The editors at the New York Times seem to have little confidence that women can make decisions based on the facts (which abound thanks to the attack ads by nicotine nazis. I wonder if they are supporting Hilary?
Editorial
Don’t Fall for Hot Pink Camels
Wall Street analysts may be applauding R. J. Reynolds for introducing a feminized version of its macho Camel cigarette brand, and company executives clearly think they have hit on an innovative marketing strategy. But this new attempt to woo women smokers can only be viewed as another cynical blow to public health.
The Reynolds executives apparently don’t care that lung cancer among women is the only major form of cancer whose death toll is rising. Lung cancer kills far more American women than does the much more feared breast cancer. And smoking is overwhelmingly the leading cause of lung cancer, not to mention its contribution to heart disease, emphysema and all sorts of other health problems.
So now comes R. J. Reynolds with its new female-friendly Camel No. 9 and a campaign to promote it costing an estimated $25 million to $50 million. The name is supposed to evoke “cloud nine” or being “dressed to the nines,” according to Reynolds marketers, although some think it may also suggest luxury perfumes like Chanel No. 19 and romantic songs like “Love Potion No. 9.” As described by Stuart Elliott in last Thursday’s Times, the company is reaching out to women with slogans like “light and luscious,” hot pink and teal packages and ads adorned with flowers.
This would all seem laughable if it were not so pernicious. No doubt Reynolds will fall back on a tobacco company mantra: it’s not trying to woo new smokers to a dangerous product; it’s just trying to convert existing ones to its brand. But we all know that the tobacco business will wither away unless it finds new smokers to replace those who quit or die.
Bipartisan bills were introduced in both houses of Congress last week to give the Food and Drug Administration needed authority to regulate tobacco products and restrict marketing to young people, consistent with free-speech principles. That may not do much to wean their elders from the habit. But it could stop young women from being entrapped by cynical marketers.
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
It Happened In Our Own Backyard
Anti-Semetic March on Jewish-Owned Business
Monday, February 19, 2007
But they don't call themselves anti-Semetic. Oh no - they know there's too much negative press attached to that. Instead they are "anti-Zionist", and "against Israeli Apartheid". These groups include Jews, much the way there were Jews in Nazi Germany willing to sell out their friends and family members, thinking they would be saved. In the end, everyone died.
This past Saturday there was a Kill the Jews March (oh wait, I'm told it was an End Apartheid March - tomayto, tomahto...) in front of Indigo at the corner of Bay and Bloor. Heather Reisman is a Jew, and her business was being targeted because she supports Israel. And so Arab-Canadian students and suicidal Jews picketed in front of her store, waving Palestinian flags.
I wasn't there (aparently no one was - I guess the memo wasn't in NOW or EYE Weekly, but there were only about 100 people), but thanks to Casey we have pictures.
I think on Friday I will loiter around that very Indigo and spend my paycheck on Heather's books. Anyone care to join me for a coffee?
My only concern is that Heather has been known to bend with the prevailing breeze before - I hope she doesn't become one of those Jews holding the flag of their own destruction.
posted by RightGirl # 6:29 PM
Let's Give Credit Where Credit Due
Wire Service Spreads Misleading Bush-Killed-Kyoto History
Posted by Tim Graham on February 20, 2007 - 06:21.
One common media-created misconception in the Bush years is that the Clinton administration fully supported the international Kyoto Protocol to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, but the Bush administration arrived and refused to take any action on it. In reality, while Vice President Al Gore signed the Kyoto agreement for the United States, the Clinton administration never submitted it to the Senate for ratification (just like Bush), and the Senate voted 95 to zippy in a nonbinding sense-of-the-Senate resolution against Kyoto in 1997, because the agreement would curb American and European emissions, but place no restrictions whatsoever on China or other polluting "developing" nations.
Agence France Presse was the latest to use bias by omission to relay the Bush-killed-Kyoto theory. It was a story on that global savior Al Gore, declaring he would not run for president in 2008:
Posted by Tim Graham on February 20, 2007 - 06:21.
One common media-created misconception in the Bush years is that the Clinton administration fully supported the international Kyoto Protocol to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, but the Bush administration arrived and refused to take any action on it. In reality, while Vice President Al Gore signed the Kyoto agreement for the United States, the Clinton administration never submitted it to the Senate for ratification (just like Bush), and the Senate voted 95 to zippy in a nonbinding sense-of-the-Senate resolution against Kyoto in 1997, because the agreement would curb American and European emissions, but place no restrictions whatsoever on China or other polluting "developing" nations.
Agence France Presse was the latest to use bias by omission to relay the Bush-killed-Kyoto theory. It was a story on that global savior Al Gore, declaring he would not run for president in 2008:
Vegeterians To Get Kyoto Credits
Humans' beef with livestock: a warmer planet
American meat eaters are responsible for 1.5 more tons of carbon dioxide per person than vegetarians every year.
By Brad Knickerbocker | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
As Congress begins to tackle the causes and cures of global warming, the action focuses on gas-guzzling vehicles and coal-fired power plants, not on lowly bovines.
Yet livestock are a major emitter of greenhouse gases that cause climate change. And as meat becomes a growing mainstay of human diet around the world, changing what we eat may prove as hard as changing what we drive.
It's not just the well-known and frequently joked-about flatulence and manure of grass-chewing cattle that's the problem, according to a recent report by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). Land-use changes, especially deforestation to expand pastures and to create arable land for feed crops, is a big part. So is the use of energy to produce fertilizers, to run the slaughterhouses and meat-processing plants, and to pump water.
"Livestock are one of the most significant contributors to today's most serious environmental problems," Henning Steinfeld, senior author of the report, said when the FAO findings were released in November.
Farrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrt
THE MOST IMPACTFUL SHOW IN THE HISTORY OF TELEVISION
This comment by the head of Fox TV paints a pretty grim picture of society in general.....
For Fox’s Rivals, ‘American Idol’ Remains a ‘Schoolyard Bully’
By BILL CARTER
Listening to the Fox network’s competitors describe what “American Idol” has done to the television landscape is not unlike listening to a group of quavering readers offer a synopsis of a Stephen King novel:
Once a year an unrelenting monster invades a town, and all the townspeople, cowed by years of being crushed under its massive claws, have to pay it fealty or run off and hide until it goes back into a six-month hibernation.
Kelly Kahl, the chief scheduler for CBS, summed up the “Idol” factor this way: “This is a big monolith sitting out there. It’s the ultimate schoolyard bully.”
If any of Fox’s rivals had hopes that this year might signal some hint that the monster — NBC favors the term Death Star — would finally betray some sign of weakness, those hopes were dispelled in just a week. Most television shows, no matter how successful, fall off sometime after their second or third season, but against all expectations, and most of the historic record of network television, “American Idol” has come back for its sixth season bigger and stronger than ever.
Last year at this time, five weeks into its season, “American Idol” was roaring along as television’s most-watched show, with an average of 31.7 million viewers (up substantially from its fourth season, when it averaged 28.3 million viewers over the same five weeks).
Improbably, this season the show has done even better, averaging 33.5 million viewers over its first five weeks. For perspective, at this point “Idol” could lose half its audience and still rank among the top 10 shows on television. And no one dares predict when this phenomenon will fade.
MORE
For Fox’s Rivals, ‘American Idol’ Remains a ‘Schoolyard Bully’
By BILL CARTER
Listening to the Fox network’s competitors describe what “American Idol” has done to the television landscape is not unlike listening to a group of quavering readers offer a synopsis of a Stephen King novel:
Once a year an unrelenting monster invades a town, and all the townspeople, cowed by years of being crushed under its massive claws, have to pay it fealty or run off and hide until it goes back into a six-month hibernation.
Kelly Kahl, the chief scheduler for CBS, summed up the “Idol” factor this way: “This is a big monolith sitting out there. It’s the ultimate schoolyard bully.”
If any of Fox’s rivals had hopes that this year might signal some hint that the monster — NBC favors the term Death Star — would finally betray some sign of weakness, those hopes were dispelled in just a week. Most television shows, no matter how successful, fall off sometime after their second or third season, but against all expectations, and most of the historic record of network television, “American Idol” has come back for its sixth season bigger and stronger than ever.
Last year at this time, five weeks into its season, “American Idol” was roaring along as television’s most-watched show, with an average of 31.7 million viewers (up substantially from its fourth season, when it averaged 28.3 million viewers over the same five weeks).
Improbably, this season the show has done even better, averaging 33.5 million viewers over its first five weeks. For perspective, at this point “Idol” could lose half its audience and still rank among the top 10 shows on television. And no one dares predict when this phenomenon will fade.
MORE
Kyoto, Kyoto, Kyoto........
The fantasy that is Kyoto
Don Martin in Ottawa
National Post
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
Deep in the bowels of government, they're working on Operation Dusty Shelf. OK, so that's not the actual name of this huge bureaucratic undertaking. More like the code word for its future destination.
When a Liberal-ordered bill forces a Conservative government to plan ways to implement the Kyoto protocol, let's just say this is not a motivational exercise for federal bureaucrats. They know their strategy will be stillborn.
Sources say Environment Minister John Baird regrets his initial dismissive bluster against the Kyoto-enforcing private member's bill, which passed through the Commons last week and now awaits a rubber stamp after being debated in the Liberal- dominated Senate.
But it hasn't dimmed his government's disdain for a bill that gives them 60 days to produce an action plan to deliver on the Kyoto target of cranking down Canadian greenhouse gas emissions to 6% below 1990 levels.
"It's not enforceable, not economical and not even constitutional," fumes a senior official in the Environment Ministry. "But we're working on something to deal with it."
This much is certain. The cost and consequences of Kyoto's implementation will not be sugarcoated by this government. The intention is not to deliver warm and fuzzys on ways to meet our international obligations, but to pour cold water and hard realities on the folly of aggressively trying to meet the 2012 target.
Sorting through the possibilities of emission caps, reduced pollution "
Don Martin in Ottawa
National Post
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
Deep in the bowels of government, they're working on Operation Dusty Shelf. OK, so that's not the actual name of this huge bureaucratic undertaking. More like the code word for its future destination.
When a Liberal-ordered bill forces a Conservative government to plan ways to implement the Kyoto protocol, let's just say this is not a motivational exercise for federal bureaucrats. They know their strategy will be stillborn.
Sources say Environment Minister John Baird regrets his initial dismissive bluster against the Kyoto-enforcing private member's bill, which passed through the Commons last week and now awaits a rubber stamp after being debated in the Liberal- dominated Senate.
But it hasn't dimmed his government's disdain for a bill that gives them 60 days to produce an action plan to deliver on the Kyoto target of cranking down Canadian greenhouse gas emissions to 6% below 1990 levels.
"It's not enforceable, not economical and not even constitutional," fumes a senior official in the Environment Ministry. "But we're working on something to deal with it."
This much is certain. The cost and consequences of Kyoto's implementation will not be sugarcoated by this government. The intention is not to deliver warm and fuzzys on ways to meet our international obligations, but to pour cold water and hard realities on the folly of aggressively trying to meet the 2012 target.
Sorting through the possibilities of emission caps, reduced pollution "
More
The Headlines
I don't think I would like to be Dion waking up and reading the papers......
POLL: DION NOT READY FOR PRIME TIME
AXWORTHY: PARTY NEEDS MORE IMAGE, LESS DION
TORIES SURGE ON HARPER'S LEADERSHIP
TORIES PULL FRENCH ATTACK ADS
GREEN & GRIT LEADERS GET CHUMMY
POLL: DION NOT READY FOR PRIME TIME
AXWORTHY: PARTY NEEDS MORE IMAGE, LESS DION
TORIES SURGE ON HARPER'S LEADERSHIP
TORIES PULL FRENCH ATTACK ADS
GREEN & GRIT LEADERS GET CHUMMY
The Public Are Divided On Issue
Of allowing tobacco companys to sponsor sport teams. Non-smokers have no problem accepting the taxes that these companies and smokers contribute or the jobs that they provide but they are terrified to recognize these companies as an actual entity. Is there position that weak and tenuous?
Should tobacco companies be allowed to sponsor sporting events?
Yes 907 50%
No 897 49%
Should tobacco companies be allowed to sponsor sporting events?
Yes 907 50%
No 897 49%
Progess - Mayor Miller Style
I guess spending $2.9M that we don't have is better than spending $6.2 that we don't have even though what we are spending it on doesn't seem to be needed. The big question, one that has been asked and answered by experts, is whether the meetings really need to be held in the first place. The answer is probably NOT.
City Hall cuts back on $6.2M reno
Staff scales down upgrade plan to $2.9M, but keeps media studio, more room for mayor's staff. It goes to committee Friday
February 20, 2007
Jim Byers
CITY HALL BUREAU CHIEF
They've dropped one of the proposed committee rooms. And they're suggesting councillors not lose their views of Nathan Phillips Square.
But they're still talking about more space for the mayor's office and proposing a fancy media studio for councillors to strut their stuff.
City of Toronto staff was greeted with a barrage of criticism recently when it was revealed they had plans for a $6.2 million renovation at City Hall.
Plans called for upgrading two existing committee rooms, building a studio for press conferences and moving five council members from favoured offices overlooking the square to less desirable digs at the back of the building.
The latter move was proposed so that Mayor David Miller could bring all his staff under one roof and not have them split into separate offices on the second floor, as is now the case.
Miller denounced the plan as too expensive, while councillors moaned about having to move to accommodate the mayor.
Chief Corporate Officer Bruce Bowes said staff sat down with Miller and top bureaucrats and drafted the new plan, to cost between $2.5 and $2.9 million and to go to council's budget committee for consideration on Friday.
Instead of getting rid of two existing committee rooms and making them into larger, state-of-the-art rooms like the two main rooms at City Hall, staff suggested improving one and leaving the other as is.
The new committee room will be built so that it can be split into two smaller rooms, Bowes said, while the media centre/studio also will be designed to be turned into a committee room.
Improving both of the smaller committee rooms on the second floor would've required moving some of the mayor's staff, and the plans called for them to be shifted into space overlooking Nathan Phillips Square – space now used by five councillors.
Some were angry at the idea of leaving their space to make room for the mayor, most notably Councillor David Shiner (Ward 24, Willowdale), a sparring partner of Miller.
The new plan calls for the mayor's new staff to be housed in what is now an entryway into council member's offices, a corridor that splits the mayor's office staff in two.
The councillors will get a new entrance elsewhere on the second floor, and the mayor will be able to house his staff in one convenient spot.
Miller has said he wants to hire new workers to handle environmental issues and economic development matters.
Two new administrative staff also are being proposed, which would bring his staff of 19to 23.
Miller said he needs the increase because he has new powers and responsibilities under the City of Toronto Act brought in by the province.
A spokesperson for Vancouver Mayor Sam Sullivan said has seven workers on staff but pointed out Vancouver has only 600,000 residents; about one-quarter of Toronto's population. An official in the office of Montreal Mayor Gérald Tremblay said there are nine policy workers in his office, plus an unknown number of support staff.
Miller yesterday said he's happy staff brought the price tag down so far and feels the proposed, new setup is a reasonable one. But council still has the last word on the renovations, and some members remain unhappy.
"I don't think we need a media studio," said Councillor Brian Ashton (Ward 36, Scarborough Southwest).
"Council members can hold a press conference anywhere they like."
Bowes told the Star that the city's four second-floor committee rooms are booked 100 per cent of the time and that the city has to turn away groups that want to use the rooms.
But Shiner said that rooms that have been booked often don't get used.
A Star survey of the four rooms on four recent days at City Hall – days when council's major committees have been in session – revealed the rooms were often empty.
In 16 combined checks, there were meetings taking place on only 10 occasions in the four-day survey period; a 62.5 per cent occupancy rate.
Shelter Beds Go Empty
But the city is suggesting we spend more money to support those that chose to live on the street. Sheer Stupidity. On the other hand they crow about the number of homeless they get off the street and this is fine but what about some support for those people who are working and living below the poverty line. When is the city going to help them.
Also I support the elementary school meal program and the cost could be easily covered by reducing city union staff by six members.
But On the agenda: roof, food, wages
Development and recreation committee tackles homelessness and hunger
February 20, 2007
Donovan Vincent
City Hall Bureau
Toronto has been able to get more than 1,000 homeless people off the street in less than two years – the majority of them still housed – through the Streets to Homes strategy, a committee report says.
Though that isn't a huge jump from last year's figure of 700, officials behind the effort say it's paying off.
The goal now isn't to give out sleeping bags so people can sleep more comfortably on the streets, says Phil Brown, general manager of the city's Shelter Support and Housing Administration. The directive to outreach workers and agencies now is that sleeping bags, if distributed at all, should be used to help transition people into shelters, drop-ins, and ideally permanent housing, Brown said.
"We're moving from passive supports to a more pro-active approach aimed at getting people housed," Brown said.
The report, tabled before the city's community development and recreation committee yesterday, said Streets to Homes has been funded almost entirely by a federal program called the Supporting Communities Partnership Initiative (SCPI).
Ottawa has renamed the program the Homelessness Partnering Strategy (HPS), a two-year, $270 million national initiative.
It will begin April 1, after SCPI ends in March.
Yesterday's report was tabled amid a busy day featuring a host of anti-poverty initiatives put forward by the committee.
A bid to have Toronto lobby the province to hike the minimum wage to $10 won the committee's support in a 5-1 vote.
"This is not an NDP bill; it affects all people regardless of party (affiliation)" said Councillor Frances Nunziata, who brought forward a proposal that council endorse Bill 150, a private member's bill by New Democrat MPP Cheri DiNovo.
Councillor Michael Walker, who co-wrote the proposal, called the wage hike an issue of "basic justice," adding that people whose pay goes up will buy more, benefiting the economy.
The government's position against a hike beyond $8 is "not defensible," Walker said.
The omnibus anti-poverty package endorsed by the committee included reforms Toronto health authorities have been seeking to ensure that low-income people can afford nutritious food, such as a boost in social assistance rates, the National Child Benefit and the Canada Child Tax Benefit; expanded funding by Toronto for youth meal programs; and restoration of funding for elementary school meal programs.
Other reforms the committee called for include:
# A significant increase in the Canada Child Tax Benefit and National Child Benefit, and an end to clawbacks of the National Child Benefit from Ontario's social assistance recipients.
# Expanded funding by Toronto for youth meal programs, at a cost of $623,981, and restoration of funding for elementary school meal programs at a cost of $300,000.
The committee's package goes before city council next month.
Also I support the elementary school meal program and the cost could be easily covered by reducing city union staff by six members.
But On the agenda: roof, food, wages
Development and recreation committee tackles homelessness and hunger
February 20, 2007
Donovan Vincent
City Hall Bureau
Toronto has been able to get more than 1,000 homeless people off the street in less than two years – the majority of them still housed – through the Streets to Homes strategy, a committee report says.
Though that isn't a huge jump from last year's figure of 700, officials behind the effort say it's paying off.
The goal now isn't to give out sleeping bags so people can sleep more comfortably on the streets, says Phil Brown, general manager of the city's Shelter Support and Housing Administration. The directive to outreach workers and agencies now is that sleeping bags, if distributed at all, should be used to help transition people into shelters, drop-ins, and ideally permanent housing, Brown said.
"We're moving from passive supports to a more pro-active approach aimed at getting people housed," Brown said.
The report, tabled before the city's community development and recreation committee yesterday, said Streets to Homes has been funded almost entirely by a federal program called the Supporting Communities Partnership Initiative (SCPI).
Ottawa has renamed the program the Homelessness Partnering Strategy (HPS), a two-year, $270 million national initiative.
It will begin April 1, after SCPI ends in March.
Yesterday's report was tabled amid a busy day featuring a host of anti-poverty initiatives put forward by the committee.
A bid to have Toronto lobby the province to hike the minimum wage to $10 won the committee's support in a 5-1 vote.
"This is not an NDP bill; it affects all people regardless of party (affiliation)" said Councillor Frances Nunziata, who brought forward a proposal that council endorse Bill 150, a private member's bill by New Democrat MPP Cheri DiNovo.
Councillor Michael Walker, who co-wrote the proposal, called the wage hike an issue of "basic justice," adding that people whose pay goes up will buy more, benefiting the economy.
The government's position against a hike beyond $8 is "not defensible," Walker said.
The omnibus anti-poverty package endorsed by the committee included reforms Toronto health authorities have been seeking to ensure that low-income people can afford nutritious food, such as a boost in social assistance rates, the National Child Benefit and the Canada Child Tax Benefit; expanded funding by Toronto for youth meal programs; and restoration of funding for elementary school meal programs.
Other reforms the committee called for include:
# A significant increase in the Canada Child Tax Benefit and National Child Benefit, and an end to clawbacks of the National Child Benefit from Ontario's social assistance recipients.
# Expanded funding by Toronto for youth meal programs, at a cost of $623,981, and restoration of funding for elementary school meal programs at a cost of $300,000.
The committee's package goes before city council next month.
Pork Barrelling At City Hall Is Continuing
The mayor says he is against a "congestion tax" but he is still sending one of his "key people" (defined as key ass kisser) to London, England to study their tax that Miller is not considering. We could say the money by following my simple solution...BAN PARKING IN THE DOWNTOWN CORE STARTING WITH THE CITY HALL PARKING GARAGE. BTW someone should tell the mayor about tele-conferencing.
Councillor to study London road tax
Brian Ashton, a key Miller appointee, to be briefed in England on congestion toll
February 20, 2007
jim byers
Staff Reporter
One of Mayor David Miller's key political appointees will be in London, England next week to learn more about the city's controversial congestion tax.
Miller has distanced himself from talk of a similar tax here, but Councillor Brian Ashton, Miller's pick to head council's planning and transportation committee and one of council's picks for the Greater Toronto Transit Authority, says Toronto has to keep its options open.
"We have to get more juice out of the transportation lemon in Toronto," Ashton told the Star. "London's taken some comprehensive approaches. They're often heralded as the one major city that's introduced congestion taxes." Ashton said he's to be briefed on the congestion tax by London's deputy mayor.
"I want to learn about the congestion tax. Why was the public accepting of it? What was the level of congestion that triggered the need for that type of tax? We think we have congestion here but maybe we haven't reached that level yet."
Room Service Please!
Councillor to study London road tax
Brian Ashton, a key Miller appointee, to be briefed in England on congestion toll
February 20, 2007
jim byers
Staff Reporter
One of Mayor David Miller's key political appointees will be in London, England next week to learn more about the city's controversial congestion tax.
Miller has distanced himself from talk of a similar tax here, but Councillor Brian Ashton, Miller's pick to head council's planning and transportation committee and one of council's picks for the Greater Toronto Transit Authority, says Toronto has to keep its options open.
"We have to get more juice out of the transportation lemon in Toronto," Ashton told the Star. "London's taken some comprehensive approaches. They're often heralded as the one major city that's introduced congestion taxes." Ashton said he's to be briefed on the congestion tax by London's deputy mayor.
"I want to learn about the congestion tax. Why was the public accepting of it? What was the level of congestion that triggered the need for that type of tax? We think we have congestion here but maybe we haven't reached that level yet."
Room Service Please!
If I Was A Council Member I Wouldn't Want My Picture Taken
It must be difficult enough to live with the guilt about the incompotence,fiscal irresponsibility, lack of positive action and conning the local taxpayers without the fear that if taxpayers could identify us we might be in harms way.
Climate changes at City Hall
Hot air is normal, but now much more spending on the environment is set to spew forth
By SUE-ANN LEVY
February 20, 2007
When the guardians of all things green on the parks and environment committee meet today they won't be talking about how to tackle the $138-million repair backlog facing the city's $6-billion network of parks and rec centres.
They won't bother their pretty heads either with the fact that the repair backlog of this aging group of assets -- most more than 20 years old -- will grow to $266-million by 2011. That's despite a $19-million cash infusion this year.
A status report on the tree maintenance backlog? That's a non-starter. Ditto for a long-awaited policy on off-leash parks.
The self-styled green guardians will instead spend the morning on one thing: They'll spew hot air on climate change.
According to the meeting's painfully thin agenda, experts will attend to assist in the "scoping of an integrated climate change and clean air action plan" for the city.
Attached as background reading -- for those highbrow enough to understand it -- is a report called "Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis" from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Lawson Oates, the new director of the $2.5-million Toronto Environment Office said this comes as a result of Mayor David Miller's election platform to "advance the city's green agenda in relation to climate change and clean air quality."
He said seven experts have been invited to give their ideas on how the city should progress towards an action plan.
From today's briefing, his office will deliver a report to the March executive committee that will lay out a "blueprint or road map" to lead to that action plan.
After that, he said, they plan to hold consultations with the public and stakeholders -- union reps, BIAs, ratepayers associations, academia and so on -- modelled on the mayor's Listening to Toronto efforts. There is no budget attached as of yet, he said.
In June or July, they'll come up with Phase I -- that is short-term actions such as advancing the purchase of vehicles using natural gas. He added that a report scheduled for the fall will lay out "longer concrete measures" together with the associated costs.
Oates own office -- with a complement of 10 staff -- is slated to increase to 18 by year's end to develop the action plans.
Now don't get me wrong. I'm not at all against more of a focus by all levels of government on climate change and am aware of the urgent need to try to reverse the dreadful things we as a society have done to our environment.
But I can't help but wonder if this is more about the mayor trying to delude the public into believing he's another Robert Kennedy and less about actually doing what's right.
I can't help but think, like many socialist causes that have taken root at city hall, this too will become another growth industry.
Not only will the Toronto Environment Office mushroom to 18 staff by year's end, the mayor is also hiring a new minion in his office especially dedicated to the climate change file.
It's not as if we haven't already heard ad nauseum from many of the same suspects and groups slated to speak this morning. They've been preaching the same gospel (and benefiting from the city's largesse) for years with few results.
Take the Toronto Atmospheric Fund, a $25-million-plus environmental slush fund set up by former councillor Jack Layton. I remember many of the bizarre grants Layton handed out for solar wagons, car pools and cleaning projects all with the intent of reducing greenhouse gases.
That was in 1998. I'll bet the emissions haven't changed much, if at all, in the interim.
And what about Miller's handpicked Roundtable on the Environment or the annual smog summit that occurs every spring here at City Hall. Both have produced lots of hot air with few results.
While Coun. Denzil Minnan-Wong thinks climate change needs to be talked about, it's more important to talk about the city's capital budge and why community centres and parks are falling apart.
"I think those are important priorities," he said. "There's not enough discussion about addressing the sports and recreation needs of the citizens of Toronto."
Monday, February 19, 2007
The Cab Driver On Air Farce Can Be Funny
But it is different in the real world and getting into political/religious discussions with cab drivers can get out of hand as the posting by Girl On The Right points out.....
Religion of Peace Mows Down Students in Nashville
Sunday, February 18, 2007
The news that the MSM doesn't want you to know. There's nary a story to be found on this - luckily Robert Spencer picked it up at Jihad Watch.
Two students visiting from Ohio were coming from a bar downtown when they got into an argument with their driver over religion, said police. After they paid the driver he allegedly ran them down in a parking lot.
Ibrihim Ahmned, of United Cab, was arrested and charged with assault, attempted homicide and theft. One of the passengers, Andrew Nelson, managed to outrun the cab but Jeremy Invus was taken to the Vanderbilt University Medical Center with serious injuries, said police.
Here's a tip, people. When you call a taxi, let the dispatcher know you're travelling with a guide dog or something. The hard-core Muslims won't take your fare, and they'll send a white guy to pick you up. No fuss, no muss, no Muslim. The safer way to travel - especially for women. Also means that Mohammed or Ahmed or whomever won't have your fare dollars to send back home to the sand-pit they were born in to fund global terrorism.
This travel tip brought to you by the one-woman counter-Jihad machine: RightGirl.
Labels: Islam, Islamic Terror, Religion, War on Terror
Religion of Peace Mows Down Students in Nashville
Sunday, February 18, 2007
The news that the MSM doesn't want you to know. There's nary a story to be found on this - luckily Robert Spencer picked it up at Jihad Watch.
Two students visiting from Ohio were coming from a bar downtown when they got into an argument with their driver over religion, said police. After they paid the driver he allegedly ran them down in a parking lot.
Ibrihim Ahmned, of United Cab, was arrested and charged with assault, attempted homicide and theft. One of the passengers, Andrew Nelson, managed to outrun the cab but Jeremy Invus was taken to the Vanderbilt University Medical Center with serious injuries, said police.
Here's a tip, people. When you call a taxi, let the dispatcher know you're travelling with a guide dog or something. The hard-core Muslims won't take your fare, and they'll send a white guy to pick you up. No fuss, no muss, no Muslim. The safer way to travel - especially for women. Also means that Mohammed or Ahmed or whomever won't have your fare dollars to send back home to the sand-pit they were born in to fund global terrorism.
This travel tip brought to you by the one-woman counter-Jihad machine: RightGirl.
Labels: Islam, Islamic Terror, Religion, War on Terror
Thanks Kate....Adler Is Always Good For A Read
Stephane Dion, A Weakling In Review
"Le Petit Green Machine" stumbling into an election
commentary by Charles Adler.
February 18, 2007
Stephane Dion is making it impossible for Stephen Harper to keep the Tory guns holstered. The politics of the man who I think of as "Le Petit Green Machine" is baffling all the pros. Push the rewind button. It was only two weeks ago that Dion's Liberal Natural Resources critic, Mark Holland waved a red flag at Alberta's resource sector and the provincial government, all in the name of the sacred cause de jour, climate change. Holland indicated that if the Energy industry didn't curtail its plans for the oil sands, a federal government under Liberal management would act unilaterally to arrest any further exploration of the oil sands. Holland later danced on the op ed pages to say he didn't say what he did say. He tried to hide in Peter Lougheed's treehouse, indicating that the Liberal agenda was simpy an echo of the former Alberta premier's most recent sentiments. I am but a lowly journalist. It would take an army of archeologists to excavate the ruins of every Lougheed statement ever made to discover a single sound bite where Lougheed is calling on the Federal marshall to ride into Calgary and say, "Hand over the six shooters, boys. You're done."
While Mark Holland could be forgiven by some for being a rookie who simply didn't know when to shut the pie hole, his boss is supposed to be a professional pol. That begs the question, "Why was Stephane Dion talking out loud about rolling Canada's anti terror legislation back to the pre 911 era?" Credit some Liberals for trying to put the toothpaste back in the tube on this file. Dion received rhetorical blowback from Irwin Kotler the justice minister who introduced the legislation, Ann McLellan, the public safety minister and Bob Rae who was hired by the government that Dion served, to do an autopsy of the Air India terror plot and make recommendations. Dion has chosen to plant his feet in ideological cement on this issue. Perhaps he believes in sustainable development for Al Qaeda.
The Dion gang has also attacked the Conservative strategy to get tougher judges on the Canadian bench, antagonizing every victims right group in the nation. They feel the most appropriate metaphor for justice under the Liberals was a "get out of jail free" card. The Liberals say they aren't opposed to tough judges. They just don't want any with close ties to Conservatives. Problems is Liberals over the years appointed plenty of Judges who not only leaned Liberal, but raised money for the party. The mother's milk of politics is money, and Liberals are nothing if not sourcream on this one.
No chronicling of recent bungle in the jungle would be complete without including the name Denis Coderre. Yes he is the man who spoke last year at a pro Hizbollah rally in Quebec. Perhaps that is why Dion has chosen him to be the Liberal defence critic. Coderre this week launched a scathing attack on the country's chief of defence staff, Rick Hillier. The general had the good sense to comment on the obvious. In a speech, Hillier referred to the many years of defence cuts as the decade of darkness. Denis Coderre, got up in the House of Commons and accused the general of being a political prop of the Conservative government.
Question: Which of the above plays sound like those of a political team that can win back the hearts of Canadian voters? It will take a team of wild horses to prevent Stephen Harper from green lighting the next election.
Just watch the PM in Question period. Every day he goes up against the Liberals, he knows that he is punching below his weight division, punching the opposition leader's lights out and eventually punching Dion's ticket back to a unversity campus in Montreal.
When discussing politics with Liberals away from the tv cameras and radio microphones, it's hard not sense the frustration they have with the new leader. They knew that Paul Martin looked like a three dollar bill when he declared every single issue his top priority. Similarly they know that Stephane Dion cleaving to the Kyoto nipple makes him look like a one trick baby. None of the Liberals are complaining about Dion's linguistic challenge. It's his political tool kit , all hammers and no screw drivers.
Stephen Harper has a choice. He can continue to observe Stephane Dion giving the Tories their daily grub, the way the way the old lady in front of the cathedral feeds the pigeons. Or Harper can say to his caucus, "Our bellies are full. It's time to plunder."
See also: this smackdown, at Officially Screwed.
Posted by Kate at 3:05 PM | Comments (44) | TrackBack (0)
"Le Petit Green Machine" stumbling into an election
commentary by Charles Adler.
February 18, 2007
Stephane Dion is making it impossible for Stephen Harper to keep the Tory guns holstered. The politics of the man who I think of as "Le Petit Green Machine" is baffling all the pros. Push the rewind button. It was only two weeks ago that Dion's Liberal Natural Resources critic, Mark Holland waved a red flag at Alberta's resource sector and the provincial government, all in the name of the sacred cause de jour, climate change. Holland indicated that if the Energy industry didn't curtail its plans for the oil sands, a federal government under Liberal management would act unilaterally to arrest any further exploration of the oil sands. Holland later danced on the op ed pages to say he didn't say what he did say. He tried to hide in Peter Lougheed's treehouse, indicating that the Liberal agenda was simpy an echo of the former Alberta premier's most recent sentiments. I am but a lowly journalist. It would take an army of archeologists to excavate the ruins of every Lougheed statement ever made to discover a single sound bite where Lougheed is calling on the Federal marshall to ride into Calgary and say, "Hand over the six shooters, boys. You're done."
While Mark Holland could be forgiven by some for being a rookie who simply didn't know when to shut the pie hole, his boss is supposed to be a professional pol. That begs the question, "Why was Stephane Dion talking out loud about rolling Canada's anti terror legislation back to the pre 911 era?" Credit some Liberals for trying to put the toothpaste back in the tube on this file. Dion received rhetorical blowback from Irwin Kotler the justice minister who introduced the legislation, Ann McLellan, the public safety minister and Bob Rae who was hired by the government that Dion served, to do an autopsy of the Air India terror plot and make recommendations. Dion has chosen to plant his feet in ideological cement on this issue. Perhaps he believes in sustainable development for Al Qaeda.
The Dion gang has also attacked the Conservative strategy to get tougher judges on the Canadian bench, antagonizing every victims right group in the nation. They feel the most appropriate metaphor for justice under the Liberals was a "get out of jail free" card. The Liberals say they aren't opposed to tough judges. They just don't want any with close ties to Conservatives. Problems is Liberals over the years appointed plenty of Judges who not only leaned Liberal, but raised money for the party. The mother's milk of politics is money, and Liberals are nothing if not sourcream on this one.
No chronicling of recent bungle in the jungle would be complete without including the name Denis Coderre. Yes he is the man who spoke last year at a pro Hizbollah rally in Quebec. Perhaps that is why Dion has chosen him to be the Liberal defence critic. Coderre this week launched a scathing attack on the country's chief of defence staff, Rick Hillier. The general had the good sense to comment on the obvious. In a speech, Hillier referred to the many years of defence cuts as the decade of darkness. Denis Coderre, got up in the House of Commons and accused the general of being a political prop of the Conservative government.
Question: Which of the above plays sound like those of a political team that can win back the hearts of Canadian voters? It will take a team of wild horses to prevent Stephen Harper from green lighting the next election.
Just watch the PM in Question period. Every day he goes up against the Liberals, he knows that he is punching below his weight division, punching the opposition leader's lights out and eventually punching Dion's ticket back to a unversity campus in Montreal.
When discussing politics with Liberals away from the tv cameras and radio microphones, it's hard not sense the frustration they have with the new leader. They knew that Paul Martin looked like a three dollar bill when he declared every single issue his top priority. Similarly they know that Stephane Dion cleaving to the Kyoto nipple makes him look like a one trick baby. None of the Liberals are complaining about Dion's linguistic challenge. It's his political tool kit , all hammers and no screw drivers.
Stephen Harper has a choice. He can continue to observe Stephane Dion giving the Tories their daily grub, the way the way the old lady in front of the cathedral feeds the pigeons. Or Harper can say to his caucus, "Our bellies are full. It's time to plunder."
See also: this smackdown, at Officially Screwed.
Posted by Kate at 3:05 PM | Comments (44) | TrackBack (0)
Herouxville Gains International Recognition
"Heroville", Canada
The tumultuous entry (now broadcast around the world) of Herouxville, Quebec into Canada's immigration debate demonstrates the great divide that exists in Canada on the immigration issue.
On one side are the majority of Canadians who instictively feel something is wrong with Canada's mass immigration policy (currently about 250,000 per year, the highest per capita in the world). On the other side are Canada's mass immigration industry and its supporters (often described as a fifth column) who tell Canadians that mass immigration is wonderful.
The national and international uproar that Herouxville has caused is wildly out of proportion to its size. The town has a population of 1300 and is located in rural Quebec, about 150 km. northeast of Montreal. Most Canadian towns and cities of all sizes have passively accepted the historically high immigration levels that Canada's federal government set for the country in 1990, but which it has never justified. In doing so, Herouxville is literally like David taking on Goliath.
In fact, the little town's virtual "Declaration of the Rights of Canadians", which bravely contradicts official multicultural policies, sounds almost like a call to revolution.
Source
The tumultuous entry (now broadcast around the world) of Herouxville, Quebec into Canada's immigration debate demonstrates the great divide that exists in Canada on the immigration issue.
On one side are the majority of Canadians who instictively feel something is wrong with Canada's mass immigration policy (currently about 250,000 per year, the highest per capita in the world). On the other side are Canada's mass immigration industry and its supporters (often described as a fifth column) who tell Canadians that mass immigration is wonderful.
The national and international uproar that Herouxville has caused is wildly out of proportion to its size. The town has a population of 1300 and is located in rural Quebec, about 150 km. northeast of Montreal. Most Canadian towns and cities of all sizes have passively accepted the historically high immigration levels that Canada's federal government set for the country in 1990, but which it has never justified. In doing so, Herouxville is literally like David taking on Goliath.
In fact, the little town's virtual "Declaration of the Rights of Canadians", which bravely contradicts official multicultural policies, sounds almost like a call to revolution.
Source
Turn Off Your Homophobia Electric Cattle Prods
A small defeat for Lesbianism: Mother gets the right to be a mother
Post lifted from Stop the ACLU
Howard Bashman reports:
“The Utah Supreme Court today affirmed the parental rights of Cheryl Barlow, the mother of a 5-year-old child, granting Barlow’s request to reverse a lower court decision that had granted parental standing to her former partner, a lesbian political activist.” So begins a press release that Alliance Defense Fund issued today.
Today’s ruling of the Supreme Court of Utah in Jones v. Barlow can be accessed here.
It’s ridiculous that we’re even discussing (at state supreme court level no less!) whether a parent has the right to direct the upbringing of her own child without interference and disruption from a legal stranger. What we have in this case is a mother doing what she thinks is in the best interest of her own little girl. On the other side, we have a hardcore political activist creating chaos into the lives of that little girl and her mother, not in the best interest of the child, but seemingly in order to advance a radical political agenda. Of course, openly using children as political props is not uncommon among some.
The court savaged the idea that the homosexual extremists and lower court were attempting to advance that non-parents have veto power over true parents.
This temporary status is reinforced by the fact that the surrogate parent may arbitrarily cast the relationship aside at any time and thus terminate all parent-like obligations and rights. 67A C.J.S. Parent and Child 348 (2002); Taylor v. Taylor, 364 P.2d 444, 445 (Wash. 1961). It would be a perverse doctrine of law that left a legal parent unable to enforce support obligations against a surrogate parent's will because of the temporary status of the in loco parentis relationship but allowed a surrogate parent to extend her parent-like rights against the legal parent's objections for as long as she saw fit. Under such a distorted legal regime, the parent like rights and responsibilities are permanent and abiding for as long as the surrogate parent wants them to be, yet transitory and fleeting when the legal parent seeks to enforce a parental obligation against the surrogate parent. Such an inequitable result, which would prioritize the rights of the surrogate parent over the needs of the child, demonstrates that the in loco parentis doctrine does not contemplate a perpetual grant of rights and is, in fact, ill-suited to convey such rights.
One of the arguments put forth in cases like this is that the non-parent “dressed the child, wiped his nose and took him to the zoo,” etc. This is for emotional impact only and has no legal meaning. By that argument, any day care worker, especially these days when many women are leaving their 12-week old babies in day care from 8-5 every day, to make parental claims.
The court did the right thing by restoring calm in the life of a little girl and common sense about the role and the rights of parents.
Post lifted from Stop the ACLU
Howard Bashman reports:
“The Utah Supreme Court today affirmed the parental rights of Cheryl Barlow, the mother of a 5-year-old child, granting Barlow’s request to reverse a lower court decision that had granted parental standing to her former partner, a lesbian political activist.” So begins a press release that Alliance Defense Fund issued today.
Today’s ruling of the Supreme Court of Utah in Jones v. Barlow can be accessed here.
It’s ridiculous that we’re even discussing (at state supreme court level no less!) whether a parent has the right to direct the upbringing of her own child without interference and disruption from a legal stranger. What we have in this case is a mother doing what she thinks is in the best interest of her own little girl. On the other side, we have a hardcore political activist creating chaos into the lives of that little girl and her mother, not in the best interest of the child, but seemingly in order to advance a radical political agenda. Of course, openly using children as political props is not uncommon among some.
The court savaged the idea that the homosexual extremists and lower court were attempting to advance that non-parents have veto power over true parents.
This temporary status is reinforced by the fact that the surrogate parent may arbitrarily cast the relationship aside at any time and thus terminate all parent-like obligations and rights. 67A C.J.S. Parent and Child 348 (2002); Taylor v. Taylor, 364 P.2d 444, 445 (Wash. 1961). It would be a perverse doctrine of law that left a legal parent unable to enforce support obligations against a surrogate parent's will because of the temporary status of the in loco parentis relationship but allowed a surrogate parent to extend her parent-like rights against the legal parent's objections for as long as she saw fit. Under such a distorted legal regime, the parent like rights and responsibilities are permanent and abiding for as long as the surrogate parent wants them to be, yet transitory and fleeting when the legal parent seeks to enforce a parental obligation against the surrogate parent. Such an inequitable result, which would prioritize the rights of the surrogate parent over the needs of the child, demonstrates that the in loco parentis doctrine does not contemplate a perpetual grant of rights and is, in fact, ill-suited to convey such rights.
One of the arguments put forth in cases like this is that the non-parent “dressed the child, wiped his nose and took him to the zoo,” etc. This is for emotional impact only and has no legal meaning. By that argument, any day care worker, especially these days when many women are leaving their 12-week old babies in day care from 8-5 every day, to make parental claims.
The court did the right thing by restoring calm in the life of a little girl and common sense about the role and the rights of parents.
More Denial Of History
We read:
"The B.C. government is considering removing four murals under the dome of the B.C. legislature, one of which depicts bare-breasted native women hauling logs and fish for white men -- sparking a debate over whether art is being trumped by political correctness.
The murals, which also show a native being punished before a colonial court and a pair of landscapes celebrating Europeans colonizing the New World as natives look on impassively, were unveiled as high-minded public art 75 years ago.
The B.C. Liberal government is quietly formulating a plan that could see the art removed from the legislature -- or at least hidden from public view. Aboriginal Relations Minister Mike de Jong has been seeking input from native leaders about the fate of George H. Southwell's colourful paintings, which they consider racist, depicting natives at one of their darkest moments in history.
Source
Lorrie's Update On The Environment
McGuinty's green smokescreen
B February 18, 2007y LORRIE GOLDSTEIN
Premier Dalton McGuinty is sending out so many mixed messages about the environment that it's hard to keep up.
The latest, delivered last week through Energy Minister Dwight Duncan, is that Ontario has dramatically reduced greenhouse gas emissions from its four remaining coal-fired power stations.
These were the stations -- including Nanticoke, Canada's single biggest emitter -- that McGuinty at first promised to close this year, a pledge he made during the 2003 election.
Then he broke that pledge and pushed the date back to 2009. Now it's 2014.
The good news, says Duncan, is carbon dioxide emissions from these plants are down 29% from when the Liberals took power in 2003 and are now below 1990 levels, in line with the Kyoto accord, which requires Canada to reduce emissions to six per cent below 1990 levels by 2012. Coal now accounts for 16% of Ontario's power needs, down from 25% in 2003.
But the problem with announcements like this is that they create the false impression that reducing greenhouse gases to the levels required by Kyoto will be easy. It won't.
More
B February 18, 2007y LORRIE GOLDSTEIN
Premier Dalton McGuinty is sending out so many mixed messages about the environment that it's hard to keep up.
The latest, delivered last week through Energy Minister Dwight Duncan, is that Ontario has dramatically reduced greenhouse gas emissions from its four remaining coal-fired power stations.
These were the stations -- including Nanticoke, Canada's single biggest emitter -- that McGuinty at first promised to close this year, a pledge he made during the 2003 election.
Then he broke that pledge and pushed the date back to 2009. Now it's 2014.
The good news, says Duncan, is carbon dioxide emissions from these plants are down 29% from when the Liberals took power in 2003 and are now below 1990 levels, in line with the Kyoto accord, which requires Canada to reduce emissions to six per cent below 1990 levels by 2012. Coal now accounts for 16% of Ontario's power needs, down from 25% in 2003.
But the problem with announcements like this is that they create the false impression that reducing greenhouse gases to the levels required by Kyoto will be easy. It won't.
More
Tory Appointment Of Judges Comes Under Attack
Even though Harper promised law and order and it is inevitable that he would "stack" the judicial system with individuals who apply the criminal code not their interpretation of the code and the charter. Let's take a glimpse into the accomplishment of the liberals........
An army of scumbags has been unleashed upon unsuspecting Canadians
By IAN ROBINSON
OK, I'll bite.
What in the name of all that's holy does somebody have to do to be well and truly punished by the judicial system?
A Sun Media investigation discovered last week that 100,000 convicted criminals have received pardons over the last six years.
That means this army of scumbags -- and an army it truly is; the Canadian Forces couldn't field that many combat troops if the life of the nation depended on it -- can get passports, work for any federal agency, including the Armed Forces (New slogan: The few. The proud. The perverted.), or any business under federal authority.
And they can tell prospective employers that they don't have a criminal record.
Fabulous.
Hold on...we're not finished.Pardon me for being astonished
An army of scumbags has been unleashed upon unsuspecting Canadians
By IAN ROBINSON
OK, I'll bite.
What in the name of all that's holy does somebody have to do to be well and truly punished by the judicial system?
A Sun Media investigation discovered last week that 100,000 convicted criminals have received pardons over the last six years.
That means this army of scumbags -- and an army it truly is; the Canadian Forces couldn't field that many combat troops if the life of the nation depended on it -- can get passports, work for any federal agency, including the Armed Forces (New slogan: The few. The proud. The perverted.), or any business under federal authority.
And they can tell prospective employers that they don't have a criminal record.
Fabulous.
Hold on...we're not finished.Pardon me for being astonished
The Value Of Marches/Demonstrations In North America
Usually these are hijacked by extremists and the organizers are tarred with the same brush so their original message gets lost in the media hysteria about riot police, tear gas, etc. but here is someone who believes he accomplished the goal of the marches. CONGRATULATIONS
In College, I Marched Against Racism—And It Worked
February 14, 2007 | Issue 43•07
Is there no one out there who cares about changing the world anymore? What happened to the passion, the love, the determination to make a difference? Today's youth spend their time sitting in front of their computers, but the people of my generation took a stand, took action, and reshaped our country. When I was in college, I marched against racism, and now there isn't racism anymore.
It was a turbulent time in American race relations—the late 1980s. I was just an undeclared major at that historic flashpoint of racial reckoning, the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Those who weren't there just can't understand. They were dark, dark days, crying out for the light of an organized, campus-wide demonstration, and we heeded that call. We provided that light.
Many of us were having our eyes opened, often for the first time, to the extent of racial injustice in America. Galvanized by the protest songs of Public Enemy and the writings of Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and caught up in the surging crest of a rising wave of a bold new dawn of a bright new awakening, we took to the streets.
We came together from every area of study to make a statement. We marched with banners and signs and chanted slogans that made it clear to the entire campus that we, the young people, opposed racism in no uncertain terms. Several black people even showed up, which was awesome, and we all got our pictures in the college paper. The next morning—poof—racism, in all its insidious forms, was gone forever.
Doesn't that give you the inspiration to go out and fight for whatever you believe in?
It's amazing, when you think about it, how one small group of committed students, almost all of them underclassmen in a relatively sedate Midwestern college town, could make history. If you require proof, look around you: Today we have black congressmen, black TV news anchors, and even a black man running for president. Oprah is a billionaire, and rap music is more popular than ever.
You're welcome.
Of course, it took more than that one march to end racism—we also put up dozens of flyers and got interviewed on the campus radio station.
We pinned our "Celebrate Difference" buttons to our "Carpe Diem" T-shirts, and proceeded to shake institutional racism to its core until it crumbled and fell into dust. And the whole thing, including the pre-march rally, took about 90 minutes.
It's tragic how the younger generation is willing to sit idly by and allow outrages and atrocities to persist. Can't they stop text-messaging each other long enough to march around for an hour and a half and utterly eradicate a social problem anymore? I only wish we had had the foresight that day to paint a few more signs calling for equal rights for gays and the transgendered, and demanding higher fuel standards for automobiles—why, we'd be living in a virtual utopia right now.
How many more must die in Darfur before a few hundred college kids meet in a leafy outdoor setting, chant, walk around, and bring an end to the killing once and for all?
Sometimes I want to get up there myself and rally the sophomores and juniors and seniors of this world to do something. Anything. But my generation has already done its part—we ended racism. Eighteen years ago, on that sunny college campus, we closed our nation's most shameful chapter, just like we ended rape when we took back the night that following year.
It's someone else's turn to take to the streets for the day.
© Copyright 2007, Onion, Inc. All rights reserved.
In College, I Marched Against Racism—And It Worked
February 14, 2007 | Issue 43•07
Is there no one out there who cares about changing the world anymore? What happened to the passion, the love, the determination to make a difference? Today's youth spend their time sitting in front of their computers, but the people of my generation took a stand, took action, and reshaped our country. When I was in college, I marched against racism, and now there isn't racism anymore.
It was a turbulent time in American race relations—the late 1980s. I was just an undeclared major at that historic flashpoint of racial reckoning, the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Those who weren't there just can't understand. They were dark, dark days, crying out for the light of an organized, campus-wide demonstration, and we heeded that call. We provided that light.
Many of us were having our eyes opened, often for the first time, to the extent of racial injustice in America. Galvanized by the protest songs of Public Enemy and the writings of Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and caught up in the surging crest of a rising wave of a bold new dawn of a bright new awakening, we took to the streets.
We came together from every area of study to make a statement. We marched with banners and signs and chanted slogans that made it clear to the entire campus that we, the young people, opposed racism in no uncertain terms. Several black people even showed up, which was awesome, and we all got our pictures in the college paper. The next morning—poof—racism, in all its insidious forms, was gone forever.
Doesn't that give you the inspiration to go out and fight for whatever you believe in?
It's amazing, when you think about it, how one small group of committed students, almost all of them underclassmen in a relatively sedate Midwestern college town, could make history. If you require proof, look around you: Today we have black congressmen, black TV news anchors, and even a black man running for president. Oprah is a billionaire, and rap music is more popular than ever.
You're welcome.
Of course, it took more than that one march to end racism—we also put up dozens of flyers and got interviewed on the campus radio station.
We pinned our "Celebrate Difference" buttons to our "Carpe Diem" T-shirts, and proceeded to shake institutional racism to its core until it crumbled and fell into dust. And the whole thing, including the pre-march rally, took about 90 minutes.
It's tragic how the younger generation is willing to sit idly by and allow outrages and atrocities to persist. Can't they stop text-messaging each other long enough to march around for an hour and a half and utterly eradicate a social problem anymore? I only wish we had had the foresight that day to paint a few more signs calling for equal rights for gays and the transgendered, and demanding higher fuel standards for automobiles—why, we'd be living in a virtual utopia right now.
How many more must die in Darfur before a few hundred college kids meet in a leafy outdoor setting, chant, walk around, and bring an end to the killing once and for all?
Sometimes I want to get up there myself and rally the sophomores and juniors and seniors of this world to do something. Anything. But my generation has already done its part—we ended racism. Eighteen years ago, on that sunny college campus, we closed our nation's most shameful chapter, just like we ended rape when we took back the night that following year.
It's someone else's turn to take to the streets for the day.
© Copyright 2007, Onion, Inc. All rights reserved.
Is Dion Responsible For His Image
Or is it being manipulated behind the scenes?
Is Iggy behind goofy Liberal strategy?
By ANGELO PERSICHILLI
February 18, 2007
"Cui prodest?" (Who gains?) was the question the ancient Latins were asking themselves when trying to figure out the explanation of certain actions.
I asked myself that question last Wednesday during the vote on the Liberal motion asking the government to implement the requirements of the Kyoto Protocol.
The obvious answer is "the environment," meaning all of us, as long as it is possible to implement Kyoto within the required time frame.
At this point the debate becomes foggy and, at the same time, the hypocrisy of the Liberals more evident. But, is it just hypocrisy or is there something more? Let's see.
The Liberals signed the Kyoto Protocol in 1998, committing themselves to reduce polluting emissions to the level of 1990 by 2012. Then they sat on the protocol for eight years, as now deputy leader Michael Ignatieff unequivocally stated during the leadership campaign. In fact, greenshouse gas emissions increased by 27% under their watch.
Now in February 2007, they are asking the Stephen Harper government to do in five years what they were not even able to start in eight.
If we take them seriously there is only one conclusion: They want to go to the polls.
At this point I go back to the first question: Cui prodest? Who will gain from it?
PM'S ALREADY CAMPAINING
A few weeks ago I wrote only Stephen Harper's Conservative Party wants an early election. He is the one already campaigning, he is the only one with the money, he has a better organization and the best chance to win. The Liberals are not ready.
So, why do the Liberals -- who have a leader that is not ready, have no organization, no money and are still working on internal unity problems -- seem so eager to go to the polls?
Why does Stephane Dion want to roll the dice, face an electoral disaster and jeopardize his leadership? If the Conservatives are going to win a majority, Dion will most likely be forced out and the Liberals will face another convention.
The question is: Who is going to gain from another early convention?
Well, Bob Rae will still be dealing with his future within the Liberal Party, Gerard Kennedy will be somewhere in the country preparing an organization that will not be ready for a spring election and Dion will be back to being an academic.
So, let me ask the question again: Who is going to gain from an early spring election?
Yes, Stephen Harper, but I have to add another name: Michael Ignatieff.
It is, obviously, a coincidence, but looking at the commercial prepared by the Conservatives to attack Dion in the English media, we see the attack against the Liberal leader coming from Ignatieff. Harper attacks Dion on the issue he thought would provide the slam dunk during the election, the environment. But, as Ignatieff admits: "We didn't do it, Stephane."
Now Pablo Rodriquez, another Ignatieff supporter, is leading the pack within the Liberal Party to force Harper to respect the vote in the House on Kyoto.
THE OLD GANG
Also this week, Ignatieff has lead the charge against the government with another embarrassing issue for the Liberals: Patronage appointments. But, again, the only one to be embarrassed will be the leader, Dion, who was part of the old gang, not Iggy.
There are many other issues the Liberals can use to attack the Conservative government. They should have a long list. So, why are they using issues to embarrass the Conservative government but also the former Liberal governments? Cui prodest?
Is Iggy behind goofy Liberal strategy?
By ANGELO PERSICHILLI
February 18, 2007
"Cui prodest?" (Who gains?) was the question the ancient Latins were asking themselves when trying to figure out the explanation of certain actions.
I asked myself that question last Wednesday during the vote on the Liberal motion asking the government to implement the requirements of the Kyoto Protocol.
The obvious answer is "the environment," meaning all of us, as long as it is possible to implement Kyoto within the required time frame.
At this point the debate becomes foggy and, at the same time, the hypocrisy of the Liberals more evident. But, is it just hypocrisy or is there something more? Let's see.
The Liberals signed the Kyoto Protocol in 1998, committing themselves to reduce polluting emissions to the level of 1990 by 2012. Then they sat on the protocol for eight years, as now deputy leader Michael Ignatieff unequivocally stated during the leadership campaign. In fact, greenshouse gas emissions increased by 27% under their watch.
Now in February 2007, they are asking the Stephen Harper government to do in five years what they were not even able to start in eight.
If we take them seriously there is only one conclusion: They want to go to the polls.
At this point I go back to the first question: Cui prodest? Who will gain from it?
PM'S ALREADY CAMPAINING
A few weeks ago I wrote only Stephen Harper's Conservative Party wants an early election. He is the one already campaigning, he is the only one with the money, he has a better organization and the best chance to win. The Liberals are not ready.
So, why do the Liberals -- who have a leader that is not ready, have no organization, no money and are still working on internal unity problems -- seem so eager to go to the polls?
Why does Stephane Dion want to roll the dice, face an electoral disaster and jeopardize his leadership? If the Conservatives are going to win a majority, Dion will most likely be forced out and the Liberals will face another convention.
The question is: Who is going to gain from another early convention?
Well, Bob Rae will still be dealing with his future within the Liberal Party, Gerard Kennedy will be somewhere in the country preparing an organization that will not be ready for a spring election and Dion will be back to being an academic.
So, let me ask the question again: Who is going to gain from an early spring election?
Yes, Stephen Harper, but I have to add another name: Michael Ignatieff.
It is, obviously, a coincidence, but looking at the commercial prepared by the Conservatives to attack Dion in the English media, we see the attack against the Liberal leader coming from Ignatieff. Harper attacks Dion on the issue he thought would provide the slam dunk during the election, the environment. But, as Ignatieff admits: "We didn't do it, Stephane."
Now Pablo Rodriquez, another Ignatieff supporter, is leading the pack within the Liberal Party to force Harper to respect the vote in the House on Kyoto.
THE OLD GANG
Also this week, Ignatieff has lead the charge against the government with another embarrassing issue for the Liberals: Patronage appointments. But, again, the only one to be embarrassed will be the leader, Dion, who was part of the old gang, not Iggy.
There are many other issues the Liberals can use to attack the Conservative government. They should have a long list. So, why are they using issues to embarrass the Conservative government but also the former Liberal governments? Cui prodest?
Our Mayor Recognized By San Francisco mayor
Toronto's new digital sister
Miller set to sign media deal with San Francisco mayor
February 19, 2007
Jim Byers
CITY HALL BUREAU CHIEF
We've heard of digital radio and digital pets. Now there's something called a digital sister city.
They're not quite sure what it means, but officials in Mayor David Miller's office say Toronto's top politician will take part this week in a "digital sister city signing" with Mayor Gavin Newsom of San Francisco.
Sister city deals have come under attack over the years from people who see them simply as a way for politicos to travel to exotic locales at taxpayer expense. Toronto has sister city relationships with several overseas municipalities, including Milan.
Officials in Toronto's economic development department couldn't be reached for comment, but the San Francisco deal is said to be the city's first "digital sister city" agreement.
According to the San Francisco city website, the city by the bay has digital deals with nine other municipalities around the world, including Singapore, Dusseldorf and Toronto, a city that the website says is led by "Lord Mayor David Miller."
The website says that goals of the digital sister city initiative include:
# Growing the digital media industry by encouraging greater integration of and investment in digital media companies located in sister cities.
# Developing joint educational programs and exchange opportunities between digital sister cities to prepare our students for the global future.
# Enhancing next-generation connectivity between digital sister cities.
"By creating the initiative, San Francisco positions itself to work in tandem with offshore partners around the world to produce more work more efficiently, allowing the City's digital media industry to grow," the city's website explains.
Burying Hogtown in a pile of debt
Burying Hogtown in a pile of debt
Money to fix roads or maintain city buildings can't be found, but Mayor David Miller is still adding staff, no wonder we're ...
By SUE-ANN LEVY
Let's get one thing perfectly clear.
When Mayor David Miller states he should now be considered CEO of this city under the new City of Toronto Act -- as he suggested recently to defend his proposed $6.2-million-plus office expansion -- I make no argument.
I have to disagree with his interpretation of CEO however.
Only a Chief Emperor (and) Overlord -- or one who behaves as such -- would dare plan such an outrageous expansion of his offices for more staff and meeting space even as the city is forced to raise new debt of $350 million in this year's $1.4-billion capital budget to keep the assets afloat.
And just barely. The city is so cash-strapped that only $5 million has been allocated -- pared down from the originally planned $30 million -- to clear a $301-million road repairs backlog.
There's another $167-million backlog in "essential" repairs to the city's 270 corporate buildings -- civic centres and so on. Only $14-million has been set aside to deal with that this year. At that rate the backlog won't be cleared until 2018.
If the city's buildings last that long. Bruce Bowes, chief corporate officer, said the buildings are "in reasonably good shape." Still he conceded that if maintenance is delayed on leaky roofs, for example, the roof not only needs to be replaced but the delay "leads to other issues."
By the end of last year, some 10.5% of every tax dollar was being used to service the debt. Projections are that the city will be carrying a $2.3-billion debt by the end of this year.
A true chief executive officer would be concerned first and foremost with the city's bottom line, crumbling infrastructure and how the escalating debt might impact on Toronto's credit rating.
He or she wouldn't be looking to the senior levels of government for some unrealistic bailout. A true CEO would be getting his or her house in order first.
But not Toronto's CEO.
It seems Miller thinks he's so darn important that he needs more office space to house four or five new staff members (bringing his office complement up to 23), a pretty new media studio to engage in new photo ops a la his hero Robert Kennedy, and more meeting rooms to hobnob with his adoring fans (mostly unionized workers I dare say).
Miller's executive assistant Bruce Scott said the new staffers will include two policy people -- one working on the climate change file and another on economic development. He says the budget for that, over and above the $6.2-million, hasn't yet been finalized.
'SHARPEN HIS PENCIL'
Bowes said the initial plan to add more space and consolidate the mayor's staff in one area -- now called Option A -- will force five councillors to be displaced to another part of the second floor and the clerk's staff to one of the towers.
He noted last Monday (after the mayor's plan was "outed" in the press) Miller asked him to go back, "sharpen his pencil" and look at other, less expensive, less disruptive options. The new, improved plan will be unveiled to Miller tomorrow.
Bowes said they still intend -- whatever option is selected -- to add two more committee rooms to the second floor to increase the meeting space. The socialist party line is that more civic engagement is expected.
That's a crock.
Ask any number of councillors and they'll say how closely Miller's office guards information and controls the agenda. For the second month in a row, the standing committee meeting agendas have been suspiciously light and public deputations few and far between.
Coun. David Shiner, one of those councillors who could be displaced under Option A, calls the renovation plan "absolutely ridiculous."
"If he was CEO, he should be very concerned about the financial situation of this corporation," he said. "This ship is going to be sailing into an iceberg pretty soon and it's going to sink."
Cesar Palacio, another councillor slated to be moved, said he was disappointed but "not surprised."
I can find 6.2 million reasons to say we have other priorities, he said, pointing to the sprucing up of Nathan Phillips Square and Union Station among other things. "It doesn't make sense ... this is not a priority."
Would Martin/Dion/Cretien Been That Confrontational
We know Layton/Doucette wouldn't have had the balls!
Saturday, February 17, 2007
Why It Would Be a Catastrophe to Solve the Arab-Israel Conflict
(Rael Jean Isaac- The American Thinker)
There is no more widely believed proposition in world politics today than that solving the Arab-Israel conflict would contribute to world peace as nothing else could. It doesn’t matter where you stand on the conflict. Republicans and Democrats, Western European democratic leaders and Arab despots, the EU, the UN, Israeli leaders, Jews of the world - for all of them, solving the Arab-Israel conflict is the holy grail.
Merely to breathe life into the hope suffices to win a Nobel Peace Prize. No other conflict has garnered so many prizes. The first went to Ralph Bunche in 1950 for working on the Arab-Israel armistice that produced the Green Line, Israel’s de facto border until 1967. In 1978 Sadat and Begin received the prize for Camp David and the peace treaty with Egypt (in practice, another armistice, given Egypt’s failure to honor most of its provisions). In 1994 it went to Arafat, Peres and Rabin for bringing peace via Oslo.
(more…)
From Common Sense & Wonder
There is no more widely believed proposition in world politics today than that solving the Arab-Israel conflict would contribute to world peace as nothing else could. It doesn’t matter where you stand on the conflict. Republicans and Democrats, Western European democratic leaders and Arab despots, the EU, the UN, Israeli leaders, Jews of the world - for all of them, solving the Arab-Israel conflict is the holy grail.
Merely to breathe life into the hope suffices to win a Nobel Peace Prize. No other conflict has garnered so many prizes. The first went to Ralph Bunche in 1950 for working on the Arab-Israel armistice that produced the Green Line, Israel’s de facto border until 1967. In 1978 Sadat and Begin received the prize for Camp David and the peace treaty with Egypt (in practice, another armistice, given Egypt’s failure to honor most of its provisions). In 1994 it went to Arafat, Peres and Rabin for bringing peace via Oslo.
(more…)
From Common Sense & Wonder
The Riders In Their Green Sheets & Hoods Heading To Unionville
And will end up on Madhav Khandekar's lawn. How dare he/she suggest that students should be exposed to all the facts about a subject? Who next? The taxpayers, the voters, the politicians?
Earth has its ups, downs
Teach high school students the planet's climate history so they have a broader perspective
February 17, 2007
Letter, Feb. 15.
Climate-change guide available
The decision to revamp the Ontario high school curriculum to include a climate change unit has prompted letters and articles offering suggestions on what should be included.
As someone who has spent about 50 years involved in the science of weather and climate, I would like to see the students being taught about the Earth's climate history in geological terms, as well as looking at the recent historical past. I would like to see students being taught that the Earth's climate was very warm during the Miocene (about 17 million years ago) and when forests extended up to the Arctic about 2 million years ago. I want students to know there were 33 glacial advances (ice ages) from 1.5 million years ago to the present and that the last ice age ended about 12,000 years ago – leading to the formation of the Great Lakes.
Students should be taught that the Arctic was warmer during the Holocene (about 5,000 years ago) by up to 5C than present. Also the Arctic was as warm during the 1920s (up until 1940) as it is today, and the Canadian Prairie climate was dominated in the Dust Bowl years by recurring droughts and strong windstorms. I would also want students to learn that from 1940 through 1975 the Earth's mean temperature declined by about .25C before starting to climb by approximately 0.35C from 1977 to the present.
I hope the climate change course includes a comprehensive history of the Earth's climate so the students appreciate how it has changed in the past. Let the students then decide whether the present climate change is human-induced or by the natural process which has governed the Earth's climate through geological and historical times.
Madhav Khandekar, Unionville, Ont.
Earth has its ups, downs
Teach high school students the planet's climate history so they have a broader perspective
February 17, 2007
Letter, Feb. 15.
Climate-change guide available
The decision to revamp the Ontario high school curriculum to include a climate change unit has prompted letters and articles offering suggestions on what should be included.
As someone who has spent about 50 years involved in the science of weather and climate, I would like to see the students being taught about the Earth's climate history in geological terms, as well as looking at the recent historical past. I would like to see students being taught that the Earth's climate was very warm during the Miocene (about 17 million years ago) and when forests extended up to the Arctic about 2 million years ago. I want students to know there were 33 glacial advances (ice ages) from 1.5 million years ago to the present and that the last ice age ended about 12,000 years ago – leading to the formation of the Great Lakes.
Students should be taught that the Arctic was warmer during the Holocene (about 5,000 years ago) by up to 5C than present. Also the Arctic was as warm during the 1920s (up until 1940) as it is today, and the Canadian Prairie climate was dominated in the Dust Bowl years by recurring droughts and strong windstorms. I would also want students to learn that from 1940 through 1975 the Earth's mean temperature declined by about .25C before starting to climb by approximately 0.35C from 1977 to the present.
I hope the climate change course includes a comprehensive history of the Earth's climate so the students appreciate how it has changed in the past. Let the students then decide whether the present climate change is human-induced or by the natural process which has governed the Earth's climate through geological and historical times.
Madhav Khandekar, Unionville, Ont.
A Hidden Message To Environuts
For every auto worker that is laid off there are a number of other workers in allied industries that will also lose their jobs. Let's not forget that for every worker laid off less money goes into the pot to pay for your green iniatives. You not only lose income tax but you lose gas taxes, gst, pst, etc. For every iniative that costs manufacturers more and makes them less competitive their inclination to move off shore shore increases. More lost revenue! How many years will it be before they start having LiveAid Concerts to support needy Canadians?
Car troubles side-swipe McGuinty government
Rising imports, job losses at domestic plants mean trouble
February 17, 2007
Ian Urquhart
In his speeches extolling the virtues of the knowledge economy, Premier Dalton McGuinty frequently pulls out a BlackBerry from his vest pocket and boasts that its development has led to the creation of 5,000 jobs in Ontario.
That is, indeed, worth celebrating.
But there are 10 times that many people working at auto-assembly plants in Ontario, and another 90,000 are employed making auto parts.
And as the BlackBerry waxes, the auto sector is waning.
This week, Chrysler announced the elimination of some 2,000 jobs here. The bad news comes on the heels of similar "restructuring" announcements by Ford and General Motors. In all, an estimated 8,000 jobs will be lost at the Big Three's plants and offices in Ontario.
In the auto-parts sector, the news is even worse, with some 15,000 jobs already eliminated or on the hit list.
More
Hershey Closure In Smith Falls..Moving To Mexico
Sleazy Attack Ads
Why is it only the left wing media consider the television ads being aired by the Conservatives to be sleazy and attack ads. Is asking someone to justify their actions or to clarify something they said a sleazy attack? If they want civility in politics then set the same standard for themselves......stop pandering to that segment of society that needs to know every gory detail about peoples deaths and lives and stop bleating about "The Public's Right To Know."
Harper hits out from the gutter
February 17, 2007
Was it only last week that Prime Minister Stephen Harper congratulated his Conservatives for "rebuilding public trust" in Ottawa, as they marked their first anniversary of taking office? For "doing the right thing" and for embracing "the values and aspirations of Canadians"?
Fine sentiments, to be sure. But they are more than a little undercut by the Conservative party's sleazy pre-election attack television ads on Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion and his team. It's hard to recall such a nasty campaign, outside the overheated climate of a federal election race.
While Harper took office promising "good, clean government," there is nothing good or clean about lashing out from the gutter to claw down the opposition even before the election writ is dropped.
Exactly what Canadian "values" are engaged by a French-language TV ad the Tories aired this week that links Dion to the highly-charged term "vendu," which means "sellout" or "traitor," a jab at his credentials as a staunch Quebec federalist? Or in another that slyly implies Dion and Jean Chrétien are criminals, picturing them behind yellow police tape labelled "centralization, pollution, sponsorships and fiscal imbalance"?
What value inspires an English-language ad, aired earlier this month, that links Dion to the sponsorship scandal, among other things, when the entire country knows he had no part in that particular fiasco?
Or one that links former Liberal finance minister Ralph Goodale to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police income-trust probe that hurt the Liberals in the last election? The RCMP cleared Goodale and his aides this week. Even so, a Tory spokesman insisted "the ads will continue to run." That speaks volumes about values in Harper's camp.
While some of the ads are amusing, they are also personal, vicious and misleading. They invite the public to look beyond Harper's soothing rhetoric, to the shabbier reality of his politics. There is a growing dissonance between what he says and what he does.
The ads also raise the question of whether Harper has a positive agenda of his own to put before the voters, or is just plain "running scared," in the words of Liberal Member of Parliament Michael Ignatieff.
Sadly, Canadians have become accustomed to over-the-top attack ads. They are an ugly feature of every campaign. But some go too far.
One of the most notorious was Kim Campbell's Conservative ad in the 1993 campaign mocking Chrétien's appearance, and suggesting that he would embarrass the nation on the world stage. Chrétien's face was partially paralyzed by a childhood illness. The ad was pulled after a firestorm of controversy. And Paul Martin's Liberals overdid things in last year's campaign with an ad that suggested Harper wanted to plant troops on every street corner in the nation. It was pulled before it aired.
All parties have critical issues to debate in the next election, including climate change, poverty, urban renewal, Afghanistan, health, welfare and higher education. Canadians want fresh, positive thinking on these files.
As Prime Minister, Harper has a responsibility to set a tone of civility and fairness for this nation. Tough attack ads during an election campaign are one thing. Stooping to gutter tactics as routine business is another; it violates that responsibility.
If Harper really is serious about rebuilding public trust and doing the right thing, he should order his party's sleazy attack ads off the air and start addressing issues people care about.
Harper hits out from the gutter
February 17, 2007
Was it only last week that Prime Minister Stephen Harper congratulated his Conservatives for "rebuilding public trust" in Ottawa, as they marked their first anniversary of taking office? For "doing the right thing" and for embracing "the values and aspirations of Canadians"?
Fine sentiments, to be sure. But they are more than a little undercut by the Conservative party's sleazy pre-election attack television ads on Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion and his team. It's hard to recall such a nasty campaign, outside the overheated climate of a federal election race.
While Harper took office promising "good, clean government," there is nothing good or clean about lashing out from the gutter to claw down the opposition even before the election writ is dropped.
Exactly what Canadian "values" are engaged by a French-language TV ad the Tories aired this week that links Dion to the highly-charged term "vendu," which means "sellout" or "traitor," a jab at his credentials as a staunch Quebec federalist? Or in another that slyly implies Dion and Jean Chrétien are criminals, picturing them behind yellow police tape labelled "centralization, pollution, sponsorships and fiscal imbalance"?
What value inspires an English-language ad, aired earlier this month, that links Dion to the sponsorship scandal, among other things, when the entire country knows he had no part in that particular fiasco?
Or one that links former Liberal finance minister Ralph Goodale to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police income-trust probe that hurt the Liberals in the last election? The RCMP cleared Goodale and his aides this week. Even so, a Tory spokesman insisted "the ads will continue to run." That speaks volumes about values in Harper's camp.
While some of the ads are amusing, they are also personal, vicious and misleading. They invite the public to look beyond Harper's soothing rhetoric, to the shabbier reality of his politics. There is a growing dissonance between what he says and what he does.
The ads also raise the question of whether Harper has a positive agenda of his own to put before the voters, or is just plain "running scared," in the words of Liberal Member of Parliament Michael Ignatieff.
Sadly, Canadians have become accustomed to over-the-top attack ads. They are an ugly feature of every campaign. But some go too far.
One of the most notorious was Kim Campbell's Conservative ad in the 1993 campaign mocking Chrétien's appearance, and suggesting that he would embarrass the nation on the world stage. Chrétien's face was partially paralyzed by a childhood illness. The ad was pulled after a firestorm of controversy. And Paul Martin's Liberals overdid things in last year's campaign with an ad that suggested Harper wanted to plant troops on every street corner in the nation. It was pulled before it aired.
All parties have critical issues to debate in the next election, including climate change, poverty, urban renewal, Afghanistan, health, welfare and higher education. Canadians want fresh, positive thinking on these files.
As Prime Minister, Harper has a responsibility to set a tone of civility and fairness for this nation. Tough attack ads during an election campaign are one thing. Stooping to gutter tactics as routine business is another; it violates that responsibility.
If Harper really is serious about rebuilding public trust and doing the right thing, he should order his party's sleazy attack ads off the air and start addressing issues people care about.
The Emporer Has No Clothes
More Pipe Dreams From Mayor MillerAnd he is encouraged by the media but never seems to be held to account when he fails. Once again we have King Miller leading voters around the maypole!
You want to make Toronto greener?
You want to reduce greenhouse gas emissions? Start by closing enclosed parking garages in the downtown core starting with CITY HALL PARKING LOT. Further gains could be accomplished by having the various bylaw enforcement officers carry out their duties on bicycle rather than pickup trucks.
You want to divert garbage from landfill? Build an incineration plant where the heat generated can be used for electrical power and heating buildings.
That would be a start.......
Blueprint Green
Remember there is only one taxpayer and he can only get so green....then he will start moving to red.
If City Won't Pickup Household Trash
Or charges residential property owners extra, another hidden tax, where will the excess garbage go? Any guesses? In front of your neighbor's home, in the trash collectors on main thoroughfares, in local parks, by the side of highways, empty lots, etc. where additional resources and cost will result. A city which can't balance it's books will once again expand their unionized workforce by having to hire trashgestapo.
Curbing trash
February 17, 2007
Jim Byers
CITY HALL BUREAU CHIEF
It's not easy being green.
City council in fall 2005 voted to begin reducing the number of garbage bags that residents can put by the curb from six bags every two weeks to five and then four, starting April 1, 2007. But councillors failed to put money in the 2006 budget for the workers needed to ensure compliance, so the six-bag limit stayed.
A community newspaper recently quoted a city official as saying the limit was about to drop to four bags. The city's Access Toronto information office told the paper the limit was six bags, then said it had actually dropped to five. When the Toronto Star asked Access Toronto yesterday, a worker said the limit was six items of garbage, including recycling bins.
For the record, the city's acting general manager of solid waste management, Geoff Rathbone, yesterday explained the limit remains six bags every two weeks, not including recycling bins. But he said the city is determined to slash the amount of garbage going to landfills and there's another request to the budget committee this year for staff to enforce a reduced bag limit. A report on reducing the bag limit will go back to a council committee in the coming weeks, Rathbone said.
Curbing trash
February 17, 2007
Jim Byers
CITY HALL BUREAU CHIEF
It's not easy being green.
City council in fall 2005 voted to begin reducing the number of garbage bags that residents can put by the curb from six bags every two weeks to five and then four, starting April 1, 2007. But councillors failed to put money in the 2006 budget for the workers needed to ensure compliance, so the six-bag limit stayed.
A community newspaper recently quoted a city official as saying the limit was about to drop to four bags. The city's Access Toronto information office told the paper the limit was six bags, then said it had actually dropped to five. When the Toronto Star asked Access Toronto yesterday, a worker said the limit was six items of garbage, including recycling bins.
For the record, the city's acting general manager of solid waste management, Geoff Rathbone, yesterday explained the limit remains six bags every two weeks, not including recycling bins. But he said the city is determined to slash the amount of garbage going to landfills and there's another request to the budget committee this year for staff to enforce a reduced bag limit. A report on reducing the bag limit will go back to a council committee in the coming weeks, Rathbone said.
A Sign Of The Times
DISCLAIMER: The following comments are a generalization and the failures that resulted are minimal in comparison to the successes.
Personally I feel many of the problems today stem from the delegation of parental responsibilities to teachers, television and the Baskin Robbins approach, what ever is fashionable at the momement in time. People were out trying to get the bigger house, the second car, the exotic vacation, etc. which resulted in larger debt which resulted in a second income becoming mandatory which meant parents were not parents by slaves and they lost control.
Michael Coren points out some of the results.......
Sliding into an abyss
Personally I feel many of the problems today stem from the delegation of parental responsibilities to teachers, television and the Baskin Robbins approach, what ever is fashionable at the momement in time. People were out trying to get the bigger house, the second car, the exotic vacation, etc. which resulted in larger debt which resulted in a second income becoming mandatory which meant parents were not parents by slaves and they lost control.
Michael Coren points out some of the results.......
Sliding into an abyss
How Long Has It Been Since 9/11
And Mayor Miller and the TTC have not developed a security strategy. It would appear that the only strategy he has developed is one that appeases the TTC Union by talking about putting CTV on buses. Remember the wildcat strike? Security was an issue. BTW I don't remember hearing about what action was taken against the union for this illegal strike....par for the course for Mayor Miller. And a message to Councillor Carroll, another of Miller's lap dogs;" There were lifeboats on the Titanic and people still died. Is she suggesting removal of lifeboats on ships?
TTC security cameras on budget chopping block
toronto.ctv.ca
Cutting back on TTC security is one of the options being considered at city hall as councilors struggle to find savings within the transit system.
While the federal government is investing about $40 million to help beef up security on public transit systems nationwide, the Toronto Transit Commission remains unconvinced.
A security camera project destined for buses and streetcars could get the axe, saving over $20 million for the city.
"I'm disappointed, I think we should be moving forward on some limited cameras," TTC chair Adam Giambrone said Friday.
In October 2006 the TTC started to outfit buses and streetcars with the high-resolution cameras. By the end of 2007 they expected to have cameras installed on 1750 vehicles.
Cameras were part of a larger safety overhaul of TTC vehicles. Another $2.7 million project was approved at the same time to install protective barriers for drivers.
Cameras and protective shields were demanded by union members in 2006. It was a central issue during a wildcat strike that shut down the system for a day in May of that year.
Ottawa started investing in transit security due to concerns about potential terrorist attacks. The TTC wanted $5.8 million to place cameras at so-called choke points, or places where people enter and exit the transit system.
That approach proved effective in London, England when cameras captured images of four people suspected of bombing that city's subway system.
But in Toronto, budget chair Shelley Carroll does not believe that cameras will act as a deterrent.
"Your picture gets taken 30 times when you ride the subway in London and it did not stop that terrible tragedy," Carroll said.
The TTC also wanted to install cameras on all the hundreds of buses and streetcars that criss-cross the city, not just to provide security for passengers but to protect drivers as well. A pilot project using a limited number of cameras is currently underway.
Driver safety was one of the issues that sparked a wildcat strike by TTC employees in May of last year. While officials called the sudden strike inappropriate, city hall began looking at the security upgrades once the dispute had ended.
But budget deliberations appear to have put the upgrades on hold.
Councillor David Shiner says the budget committee needs to think about everyone's safety.
"Safety of our employees and safety of the riders, and maintaining a safe system should be our utmost concern," Shiner said. "It's a need that we have in the city, not a want."
The budget committee insists no new security cameras will be installed unless the federal government comes up with 75 per cent of the financing.
The committee pledged to revisit the camera proposal when the city develops an overall security policy and after Giambrone and Mayor David Miller develop a new security strategy for the TTC.
With a report from CTV's Desmond Brown
Friday, February 16, 2007
This The Second Major Black "Celebrity" To Express Themselves
About homosexuality.....is this a possible backlash by blacks who feel that as the number of minority groups that gain recognition increases their position as an oppressed and discriminated group diminishes. If nothing else we might see a new model against which whites can be measured.
(CBS4) MIAMI Former Miami Heat superstar Tim Hardaway told a local sports radio show that he "hates gay people," and he's gotten a lot of peoples' attention especially in South Florida.
"Disgusting. Having grown up in northern florida, dealing with racism there and desegregating of schools up there,it's unfortunate you still hear things like that on the radio," one man told CBS4's Art Barron outside of a Coral Gables carwash that uses Hardaway's name as a draw. The manager of the carwash was away and unavailable for comment.
Hardaway made the comments while he was being interviewed by Dan Le Batard on 790 the Ticket Wednesday afternoon.
The five time All Star was asked how he would deal with a gay teammate."First of all I wouldn't want him on my team," said Hardaway. "Second of all, if he was on my team I would really distance myself from him because I don't think that's right and I don't think he should be in the locker room when we're in the locker room."
Le Batard took Hardaway to task, pointing out that his comments were 'flatly homophobic' and bigoted, but that only seemed to stir up the former point guard.
"Well, you know, I hate gay people," Hardaway said in response to Le Batard. "I let it be known I don't like gay people. I don't like to be around gay people. I'm homophobic. It shouldn't be in the world, in the United States, I don't like it."
Hardaway spoke to CBS4's Sports Director Jim Berry Wednesday evening saying, "I don't condone it. If people got problems with that, i'm sorry. I'm saying i can't stand being around that person, knowing that they sleep with somebody of the same sex."
Hardaway's comments come on the heels of a groundbreaking revelation made by former player John Amaechi, who became the first professional basketball player to openly identify himself as gay.
Amaechi became only the sixth male atlhlete from one of the four major American sports (NBA,MLB,NFL,NHL) to admit he is gay.
Former NFL running back David Kopay , offensive lineman Roy Simmons and defensive lineman Esera Tuaolo just recently came out.
Glenn Burke, an outfielder for the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Oakland Athletics in the 1970s, and Billy Bean, a utility player in the 1980s and 1990s, have also come out.
No player has ever publicly admitted to being gay while currently playing for one of the four major American sports.
nys (© MMVII, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
(CBS4) MIAMI Former Miami Heat superstar Tim Hardaway told a local sports radio show that he "hates gay people," and he's gotten a lot of peoples' attention especially in South Florida.
"Disgusting. Having grown up in northern florida, dealing with racism there and desegregating of schools up there,it's unfortunate you still hear things like that on the radio," one man told CBS4's Art Barron outside of a Coral Gables carwash that uses Hardaway's name as a draw. The manager of the carwash was away and unavailable for comment.
Hardaway made the comments while he was being interviewed by Dan Le Batard on 790 the Ticket Wednesday afternoon.
The five time All Star was asked how he would deal with a gay teammate."First of all I wouldn't want him on my team," said Hardaway. "Second of all, if he was on my team I would really distance myself from him because I don't think that's right and I don't think he should be in the locker room when we're in the locker room."
Le Batard took Hardaway to task, pointing out that his comments were 'flatly homophobic' and bigoted, but that only seemed to stir up the former point guard.
"Well, you know, I hate gay people," Hardaway said in response to Le Batard. "I let it be known I don't like gay people. I don't like to be around gay people. I'm homophobic. It shouldn't be in the world, in the United States, I don't like it."
Hardaway spoke to CBS4's Sports Director Jim Berry Wednesday evening saying, "I don't condone it. If people got problems with that, i'm sorry. I'm saying i can't stand being around that person, knowing that they sleep with somebody of the same sex."
Hardaway's comments come on the heels of a groundbreaking revelation made by former player John Amaechi, who became the first professional basketball player to openly identify himself as gay.
Amaechi became only the sixth male atlhlete from one of the four major American sports (NBA,MLB,NFL,NHL) to admit he is gay.
Former NFL running back David Kopay , offensive lineman Roy Simmons and defensive lineman Esera Tuaolo just recently came out.
Glenn Burke, an outfielder for the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Oakland Athletics in the 1970s, and Billy Bean, a utility player in the 1980s and 1990s, have also come out.
No player has ever publicly admitted to being gay while currently playing for one of the four major American sports.
nys (© MMVII, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
Call Your Local Councillor And Demand They Allocate Funding
To community based literacy programs. Let's start by taking the money to be spent on city hall renovations, then have each councillor give up $3-4 thousand out of their office budgets, then chop a couple of the environuts on Miller's green team, then ask CUPE to get school janitors to donate some time to keep schools open and the list goes on and on.......
Small cost to nurture literacy
February 16, 2007
Carol Goar
Several hundred Torontonians will show up for work a bit bleary-eyed this morning. They stayed out late last night at the Book Lover's Ball, an annual celebration of reading featuring the recipes of celebrity chefs, interviews with award-winning authors and a fashion show inspired by literature.
The $350-a-ticket gala, a fundraiser for the Toronto Public Library Foundation, is one of the highlights of the social calendar. It marks the culmination of Keep Toronto Reading, a month-long series of events designed to make literacy fashionable and fun.
It would be tempting to say that Toronto has come of age as a city of letters. But there is a problem.
The feeder systems that produce the readers of tomorrow are languishing.
The volunteers who teach literacy classes in community centres and church basements have been cut adrift by penny-pinching governments.
The immigration workers who see newcomers struggling to read a medicine bottle or fill out a job application have fewer lifelines to offer them.
The pioneering programs developed in this city to pull families and communities together around stories and songs are on the chopping block.
One of those is the Toronto District School Board's family literacy program. For 26 years, parents and grandparents and caregivers – many of whom don't speak English and can't read in any language – have been bringing their pre-schoolers to the board's 54 parenting and literacy centres.
The generations learn and play together. The adults listen to stories and sing and recite the alphabet with their children. There are books in many languages that can be borrowed. Even if parents can't read them, they are encouraged to take them home and tell the story using the pictures.
"We believe the parent is the first and most important teacher in a child's life," says Ruth Sischy, manager of the school board's early years program.
Families can come as often as they choose and stay as long as they like. There is no charge.
For new immigrants, the centres – located in elementary schools – are a welcoming place. For parents who dropped out of school, they offer a second chance to develop literacy skills. For educators, they provide a way to reach out to families who normally feel excluded from the school system.
Toronto's family literacy program costs $2.8 million a year. It does not qualify for provincial funding. Under the grant structure adopted by the Ministry of Education eight years ago, only classroom spending is eligible.
The school board has kept it alive by dipping into its reserves and juggling its $2.2 billion budget. But each year it gets tougher. As things now stand, the family literacy centres will lose their funding at the end of June.
Perhaps they'll get a reprieve as they've done before. Perhaps another branch of the provincial government – the Ministry of Children and Youth Services would be the logical candidate – will step into the breach.
But for a city that prides itself on its love of reading, there is something unseemly about this frantic scramble for $264 per child.
The families who use the literacy centres long to be part of the world of books and libraries and learning. The school board wants to open doors to newcomers and low-income parents. The program, initiated by trailblazing educator Mary Gordon in Regent Park, has been replicated in schools from South Africa to Japan.
To school board trustee Chris Bolton, the uncertain fate of the literacy centres is symptomatic of a government compulsion to compartmentalize every aspect of a child's life, as if his or her home life had no impact on what happens at school, as if a parent's reading skills had no influence on the child's success, as if every youngster arrived at the kindergarten door ready to learn.
"We need a new understanding of what education is about and the parenting and literacy centres are one of the kernels," he says.
Bolton visits one or two of the literacy centres each week to tell stories. He watches once-isolated parents become part of a learning community and once-disadvantaged children become outgoing and confident.
These are the kids who will one day walk through a library door, write a poem, use a cookbook, design a computer game, get a job that requires strong communication skills, read to their children, maybe even attend the Book Lover's Ball.
It is false economy to skimp on them now.
Carol Goar's column appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
Small cost to nurture literacy
February 16, 2007
Carol Goar
Several hundred Torontonians will show up for work a bit bleary-eyed this morning. They stayed out late last night at the Book Lover's Ball, an annual celebration of reading featuring the recipes of celebrity chefs, interviews with award-winning authors and a fashion show inspired by literature.
The $350-a-ticket gala, a fundraiser for the Toronto Public Library Foundation, is one of the highlights of the social calendar. It marks the culmination of Keep Toronto Reading, a month-long series of events designed to make literacy fashionable and fun.
It would be tempting to say that Toronto has come of age as a city of letters. But there is a problem.
The feeder systems that produce the readers of tomorrow are languishing.
The volunteers who teach literacy classes in community centres and church basements have been cut adrift by penny-pinching governments.
The immigration workers who see newcomers struggling to read a medicine bottle or fill out a job application have fewer lifelines to offer them.
The pioneering programs developed in this city to pull families and communities together around stories and songs are on the chopping block.
One of those is the Toronto District School Board's family literacy program. For 26 years, parents and grandparents and caregivers – many of whom don't speak English and can't read in any language – have been bringing their pre-schoolers to the board's 54 parenting and literacy centres.
The generations learn and play together. The adults listen to stories and sing and recite the alphabet with their children. There are books in many languages that can be borrowed. Even if parents can't read them, they are encouraged to take them home and tell the story using the pictures.
"We believe the parent is the first and most important teacher in a child's life," says Ruth Sischy, manager of the school board's early years program.
Families can come as often as they choose and stay as long as they like. There is no charge.
For new immigrants, the centres – located in elementary schools – are a welcoming place. For parents who dropped out of school, they offer a second chance to develop literacy skills. For educators, they provide a way to reach out to families who normally feel excluded from the school system.
Toronto's family literacy program costs $2.8 million a year. It does not qualify for provincial funding. Under the grant structure adopted by the Ministry of Education eight years ago, only classroom spending is eligible.
The school board has kept it alive by dipping into its reserves and juggling its $2.2 billion budget. But each year it gets tougher. As things now stand, the family literacy centres will lose their funding at the end of June.
Perhaps they'll get a reprieve as they've done before. Perhaps another branch of the provincial government – the Ministry of Children and Youth Services would be the logical candidate – will step into the breach.
But for a city that prides itself on its love of reading, there is something unseemly about this frantic scramble for $264 per child.
The families who use the literacy centres long to be part of the world of books and libraries and learning. The school board wants to open doors to newcomers and low-income parents. The program, initiated by trailblazing educator Mary Gordon in Regent Park, has been replicated in schools from South Africa to Japan.
To school board trustee Chris Bolton, the uncertain fate of the literacy centres is symptomatic of a government compulsion to compartmentalize every aspect of a child's life, as if his or her home life had no impact on what happens at school, as if a parent's reading skills had no influence on the child's success, as if every youngster arrived at the kindergarten door ready to learn.
"We need a new understanding of what education is about and the parenting and literacy centres are one of the kernels," he says.
Bolton visits one or two of the literacy centres each week to tell stories. He watches once-isolated parents become part of a learning community and once-disadvantaged children become outgoing and confident.
These are the kids who will one day walk through a library door, write a poem, use a cookbook, design a computer game, get a job that requires strong communication skills, read to their children, maybe even attend the Book Lover's Ball.
It is false economy to skimp on them now.
Carol Goar's column appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
I Would Call Into Question Dion's Leadership Skills
But he has failed to show that he has any leadership skills either while he was in the liberal cabinet, during the "leadership race" or since parliament opened.
Dion stripped of his environmental edge Liberal leader will pay dearly if he wins next election and can't deliver on costly, divisive promises
February 16, 2007
Chantal Hébert
Over a period of little less than three months, Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion has turned his green armour into a straitjacket.
Now that he has led the opposition parties into passing a bill forcing the Conservatives to implement the Kyoto Protocol, the worst thing that could happen to him would be to win a snap election this spring and then be forced to live by the terms of Bill C-288.
A Liberal government would face two stark choices:
# Preside over a major federal-provincial crisis that would make the occasional Ottawa-Quebec blowouts sound like Chinese New Year firecrackers.
# Own up to the fact that the bill the party sponsored is a legislative sham, on par with the 1993 Liberal promises to eliminate the GST and renegotiate NAFTA.
It is one thing to want, as do a majority of Canadians, the federal government to act in the spirit of Kyoto; it is another to pretend that any regime can live up to the letter of the accord without making some highly divisive and costly choices.
There is a widespread consensus – stretching way beyond Conservative ranks – that Canada cannot even come close to meeting its Kyoto greenhouse emission reduction objectives in time for the 2012 deadline without launching a major offensive against the energy industries of provinces such as Alberta, and/or inflicting a crippling hit to the already flagging auto industry in Ontario, and/or diverting a debilitating amount of federal resources to a single cause.
And that, in turn, means the other parties have Dion exactly where they want him, stripped of his environmental edge in the lead-up to a possible election.
Nothing now distinguishes the Liberal bottom line on climate change from that of the NDP, the Bloc Québécois and the Green party.
Dion is as saddled to the moribund Kyoto battlehorse as Gilles Duceppe, Jack Layton and Elizabeth May. More so than any of them though, he could be crushed under its weight in the next election.
Among the opposition leaders, only Dion, who sat for a decade in government, stands to be called to account for how far behind Canada has fallen on the road to Kyoto.
Bill C-288 ensures that the lacklustre Liberal performance on Kyoto will be as much a part of the picture of the next campaign as the Conservatives' belated conversion to a greener agenda.
Because Dion alone among the opposition leaders can realistically aspire to become prime minister, it is also on him that the onus of squaring what has now become a less than virtuous circle will fall in the next campaign.
That will be particularly hard in some sections of Western Canada and it won't be easy anywhere else.
Liberal economic and social promises will have to be tailored to Dion's professed commitment on Kyoto or else risk failing the test of fiscal responsibility.
The Liberal climate-change agenda will also be measured against the green makeover of the government.
By backing Kyoto to the hilt, Dion may have tilted the balance of credibility to Harper's advantage. The Conservatives could be one environmental package away from wrestling the upper hand from the Liberals. Such a package is expected to come at the end of March.
Last fall, the government's first green plan failed to meet the minimal test of expectations.
Back then, the government left its flank wide open on climate change.
This time, Harper knows that anything less than a substantial step in the right direction will not pass muster.
The government's upcoming environmental package is part of a set of blocks the Conservatives are putting in place with an eye to an election.
The re-election of federalist Quebec Premier Jean Charest next month is another big piece of their puzzle.
Conservative numbers are improving in Ontario; satisfaction with the government is up in Quebec.
If all his blocks fall in place, Harper could emerge from next month's budget with enough momentum to win another election.
Does that mean a spring federal vote is inevitable? Not necessarily.
It is still far from clear that an election over the first half of this year would yield the majority Harper is striving for.
Part of the current Conservative election sabre-rattling is undoubtedly designed to force the opposition to think twice about bringing down the government.
The Bloc Québécois, for one, may do just that if its Parti Québécois ally goes down to defeat in Quebec next month.
Chantal Hébert's national affairs column appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
Dion stripped of his environmental edge Liberal leader will pay dearly if he wins next election and can't deliver on costly, divisive promises
February 16, 2007
Chantal Hébert
Over a period of little less than three months, Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion has turned his green armour into a straitjacket.
Now that he has led the opposition parties into passing a bill forcing the Conservatives to implement the Kyoto Protocol, the worst thing that could happen to him would be to win a snap election this spring and then be forced to live by the terms of Bill C-288.
A Liberal government would face two stark choices:
# Preside over a major federal-provincial crisis that would make the occasional Ottawa-Quebec blowouts sound like Chinese New Year firecrackers.
# Own up to the fact that the bill the party sponsored is a legislative sham, on par with the 1993 Liberal promises to eliminate the GST and renegotiate NAFTA.
It is one thing to want, as do a majority of Canadians, the federal government to act in the spirit of Kyoto; it is another to pretend that any regime can live up to the letter of the accord without making some highly divisive and costly choices.
There is a widespread consensus – stretching way beyond Conservative ranks – that Canada cannot even come close to meeting its Kyoto greenhouse emission reduction objectives in time for the 2012 deadline without launching a major offensive against the energy industries of provinces such as Alberta, and/or inflicting a crippling hit to the already flagging auto industry in Ontario, and/or diverting a debilitating amount of federal resources to a single cause.
And that, in turn, means the other parties have Dion exactly where they want him, stripped of his environmental edge in the lead-up to a possible election.
Nothing now distinguishes the Liberal bottom line on climate change from that of the NDP, the Bloc Québécois and the Green party.
Dion is as saddled to the moribund Kyoto battlehorse as Gilles Duceppe, Jack Layton and Elizabeth May. More so than any of them though, he could be crushed under its weight in the next election.
Among the opposition leaders, only Dion, who sat for a decade in government, stands to be called to account for how far behind Canada has fallen on the road to Kyoto.
Bill C-288 ensures that the lacklustre Liberal performance on Kyoto will be as much a part of the picture of the next campaign as the Conservatives' belated conversion to a greener agenda.
Because Dion alone among the opposition leaders can realistically aspire to become prime minister, it is also on him that the onus of squaring what has now become a less than virtuous circle will fall in the next campaign.
That will be particularly hard in some sections of Western Canada and it won't be easy anywhere else.
Liberal economic and social promises will have to be tailored to Dion's professed commitment on Kyoto or else risk failing the test of fiscal responsibility.
The Liberal climate-change agenda will also be measured against the green makeover of the government.
By backing Kyoto to the hilt, Dion may have tilted the balance of credibility to Harper's advantage. The Conservatives could be one environmental package away from wrestling the upper hand from the Liberals. Such a package is expected to come at the end of March.
Last fall, the government's first green plan failed to meet the minimal test of expectations.
Back then, the government left its flank wide open on climate change.
This time, Harper knows that anything less than a substantial step in the right direction will not pass muster.
The government's upcoming environmental package is part of a set of blocks the Conservatives are putting in place with an eye to an election.
The re-election of federalist Quebec Premier Jean Charest next month is another big piece of their puzzle.
Conservative numbers are improving in Ontario; satisfaction with the government is up in Quebec.
If all his blocks fall in place, Harper could emerge from next month's budget with enough momentum to win another election.
Does that mean a spring federal vote is inevitable? Not necessarily.
It is still far from clear that an election over the first half of this year would yield the majority Harper is striving for.
Part of the current Conservative election sabre-rattling is undoubtedly designed to force the opposition to think twice about bringing down the government.
The Bloc Québécois, for one, may do just that if its Parti Québécois ally goes down to defeat in Quebec next month.
Chantal Hébert's national affairs column appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
Will GLADD Step Up And Challenge Iran
With the same vigor and passion and propoganda that they use to attack people whose comments about homosexuality are deem to be homophobic......
Iran's gays risk death for report
Talk to CBC about perils of life in the fundamentalist state
February 16, 2007
Nicholas Keung
IMMIGRATION/DIVERSITY REPORTER
Images of young men hanging out in dimly lit parks and coffee shops hint at a side of Iran the West doesn't see behind the defiant posturing of fundamentalist president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his trumpeted nuclear program.
Such fraternizing doesn't catch the eye of locals in Tehran, in a culture where men and women live highly segregated lives. But a closer look reveals a glimpse of Iran's Secret Gay World – a Canadian documentary to air on CBC Newsworld Sunday evening.
Arsham Parsi, an Iranian exile in Toronto, is intimately familiar with that world, having founded what passes for a gay-rights movement in his homeland as early as 2002. That's when he began an email list, circulating information to a group of 50 gays and lesbians on such topics as safe sex, equality rights and underground gatherings.
It was the Internet that first helped Parsi, now 26, put a label to his attraction to men. At 16, after studying the Qur'an from cover to cover for something that would explain his affection, Parsi added the word "men" to a Google search and discovered he's gay.
"I was very happy because I knew I wasn't alone in my feeling in this world. It's normal," noted Parsi, founder in 2004 of the Persian Gay and Lesbian Organization. "I was also afraid, because all Islamic books said the problem was very bad and should be punished by execution, stoning and hanging."
He was forced a year later to flee Iran to escape security forces and, last May, arrived in Canada as a refugee under the United Nations Convention. He devotes his life in Toronto to educating and helping others through his Iranian Queer Organization (www.irqo.net).
Parsi said he was surprised to be contacted last summer by fellow Iranian exile Farid Haerinejad, a CBC production editor planning a documentary on Iran's forbidden community. "Most people (in the media) are only interested in Iran's nuclear program," he said. "Here's someone who's interested in the gays and lesbians in Iran."
But the close-knit gay network there was hard to crack; Haerinejad had to film without attracting attention.
"Iran is an Islamic country and the gays want to decriminalize homosexuality. To change the law is to change the law of Islam," notes Haerinejad, 41, whose visit to Tehran last summer was his first since fleeing the Islamic revolution 23 years ago.
"These young gay men were shy at first, but they also had this hunger and thirst to share their life stories," added Haerinejad, who came to Canada in 1992 and is straight.
Participants in the film, stopped numerous times by police, said they were shooting a documentary about Iranian youth.
"They risked being arrested, tortured and killed to talk in front of the camera," Haerinejad said of his subjects.
Parsi says having the support of people like Haerinejad has made his own journey less lonely – and more empowering.
He runs a Persian online magazine (www.cheraq.net) that helps Iranian homosexuals with asylum claims and tries to build bridges with Canadian human rights activists.
Iran's gays risk death for report
Talk to CBC about perils of life in the fundamentalist state
February 16, 2007
Nicholas Keung
IMMIGRATION/DIVERSITY REPORTER
Images of young men hanging out in dimly lit parks and coffee shops hint at a side of Iran the West doesn't see behind the defiant posturing of fundamentalist president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his trumpeted nuclear program.
Such fraternizing doesn't catch the eye of locals in Tehran, in a culture where men and women live highly segregated lives. But a closer look reveals a glimpse of Iran's Secret Gay World – a Canadian documentary to air on CBC Newsworld Sunday evening.
Arsham Parsi, an Iranian exile in Toronto, is intimately familiar with that world, having founded what passes for a gay-rights movement in his homeland as early as 2002. That's when he began an email list, circulating information to a group of 50 gays and lesbians on such topics as safe sex, equality rights and underground gatherings.
It was the Internet that first helped Parsi, now 26, put a label to his attraction to men. At 16, after studying the Qur'an from cover to cover for something that would explain his affection, Parsi added the word "men" to a Google search and discovered he's gay.
"I was very happy because I knew I wasn't alone in my feeling in this world. It's normal," noted Parsi, founder in 2004 of the Persian Gay and Lesbian Organization. "I was also afraid, because all Islamic books said the problem was very bad and should be punished by execution, stoning and hanging."
He was forced a year later to flee Iran to escape security forces and, last May, arrived in Canada as a refugee under the United Nations Convention. He devotes his life in Toronto to educating and helping others through his Iranian Queer Organization (www.irqo.net).
Parsi said he was surprised to be contacted last summer by fellow Iranian exile Farid Haerinejad, a CBC production editor planning a documentary on Iran's forbidden community. "Most people (in the media) are only interested in Iran's nuclear program," he said. "Here's someone who's interested in the gays and lesbians in Iran."
But the close-knit gay network there was hard to crack; Haerinejad had to film without attracting attention.
"Iran is an Islamic country and the gays want to decriminalize homosexuality. To change the law is to change the law of Islam," notes Haerinejad, 41, whose visit to Tehran last summer was his first since fleeing the Islamic revolution 23 years ago.
"These young gay men were shy at first, but they also had this hunger and thirst to share their life stories," added Haerinejad, who came to Canada in 1992 and is straight.
Participants in the film, stopped numerous times by police, said they were shooting a documentary about Iranian youth.
"They risked being arrested, tortured and killed to talk in front of the camera," Haerinejad said of his subjects.
Parsi says having the support of people like Haerinejad has made his own journey less lonely – and more empowering.
He runs a Persian online magazine (www.cheraq.net) that helps Iranian homosexuals with asylum claims and tries to build bridges with Canadian human rights activists.
Have Islamicfascists Gotten To Dalton McGinty
Does this explain why after having the courage to standup to those who wanted Shariah Law to be given standing has he not made sure that position still has not been made law. The implementation of Shariah Law is one of the pillars of change advocated by extremists in the Muslim community.
February 16, 2007
Sharia law still not dead
By CHRISTINA BLIZZARD
A curious delay in proclaiming into law changes aimed at shutting down the use of sharia law in this province is cause for alarm for one Muslim spokesperson and an MPP demanding to know why the government is dragging its feet.
Amid a furor over a proposal to allow sharia law to settle civil disputes, more than a year ago Attorney General Michael Bryant issued a press release saying proposed amendments to the Abitration Act would mean there would be "one law for all Ontarians."
Oddly, although the changes were passed Feb. 14, 2006 and given royal assent shortly thereafter, they have not formally been proclaimed into law.
Bill 27 said, among other things, that third party arbitrators could only serve as advisers in civil cases. Some parts of the bill have been made law, but the key provision outlawing religious arbitration have not. In 2005, pressure was building to allow sharia law, a 1,400-year-old set of Islamic laws covering legal and family issues, be used to settle civil disputes -- including family law settlements -- in this province. Women's groups protested that sharia law is often oppressive towards women and they worried in the power imbalance that often occurs when religion is allowed to dictate law, the rights of women and children would be trampled. And moderate Muslims feared the power of the imams they had come to Canada to avoid would follow them even in this country.
"There is one family law for all Ontarians and that is Canadian law," Bryant said in a press release dated Nov. 15, 2005.
Given the foot-dragging that's happened since then, Niagara Centre MPP Peter Kormos questions the government's commitment to these changes.
"I am not sure that the government really was that enthusiastic about their proposal that they said was going to protect women," Kormos said in a recent interview.
"The elephant in the room was sharia law, but you never heard those words come from Mr. McGuinty's mouth. It's a strange thing, then, that Mr. Bryant would bask in the spotlight a year ago, but be nowhere to be seen 12 months later," Kormos said.
A spokesman for the Muslim Canadian Congress, (MCC) a group that opposes sharia law, said he is surprised and alarmed that the law hasn't been enacted.
"All over the Muslim world, people want to get away from it, (sharia law)" said Tarek Fatah in a telephone interview yesterday.
"The nurturing and the appeasement of Islamists by all political parties has come to the stage where people can come around and demand that these laws be enacted and I was hoping that Premier Dalton McGuinty's and Attorney General Michael Bryant's brave decision would have ended the issue, but it alarms me there is still some chance of these people doing what they do," Fateh said.
Fateh says MCC opposes sharia law primarily because it doesn't believe in laws that can't be debated in Parliament.
"We would have no problem with religious laws if religious laws were subject to parliamentary discourse." Instead, he says, changes in sharia law can only be made by Islamic scholars.
Other religions already have in place their own faith tribunals, and those, too, would be shut down by the changes.
A spokesman for Bryant said the law hasn't been proclaimed because the "nuts and bolts of the regulations" are still being worked out with religious leaders.
"They will be signed, sealed and delivered this spring," said Greg Crone.
"No family arbitrations based on religious principles have been brought to any Ontario court in the interim period."
Well, let's hope the amendments get proclaimed before the election writ is dropped -- and everything dies on the order paper.
It was the NDP who, in 1991, allowed individuals to negotiate civil disputes through faith-based tribunals. Frankly, it is one thing for parents to inculcate religious beliefs and values in their children. It's quite another for them to live by separate rules. In a modern society, all children should be afforded the same protection of the law. You can't have some kids governed by a court of law while other children have their fates dictated by faith-based rules that date to the Dark Ages -- whether they be Catholic, Jewish, fundamentalist Christian or Muslim. And in faiths dominated by priests, rabbis and imams, women are often intimidated into making deals they may later regret.
That is why we have the rule of law in this country. And it should apply evenly and fairly to all.
February 16, 2007
Sharia law still not dead
By CHRISTINA BLIZZARD
A curious delay in proclaiming into law changes aimed at shutting down the use of sharia law in this province is cause for alarm for one Muslim spokesperson and an MPP demanding to know why the government is dragging its feet.
Amid a furor over a proposal to allow sharia law to settle civil disputes, more than a year ago Attorney General Michael Bryant issued a press release saying proposed amendments to the Abitration Act would mean there would be "one law for all Ontarians."
Oddly, although the changes were passed Feb. 14, 2006 and given royal assent shortly thereafter, they have not formally been proclaimed into law.
Bill 27 said, among other things, that third party arbitrators could only serve as advisers in civil cases. Some parts of the bill have been made law, but the key provision outlawing religious arbitration have not. In 2005, pressure was building to allow sharia law, a 1,400-year-old set of Islamic laws covering legal and family issues, be used to settle civil disputes -- including family law settlements -- in this province. Women's groups protested that sharia law is often oppressive towards women and they worried in the power imbalance that often occurs when religion is allowed to dictate law, the rights of women and children would be trampled. And moderate Muslims feared the power of the imams they had come to Canada to avoid would follow them even in this country.
"There is one family law for all Ontarians and that is Canadian law," Bryant said in a press release dated Nov. 15, 2005.
Given the foot-dragging that's happened since then, Niagara Centre MPP Peter Kormos questions the government's commitment to these changes.
"I am not sure that the government really was that enthusiastic about their proposal that they said was going to protect women," Kormos said in a recent interview.
"The elephant in the room was sharia law, but you never heard those words come from Mr. McGuinty's mouth. It's a strange thing, then, that Mr. Bryant would bask in the spotlight a year ago, but be nowhere to be seen 12 months later," Kormos said.
A spokesman for the Muslim Canadian Congress, (MCC) a group that opposes sharia law, said he is surprised and alarmed that the law hasn't been enacted.
"All over the Muslim world, people want to get away from it, (sharia law)" said Tarek Fatah in a telephone interview yesterday.
"The nurturing and the appeasement of Islamists by all political parties has come to the stage where people can come around and demand that these laws be enacted and I was hoping that Premier Dalton McGuinty's and Attorney General Michael Bryant's brave decision would have ended the issue, but it alarms me there is still some chance of these people doing what they do," Fateh said.
Fateh says MCC opposes sharia law primarily because it doesn't believe in laws that can't be debated in Parliament.
"We would have no problem with religious laws if religious laws were subject to parliamentary discourse." Instead, he says, changes in sharia law can only be made by Islamic scholars.
Other religions already have in place their own faith tribunals, and those, too, would be shut down by the changes.
A spokesman for Bryant said the law hasn't been proclaimed because the "nuts and bolts of the regulations" are still being worked out with religious leaders.
"They will be signed, sealed and delivered this spring," said Greg Crone.
"No family arbitrations based on religious principles have been brought to any Ontario court in the interim period."
Well, let's hope the amendments get proclaimed before the election writ is dropped -- and everything dies on the order paper.
It was the NDP who, in 1991, allowed individuals to negotiate civil disputes through faith-based tribunals. Frankly, it is one thing for parents to inculcate religious beliefs and values in their children. It's quite another for them to live by separate rules. In a modern society, all children should be afforded the same protection of the law. You can't have some kids governed by a court of law while other children have their fates dictated by faith-based rules that date to the Dark Ages -- whether they be Catholic, Jewish, fundamentalist Christian or Muslim. And in faiths dominated by priests, rabbis and imams, women are often intimidated into making deals they may later regret.
That is why we have the rule of law in this country. And it should apply evenly and fairly to all.
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About Me
- Unhypentated Canadian
- I lean to the right but I still have a heart and if I have a mission it is to respond to attacks on people not available to protect themselves and to point out the hypocrisy of the left at every opportunity.MY MAJOR GOAL IS HIGHLIGHT THE HYPOCRISY AND STUPIDITY OF THE LEFTISTS ON TORONTO CITY COUNCIL. Last word: In the final analysis this blog is a relief valve for my rants/raves.