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31/05/2006 Fox's John Gibson downplays Haditha massacreTo quote Fox News, "We report, you decide." In that spirit, watch this clip from Gibson's commentary yesterday (via Media Matters) about the Haditha massacre; then decide for yourself if he's really against all massacres as he claims, or whether what happened there was justified in the sense that a worse war criminal, Saddam Hussein, was deposed.
Many people are saying this could be the worst scandal since My Lai in Vietnam. I think it is, too. I said it was worse than Abu Gharib the other day, but My Lai is far more appropriate an analogy. But would Gibson have said that My Lai was perfectly okay, had Ho Chi Minh been assassinated?
Gibson's talking point yesterday could have been written and spoken by Karl Rove himself. More and more, people aren't buying it anymore. WaPo raises alarm about tar sandsWe've known about this for years, but today's Washington Post does a great analysis about what so many in America see as its great hope for freedom from Saudi oil tyranny -- Canada's tar sands -- and what's so wrong with how the oil is extracted. Not the least of which is all the water that is used to force the oil out that pits farmers against Big Oil, hence the phrase "Water's for fighting." Continued prayers for the First MateThe wife of conservative blogger Edward Morrissey (Captain's Quarters) hasn't had much luck lately in the health department. From what he writes, she's developed an infection that is a side effect of the pancreas transplant she had last year and because her immune system has become suppressed has now developed an infection called cytomegalovirus.
I wrote about the First Mate several months ago during one of her previous hospital stays. Regardless of the political divide, we always rally around our own -- so maybe we can all say a prayer or two today and hope that Ed's wife has a speedy recovery. I for one appreciate his insights into world affairs -- and they need all the support they can get. Pearson chief defends Pickering Airport, denies Peak OilHe can't be serious.
Incredibly, Steve Smith of the Greater Toronto Airports Authority believes John Munro Airport in Hamilton could hit 8 million passengers by 2032 even if the long shelved Pickering airport is built. He also dismisses peak oil could decimate the airline industry because new technologies will make planes more fuel efficient.
A few points regarding this rant:
For that matter, why doesn't Hamilton have that? The most that exists right now is a shuttle bus that runs every forty minutes -- and it doesn't even go directly downtown, but to the bus barn just south of the airport to connect to the Upper James bus, one of the most heavily travelled routes and what should have been the line for a subway line that was rejected by Hamilton twenty years ago. We shot ourselves in the foot over Mirabel -- and Hamilton. Now they want to to the same with Pickering? Give me a break. 30/05/2006 Redford on alternate fuels; Duncan on coalAs we steam through another day of smog and heat in Southern Ontario and as I finally made the decision to turn on the air conditioner -- reluctantly, but given my father's medical condition I don't have much choice -- I notice this op-ed piece at CNN, written by actor Robert Redford about the need to bite the foreign oil habit.
We progressives have talked about this for years but with oil hovering around $75 a barrel and going even higher, there haven't been many who put it in a way people can understand.
Redford suggests some intermediate steps, like forcing gas stations to start selling E85 fuel (given many cars being sold today can run on convention gas with a maximum of 10% ethanol content but can also also operate on 85% moonshine) and biodiesel (which burns just like diesel but with virtually no emissions of sulphur), alongside traditional fuels. Redford also points to the fact many states and cities have taken leadership on the issue as Dubya has failed to offer it. In short, the answer is home grown solutions, and that is providing new jobs and new hope.
There's more details about what should be done at www.KickTheOilHabit.org .
Maybe that's what Stephen Harper is hoping for here in his attempts to duck out of Kyoto. But no one should be impressed by the fact he's offering absolutely no tax incentives to facilitate the change other than continuing the tax exemption the previous government offered on ethanol and biodiesel.
This is going to be expensive, but someone should be at least offering a cheerleading support. I suppose it's time to give him a taste of his own medicine, start buying those alternative fuel vehicles or at least more fuel efficient ones (read: no SUVs), and starve the Conservatives of the Petrodollar campaign contributions that power his party.
And another thing and somewhat related ... Ontario Energy Minister Dwight Duncan repeatedly ducked questions this morning about the continued delays in shutting down the province's remaining coal plants. Looks like he may decide the answer is so-called clean coal, in other words using lower sulphur grades of coal and vastly improving scrubbers to reduce emissions. That would certainly help but it's not what Dalton McGuinty promised. There's no way the 2009 deadline can possibly be met, but until we get around NIMBY syndrome and build more windmills it may be the only choice we have.
Remarkably, it was Progressive Conservative Leader John Tory who slammed Duncan for breaking the Liberals' promise -- breaking ranks with Harper, who just loves King Coal, after all that's what powers most of the plants in Alberta and makes people there choke as much as we do in Ontario. Nice way to pay back your supporters Stephen. OCAP's priorities misplacedIn yet another attempt to draw attention to itself, the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP) banged pots and tried to create a whole bunch of noise during the gala opening night for the 2006 Stratford Festival season. They were hoping 400 protestors would turn up. Only 80 did.
Interesting that many of the black-tied people they were heckling -- other than the politicians -- are people who actually care about poverty issues, especially with kids and seniors. Did this matter to OCAP? Nope.
Very interesting they also chose to target an organization that employs 800 people year round -- it's not just the acting company, but those who make the costumes, the sets and who work the call centre selling tickets and booking reservations at local hotels and bed and breakfasts. The people we never see but without which there would be no repertory company. Union employees, no less. Not to mention all the spin-off benefits.
Who are they trying to kid? I got totally turned off against OCAP after a violent clash at Queen's Park a few years back. No thank you. I'll stick to writing letters and persuading others about fair tax policies, a decent living wage and putting families first. Banging pots will only turn those you're trying to convince against you. There are better ways to make noise. Harper's Senate plan is unconstitutional -- here's how I'd do itHarper's idea to make new Senate appointments limited to a term of eight years is not only silly, it creates two tiers of Senators -- those appointed to the age of 75, and a second group. Without amending the Constitution itself, it would be unconstitutional.
Harper may attempt -- as I suspect he will -- to use an obscure clause in the amending formula related to the "exclusive government of the Senate and House of Commons." It would be quickly shot down by any thinking court. This is not like changing the representation formula in the House of Common,s something I discussed the other day. The Constitution makes it clear: Any change to how Senators are selected, as well as their terms of office, requires 7 provinces having at least 50 percent of the population.
That in itself could be a problem -- since Saskatchewan wants the Senate abolished all together, Ontario wants to get rid of it or reformed so drastically no one would recognize it anymore, and Québec would rather make its own appointments to the Red Chamber even if the people want democracy. Somewhere there is a concoction that would result in 7-50, but politicians are unwilling to even seek it. That Harper is once again threatening to call an election to give him a mandate to make unconstitutional changes to the Constitution is revolting.
Somewhere there is a calculus that could result in 7-50 in a referendum (not required under our Basic Law, but something that is inevitable) but politicians are unwilling to seek it. My suggestion for reform would be the following:
We need to fix our constitution for a generation, and the Senate remains one of the key sticking points. Harper's plan is nothing but a regime for continued kleptocracy. 29/05/2006 It must be a tumour, to send out DARTI was under the impression we had a Disaster Assistance Reponse Team (DART) to respond to emergencies like the earthquake in Indonesia this past weekend. Yet it's Monday night, going on into Tuesday, and the group at Trenton is still on 48 hour standby.
Guess 4000+ dead people isn't enough for Harper to send out our mobile medical team ... any less than a headache for Arnold Schwarzenegger is a tumour. Could Douglas Creek flare up yet again?I don't know if this is good news or bad in the Douglas Creek battle, but it was reported a couple of hours ago that a Haldimand County judge has ordered all sides in the dispute to a special court hearing this coming Thursday, June 1st. These include Haldimand County, the OPP, the Ontario Attorney General and Henco Industries. At issue are several court injunctions and arrest warrants still to be served against some of the native protestors.
Note that one of the parties ordered to court is the elected Six Nations Council -- not the Haudenasonee. I wonder if this has something to do with that it's the elected band that supervises the Six Nations Police.
As I write this, the Highway 6 bypass is still closed. So is a railway trunk line that runs to Nanticoke and which serves an Esso refinery, Stelco's Lake Erie facilities, and the controversial coal power plant which is running full steam today and making our smog alert even worse on top of the TTC strike. I can already see Caledonia itself shutting down again if, as I suspect, the protestors are rounded up after this Thursday's hearing.
But there are laws that must be respected and if some of the protestors are still in possesion of the Henning Brother's stolen documents, they should be arrested. The contractors were acting in good faith and at the very least they should get their stuff back so they can reassemble their company and file the tax return for this year that's already a month late.
A court hearing really is unnecessary. Those who deliberately broke the law on what is clearly white person's land should face white person's law. What is disputed should -- as I have written previously -- go to arbitration. If even the elected council which most band members refuse to recognize has 29 outstanding claims with the feds, then you know there's a problem. WestJet admits it spied on Air CanadaFor the once mighty and proud upstart WestJet, this is a huge embarrassment. It has paid over $15 million to settle out of court a huge lawsuit to Air Canada. Most of it, $10 million, will go to childrens' charities.
It goes back a few years, when an executive left Air Canada for its rival. As part of the settlement, he got continued access to the flag carrier's employee website for six months so he could continue to take advantage of employee fares -- fairly (no pun intended) routine for severance packages in the industry.
The only thing is that he used the password too many times -- 15,000 in fact. It turns out WestJet was trying to get an idea of Air Canada's passenger loads so it could set prices in corridors that were very competitive, maybe even predatory. Not too coincidentaly it also happened just as WestJet was making a major expansion into the Toronto-Montréal-Ottawa triangle. WestJet was also accused of sifting through the garbage of Air Canada executives and even hiring private investigators to try to reassemble shredded documents.
The latter part was obviously wrong. Unless it was Air Canada executives who were acting illegally by shredding evidence of wrongdoing on its part, you just don't go rooting in someone's garbage. This isn't like Robert Tilton who shredded prayer requests then wrote back "personal" replies to his worshippers which were really form letters (eg. 01 for cancer, 02 for AIDS, 03 to burn the mortgage etc.)
The first part -- well, 15,000 hits in six months certainly was overdoing it. But there are a number of tools available for free on the Internet that allows the average Joe or Jane Schmo to hack into any airline's restricted zone to get their load data. Any underdog worth their salt would do that to keep the game going. It's really the only way they could stay alive in a market where Air Canada still has a 70% or even greater share of the market.
For what it's worth, this whole mess won't stop me from flying either airline. It's just a question of price and where I need to go. For some of the more remote parts of Canada, obviously Air Canada is the choice. For most major cities, especially to out West, it's WestJet -- after all, they fly out of Hamilton to get to most of those places more frequently than out of Toronto. WildcatA few days ago, it was about driver and token seller safety. Now, it's turned into a wildcat strike -- and just in the last hour as I write these words, a labour board has ordered Toronto Transit Commission workers back to work.
I can understand the anger by the workers, but there's a time to have a legal strike -- when there is no valid contract. Under the present circumstances, not even giving people in Toronto twelve hours notice is completely unacceptable. 28/05/2006 Worse than Abu GharibIt is quite telling that the American Exempt Media thinks it's more important to report on the birth of the love child of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie than it is to tell the people of what may be the worst scandal ever to hit the US military. Worse than Abu Gharib, many times worse than Tailhook. It's amazing that only a few wire services talked about this one, and briefly. Only this weekend has it finally started to pick up speed.
It goes back to an engagement on November 19th of last year. In sum, an insurgent set off a bomb that attack a military convoy. One Marine was killed. The Marines then opened fire, deliberately killing at least 20 Iraqi civilians in retaliation. They didn't realize that one of them caught it all on tape. What's the scandal here is that NCIS -- Navy Criminal Investigation Service -- has been sitting on this for months but it's only in recent days that members of Congress, who are normally filled in about "irregularities" like this, have found out.
One critic of the war, nominal military supporter John Murtha (D-PA), pounced this morning on ABC's This Week with George Stephanopoulos. Saying this pretty much destroys Dubya's desire to win the "hearts and minds" of Iraqis, Murtha wants to know how far up the chain of command this could go and why this was covered up for so long.
Given Donald Rumsfeld and Karl Rove run the show, I'll let you guess that one. It doesn't matter that the Marines have since gone back to Camp Pendleton, California and that at least three of them have been suspended pending the investigation. The fact remains, this is murder one. You don't go around killing civilians on purpose to achieve military objectives.
It not only violates the just war rules of Saint Augustine, it also goes against any ideas of fair play. Revisiting the MP distribution formulaOther than the Terms of Union with Newfoundland and Labrador, no part of Canada's Constitution has been amended more times than the distribution formula contained in Articles 51 and 51A of the Constitution Act, 1867. 51A, an amendment added in 1915 and still applicable today, requires that a province must have at least as many MPs as it does Senators -- which is why Prince Edward Island has four when its population dictates it should have one; and why Newfoundland and Labrador can never go below six even though by right it should have only five. (Currently, it has seven.)
The primary formula contained in Section 51 (and which can be unilaterally modified by Parliament alone, without consent from the provinces) was last revised in 1985, when the preceding formula devised in 1974 -- an extremely complicated rule book -- created a scenario where the number of MPs could have exploded from 282 to 307. Had Brian Mulroney left well enough alone, there might have actually been a much fairer distribution among the provinces and the demands for Senate reform nowhere near as loud. But fearing a public backlash against "too many politicians," he changed the rules.
Simply stated, the territories each get one MP at large. The provinces have their total populations in decennial years (those ending with the digit one) added up, then it's divided by 279 (282-3, based on the situation in 1985) to derive a quotient. Then each provinces' population is divided by that quotient to determine the number of MPs, rounded up if there is a number greater than 0.50. If a province stands to lose MPs, its preceding numbers are locked in or grandfathered; if a province gains, it does so. The idea was that if a province loses population it will not lose its say in the House of Commons.
Seems fair enough, until you consider the only provinces that have gained under the formula are British Columbia, Alberta and Ontario. In reality, all the other provinces have been squeezed out. But what if the 1974 rules had remained? They were used for the 1979, 1980 and 1984 elections. What would the distribution be today?
Using the province by province census numbers by year here's what the Mulroney formula provides for as of 2001, and what it would have been under Trudeau's:
I am certainly not suggesting the Trudeau formula, developed in 1974, would be appropriate for the aughts. Nor am I suggesting Ontario suddenly get two dozen more MPs even if our population suggests it should -- after all, locking in at 1985 helps to close the gap and somewhat reduce alienation in other regions. These numbers, however, suggest there is a major problem looming here. If some of the smaller or intermediate provinces see they are continuing to lose influence vis-à-vis Ontario and Québec, the backlash could get even worse when the next redistribution takes place sometime after 2011.
I doubt too that people would cotton to the idea of the number of MPs skyrocketing in the double digits. But it is more than obvious that Mulroney's calculus leaves most of the Western provinces, as well as Québec, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland-Labrador terribly shortchanged.
Stephen Harper says he wants to take a look at better representation for the provinces in the House of Commons. Whether this means electing some members at large and / or introducing some form of proportional representation is a matter for discussion, but perhaps it's something we should consider. It should be part of an overall reform package that includes making the Senate an elected body and with better regional reprosentation, but as the controllers of the purse the Lower House should reflect the population today -- not what it was 20 years ago.
What I'd like to see is something that bridges the two -- rewarding provinces that have definite growth compared to the national average while protecting provinces that lose population, while at the same time putting a cap on the number of new districts that are created. This can be done without severely impacting the principle of proportion. It should be done as soon as possible, and if it requires another redistribution prior to 2011, so be it. 27/05/2006 Go Granny Go -- just remember, no glove no loveHT to Huffington Post: A senior citizen's centre in Orlando FL is experiencing an alarming rate of STDs, much higher than the average rate in Miami. According to the report, health officials blame "Viagra, a lack of sex education and no risk for pregnancy for the spike." (Source: WKMG)
The story may sound hilarious, but this is very serious business -- and it cuts into one of my areas of concern; namely dignity for seniors. Getting Hepatitis-C or herpes or even AIDS can be grating for anyone; imagine how shocking it must be to a senior.
Hey, I'm all for our elder citizens wanting to adding life to their golden years, but the lack of education part is the crucial one -- and it adds urgency to fighting against those who promote an abstinence only agenda. By not shifting the focus to abstience first, with safeguards as fallback positions, social conservatives are unwittingly but slowly killing off a big part of their core constituency; namely, people over fifty.
We need to tell seniors the same thing we're telling kids: No glove, no love. Fixed terms for Canada?Stephen Harper has proposed fixing election dates every four years, starting in the fall of 2009. In principle it's a good idea, but as usual the devil is in the details and as currently written still leaves too much advantage to the governing party which could engineer its own defeat and a call for an early campaign even if it had a majority.
I'd like to see that if a party has a clear mandate, it sticks to it, no exceptions; and that it governs and not acts like a lame duck. If there's a minority, it actually attempts to work with the opposition to keep the government running as long as possible. Three other provisos I would like to see.
First, there would have to be a period when any and all solicitations for fundraising -- direct or indirect -- would need to be outlawed all together and parties mostly dependent on public financing allocations. People could continue to donate voluntarily and get their tax receipt but off season campaigning would be out. Whether the gate is lifted six or twelve months before an election has to be worked out, but the idea a governing party can just use its advantage to build up a war-chest needs to be checked. Second, an obvious exception can be made for by-elections; but this would require a vacancy to be filled very rapidly. Currently, a PM can wait 180 sitting days before asking the Chief Electoral Officer to set up a special election -- which in practice can be over a year. It should be two real weeks, tops, and revenue raising limited to that district. Once it's over, the gate would shut again. For what it's worth, the next election won't be in 2009, it will be much sooner and Harper knows it. Right now, it's still entirely his call, and he could easily repeal the law with a simple majority. So the third condition would be any attempts to tinker with a fixed date would require a super majority of two-thirds, the same quota that's needed to extend the current maximum five year mandate in times of war or insurrection. 26/05/2006 Mr Rogers' 1969 pep talk about cynicismFred Rogers, the great children's entertainer, gave this testimony to Congress back in 1969, when he pleaded for more funding for PBS. (Back then it was a big story -- since the cooperative was just getting off the ground then.) It may be some of the best six minutes of television ever not just on about how important children are, but how about kids and adults should deal with anger management.
Not that Stephen Harper or Dubya is going to take Rogers' advice now -- after all, he's dead.
HT to Bob Cesca at Huffington Post. Another grieving military family tells Harper to f*** offIn honouring his daughter, Captain Nicola Goddard, her father Tim ripped into fellow Calgarian Harper for his closed door policy about homecomings like the one Ms Goddard had last week. Saying the decision should have been left up to the family, Tim said:
"I find it troubling the privacy decision means keeping the press outside the wire where the bad guys are. I would like to think Nic died to protect our freedoms, not restrict them."
Ouch! That's now at least two families of our fallen who have taken SH to task. Yet another Harper muzzleWhile I continue to be personally opposed to gay and lesbian marriages -- preferring civil unions as an alternative -- I am deeply concerned by the latest attempt by Stephen Harper to muzzle his MPs. This time, he has issued a gag order preventing his team from discussing this weekend's wedding of two male Mounties.
Harper is becoming more and more like a control freak. He thinks the local media's going to be more friendly to him than the Parliamentary Press Gallery. Yeah, right. What will Canadians think about this? From the same guy who just a few months ago championed free votes and the right of MPs to reflect their constituents' views, not that of the party?
Guess Harper believes, as Trudeau did, that a governing backbench should be a bunch of trained seals. The PM should let the dogs out and expose his party for what it really is. Hamilton fills traffic islands with gravel, not flowersA number of years ago, Robert Morrow, the former Mayor of Hamilton, came up with an idea to make the driving experience just slightly more pleasant. As an experiment, he had traffic engineers put a multi-tier flower garden on the corner of King and Paradise -- at the point in Westdale where King goes from a one-way to a two way street.
It became such a huge hit with drivers and bus riders going to and from McMaster University that they decided to take up the idea to nearly all traffic islands, not just across the city's major intersections, but also in the outlying areas of the former Wentworth County. (This was before amalgamation made Hamilton a megacity.) After a couple of years, they found the cost of putting potting beds on the streets was cutting into the construction budget, so they got local sponsors to "adopt a bed." Great way to promote corporate citizenship.
Maybe it's the fact they're now building the Red Hill Parkway due open next year (long overdue in my opinion) or the costs of social welfare are going through the roof, but one of the big casualties this year was those flower beds. To save money, many of them have now been filled in -- with gravel. There are still quite a few, but not as much as just three years ago.
The worst situation is the off-ramps at Upper Wentworth and Lincoln Alexander -- right where our major regional shopping centre, Limeridge Mall, is. That is a gateway; instead we have rocks and weeds going through them. Not a pleasant way to say "hello" to our visitors.
Infrastructure isn't just making the roads easier and more efficient to use, it's also about making them more pleasant. Many states in the US have introduced wildflower programs along their Interstates and they not only make the driving experience easier but they've also managed to "weed out" (pardon the expression) foreign plant invaders that were threatening the ecosystem. Other Canadian and US cities have flower programs and there's a direct link between that and increased convention business.
Hamilton's decision on this one is ill-thought. Bring back the gardens. Native affairs are a FEDERAL responsibility, StephenI found it curious the other day when Stephen Harper said his government is taking a mostly backseat approach to the Douglas Creek affair because, as he puts it, the issue is about title to land and therefore a provincial head of responsibility.
While there may be some truth in that, at least insofar as non-reserve natives are concerned, it simply is hogwash when it comes to on-reserve residents and the issue of settling land claims. Article 91, Head 24 of the Constitution Act, 1867 (also known as the British North America Act) specifies that Indians and lands reserved to them are within the purview of the federal government. Later amendments protect existing and future land claim rights as well as those rights granted to Aboriginals under the 1763 Royal Proclamation ... but the federal duty remains nonetheless.
As Canada's chief law enforcement officer, Harper has a duty to uphold the Constitution. By abrogating his responsibilities in this regard, he is in dereliction of duty. |
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