forcing Berkshire to divest its stake in PetroChina because of killings in Darfur, a region of western Sudan. Last month Buffett said PetroChina, controlled by China's biggest government-owned oil company, has no influence over the country's business with Sudan because it's merely a subsidiary.

[....] Campaigners such as the Sudan Divestment Task Force, based in Washington, are trying to sway universities, investment companies and state pension plans to pull their money out of companies that do business that directly benefits the Sudanese government. Militias backed by the government have killed more than 200,000 people, according to United Nations estimates. [....]

Search: taught sociology at Bryn Mawr College , business that directly benefits the Sudanese government



A woman's right to choose deserves a sympathy card? RightWingNews -- Sending Sympathy Cards To Women Who've Just Had An Abortion?

www.rightwingnews.com/mt331/2007/03/
sending_sympathy_cards_to_wom
e_1.php?comments=show#comments

Mar. 18, 2007: Afghan Prisoner, Allegations, Attaran Complaint

Security, Afghanistan, Amir Attaran, Justices


Background

When the Globe and Mail reports and quotes someone, particularly anyone connected to a university, a foundation, an agency or similar publicly funded group, or "experts", check into their backgrounds. Often why we should pay attention to those quoted is omitted; sometimes, I check backgrounds to see whether they have their own agenda, are connected to a political philosophy or some cause. Usually, I am not disappointed. I noted that Mr. Attaran (see below) came from Harvard (as did Michael Ignatieff) and his interests seem to be AIDS, money for AIDS drugs (to be administered by the UN?) and sub-Saharan Africa, coincidentally, an interest of Paul Martin's if you recall.

How far should Canada go to ensure fair treatment of Afghani detainees? , Kady O'Malley, Macleans.ca | Mar 06, 2007


www.macleans.ca/homepage/features/
article.jsp?content=20070307_121257_5348&s=ct

OTTAWA - It was, Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor insisted, completely unrelated to allegations of prisoner abuse. But in light of how things had played out in the month previous, it was hard to see last week's news that Canada had become the first NATO ally to sign an agreement with the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) to monitor transferred detainees as a coincidence.

While sold by O'Connor has an "extra layer of protection" that complement an agreement with the International Red Cross that the minister repeatedly assured the House was already in place, the new arrangement seems a little more important than that - especially now that thel Red Cross has publicly contradicted O'Connor's description of how much it's been doing to date. [....]

Search: a complaint filed with the Military Police Complaints Commission (MPCC) by Amir Attaran. The University of Ottawa professor , In Kabul, prisoner Abdul Rahman alleged , Amnesty International Canada secretary general Alex Neve , AIHRC, which monitors prisons and detention centres , In Kabul, prisoner Abdul Rahman alleged that local authorities beat him with rubber hoses and wood batons


And Rahman's word would be beyond reproach? From a Lib/lib/left perspective, some people believe the word of these prisoners; yet they are trained to lie, to claim torture and racism.

Check a little further into the University of Ottawa's Mr. Attaran and other activists, experts or spokesmen for the poor prisoners.

Amir Attaran -- or here

www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Amir_Attaran

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=
pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=AbstractPlus&list_uids=
11197373&query_hl=1&itool=pubmed_docsum

Defining and refining international donor support for combating the AIDS pandemic.
* Attaran A,
* Sachs J.

Center for International Development, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA. amir_attaran@harvard.edu

The international aid effort against AIDS is greatly incommensurate with the severity of the epidemic. Drawing on the data that international aid donors self-reported to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), we find that, between 1996 and 1998, finance from all rich countries to sub-Saharan Africa for projects designated as AIDS control ...

Is there any reason Mr. Attaran would be negative about the military in Afghanistan or wish the Conservative government to be gone and then things could return to normal?

Dr. Amir Attaran, lawyer and immunologist, writes on public health and global development issues.

Attaran is a frequent critic of the unaccountability and poor performance of what he has called the "foreign aid industrial complex", and organizations such as USAID, the World Bank, the World Health Organization, and although his work with [Jeffrey] Sachs [director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University] inspired it, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

[....] Dr. Attaran has been a paid consultant to NGOs (e.g. Doctors Without Borders), the United Nations (e.g. the UNDP), the pharmaceutical industry (e.g. Novartis), and an unpaid consultant when requested by various developing country governments (e.g. Brazil, Malawi) and human rights groups (e.g. Amnesty International).

He is currently Associate Professor of Law and Population Health, and the holder of the Canada Research Chair in Law, Population Health and Global Development Policy at the University of Ottawa, Canada. Previously he was an adjunct lecturer in Public Policy at Harvard University, publishing research as part of the Center for International Development and the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at the John F. Kennedy School of Government.

Search: human rights and development


Dow Jones International: DAVOS: AIDS Activists Laud Pharmacia Plan For Generic Mfg -- More on Amir Attaran , 24 January, 2003

www.accessmed-msf.org/prod/
publications.asp?scntid=
2812003950572&contenttype=
PARA&

DAVOS, Switzerland (AP)--AIDS activists Friday praised the plan of Pharmacia Corp. (PHA) to work with a nonprofit agency to allow the manufacture of cheap copies of its AIDS drug for marketing in poor countries.

[....] even if the drug on offer isn't in great demand.

They stressed that without billions more in aid from the West, the world's hardest-hit countries wouldn't be able to afford even the cheap, generic copies.

"This is half of what's needed," said Dr. Amir Attaran of the Center for International Development at Harvard University, who helped develop the model. "This helps solve the supply side, but there's no demand because these countries are deadly poor."

Canada Research Chair in Law, Population Health and Global Development ...

Mr. Attaran -- ATTARAN, Amir ... Canada Research Chair in Law, Population Health and Global Development Policy, Associate Professor, Biotech, Comparative Law, Environmental Law, Globalization, Health Law and Policy, Human Rights, International Human Rights Law, Law and Society, International Development

www.etudesup.uottawa.ca/Default.aspx?tabid=
1727&monControl=Profs&ProgId=661

www.google.com/search?q=
cache:iJXtcSbPn8oJ:www.etudes
up.uottawa.ca/Default.aspx%3Ftabid%3D1727
%26monControl%3DProfs%26Prog
Id%3D661+who+appointed+Amir+Attaran+,+
Canada+Research+Chair+in+Law,
+Population+Health+and+Global+
Development+Policy+at+the+University+
of+Ottawa&hl=
en&ct=
clnk&cd=
8&gl=ca


"Attaran is best known in the HIV community for co-authoring an updated version of Lee Gillespie-White's earlier paper on patents in Africa. .... 172 patents on ARV products in Africa are not a barrier to treatment"

www.cptech.org/ip/health/pharmadefenders.html

Amir Attaran: Attaran is currently an Adjunct Lecturer in Public Policy for the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, but his main job has been to work for Jeffrey Sachs [....]

Amir Attaran Says New Study Shows that Patents Are Not The Obstacle to HIV Treatment in Africa. PhRMA's page on patent on AIDS drugs provides typical spin for the article.

The basic thrust of the Attaran/Gillespie-White JAMA paper is that 172 patents on ARV products in Africa are not a barrier to treatment. [....]

What were the plans?


On the way to finding more on the man who would speak out on Canada, prisoners, and Afghanistan, Amir Attaran of Ottawa University, I found more Ottawa University graduates.

Common Law Bulletin, Summer 2005 -- Paul Martin's gift to the SCOC
The Honourable Justices Bastarache & Charron: Our Pride
Common Law Graduates on the Supreme Court of Canada

My heart fills with pride when I see the present composition of the highest court in the country. Indeed, currently on the bench of the Supreme Court of Canada are two Common Law graduates from our Faculty of Law. These are, of course, the Honourable Mr. Justice Michel Bastarache (’78) and the Honourable Madam Justice Louise Charron (’75).

Two Supremes from the University of Ottawa? I am tempted to say of such coincidence: Of all the gin joints in all the world* ... and I'm afraid I have given in to temptation. [* coincidence]


Justice and Justices

Provinces regain power to force public inquiries into conduct of judges , Janice Tibbetts, CanWest, March 14, 2007

www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/story.ht
ml?id=19dc0564-f7c7-4e24-8c39-135bb30f239b

Judges have lost a showdown with politicians in a court ruling that reinstates a special power allowing provincial attorneys general to force public inquiries into judicial conduct that can lead to removal from the bench. The Federal Court of Appeal ruled against Ontario Superior Court Justice Paul Cosgrove, a former federal Liberal Cabinet minister .... decision to clear a Barbadian woman of first-degree murder. .... independence of the judiciary .... "Judicial independence does not require that the conduct of judges be immune from scrutiny," Justice Karen Sharlow wrote in a unanimous ruling.

Mar. 17, 2007: Security

Everyone needs to feel secure

Jihad.com , Sunday, March 11, 2007

60minutes.yahoo.com/segment/47/jihad_online

Afghanistan and Iraq are half a world away from the United States, but the most important front in the war on terror may just be a mouse click away. Correspondent Scott Pelly takes an in-depth look at the world of Jihad online, including how ordinary Americans are fighting back. [....]

Freedom of speech row as talk on Islamic extremists is banned , By John Steele, 5/03/2007, The Telegraph

www.forumsvibe.com/elwoodpdowd/view
topic.php?t=3236&mforum=elwoodpdowd

A leading university has been accused of "selling out" academic freedom of speech by scrapping a talk on links between the Nazis and Islamic anti-semitism after allegedly receiving emails from Muslims protesting about the event.

Matthias Küntzel, a German author and political scientist who specialises in the threat of Islamic fundamentalism, was told yesterday by the University of Leeds that a talk scheduled for yesterday evening, and a two-day workshop, on Hitler's Legacy: Islamic Anti-semitism in the Middle East, had been cancelled because of security fears.

[....] "My impression was that they wanted to avoid the issue in order to keep the situation calm. My feeling is that this is a kind of censorship.''

He has given the talk at Yale and in universities in Jerusalem and Vienna. [....]

Daniel Pipes: receives a Free Speech Award
“The Rushdie Rules: Will the West Accept Islamic Law?” , Mar. 3, 2007, Sponsor: Trykkefrihedsselskabet

gatesofvienna.blogspot.com/2007/03/
www.trykkefrihed.dk/kalender-trykkefrihedspris2007.htm



Natana DeLong-Bas: American Professor, Wahhabi Apologist -- here , by Stephen Schwartz, Real Clear Politics, January 19, 2007

www.campus-watch.org/article/id/3035

www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/
2007/01/natana_delongbas_american_prof.html

[....] DeLong-Bas is a professional apologist for Saudi extremism. .... had found "no convincing evidence that Osama bin Laden was behind the attacks on the World Trade Center." Her interview was made public in translation by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) at www.memri.org.

In a long colloquy clearly intended to flatter her Saudi patrons, DeLong-Bas claimed that she had been studying the works of Muhammad Ibn Abd al-Wahhab, founder of the Wahhabi sect, for a decade, and had read all of them. But she was forced by a persistent Saudi reporter to admit that she had never read the Islamist preacher's correspondence, which critics of Wahhabism and other Saudis consider key to understanding him. She rambled on, claiming that Islamist terror has nothing to do with radical religious interpretations, and with an almost absurd predictability blamed everything wrong in the Muslim and Arab world on the U.S. and Israel. She even described the "democracy" of terrorist groups like Hamas and the Wahhabi agents in Somalia as superior in achievement to U.S. democratization efforts.

Intellectually, Natana DeLong-Bas fits comfortably in the philosophical milieu of contemporary MES. For the majority of MES scholars in the U.S., certain cliches--little more than slogans--have become the foundation for teaching a new generation of American scholars. These truisms include the claim that radical Islam is a construct fabricated by Western "Orientalists," that all the problems of the Arab and Muslim nations are caused by Western economic rapacity, and, of course, that American support for Israel is the principal cause of Arab and Muslim discontent. [....]

List of articles by Douglas Farah

Pakistan's Downward Spiral , By Douglas Farah

counterterrorismblog.org/2007/03/pakistan_downward_spiral.php

Sudan Found Liable for Terrorism in USS Cole Trial , By Douglas Farah, March 14, 2007

counterterrorismblog.org/2007/03/
sudan_accused_of_terrorism_in.php#trackbacks

A federal judge in Norfolk, Virginia today found the government of Sudan liable for terrorism for the Oct. 12, 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in the port of Aden, Yemen. "There is substantial evidence in this case presented by... [....]

The 1,400-year war: On Wednesday, Key Porter books released reflections on Islam ideas, opinions, arguments, by National Post columnist George Jonas, National Post, March 16, 2007

www.canada.com/nationalpost/columnists/story.ht
ml?id=c2727806-3212-4217-944b-7144baebacf5

[....] The melodious ditty would be viewed as offensive to "diversity" today. We meant to give no offence to anyone -- none of us had ever seen a Turkish lad -- but we did associate the song with what we had been told about the Turkish occupation of Hungary -- the Turkish hodoltsag or bondage, as we invariably referred to it, just as Palestinians refer to the creation of Israel as nakba, or catastrophe.

Being in thrall to the Turk meant being in thrall to Islam. This was worse than being in thrall to the German -- Hungary's other great historical trauma -- for Germans were at least kin in Christ, while Turks were Muslims.

Christianity's roots in Hungary were not very deep, but they did go back to the 9th century (with pagan revolts extending into the 11th). The Magyars, a coalition of seven tribes of nomadic horsemen from Siberia, kept riding west until they emerged from familiar Asia and found themselves in alien Europe. This happened shortly before the end of the first millennium. The Magyar chieftains concluded that they had no choice but to adopt Christianity and settle in the fertile lands along both banks of the river Danube, in a region the Romans had called Pannonia.

The chieftains did not realize that they had picked a natural conflict zone. They pitched their tents in the borderlands between civilizations. Buda Castle was still a long way from being built in 895 AD, but the grey Danube (it was never blue) roiling at the foot of the future seat of Hungary's kings was the last in a series of moats between East and West, Asia and Europe, paganism and monotheism. In due course, it became a moat between Islamand Christendom. [....]

Mar. 17, 2007: Happy St. Patrick's Day

Abdullah Almalki -- Ottawa man's name comes up in U.S. terror trial , Andrew Duffy, CanWest / Ottawa Citizen, March 14, 2007

www.canada.com/topics/news/story.html?id=
3dfde3e5-9d24-48d3-a3e9-9a2572886af6

[....] "Among the items shipped to Elzahabi's New York business," the FBI affidavit reads, "were large quantities of portable field radios or walkie-talkies suitable for communications in extreme rural locations without regular or even cellular telephone service."

[....] One of the documents taken in the RCMP raid and filed in the Elzahabi case is a fax from Almalki dated April 17, 1996.

The fax, which is addressed to "Mr. Zahabi," directs him to remove the labels from various communications components, repackage them with stickers from Almalki's company, Dawn Services, and ship it to Micro Electronics International in Lahore, Pakistan. The goods were insured for $298,000 US.

U.S. authorities have suggested the shipments were intentionally disguised and destined for Afghanistan.

But Almalki said ... destined for the Pakistani military ... low-tech and required assembly by a skilled firm, such as Micro Electronics, to be turned into field radios. [....]

Almalki, 36, a Carleton University graduate, was a principal target of an RCMP national security investigation that ensnared Maher Arar and ultimately led to his deportation and torture in Syria.

Almalki, too, was arrested in Syria while visiting relatives in April 2002. He spent 22 months in Syrian prisons, where he was questioned and tortured, he says, based on information that could only have originated with Canadian security agencies.

I suspect another lawsuit coming up ... After all, Maher Arar got over $10-million, based on his word, essentially.



9/11 confession -- 'I was responsible for the 9/11 operation' -- Al Qaeda suspect Khalid Sheikh Mohammed has claimed he organized the September 11 attacks on the United States

www.canada.com/nationalpost/story.html?id=
c41e178d-7733-4859-9667-6cbe29f31206

[Articles]
Mohammed says killed U.S. reporter Pearl: transcript
"I was responsible for the 9/11 operation." Excerpts from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's testimony
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in his own words
Archive: Arrest may bring more attacks
Archive: Interrogation reveals Pearl details

Memory Lane: Frost Hits the Rhubarb July 18, 2005
Are Muslims here to escape the Third World or to re-create it?

Islamo-fascism in Canada--a compendium of viewpoints

frosthitstherhubarb.blogspot.com/2005/07/
are-muslims-here-to-escape-third-world.html

Scroll down to:

[....] Mr. El-Nashar, the Eygptian chemist,

[....] El-Nashar was once arrested in Eygpt in connection with the Luxor tourist attack that claimed 58 lives and temporarily crippled Eygpt's tourist industry. As well, Sidique Khan, one of the suicide bombers, is connected to a terrorist assassination by another British-Muslim in Israel, and a thwarted attack in London in 2004.

[....] Pakistani madrassas extoll suicide attacks and preach a virulent anti-western message.

[....] As George Jonas writes, one commentator who did get it was the British parliamentarian, Enoch Powell, who was universally despised by the western left-wing. In 1958, he gave a speech criticizing Britain's policy of mass immigration from the Third World. As a classical Greek scholar, Powell made reference to Virgil's poetic line: "Like the Roman, I see the the river Tiber foaming with much blood." Powell saw that the British culture could not sustain large immigration by people, who not only didn't believe in that culture, but secretly despised it. Instead of nipping this anti-western sentiment in the bud, the government pushed a multicultural policy. This policy, like ours here, encouraged people to keep their cultural values, rather than assimalate. It funded cultural centers such as the one that the terrorist Khan ran. Rather than being a false prophet, Enoch Powell has been shown to be extremely prescient. Thirty-seven years have passed and now one out of eight Londoners is Muslim. Mosques like the infamous one in Finsbury Park have become training grounds for terrorists and the true crazies are allowed to openly preach sedition and murder in Hyde Park. The British political and media elites, who vilified Powell for the remainder of his life, will never admit their disgraceful misjudgement, but you won't hear them mouthing their multicultural platitudes anymore either. As Jonas puts it, "Are (the Muslims) here to escape the Third World, or to recreate it?"

Jerusalem on the Jukebox--Playing the same old sad tune

Maybe it time to disabuse ourselves of a Palestinian-Israel peace solution. [....]

B.C. man in terror probe
Accused of financing Afghanistan camps , Stewart Bell And Nathan Vanderklippe, National Post, with files from Brian Hutchinson, Adrian Humphreys and CanWest, March 13, 2007

www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/story.ht
ml?id=74bda148-2b97-4fdf-8331-64fd6f3d29ab&k=44803

A Canadian under investigation in British Columbia and Ontario for allegedly scamming millions from investors was arrested in Spain yesterday for his suspected role in financing terrorist training camps.

[....] Neither the FBI nor Spanish authorities would provide details of the allegations yesterday, but the National Post has confirmed that Canadian securities regulators have also been investigating Mr. Anderson.

The B.C. Securities Commission said it had been holding hearings into Mr. Anderson's financial dealings since April, 2006. A spokesman for the commission, Andrew Poon, said the man arrested in Spain is the same man being investigated by the commission.

The connection between Mr. Anderson's alleged investment scheme and terrorist financing surfaced at a hearing held on Feb. 26, when the commission introduced as evidence the U.S. allegations. The Ontario Securities Commission has also accused Mr. Anderson of violating provincial securities law. [....]

CANADIAN EXECUTIVES
members.canada.com/services/newsletters.aspx?site=
cc&provider=canada&brand=members

High-profile corporate scandals involving Nortel Networks Corp. and Conrad Black may be under the spotlight in Canada. But a new survey reveals Canadian business chiefs are failing to comply with securities reforms designed to protect investors and bring corporate governance here in line with the United States. Only one in ten executives at public companies say their peers are ready to deal with the new rules being introduced by the Canadian Securities Administrators to mimic legislation in the United States known as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, or SOX [....]

UN predicts huge migration to rich countries , By David Blair,16/03/2007

www.forumsvibe.com/elwoodpdowd/view
topic.php?t=3227&mforum=elwoodpdowd

Can the UK cope with nine million more people?

At least 2.2 million migrants will arrive in the rich world every year from now until 2050, the United Nations said yesterday. [....]

I am not convinced of the wonders of immigration, particularly from certain areas. Fix what is broken first.



Alberta and Ontario singled out in air pollution study , Mike De Souza, CanWest, March 15, 2007

www.canada.com/nationalpost/story.html?id=
01d3021e-f35c-4c58-b46a-24579b61728e&k=59202

OTTAWA -- Alberta and Ontario have found themselves singled out in a new evaluation of air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions across Canada.

According to the survey, Alberta produced more than a quarter of Canada's total air pollutants and about 40 per cent of the nation's greenhouse gas emissions in 2005, while Ontario represented 21 per cent and 28 per cent of total emissions, respectively, in the those categories for the same year.

The rankings were part of a PollutionWatch study [www.pollutionwatch.org/], published Thursday by Environmental Defence and the Canadian Environmental Law Association, based on an evaluation of statistics collected by the federal government. [....]

Dion backtracks on reverse-onus crime bill -- The federal Liberals unveiled a new emphasis on law and order Wednesday with a platform aimed at blunting Conservative charges they're soft on crime.

www.canada.com/nationalpost/story.html?id=
1b874b81-3e82-400a-bf78-854bc5c2eef4&k=62292

Target: Alberta's oilpatch -- Menacing comments from a top Liberal critic put the province's oil industry on guard , Terry O'Neill - March 12, 2007

www.westernstandard.ca/website/
index.cfm?page=article&article_id=2355

[....] Foremost in Klein's mind were comments made the week previous by the federal Liberal party's newly minted natural resources critic, Ontario MP Mark Holland, who suggested in a radio interview that a Liberal government would take over the Alberta oilsands if need be to fight global warming, and said later that a Liberal government would not be satisfied with the sort of soft "intensity targets" the Conservative government favours for slowly whittling down the oilpatch's carbon dioxide emissions. These targets, still being negotiated, aim to reduce the amount of emissions per barrel of oil produced, not the actual number of barrels.

The Conservative approach is something the oilpatch can live with. "We understand the public pressure that's out there, that people want to take action, that Canada needs to be doing its global share," says Pierre Alvarez of Calgary, president of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers. "We agree with that." What the Grits have in mind, though, is another story. As specified by Holland, the Liberals would order energy companies to cut actual production from the bountiful oilsands deposits around Fort McMurray in northern Alberta. This, Holland said, was necessary to help the country meet its Kyoto Protocol commitment to reduce, by 2012, CO2 emissions to six per cent below 1990 levels. However, by the time Parliament ratified the deal, in December 2002, total GHG emissions had increased by 24 per cent since 1990. The emissions just kept rising under the big-talking but do-nothing Liberal governments of Jean Chrétien and Paul Martin. [....]

Memory Lane: Hezbollah and the West African Diamond Trade , MEIB staff, June - July 2004

www.meib.org/articles/0407_l2.htm

Drug Production and the Environment in Lebanon -- trafficking, transshipment, and money laundering , by Alexander H. Joffe, 2000 Middle East Intelligence Bulletin

www.meib.org/articles/0010_l1.htm

A.H. Joffe taught in the Department of Anthropology at the Pennsylvania State University from 1995 to 2000. He holds a Ph.D. in Near Eastern Studies from the University of Arizona and has written on modern Middle Eastern topics, including truth and reconciliation commissions, intelligence reform, and weapons of mass destruction for Middle East Quarterly and Crime, Law, and Social Change.

The good news is that, according to U.S. government sources, drug production in Lebanon has vastly decreased from its peak during the late 1980's and early 1990's.2 The bad news is that Lebanon is now a center for trafficking, transshipment, and money laundering.

Almost as bad is the fact that behind virtually every illicit drug is a chemical process that results in a variety of hazardous wastes. These problems have not yet been fully documented in Lebanon. But strong a circumstantial case can be made that extensive drug production in Lebanon, past, present, and future, will have a highly detrimental impact on an already fragile environment.

Background

Drugs have been present in the Middle East since remote antiquity. Opium was cultivated and widely traded during the Bronze Age, if not earlier, while cannabis is likely to have originated in Central Asia and is well documented archaeologically in the Near East by the first millennium BC.2 In contrast, coca does not occur naturally in the Old World. The drugs that were available were widely used and traded as medicinals and for use in rituals, but recreational use may be suspected. There are no data which speak directly to the scale of production of use in antiquity.

Modern production and use of drugs in the Middle East has not been addressed by historians, but whatever small-scale production existed in the early 20th century increased dramatically during the 1970's and 1980's in response to rising global demand. By the 1980's, production and export of drugs in Lebanon had become a massive industry. During the 1980's, cultivation of cannabis and opium poppies expanded tremendously throughout Lebanon due to growing international demand and the breakdown of central government controls. A key role was taken by occupying Syrian military and intelligence officials, with at least tacit support from Damascus. A number of high ranking officials, including Defense Minister Mustafa Tlass, were directly implicated, giving permission to smugglers to travel unhindered throughout Syria and Lebanon. According to some estimates, the industry generated over $2,000,000,000 a year in profits.3

The profits collected by Syrians served the Assad regime by cementing the allegiance of primarily Alawite officials. [....]

B.C. auditor general fed up with addicts , CanWest, March 15, 2007

www.canada.com/calgaryherald/news/story.html?id=
b8a8ee50-4bd0-406e-95bf-94b0fb6a6f3f

Addicts are having sex and shooting up drugs outside the downtown Victoria office of the B.C. Auditor General, and he -- like many others -- is fed up with the situation. In a tersely-worded letter to Victoria city council and police, Arn van Iersel expressed his "great concern" over safety issues in and around the alleys of Bastion Square, and said the number of police must be increased in the area.

"Just last week we had a couple fornicating outside our training room," writes van Iersel in a letter dated Feb. 13. "We also again had people shooting up drugs outside our back door. This is not the workplace I or my staff would like to have, and certainly not the image we want to have about Victoria." [....]

Ah, gee. Who says there is no good news?

Watchdog warns CBC could go off the air for 1.5 million viewers , Tim Naumetz, CanWest / Ottawa Citizen, March 14, 2007

www.canada.com/calgaryherald/news/story.html?id=
ac38d522-e4d8-422b-a1a8-b77d05c1c110&k=85165

Friends of Canadian Broadcasting is warning the Commons heritage committee today the Crown broadcasting corporation is set to "unplug" hundreds of thousands of viewers in small cities and rural areas across the country.

The Canadian-content watchdog [Think of heavy handed social engineering and propaganda] is basing its concerns on a little-noticed submission the CBC made to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission last fall suggesting smaller communities now rely heavily on satellite or cable TV. [....]

Search: A Canadian Media Research Inc. survey done for Friends of Canadian Broadcasting

Think of how that could be skewed to give the answers wanted. Why does a taxpayer funded broadcaster need "Friends of...", except for keeping jobs for those involved, for pushing propaganda, and, of course, for their activist causes for the left. Bah! Humbug.

What programming does CBC provide that resonates with rural Canada? That speaks to rural Canada's political or other concerns? CBC is more likely to be telling us of the wonders of multiculturalism, heart warming stories of immigrants to Canada--preferably non-white, non-Christian, and how we must learn to accept their ways, along with their demands. Programming tends to follow liberal leftist values -- Da Vinci and the safe heroin injection sites, for example. When was the last time rural Canada was presented positively in a CBC program which reinforces rural values? There may be items concerning urban crime, Canadians' unfairness to natives, how the poor need and want more, problems with racism, etc. We are to welcome diversity no matter how much the representatives of that diversity offend our ways and are less than tolerant of our ways. Think of Little Mosque on the Prairie; the only stupid, intolerant characters are white Canadian prairie small town citizens. Frankly, most of what rural Canada values is undervalued. Why should we care? Frankly, CBC, we don't give a d***. And another thought: Burn baby, burn.



Diversion: That's only 51 years ago!

Comments made in the year 1955:



"I'll tell you one thing, if things keep going the way they are,
it's going to be impossible to buy a week's groceries for $20."

"Have you seen the new cars coming out next year? It won't be long
before $2000 will only buy a used one."

"If cigarettes keep going up in price, I'm going to quit. A quarter
a pack is ridiculous."

"Did you hear the post office is thinking about charging a dime just
to mail a letter?"

"If they raise the minimum wage to $1, nobody will be able to hire
outside help at the store."

"When I first started driving, who would have thought gas would
someday cost 29 cents a gallon. Guess we'd be better off leaving the car in the
garage."

"Kids today are impossible. Those duck tail hair cuts make it
impossible to stay groomed. Next thing you know, boys will be wearing their hair
as long as the girls."

"I'm afraid to send my kids to the movies any more. Ever since they
let Clark Gable get by with saying 'damn' in 'Gone With The Wind,' it seems
every new movie has either "hell" or "damn" in it.

"I read the other day where some scientist think it's possible to
put a man on the moon by the end of the century. They even have some fellows
they call astronauts preparing for it down in Texas ."

"Did you see where some baseball player just signed a contract for
$75,000 a year just to play ball? It wouldn't surprise me if someday they'll be
making more than the president."

"I never thought I'd see the day all our kitchen appliances would be
electric. They are even making electric typewriters now."

"It's too bad things are so tough nowadays. I see where a few
married women are having to work to make ends meet."

"It won't be long before young couples are going to have to hire
someone to watch their kids so they can both work."

"Marriage doesn't mean a thing any more; those Hollywood stars seem
to be getting divorced at the drop of a hat."

"I'm just afraid the Volkswagen car is going to open the door to a
whole lot of foreign business."

"Thank goodness I won't live to see the day when the Government
takes half our income in taxes. I sometimes wonder if we are electing the best
people to congress."

"The drive-in restaurant is convenient in nice weather, but I
seriously doubt they will ever catch on."

"There is no sense going to Lincoln or Omaha anymore for a weekend.
It costs nearly $15 a night to stay in a hotel."

"No one can afford to be sick any more; $35 a day in the hospital is
too rich for my blood."

"If they think I'll pay 50 cents for a hair cut, forget it."


Thanks to a friend for this.