February 28, 2006

Greens vs Gaia

The Gaia Hypothesis is one of those ideas that has been shamelessly abused. Now the man who developed it is delivering a smackdown on those people who, until now, have revered him.

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February 26, 2006

Tripwires

Is Argentina seriously considering making another move against the Falkland Islands?

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February 25, 2006

Children have no value

In my previous post on the value of mothers, I reprinted one of my posts from 2004. That was actually one of two posts.

The first was about the devaluation of mothers.

The second was about the devaluation of children.

In both cases, we have socialism to thank.

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Mothers

(Via NealeNews)

Michael Coren steps in it this week in a big way:

I don't really know if there is a different aptitude for science between men and women and don't particularly care. I do know, however, that a woman's place is in the home.

There, it's been said. The unthinkable has been uttered. I can only wonder what the various highly intelligent women who edit my column are saying as they read this, but that's hardly the point. A woman's place is in the home.

Crikey, he said it twice.

Nobody is forcing women to become moms, but if they do they should take their new job seriously and not pretend it is some hobby or part-time occupation. Instead, we have created a situation where many women are embarrassed to admit that they are at home with their kids.

Actually, the situation was created in part by others, and on purpose. Worse than that, the intent was not to make women feel embarrassed for being mothers. The intent was to eliminate motherhood altogether.

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February 24, 2006

No special rules for the Prophet

Muslims are being told that Canada's Parliament sets the law, and as far as the Canadian government is concerned, the Prophet has as much protection as he deserves.

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February 23, 2006

Blogging troubles

I've had trouble reaching the mu.nu server over the last few days. It becomes unreachable for hours at a time, so posting comes in fits and starts. Sorry about that. I expect the problem to sort itself out soon.

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The supremacy of the electoral process

Section 3 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms:

3. Every citizen of Canada has the right to vote in an election of members of the House of Commons or of a legislative assembly and to be qualified for membership therein.

Short and sweet.

Now how do go from that to this?

A constituent in the Vancouver Kingsway federal riding is organizing a class action lawsuit against incumbent federal MP David Emerson.

[Peter Dimitrov, a human rights and trial lawyer], who ran for the leadership of the BC NDP in 2003, says while the mass rallies and recall petitions are laudable, he worries that they will not be effective in removing Emerson, since there is no federal recall legislation. BC is currently the only electoral jurisdiction that has such legislation, which was introduced by the previous NDP government in 1995.

He says this is why legal action is necessary, since a charter interpretation will likely settle the matter.

"Based on my understanding of Section 3 of the charter, and the publicly available evidence respecting the context and timing of the 'crossing,'" he says, "it is my opinion that the post-election actions of David Emerson, and perhaps the prime minister, as well, nullified the rights of the citizens of Vancouver Kingsway to play a meaningful role in the election of their elected representative and it further denied them the right to "effective representation" by the party of their choice (Liberal) and their party-affiliated representative."

Nope, sorry, don't see it. The Charter does not recognize political parties or recalls -- just elections. We have the right to vote. Period.

I'm not sure why "effective representation" is in quotes. The phrase does not appear in the Charter in any context, either as a right or otherwise.

But besides being a bit of a stretch, this lawsuit is dangerous, and should not even be allowed to proceed. Once the count has been certified, and the people have spoken, there should be no intervention by the courts to overturn the result where there is no evidence or even allegation of a flaw in the voting process.

To even acknowledge that the courts have such a power to overturn a valid and well-executed election is to complete our transition from a democracy to a judicial oligarchy. Any judge presented with this lawsuit should toss it out with a stern warning that this is entirely outside of the powers of the judiciary to adjudicate.

You don't like Emerson? Fine. Help to pass legislation that forces him to stand for re-election. Good luck making it retroactive, by the way. And good luck also at crafting it in such a way that it could survive a constitutional challenge.

But don't think a simple lawsuit is the way to go. The election was fair. People voted as is their right under the Charter. No laws were broken. The ballots were counted and David Emerson received the most votes.

The result of a well-executed election is sacrosanct. It must be for our democracy to have any legitimacy. If you are successful at getting legislation forcing a recall or a by-election, all you've done is increase the number of elections. I think you are being silly, but at least you aren't dismissing the legitimacy of the previous election as such. You aren't arguing the David Emerson is not the legitimate MP. You are requiring him to submit to a separate election outside of the normal requirement of an election within five years based on a specific decision (an idea which I think suffers from a serious constitutional problem) but at least you are using an election as the mechanism for your solution. Moreover, you are implementing that solution via the legislature, the body that represents the combined voting wisdom of all Canadians.

What you are not doing is subordinating the choice of thousands of citizens expressed at the ballot box to the whim of a single judge. However, this is exactly what Dimitrov wants to do.

The judiciary should fulfill its role in determining if such a law meets the standards of constitutionality. In others words, the judiciary can be asked to make a decision on whether it is a good law. The judiciary should never be asked whether an MP is a good MP. That is for the electorate to decide and no one else. Ever.

Even if you don't like what Emerson did, don't cut off your nose to spite your face. Whatever short term heartburn you are suffering because of Emerson crossing the floor pales in comparison to making free and fair elections subject to successful lawsuits by those who don't like the result.

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Acceptable lies and unacceptable truths

The are lies we are allowed, even encouraged to tell. And there are truths we are required to ignore.

And woe to the brave fool who tries to voice one of those truths in the presence of those people who make it their business to tell those lies.

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February 22, 2006

To solve the problem, you have to solve the problem

News out of Vancouver:

No other city in North America would tolerate the sort of open drug use seen daily on Vancouver's streets, parks and school grounds, Vancouver police said Tuesday. And they vowed they're going to put a stop to it.

Insp. Bob Rolls, who is in charge of District 2, the northeast section of the city that includes the Downtown Eastside, announced a new enforcement program against public drug use.

The open use has led to a horrific situation:

Rolls said there is an elementary school, which he did not name, in his district where the janitor begins each day by sweeping the school grounds for used syringes, crack pipes, broken bottles, beer cans, used condoms and human excrement before children arrive.

At Strathcona elementary school, he said, 300 used needles were picked up around the school in a one-month period.

Rolls said that last summer, a woman was with her child in the grounds of an East Hastings community centre when the child picked up a used needle and put it in its mouth.

"The mother stopped breathing and rushed the child to hospital and thankfully the child was okay. The mother said when she takes her children to play in that community centre she always checks the sand at the foot of the slide to see if there's any needles," he said.

Of course, the chance that a child my get AIDS has to be balanced against the rights and dignity of drug abusers:

Dianne Tobin, president of the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users (VANDU), said such enforcement would only drive the activity out of the Downtown Eastside into other areas.

"I feel sorry for the people of Strathcona because the police will drive the problem there. I think it's a waste of money and a waste of time," she said.

"We want to see it [on-street drug use] stopped too and we are trying to do something about it. But if you're homeless and living in an alley, where else are you going to shoot up?

"We're concerned that the police are turning the clock back 10 years and are going to start throwing homeless and marginalized people in jail," she said.

If kids weren't getting stuck with needles ten years ago, I suspect more than a few parents would jump headlong into that time machine.

But Tobin has a point. These drug abusers are homeless and poor. Without a means of supporting themselves, they will steal from law-abiding citizens to feed their drug habit, supplied by organized crime gangs. How can we help them (the drug users, not the gangs)?

Well, assuming that Vancouverites aren't willing to strangle the drug problem by rounding up the abusers, cutting them off from their supply, and so put the drug dealers out of business, the only other approach is to somehow help them break out of the cycle of poverty.

For that you need jobs.

For jobs you need investment.

For investment you have to entice people with money to spend it in Vancouver. Those people have to be convinced that Vancouver will provide a safe environment for customers and employees, and their families.

An obvious first step is to eliminate the open use of illegal drugs on city streets. I can guarantee you that a fellow looking to open a Tim Horton's franchise is going to look elsewhere if he thinks his Vancouver store is going to be a hangout for strung-out street people hoping to bum a coffee between highs.

So to get the economic activity started that will help eliminate the poverty that will get the drug abusers off the streets, you have to get the drug abusers off the streets.

Sorry, Tobin, but it looks like that time machine set for ten years past is the way to go. The way Vancouver has been heading looks like a dead end.

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Feed a fever...

From the Wikipedia entry for fever:

An adaptive mechanism, fever is the body's reaction to pathogens; it attempts to raise core body temperature to levels that will speed up the actions of the immune system, and may also directly denature, debilitate, or kill the pathogen. Most fevers are caused by infections, and almost all infectious diseases can cause fever. When a patient has or is suspected of having a fever, that person's body temperature is measured using a thermometer. If successful in ridding the body of an invasive pathogen, fever is an important protective immune mechanism and should generally not be suppressed.

Sometimes, for various reasons, mild fevers are intentionally induced. Naturopath Paavo Airola claimed that, because cancer cells are known to die at lower temperatures than normal body cells, they can sometimes be fought with fevers.

That last point is contentious -- the evidence certainly does not support inducing fever as an effective means of treating cancer in the human body.

But there are many kinds of cancer:

Thousands chanted slogans and burned Danish flags in Pakistan and Iraq to protest Danish cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad on Tuesday.

Witness accounts, meanwhile, confirmed a report by Italy's envoy, who said the violence that killed 11 people in Benghazi, Libya, last week was the work of both Islamic radicals and anti-government forces.

Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen said Muslim anger over the cartoons was being exploited by radical Islamists and other interests.

"I think it is evident for everyone that this crisis is no longer about the 12 drawings in Jyllands-Posten," Fogh Rasmussen said. "It's about everything else and different agendas in the Muslim world. It's obvious that extremist circles exploit the situation."

One thing is clear -- the cartoon riots are certainly flushing the radicals out into the open. You just know intelligence agencies and domestic security forces everywhere are taking special care to identify the mob leaders and the provocateurs. To file the information away for a rainy day.

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February 21, 2006

Time to return the money

From Robert McLelland's MyBlahg:

Update: Correction, the net kook is asking for $600,000, which makes it even more laughable considering his reputation isn’t worth 6 bucks let alone 6 hundred thousand.

The net kook in question is Warren Kinsella, and the lawsuit againt Mark Bourrie of Ottawa Watch was covered here, and concerned a poorly worded post that made it sound like Warren Kinsella was involved in some sort of criminal activity.

Net kook or not, you never make that sort of allegation against a lawyer.

At the time, McLelland was urging people to donate money:

Update II: If you want to help out, you can donate to the screw Kinsella fund.

The link took you to a post at Ottawa Watch where you could make a PayPal donation to "StopKinsella".

Any money left over from Bourrie's defence would have gone to Reporters Without Borders.

What defence?

This has been an interesting month. I posted, in January, about Warren Kinsella's political future. That was, in my mind, what the post was about. At that time, and now, I did not believe he was an actor of any kind in the sponsorship kickback scandal. And he certainly did not know and couldn't possibly anticipate the future dealings of Public Works in advertising, which happened long after Kinsella left government. I truly believe that, and I could not, in good conscience, even begin to try to prove otherwise if his libel suit went to trial.

The manner in which my January 14, 2006 blog entry was worded made it seem that Mr. Kinsella had been a party to illegal conduct when this was clearly not the case. I apology [sic] without reservation to Mr. Kinsella for that error on my part.

So he caved before any stepping into a courtroom, as far as I can tell. Probably because it was made clear to him that he was in the wrong.

I'm curious, though, if there was no defence offered, will the money in the fund be returned? Donating the extra to Reporters Without Borders sounds nice, but it looks like there was nothing spent for which there was anything to be counted as extra.

Certainly, it doesn't look like Bourrie's promise to those making donations that he was going to fight this was fulfilled.

I'm sure McLelland will be calling for a full accounting on behalf of anyone who followed the link from his blog to make the donation. Right.

Honestly, people, who for a moment thought this was going to play out any differently? McLelland and his kind goading Bourrie on were doing Bourrie a huge disservice. Instead of the belligerence and cockiness, Bourrie should have talked to Kinsella immediately, openly and honestly. McLelland should have told him that that was the honest thing to do, and the smart thing to do.

It's easy to cheer for a fight from the sidelines.

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Fire burns while firefighters watch

From the News-Leader out of Missouri, reporting on news from the Ozarks:

Firefighters near Monett stood by and watched a fire destroy a garage and a vehicle because the property owner, who was injured battling the flames, had not paid membership dues.

Monett Rural Fire Department Chief Ronnie Myers defended the policy, saying the membership-based organization could not survive if people thought the department would respond for free. The department said it will fight a fire without question if a life is believed to be in danger.

I guess Rueda should have jumped into the flames. Instead, he tried hard to save his property:

Four mobile homes and a number of vehicles were on the property. Rueda managed to get one mobile home out of danger, using a garden hose and buckets, but was burned in the process, Evenson said.

Someone seems to have forgotten the notion of the common good. I rage against high taxes because they seem to be used to provide services far in excess of the common good. Indeed, a great deal of our taxes are used for the good of narrowly defined segments of our society as a way of earning favour. Much of the rest is used for policies that support the common good, without consideration of how much better a private operator might provide the same service, especially in competition.

But firefighting is not a free-market activity. We don't have multiple firefighting brigades each offering better firefighting than the competition. But we had that in the past.

The first fire brigades were the Roman vigiles, funded by a 4% tax on the sale of slaves. A vigiles cohort included firefighters and medical professionals, and they patrolled the streets of Rome looking for unsupervised fires. However, this idea of a professional public system did not survive the fall of Rome.

In 17th century London, fire brigades were funded by insurance companies, and only fought fires in those buildings sporting the moniker of the insurance company in question. In 19th century New York, fire brigades would compete, even to the point of sabotage, since brigades were paid out of by the insurance company for each building saved.

So despite this history of firefighting wackiness, how is it that today a man has lost his property because of money he says he did not know he was supposed to pay?

Rueda offered to pay, Evenson said, but the Monett department does not have a policy for on-the-spot billing.

Randy Cole, assistant state fire marshal, said there was no state law requiring membership-supported fire districts to help nonmembers in any situation.

However, state law says those departments may perform services for a nonmember if they choose, and then charge the nonmember based on a set amount outlined in statute, Cole said.

Common good goes far beyond mere property though. When I see a firetruck on its way to an emergency call, I know that I have helped pay for that service. So have my neighbours. We have all chipped in to ensure our safe community in creating a service that helps all. How is the community bond strengthened when neighbours watch as another neighbour engages in a pitiful attempt to save his home? How is the community bond strengthened when their only concern is that the fire not spread?

Firefighting is more than just about fighting fires. It is about meeting the common enemy. In Monett county, I'm guessing that more than a few people are looking at each other as the enemy instead. I wonder if race played a role in all this:

Myers said he would make an effort to explain the membership policy to the area's new Hispanic residents after the property's owner, Bibaldo Rueda, said he had never been told of the dues policy since moving there 1 1/2 years ago.

I think Chief Myers should be asked some pointed questions about how evenly the policy is enforced. Call me a cynic, but why do I get a feeling some fires are put out right away, and others are left to burn, when there is a question of membership dues being paid?

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Holocaust denial

The issue of the Holocaust is terribly sensitive. The greatest civilization the world has ever seen witnessed one of the most important and cultured nations of that civilization sink into a frenzy of industrialized murder.

Not only that, there were plenty of like-minded people in neighbouring countries only too happy to lend a hand.

As a result, millions died.

The historical record is clear and unambiguous. People are alive who witnessed the events. The bones lie in silent testimony for all to see.

For all that we have people who insist it did not happen, or that it was not as extensive as portrayed, or that it was not managed from the highest levels of Hitler's Germany.

In many nations, to voice such opinions is illegal:

British historian David Irving has been found guilty in Vienna of denying the Holocaust of European Jewry and sentenced to three years in prison.

He had pleaded guilty to the charge, based on a speech and interview he gave in Austria in 1989.

The reasoning is that Holocaut denial is equivalent to anti-Semitism:

Karen Pollock, chief executive of the UK's Holocaust Educational Trust welcomed the verdict. "Holocaust denial is anti-Semitism dressed up as intellectual debate. It should be regarded as such and treated as such," Ms Pollock told the BBC News website.

I have no love for those who deny the Holocaust. I don't think they are qualified to teach history, for example. But as in all free speech issues, the line must be drawn between advocating violence and mere stupidity.

Can merely denying that the Holocaust occurred be equivalent to advocating violence?

If I were speaking to a crowd on neo-Nazi skinheads, and I gave a fiery speech on how the Jews controlled the education system and had foisted this Holocaust lie on us in order to gain support of a guilt-ridden West to advance their own agenda, could that trigger violence without actually advocating that Jews be attacked?

Unfortunately, in some circumstances, it can. So I see the problem authorities in these countries face. How do you craft a law to manage violent speech when the speech does not have to be blatantly violent to have a violent effect?

I want to make it clear that I'm not planning to come down on the side of free speech without some consideration of the complexities of the situation.

But I am going to come down on the side of free speech anyway. Well, mostly.

First, on the principle of the matter. Free speech is not free if there is a cost to be paid for unpopular speech. Is the Holocaust a special case? Special cases are dangerous, since eventually everyone wants to be treated specially. Each special case limits speech further.

Are we willing to give Muslims special status in the matter of speaking of the Prophet? Most would say that we would not, because we can see where that road leads. But some countries have already taken a step on that road with Holocaust denial laws.

Second, on the matter of the practical effect. I have to think that for every David Irving punished for merely attempting to contradict the historical record, a martyr is created. The suspicions among those predisposed to believe that the Jews are the power behind government and media are confirmed. The ranks of Irvings supporters are strengthened, not weakened, when you attack Irving with the law.

Free speech that we disagree with is best attacked with more speech, not less.

Easy to say, isn't it?

But I can be wrong on this one. Maybe the Holocaust is a special case. Maybe denying it is to open the way to allow it to happen again. Maybe denial needs to be punished. I'll admit I'm still torn on this.

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The National Post steps up

Though the National Post has not published the cartoons themselves, the paper has come out strongly in defence of the Western Standard, seeing the big picture:

Last week, the Calgary-based Western Standard newsmagazine published eight of the 12 Danish cartoons that allegedly blaspheme the Muslim prophet Muhammad. Some Muslim groups responded by demanding the magazine be charged with hate crimes, and by applying to have its senior staff hauled before the Alberta Human Rights Commission. In the interest of protecting freedom of expression, both Alberta's Department of Justice and the province's rights investigators must reject these demands summarily.

We have disagreed with the Standard over the need to reprint the cartoons that first appeared last September in Copenhagen's Jyllands-Posten newspaper. But the magazine's decision was certainly defensible: Its publisher and editor argued the best way for their readers to place the images in context was actually to see them.

If the legal actions against the Standard are successful, it will send a dangerous message: that any group in society can use mechanisms of government to censor views it disagrees with. The result would be a media environment that is timid and bland. Even those who disagree with the Standard's editorial stance should support it in its campaign to uphold the principle of free speech.

The editorial board at the National Post gets it. This is about sovereignty, and about the duty of the media to defend it. We have our rights and freedoms, and they have theirs. We live by a set of standards, and the media acts as the watchdog, calling out when we fail to live by those standards, or when those standards are threatened. It can be a dangerous role to play, but that is why the media garners so much respect (or used to).

Our standards are for ourselves. People in other nations don't have to like them, but then they have their own countries in which they implement their own standards.

And maybe that's the real difference between us and the rabid crowds screaming their fury over the cartoons:

rally.jpg

We don't demand that those living in other countries live by our standards. On the other hand, they are demanding we die by theirs.

The media needs to make that clear. Part of that is not cowering in the face of the mob about the cartoons. And for those media outlets like the National Post that have decided not to print the cartoons, they have to be unequivocal in defending those who do.

You can't pick and choose which rights you want to defend and when to defend them. The media needs to remember that. Otherwise the mob will attack when while we dither and wring our hands.

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Protected nonsense

Apparently this is the result of "careful consideration" by our university students today:

jesusmuhammad.jpg

The reasoning for this?

A university newspaper in Canada is defending its publishing of a cartoon showing Jesus and Muhammad kissing, saying it's not "an act of hate."

"The decision to print the cartoon was carefully considered in an effort to advocate tolerance," Brian Clow, president of the Victoria University Students' Association said.

As Brian Clow is a member of the Young Liberals Club, I can see where he gets his ideas of "tolerance". If we don't tolerate having a same-sex agenda shoved down our throats, we're socially backwards in some way.

But hey, I don't think Brian Clow needs to have his head removed from his body because we disagree. And if certain Muslims think this Catholic is going to make common cause with them because the same people insulted both of our religions, they are going to be sorely disappointed.

Maybe it's a sign of my confidence and faith that I don't flip out whenever someone insults the Church, the Pope, Jesus, or what have you. Whether it's screaming for blood or asking for a hate-crime investigation -- it infringes on Brian Clow's God-given right to be jerk. Who am I to get in his way?

The corollary is to wonder about the confidence and faith of those who do become unglued, whatever their religion. Those who cry out for death whenever they see others not following their rules are those who, deep down, know that given a real choice, no one would willingly follow their rules, at least the way they've implemented them.

Now here's the kicker.

Deeper down, these same people know that they wish they didn't have to follow these rules. And that fundamental lack of faith is what drives them mad. At least that's what I think.

If you are interested in the thoughts of the people who put out this cartoon, go read the blog. Despite what I said, these people are actually aiming for more lofty goals than merely annoying everybody:

We aim to reclaim the language of liberty from its enemies on the left and the right: those who would bind liberal societies in the poisoned chains of identity politics and moral relativism, and those who would impose the false freedom of a society in which the market is the only source of value. We believe that personal freedom must be protected by political institutions, and that an unreasonable threat to personal freedom is a threat that must be met with any sacrifice.

However, we are not survivalist troglodytes or libertarian anarchists. We believe that personal individual freedom can be maintained only by living with a sense of civic responsibility, compassion, and moral justice.

Actually, there is lot about what these people stand for that I can get behind. I think, though, that their message might be drowned out in the uproar. Purposeful controversy is a tricky thing to manage, as we've all seen.

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It's your fault!

The Liberals are not taking responsibility for anything:

Former finance minister Ralph Goodale, who is now the Liberal House Leader, repeated his party's position that the Tories should not count on them to prop up the government.

Mr. Goodale said it will be up to the Bloc and the NDP to play that role because those parties joined with the Tories to defeat the Liberal government.

It includes fighting to maintain the Liberal deals with the provinces on child care and the Liberal cuts to personal income taxes, even though the Tories promised to scrap those items to pay for a $1,200-a-child tax credit to parents with children under 6 and an immediate one-percentage-point cut to the GST.

[Mr. Goodale] said the NDP should have kept the Liberals in office if they wanted a national daycare program.

"The NDP can't have it both ways. They have to assume their responsibility. They've made their bed and now they have to lie in it," he said.

You could take issue with the NDP tactics and strategy leading up to the last election, but for the Liberals to claim that it was the NDP's fault that we don't have the Liberal's nationalized daycare seems to ignore that there was indeed an election!

If Canadians wanted the Liberal program, the Liberals would be in power today.

Instead, Conservative policies, a new one announced every day for the first two weeks while the Liberals dithered, impressed Canadians with their common sense approach. Lower GST. More money for parents to spend as they see fit. A stronger military.

The Liberals were unable to fight against that, not while under multiple investigations.

Perhaps Liberal House Leader Ralph Goodale needs to be reminded about the nuclear-powered bombshell that most observers claim delivered the killing blast -- the announcement that the RCMP was opening a full criminal investigation into the possibility that a leak had occurred in the finance minister's office on the day of the income trust taxation announcement.

The finance minister's name? Ralph Goodale.

But then I guess that would explain trying to blame everyone else.

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Who buys daycare?

The Conservatives will not implement a Liberal Party program.

This is surprising? Especially a program cobbled together in the dying days of a government in an attempt to buy last-minute votes?

The Tories have promised to provide an allowance of $1,200 a year for every child under age six -- but they'll also do away with the former Liberal government's $5-billion child-care deal with the provinces as of March 31, 2007.

It's a decision that'll create a myriad of problems for parents who will suffer because of a lack of child-care spaces, says the Child Care Advocacy Association of Canada.

"The demand for the service is not going to go away and so by cutting back on the service side of it, people will be standing there with their cheque and nothing to buy with it," said the association's executive director, Monica Lysack.

Consider that last sentence. People in search of daycare, with money in their hands, but unless the government pays for the daycare spaces, none will be created?

I knew I should have taken economics in school. I was under the impression that as long as there was a customer, someone would create the goods or services desired, arriving at a mutually acceptable price for the exchange.

Maybe, just maybe, some daycare providers will step up and create daycare spaces with parents signed up and ready to pay.

Parents.

Daycare providers.

Children.

No government.

If this Tory government accomplishes nothing else, I hope that it at least teaches people in this country that you don't need the government to facilitate everything. In fact, we really need the government for very little. Create and regulate the monetary system, and then let us handle the rest.

Amazing that people seem to have forgotten that.

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Since when did a letter to the editor constitute news?

I hate to pile it on, but I think Pierre Bourque has finally jumped the shark.

The headline reads "Harper coveted Emerson".

I clicked, hoping to read an investigative piece in which a confidante of Stephen Harper's revealed that the plan to get Liberal MP David Emerson to cross the floor was long in planning.

Not that I hoped that this was the case, but if it was true, best that we know.

Instead, I get a letter to the editor, for the The Record, the community newspaper for the city of Kitchener.

The letter was from Sue King, as far as I can tell, a regular citizen like you or me, and though I can't speak for you, I know that I have no special insight into Stephen Harper's mind. I doubt Ms King has any such insight either:

So Stephen Harper took the oath on his own personal Bible at the swearing- in ceremony earlier this month. His Bible must be different from mine, because in mine God set the laws in the Old Testament and one of the commandments says: "Thou shalt not covet."

Harper coveted David Emerson and he got him into his Conservative caucus by overruling the oath he took on his very own Bible. Jesus set standards in the Beatitudes in the New Testament that Harper misinterpreted with his arrogance. The gospel according to Stephen Harper shows his rule will be like that of a dictator, not a believer in humility.

OK, she's upset. We get it. But did Stephen Harper covet David Emerson? Maybe. Maybe for months and months. But then maybe not. Nothing in Ms King's letter acts as evidence to support that assertion. It is pure opinion, and frankly an untenable one at that.

As far as I can tell from the letter, Ms King's opinion is based entirely on what she's read in the news and seen on TV. I don't think Ms King has ever met Stephen Harper, or David Emerson for that matter. I am certain she never had a long conversation with Stephen Harper, or anyone close to him, such that she could make any judgment on what he does and does not covet.

Heck, I've had long conversations, each on the order of 30 minutes and more, with three individuals each of whom work with Stephen Harper on a daily basis, one of whom is likely to have as good an insight into the true Stephen Harper as anyone can short of Harper's wife and his parents.

For all that, I don't pretend to have the any better understanding into Stephen Harper's deep motivations than any of you.

A bitter letter (one in which Belinda Stronach is compared favourably with Joan of Arc -- just so you get the sense of where this person is coming from) is hardly newsworthy. And one which makes accusations without any supporting evidence is less so.

Pierre, take a break from this. Your judgment as a legitimate "Newswatch" is in question, and unless you remember what constitutes "news", you will find your audience quickly heading elsewhere. My issue is not that you are targeting the Conservatives over the Emerson controversy. You are entitled to your opinion. But it is just that -- an opinion. If you can't find the hard news to back it up, don't lower your standards.

Posted by: Steve Janke at 06:22 AM | Comments (14) | Add Comment
Post contains 579 words, total size 4 kb.

February 19, 2006

Spinning too hard

You can report the news.

You can even spin the news.

But sometimes we get caught trying a bit too hard.

more...

Posted by: Steve Janke at 09:14 PM | Comments (31) | Add Comment
Post contains 680 words, total size 5 kb.

The United Nations as the Sharia police

From the Globe and Mail:

In Cairo, Bishop Karsten Nissen, of Denmark's Evangelical Lutheran Church, met with Grand Imam Mohammed Sayyed Tantawi of al-Azhar University, the world's highest Sunni Muslim seat of learning.

Mr. Tantawi said the Danish prime minister must apologize for the drawings and further demanded the world's religious leaders meet to write a law that "condemns insulting any religion, including the Holy Scriptures and the prophets."

He said the United Nations should impose the law on all countries.

I have to expect that the Grand Imam is not as much of a fool as his statement suggests. The United Nations can't impose anything. Members states can incorporate UN resolutions and charters into their legal codes, but even then only if they are consistent with their constitutions. If they don't like the UN ruling, they can ignore it, or simply leave the organization. The UN doesn't have an effective enforcement body.

The only time the UN went to war was in Korea, and then only because the Soviet Union boycotted the Security Council vote over a different issue -- the exclusion of communist China from the UN. That allowed the Western bloc to use the UN to go to war with the Soviets against the North Korean invasion. That mistake has never been repeated, and the UN has essentially been in stalemate. At best, such as in Iraq in 1991, the UN simply authorized what was already going to happen with or without its support.

So what does the Grand Imam think is going to happen? The UN will never pass a binding resolution via the Security Council on the issue of cartoons. The General Assembly can try, but with all the ultra-left transnational progressive NGOs slumming at Turtle Bay, it is unlikely that a resolution in support of religious conservatives will see the light of day.

And even if such a resolution passed in the General Assembly, so what? Nothing would change.

Well, one thing would. The Islamists would have succeeded at turning the UN into an organ for promoting their agenda. Today it's cartoons, tomorrow the sale of pork, next week burkas for everyone. That might be the final straw for some Western nations to drop the UN altogether.

Maybe that would not be such a bad thing.

Who knows? If that were the outcome, the Grand Imam might get support for his silly idea from some unexpected quarters.

Posted by: Steve Janke at 10:45 AM | Comments (35) | Add Comment
Post contains 417 words, total size 3 kb.

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