Original Glory

Happy Independence Day to all our American friends.

Happy Dominion Day

 

 

 

 

 

From a surpisingly warm and sunny Scotland, Happy Dominion Day to all.

Independent of reason

This is the sort of European media coverage that I have to deal with on a regular basis.  Blatantly bias, anti-Israeli and entirely devoid of context.

Yeah, because it’s all about you

This is truly disgusting.  What better time to host ISLAMEXPO in London, than July 7th.  Via littlegreenfootballs.

ISLAM EXPO runs from the 6th of July until the 8th of July.  The full provisional programme can be found here.

So let's see what the organisers have planned for the first anniversary of an Islamist massacre of 52 innocent civilians on the London Underground.  Here are some of the sessions planned for July 7th:

11:00  Jihad: Holy War?

12:00  Social Justice in Islam: Theory & Practice

15:00  Muslims in Britain: Facts & Challenges

17:30  Muslim Youth between British Identity and the Ummah

Well, you get the idea.  Any other day of the year, fine.  Enjoy your conference. 

But to do this on July 7th . . . despicable.

Exactly who is in charge?

This unbelievable report from the Toronto Star:

OPP cedes control of Caledonia road

OPP officers will no longer respond to calls from non-native home and property owners who live on the 6th Line, a county road running along the southwest border of a housing development occupied by native protestors . . .. . . This is just the latest twist involving the OPP that has many people — including a former OPP officer — questioning what the provincial force is doing.

“They can’t do that. People pay their taxes for policing by the OPP,” said the former senior officer, who asked not to be identified.

Premier Dalton McGuinty springs into action:

Premier Dalton McGuinty called on the Six Nations to abandon the occupation while negotiations continue.

“It would be very helpful if the occupation was to come to an end and the parties understood we remain very much committed to negotiating this at the table,’ McGuinty said, adding his government has done what it can “to take the land out of the equation” by negotiating to buy the property.

Looks like someone’s not happy: 

Meanwhile, an Ontario Superior Court judge has ordered key players in the land dispute — including the OPP, and the Ontario and federal governments — to return to court June 29. “This Court cannot indefinitely tolerate the contempt of the orders of the court that now prevails in Caledonia,” Justice David Marshall said in a statement. This is the third time he’s ordered parties to court to explain why they haven’t followed his three-month-old order to evict protestors from the development.

I’m practically speechless . . . This is shocking.  Why is it that these protesters are allowed to break the law, endanger public safety and disturb the peace and nothing is being done?

There may be something to this Native land claim, I don’t know.  But, if they’re breaking the law they’re criminals.  In which case they should be given jail time and not ‘concessions’.

Same old Liberals

From yesterday's Globe and Mail:

Liberals refuse standing vote on Conservatives' ethics bill

Key legislation passed, but MPs don't have to stand and be counted

The Conservative government's central piece of legislation — the federal accountability act — has passed through the House of Commons without a single record of which MPs support or oppose it.

Liberal Leader Bill Graham refused to say yesterday whether his party supports the bill and abruptly ended a scrum with reporters when he was pressed to state a position.

. . . He then said his MPs might have a position if the Liberal senators amend the bill.

. . . Treasury Board president John Baird said it was up to the Liberals to explain why they did not want a standing vote, but said passage of the bill — which changes rules for ethics, lobbying, election financing and government appointments — will bring a "sea change" in the culture of government.

"It's the biggest step forward, the biggest anti-corruption package ever to go through the Commons," he said.

. . . "I think that this has nothing to do with accountability; it has everything to do with attacking the Liberal Party. It's an utterly cynical attempt to go at the Liberal Party, and to do it in the middle of a leadership campaign is the height of cynicism."

Liberal Ian Davey, the national director of the Michael Ignatieff campaign, is worried that this legislation is an attack on the Liberal Party of Canada.

Conservative John Baird thinks that this legislation is an attack on government corruption.

Government corruption . . . Liberal party of Canada . . . guys, enough, you're arguing the same point!

Finally!

From today's Globe and Mail:

Ottawa to spend $15-billion to boost military

Major purchases of planes, helicopters, ships, trucks to be announced next week

The Conservatives will unveil a massive $15-billion procurement package at four separate announcements in four Canadian cities next week, sources told The Globe and Mail.

. . . But Prime Minister Stephen Harper told Parliament yesterday that he is following through on a campaign promise to "correct 13 years of Liberal neglect —

Finally, someone who is willing to make a decision.  This is great news for our soldiers and our country.  Without a strong and functioning military Canada's role in the world is significantly reduced.  Whether the mission is war, 'peacekeeping', enforcing Canadian sovereignity or disaster relief this equipment is essential.   

So long Harriet

From the BBC:

Harriet the tortoise dies at 175

Harriet the tortoise, one of the world's oldest known creatures, has died in Australia aged about 175.

. . . "She had a very fairly acute heart attack and thankfully passed away quietly overnight," Dr Hangar said. 

 . . . Some people believe that Harriet was studied by British naturalist Charles Darwin.  Darwin took several young Giant Galapagos tortoises back to London after his epic voyage on board HMS Beagle.

DNA testing has suggested the giant creature was born around 1830, a few years before Darwin visited the Galapagos archipelago in 1835.

However, Harriet belonged to a sub-species of tortoise only found on an island that Darwin never visited.

At the time of her 175th birthday party, Harriet weighed 150kg (23 stone) and was roughly the size of a dinner table.

She was the star attraction at the Australia Zoo on Queensland's Sunshine Coast.

Her keepers put her longevity down to a stress-free life.

That's how I'd like to go, at 175 and quietly in my sleep. 

These are not the WMD you’re looking for

WMD found in Iraq as reported over at Fox News:

"We have found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, chemical weapons," Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., said in a quickly called press conference late Wednesday afternoon.

Reading from a declassified portion of a report by the National Ground Intelligence Center, a Defense Department intelligence unit, Santorum said: "Since 2003, coalition forces have recovered approximately 500 weapons munitions which contain degraded mustard or sarin nerve agent. Despite many efforts to locate and destroy Iraq's pre-Gulf War chemical munitions, filled and unfilled pre-Gulf War chemical munitions are assessed to still exist."

But . . .

Asked why the Bush administration, if it had known about the information since April or earlier, didn't advertise it, [Senator] Hoekstra conjectured that the president has been forward-looking and concentrating on the development of a secure government in Iraq.

Offering the official administration response to FOX News, a senior Defense Department official pointed out that the chemical weapons were not in useable conditions.

"This does not reflect a capacity that was built up after 1991," the official said, adding the munitions "are not the WMDs this country and the rest of the world believed Iraq had, and not the WMDs for which this country went to war."

Passing this off as 'WMD found in Iraq' is just silly.  So what's with the press conference?  I think this is just crudely played politics on the Senators' part.

Besides, EVERYONE knows that Saddam's WMD were spirited over the Syrian border in the weeks before the Coalition invasion.

‘The Americans (A Canadian’s Opinion)’

Two recent articles help to dismantle the myth of the 'ugly American'.  The first article about US charitable giving can be found here.

 

The second article, on politeness, can be found at the Readers' Digest website here.

World of Courtesy: Ranking of 35 Cities

Below is a ranking of the most courteous to the least courteous — 35 major cities included in RD's Global Courtesy Test.

	New York	USA			80%
	Toronto	Canada			70
	São Paulo	Brazil			68

European identity is defined -in contrast to popular impressions of the American approach- by their emphasis on building compassionate societies.  Canadian identity, in a small part, is defined by being seen in the eyes of the world as the polite 'anti-American'.  These false stereotypes are rife in Europe and Canada.  America is more racist, their healthcare system is worse, violent crimes is much worse, we are 'peacekeepers' the Americans' are 'warmongers' . . .

Regardless of the facts, many non-Americans sit watching the evening news or reading their local papers and thinking, not how can our societies improve, but rather thank goodness that we're not America because they are so [insert negative adjective here].

Many years ago, the great Gordon Sinclair read an excellent commentary piece called The Americans (A Canadian's Opinion) over the airwaves at CFRB 1010 Radio. 

It's still important today because it reminds us of America's strengths and the good that it does in the world.  If we continue to define ourselves in contrast to America, it's important that we have a balanced perspective on the true character of the United States of America. 

Here is The Americans (A Canadian's Opinion) in its entirety:

The United States dollar took another pounding on German, French and British exchanges this morning, hitting the lowest point ever known in West Germany. It has declined there by 41% since 1971 and this Canadian thinks it is time to speak up for the Americans as the most generous and possibly the least-appreciated people in all the world.

As long as sixty years ago, when I first started to read newspapers, I read of floods on the Yellow River and the Yangtse. Well, Who rushed in with men and money to help? The Americans did, that's who.

They have helped control floods on the Nile, the Amazon, the Ganges and the Niger. Today, the rich bottom land of the Mississippi is under water and no foreign land has sent a dollar to help. Germany, Japan and, to a lesser extent, Britain and Italy, were lifted out of the debris of war by the Americans who poured in billions of dollars and forgave other billions in debts. None of those countries is today paying even the interest on its remaining debts to the United States.

When the franc was in danger of collapsing in 1956, it was the Americans who propped it up and their reward was to be insulted and swindled on the streets of Paris. And I was there. I saw that.

When distant cities are hit by earthquakes, it is the United States that hurries into help… Managua Nicaragua is one of the most recent examples. So far this spring, 59 American communities have been flattened by tornadoes. Nobody has helped.

The Marshall Plan… the Truman Policy… all pumped billions upon billions of dollars into discouraged countries. And now, newspapers in those countries are writing about the decadent war-mongering Americans.

I'd like to see one of those countries that is gloating over the erosion of the United States dollar build its own airplanes.

Come on… let's hear it! Does any other country in the world have a plane to equal the Boeing Jumbo Jet, the Lockheed Tristar or the Douglas 10? If so, why don't they fly them? Why do all international lines except Russia fly American planes? Why does no other land on earth even consider putting a man or a woman on the moon?

You talk about Japanese technocracy and you get radios. You talk about German technocracy and you get automobiles. You talk about American technocracy and you find men on the moon, not once, but several times … and safely home again. You talk about scandals and the Americans put theirs right in the store window for everybody to look at. Even the draft dodgers are not pursued and hounded. They are right here on our streets in Toronto, most of them… unless they are breaking Canadian laws… are getting American dollars from Ma and Pa at home to spend here.

When the Americans get out of this bind… as they will… who could blame them if they said 'the hell with the rest of the world'. Let someone else buy the bonds, let someone else build or repair foreign dams or design foreign buildings that won't shake apart in earthquakes.

When the railways of France, Germany and India were breaking down through age, it was the Americans who rebuilt them. When the Pennsylvania Railroad and the New York Central went broke, nobody loaned them an old caboose. Both of them are still broke. I can name to you 5,000 times when the Americans raced to the help of other people in trouble.

Can you name to me even one time when someone else raced to the Americans in trouble? I don't think there was outside help even during the San Francisco earthquake.

Our neighbours have faced it alone and I am one Canadian who is damned tired of hearing them kicked around. They will come out of this thing with their flag high. And when they do, they are entitled to thumb their noses at the lands that are gloating over their present troubles.

I hope Canada is not one of these. But there are many smug, self-righteous Canadians. And finally, the American Red Cross was told at its 48th Annual meeting in New Orleans this morning that it was broke.

This year's disasters… with the year less than half-over… has taken it all and nobody… but nobody… has helped. 

Well, technology has progressed and the places struck by disasters are new, but Mr. Sinclair's sentiments still hold true.