Some results of the latest Israeli raid : * Destroyed tunnels, most often used to smuggle into Gaza household items that Israel, in violation of international law, prevents from being imported. * Massacred nearly 2,000 people, including hundreds of children as young as newborns; injured thousands more. *
Continue readingTag: international politics
Scott's DiaTribes: The Dilemma of Sochi
A friend on Facebook posts an interesting question/quandary about what they feel regarding the Sochi Olympics: With a month to #Sochi I feel very torn about it. I love the spirit of the Olympics (despite the IOC) and athletes give up a childhood to participate for the love of sport.
Continue readingScott's DiaTribes: Thank you, Nelson Mandela
I’d be remiss if I didn’t say something about the passing of Nelson Mandela, who passed away last Thursday and whose memorial service is being held now as I type this. Back in the day, I majored in political science in University, as well as taking a lot of history
Continue readingScott's DiaTribes: What our Conservative government would do here on abortion..
(..if they could get away with it): International Development Minister Christian Paradis says the government will not fund overseas projects that allow war rape victims and child brides to obtain an abortion…Paradis says the government’s policy would follow the same logic as that behind Canada’s $3-billion G8 funding commitment for
Continue readingScott's DiaTribes: Helping Kids In Kenya – Stahili Foundation
A slightly different post from me on this long weekend. I want to highlight an organization that a good friend of mine has co-founded to help children in Kenya. My friend’s name is Michelle Oliel. I met her initially through politics – specifically through her political blogging she did when
Continue readingScott's DiaTribes: Leaning Towards Supporting A Winter Olympics Sochi Boycott
I’ve been on the fence over whether or not a boycott of the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi is the right thing to be doing to protest Russia’s new rather draconian anti-LGBT laws. I figured athletes could symbolically protest it at the Games, and that might be the best way
Continue readingScott's DiaTribes: Congrats to the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge
…better known as Prince William and Kate Middleton, on their new arrival (still unnamed, they let it be known in their brief chat with the press they hadn’t decided on a name yet; for now he is a Prince of Cambridge): Best picture I’ve seen of the new Prince is
Continue readingScott's DiaTribes: Not exactly the spotlight we want in Canada
Canada sure has been in the news a lot of late. Unfortunately, it’s about the wrong reasons. The Senate expenses scandal and the subsequent resignation of Nigel Wright made the NY Times billboard in Times Square. We subsequently then have a Peruvian reporter out of the blue asking Harper on
Continue readingScott's DiaTribes: Dumb move on Harper’s part: manages to equate JT and President Obama together as wimps on terror
I don’t normally blog this late, or on a Friday night.. but I couldn’t pass this up. Tonight, the police managed to capture the 2nd suspect in the Boston Marathon Bombing, which is important to find out what in the world caused these 2 to do what they did. You
Continue readingScott's DiaTribes: Should the religious left be as active as the religious right has been?
I wondered about that question as I read Ric Salutin’s op-ed on the United Church resolution to encourage their members not to buy goods produced from Israeli settlements in the occupied territories. I was interested in the column, but I was struck by this part that Salutin said: United churchpeople
Continue readingScott's DiaTribes: No shock here on the Conservative foot-dragging on Omar Khadr
A column in the Star today about how the Canadian government has been doing nothing to live up to its agreement it made with the US and Omar Khadr’s lawyers to bring Khadr home and out of the Guantanamo gulag: Various United States officials have complained that Canada’s insolence is
Continue readingScott's DiaTribes: More foreign policy antagonism
You might have caught this story last week: For a moment at least, it was a United Nations-basher’s dream come true. The UN had once again hugely discredited itself, this time by appointing Zimbabwe’s pariah President Robert Mugabe to be its tourism ambassador, of all things. An indignant Foreign Affairs
Continue readingMolly'sBlog: Molly’sBlog 2011-12-18 22:54:00
INTERNATIONAL POLITICS: THE KING IS DEAD; LONG LIVE THE KING: The news tonight is that the North Korean dictator Kim Jong–Il has gone to join his unlamented father in apotheosis. The Korean regime has in fact gone well beyond the bizarre mutation of a Marxist hereditary monarchy. It has become
Continue readingMolly'sBlog: Molly’sBlog 2011-12-12 21:57:00
INTERNATIONAL POLITICS: 2011: A YEAR OF REVOLUTION: 2011 was a remarkable year. As revolutions sparked throughout the Arab world the “lower” classes of many other countries also rose up as evidenced in Europe, North America and South America and now even in Russia. In sum there hasn’t been so much
Continue readingMolly'sBlog: Molly’sBlog 2011-12-06 23:58:00
PERSONAL: WHAT I LIKE ABOUT THE OCCUPY MOVEMENT PART FIVE: One thing I am certain of about the Occupy Movement (much more certain than how it will all end up) is that it has finally leapfrogged over the leftist concerns of the last few decades and their petty territorial politics.
Continue readingMolly'sBlog: Molly’sBlog 2011-11-30 21:38:00
INTERNATIONAL POLITICS: DEMOCRACY VERSUS THE BANKERS: The following item on the international finamcial crisis is from the Anarkismo website. ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬Europe & the BankersThe limits of democracy in Project Europe When the Arab peoples began to agitate at the start of the year, European countries quickly began to distance themselves from
Continue readingScott's DiaTribes: Climate change sceptic sponsored study group: Global warming is real.
This is very amusing:
The Earth’s surface really is getting warmer, a new analysis by a US scientific group set up in the wake of the “Climategate” affair has concluded. The Berkeley Earth Project has used new methods and some new data, but finds the same warming trend seen by groups such as the UK Met Office and Nasa. The project received funds from sources that back organizations lobbying against action on climate change.
Where did those funds come from?
…Funding came from a number of sources, including charitable foundations maintained by the Koch brothers, the billionaire US industrialists, who have also donated large sums to organisations lobbying against […]
Continue readingScott's DiaTribes: Political tidbits
This is stupid. If you don’t like the Mayor of Toronto, you vote against him next municipal election (or his councillors that support him). You don’t utter death threats, or God forbid, act on it.
This is tragic. This is done by people (lower class and mostly youth) who have nothing to lose and nothing to hope for, and worse, don’t particularly fear the consequences. By all means, bring the rioters to justice, but the underlying social issues are going to need to be addressed at some point.
Could it happen here? Probably not, but I bet there are more people feeling bereft of hope over their […]
Continue readingScott's DiaTribes: Sunmedia’s business model – attack the CBC
A brief observation: Wherever I turn, whether it be Ezra Levant’s raving on in the Sun tabloids, or Brian Lilley on SunTv, or even David Akin on Twitter questioning CBC policy or standards (which I find amusing by the way – since it’s David’s news organization who withdrew from the Ontario Press Council so that any minimum outside supervision of how it conducts its activities would be removed. No nasty oversight for them on press ethics or practices, but let’s bash others for theirs – talk about holier then thou), it’s become clear that the raison d’etre for SunMedia is to attack the CBC – for anything remotely trivial.
[…]
Continue readingScott's DiaTribes: An observation on the Norway bombings/shootings
As you’ve no doubt heard, a far right extremist gunman who holds anti-immigration, anti-Muslim views decided to vent his wrath on the governing Socialist Party in Norway yesterday, blowing up a government building and then massacring scores of young socialist teenager members on an island. The death toll is horrific.
I’m waiting for those on the extreme right of the blogosphere/political spectrum to declare Canada should be deporting all Norwegians; you know; paint the whole nation of Norway with one prejudicial brush as they do with Muslims, and as they did yesterday before the actual facts came out. The rush to presuming it was a) Al-Queda, and b) declaring […]
Continue reading