Author: pogge

Divide between West, Muslim societies ‘irreconcilable’: poll A majority of Canadians believes conflict between Western nations and the Muslim world is "irreconcilable," according to a new national survey that revealed a strong strain of pessimism in the country leading up to Sunday’s 10th anniversary commemorations of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the U.S. The survey of 1,500 Canadians, conducted over three days last week for the Montreal-based Association for Canadian Studies, showed 56 per cent of respondents see Western and Muslim societies locked in an unending ideological struggle, while about 33 per cent — just one-third of the population — held out hope that the conflict will eventually be overcome. Are those who voted in favour of the "unending ideological struggle" reacting to Muslims? Or are they reacting to what’s been written about Muslims and about Islam by those whose motives are, shall we say, less than pure? There’s been a well organized and well funded campaign to convince that 56% of the respondents that their fears and concerns are justified. Some of it is motivated by the obvious: fear of the other. Some of it is an effort to sell newspapers and raise ratings. And some of it…

@bungdan on Twitter: Using the low-end estimate of 110,000 dead civilians in Iraq war, Iraq has suffered a "9/11" once every 83 days since March ’03. And I would submit that’s an extremely low-end estimate….

Someone on Twitter just pointed to this statement on Liberal MP Ralph Goodale’s website and I’d like to see some back up for this: Both the Conservatives and the NDP claim that Canadians would be better off with only two political parties (them, of course) dominating our system of governance – one on the right and one on the left, just like the Americans. … A Conservative/NDP push for ideological polarization in Canada is self-serving and wrong. In the context of all the recent talk of merger, I’ve certainly seen NDP members — most notably Ed Broadbent — encourage any Liberals who want to see a single party on the left to leave the LPC and come join the NDP. But has anyone who’s seriously in a position to speak for the NDP actually promoted the idea that we need a two party system? I’d really like to know so I can yell at them. Among other reasons, I was of the opinion that the NDP favoured some form of proportional representation and that would be completely unnecessary with a two party system. That would mean the NDP is talking out of two sides of its mouth on an issue…

Apparently Gary Doer, our ambassador to the United States, doesn’t have a lot of respect for people who disagree with him on whether or not the proposed Keystone XL pipeline should be approved. Canada’s ambassador to the U.S. Gary Doer said Tuesday he is confident the Obama administration will approve the controversial Keystone XL oilsands pipeline if it is guided by facts about the project’s safety and environmental impacts, and not the "noise" generated by opponents who protested for two weeks outside the White House. You’d think someone who is now a professional diplomat might be just a bit more circumspect about the way he refers to people who oppose the pipeline and their reasons for doing so. His casual dismissal might be seen as just plain insulting. Personally I’m not too thrilled that someone who is supposed to represent me on the international stage has so little time for some of the people who oppose the project. OTTAWA (September 7, 2011) – Nine distinguished recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize have written to President Obama, urging him to reject the proposed Keystone XL tar sands oil pipeline, saying his decision offers "a critical moment" to make good on his…

While I’m sure our Conservative government would like to consider the matter of the treatment of Afghan detainees closed, it’s in the news again. Both the CBC and the Globe and Mail are reporting that NATO forces have halted the transfer of detainees to a number of Afghan prisons in advance of a report to be released shortly by the UN. According to Paul Koring at the Globe, the report will detail "brutal and systemic torture in Afghan prisons." None of the prisons involved in today’s news report are in Kandahar, where Canadian troops served until recently, but they do include facilities run by Afghan’s NDS which ran facilities that accepted prisoners from Canadian troops. As for Kandahar itself, transfers to Afghan authorities there were already halted in July. With a majority government, certainly the Conservatives are an even better position to stifle any attempt to re-open an official investigation here. But depending on just what’s in that UN report, there could at least be a fresh media storm on the horizon….

This whole Carol Goar column is worth a read and I may just come back to it when I have more time, but when I read this one line, well, let’s just say it’s a good thing I wasn’t eating or drinking at the time or I’d probably have to go out and buy a new keyboard. our employment insurance account has a $10.4 billion shortfall As I’ve pointed out before, that would be because Liberal and Conservative governments combined to make $55 billion disappear, leaving a program that was never intended to be a source of general revenue with a large shortfall when it’s most needed. And to add insult to injury, with the second half of the double dip on the horizon and the government itself adding to the number of jobless, the current group of con artists — supposedly in an effort at modernization — is busy hacking away at the EI program’s ability to help the newly unemployed apply for benefits. Is it too early in the day to have a drink?…

In a Toronto Star article about upcoming discussions between our government and the Americans concerning border security, Canadian Chamber of Commerce President Perrin Beatty puts the question: We have to ask ourselves: What is the reason for the government presence along the 49th parallel at this stage in the 21st century? I’m going to take the liberty of assuming that Beatty isn’t suggesting there be no government presence at all. He wants to know why there is so much more "government" involved in moving across the Canada-US border than previously. And the simple answer is: a concerted effort to grossly exaggerate a threat that actually kills fewer people every year than lightening strikes. Or as Glenn Greenwald referred to it yesterday: The decade’s biggest scam. There’s much more at that link but the motivation for the scam can be boiled down to pretty simple terms too: power, profit and the protection of power and profit. Beatty seems to understand the problem when he says: We’re doing things to ourselves that Al Qaeda never could have dreamt to have done to us directly… But he also seems quite content to have us hurry up and continue doing it to ourselves —…