Wednesday, May 31, 2006

Canada: Politics: Prime Minister proposes 1st step toward an elected Senate - limitation of appointees to one term of 8 years

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Globe and Mail's reporter Brian Laghi in an article "Harper hopes to elect Senators by next ballot" (May30,2k6) outlines clearly Prime Minister Stephen Harper's 2-step plan for his present term in office, regarding Canada's Senate. The first step he envisions is one he hopes all three opposition parties can endorse and for which they will overwhelmingly cast favourable votes. In the context of his promise not to make any further appointments on the present basis (which has only two preconditions - a.) the appointed Senator's tenure would be for-life, b.) unless she/he shall reaches the age of 75, when mandatory retirement now comes into effect); in contrast, the Prime Minister would initially only restrict the term of subsequent appointments, to a single term of 8 years. That would mean, were a Liberal government to replace his Conservative minority government in the next Federal Canadian elections, the Libs would then face only the constraints of this first step of term limitation. Harper reasons that even the Libs would vote in favour of this proposal.

Harper's next step, when the time is ripe but not over-ripe, would be the presentation of a further proposal for an elected Senate, with no additional appointees at all. This would be much more difficult to pass in the House of Commons as presently constituted. Nobody knows for sure what the present Senate chockful of appointees would do with the legislation proposed and to be proposed in either step, but generally they follow the lead of their Leader in the Commons.

A few further details are available in a Canadian Press article I found unfortunately in Maclean's (coming via Norman's Spectator, an article by Joan Bryden. (If you can get to her piece with the foregoing URL, you'll be doing much better than I in my first effort to get to her info. I had to bypass a direct approach from Norman's site where I initially found a linked path that ended in futliity (thanks, Norman for the warning! on your link to the awful bad ad - I say with irony!), and then exhausted I had to go to Google where I was able to get another URL and thus another path for the same Bryden article ... in the meantime, before I came up with the bypass strategy, I had to sit thru an interminable obscene-capitalist flash-movie ad for an obscene gas-guzzling automobile ... the "skip" button on the ad page was a complete fraud that refused to respond to the dozen or so clicks I made attempting to use that button, so the ad neatly skipped its cue to "skip" (thanks ever so much, Norman, for the warning!) ... which lowered my diminishing respect for the mag even further, but thanks ever so much and a Hat Tip to you, Norman).

Bryden puts the Senate two-step in the context of the Prime Minister's immediately preceding proposal regarding a fixed election date for the House of Commons, which presumably will then also be applicable to his Senate proposals:

Stephen Harper has begun rolling out his democratic reform program, with a bill to set fixed federal election dates and a constitutional amendment to limit new senators to eight-year terms.

Under legislation introduced Tuesday, general elections would be held every four years on the third Monday in October. It's aimed at taking the politics out of election timing by ensuring a prime minister doesn't call a vote based on when he thinks he can win.

The Conservative government said the Senate proposal - which involves a constitutional amendment - is a "very modest first step" toward delivering on the prime minister's promise to democratize the unelected upper chamber.
Then Bryden let's the proverbial cat out of the bag, "Current senators will continue to sit until age 75." Surely, this is not a promise limiting future legislation. Surely, Bryden means to say, and the government means to propose, only that this Senate reform step #1 will not touch the rascals. Indeed, I now understand why the Western provinical premiers, 3 to 4, would prefer the utter abolition of the Senate. But, sad to admit, the words did form in my mind, as a reaction to the prospect Bryden's report sets in motion ... throw the rascals out! All these appointees should do the "Right Honourable" thing, and resign of their own accords. The sooner the better.

But these are not the only stormfronts brewing against the Prime Minister's noble multi-step program leading to an elected House of Commons and Senate with term limitations. Dalton McGuinty, Premier of Ontario, wants abolition of the Senate because he feels small provinces will disproportionately get more representation in the Senate than will large-population provinces like Ontario and Quebec. But Ontario already dominates the Commons, along with Quebec, and that friction marginalizes all the other provinces. In sharp contrast to McGuinty, I support all of the Prime Minister's proposals - plus national proportional represenation in the Commons, and province-by-province equal representation in the Senate, with the proviso that each province shall elect its set of Senators according to some formula of proprep determined by Federal legislation. If each province gets four Senators, say, each provincial set elected on one Senatorial-election occasion for that province at regular intervals, then a province-by-province proprep formula would be workable. Not all provinces need elect their set in the same round of Federal Canadian elections. - Politicarp

Further Resources:
Good historical background for reform of Cdn Senate up to 1990, but its slant is obvious and obnoxious
Proportional Representation (PropRep)
Triple E Senate

Tuesday, May 30, 2006

Calendar: Democracy Memorial China: Tiananmen Square massacre remembrance June 4 worldwide

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The massacre of democracy activists and participants in the mass demonstrations in Tiananmen Square, Beijing, will be observed worldwide on the anniversary, June 4.

Also on this important day, this year the Feast of Pentecost is celebrated by Western Christians (Catholics and liturgy-attendant Protestants) fifty days after Easter by our liturgical calendar. Christians of the Eastern Rites (Greek Orthodox, Russian Orthodox, Coptic Orthodox, etc) celebrate 50 days after their observances of Pascha (Easter) which occurs on a different, later date. I'll have to look that one up.

At the same time, refWrite requests all Christians in their prayers individualy, in the family, and in the Pentecost celebrations at church - please, include the rememberance of those killed in Tiananmen Square. Please pray for the coming of democracy to that great country of China, for the freedom of the religion for Christians, Buddhists, Taoists, Falun Gong practioners, the Muslim Uighers in East Turkestan, all the peaceful religions, and for the spread of the Gospel that many may come to know Christ, as on the original day of Pentecoast and its aftermath. (See refWrite page 2 for more on Pentecost observance.) - Politicarp

Tags: Democracy, Tiananmen Square, Pentecost

Natural disaster: Indonesia: Volcanic activity and a fierce earthquake kill, destroy

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Indonesia, a country of a thousand plus islands, some large and some tiny, has certainly had its share of troubles in the last few years. Some of it political: like the merciless genocide of Christians in Ambon (until they started fiting back and won international support) beset by Islamofascist hordes urged on by preachers recruiting on other islands. And like the terror-bombers of the crowded nite-club for Westerners in Bali. Some of it not at all political in its immediacy: like the tsunami floodwaters and winds that wreaked havoc from Aceh to Sumatra. And now another "natural disaster" striking the ancient Buddhist city of Yogyakarta ...

As night fell across the disaster zone -- stretching across hundreds of square miles of mostly farming communities in Yogyakarta province -- tens of thousands of residents prepared to sleep on streets, in rice fields and in back yards, fearful of aftershocks. International agencies and other nations promised to send relief immediately.
The death toll yesterday was said to be 3,700, as reported by Irwan Firdaus to Associated Press (May28,2k6). Today the figure is rising slowly, and will probably continue to do so.
[President Susilo Bambang] Yudhoyono's fast, hands-on work might have gotten lost in media coverage of a disaster that's killed more than 4,000, left 20,000 injured, and displaced more than 200,000. But it's worth noting that Indonesia's long-time dictator, Suharto, who was forced out of power by street protests in 1998, rarely, if ever, reacted to disasters in such a direct way. (Just in the past 17 months alone, Indonesia has had four disastrous earthquakes.) Suharto was aloof and worked in the shadows, like many unelected leaders.

The return of democracy to Southeast Asia's giant hasn't been easy, but under Yudhoyono, a former general, a mood of reform and responsiveness has helped bolster this archipelago nation of 220 million people and 17,000 islands.
The president of Indonesia has brawt new luster to his office - and has tackled many problems from the most recent pre-positioning of emergency relief provisions near the volcano-rumbling mountain to his anti-terrorist campaign and simultaneously his anti-corruption campgaign.
His boldest steps have been on the economy. Last October, he took political heat by deeply cutting subsidies on fuel. That raised prices dramatically, but he coupled the move with temporary aid for the 1 in 4 Indonesians who live in poverty. And he has helped slash government debt even though it brought higher joblessness. He's getting high marks from foreign economists, although his domestic popularity is slipping.
Sometimes the best leaders are not recognized as such until after they've left office, or are dead and gone. Perhaps Pres. Yudhoyono will be an exception, despite current trends. - Politicarp

Prambanan Hindu Temple comlex closes
Aid begins to arrive in quake zone

Saturday, May 27, 2006

Politics: Canada: Equalization payments to fix fiscal imbalance - accrdng to Harper, Klein, McGuinty, & columnst Richard Gwyn

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In Canada, ever since Prime Minister Stephen Harper opened his campaign to woo Quebec in the person of its Prime Minister Jean Charest, leader of the provincial Liberal Party there, the Furies have tried to pry open a Pandora's Box. On one front of Harper's strategy, that of acknowledging the cultural-linguistic difference of Quebec's francophone majority from the cultural profiles of the other non-Aboriginal areas, Harper's opening the way for that province to become represented at UNESCO has led to Manitoba demanding to have its own special representative at the World Agricultural Organization (WAO). Equality of the provinces! - where Manitoba wants its cattle and corn to have a voice of ther own!

But now comes the response to the second prong of Harper's Quebec strategy. Fiscal imbalance. That is, how shall the tax revenues received by Ottawa from the have provinces (Alberta and Ontario, presumably) by allocated among the have-nots (all the rest)?

For a year, McGiuinty's Ontario, traditionally the haviest of all, has been pleading poverty with some probable validity, as the former industrial leader among Canadada's provinces has been seeing its manufacturing base dwindle and its emmployment opportunities shrivel. This is especially so ever since terrorism has slowed the traffic on the Golden H+way from southern Ontario down the trade corridor deep into the USA, and the Canadian dollar has strengtthened against the US dollar. Thus, McGuinty has his fiscal imbalance, to be sure. And he wants Ottawa to reconfigure the provinces status, to be sure. Fiscal imbalance! Equalizatian of the provinces!

Gloria Galloway and Karen Howlett, "Provinces won't dictate equalization, Harper says - PM unmoved by Klein's vow to fight plan," Global and Mail (May26,2k6).

Prime Minister Stephen Harper says the national equalization program falls under Ottawa's jurisdiction and none of the provinces can dictate how the money collected from taxpayers gets divvied up among poorer regions.

His comments yesterday were made a day after Alberta Premier Ralph Klein threatened to pull the province out of the program if its vast natural-resources wealth is included in the equalization formula.

"I think we need to be clear. Equalization is not an Alberta program or an Ontario program," Mr. Harper said in response to questions from reporters in Vancouver.

"Equalization is a strictly federal program. And, obviously, while I would like to see a consensus of the provinces on this, I think it is becoming increasingly obvious there won't be one."
That remark alone will cause the fur to fly as Klein tries to subtract AlbOil from the equation, while McGuinty tries to subtract exactly what?

The Prime Minister continued:

As a result, he said, the federal government will determine the formula for calculating equalization payments to less-prosperous regions after examining the findings of a number of reports into the matter.

"We know the provinces are very divided on this," Mr. Harper said. But he made it clear that he was not going to be dictated to by Mr. Klein or any other provincial politician.

Mr. Klein vowed this week to fight "tooth and nail" to protect his province's natural-resource wealth, including possibly dropping out of the equalization program. He told reporters Alberta will seek a legal opinion on whether it can pull out of the program.

In Ontario, Premier Dalton McGuinty declined to comment.... But a senior government official said Mr. McGuinty welcomed Mr. Klein's comments because they show that he is not alone in fighting efforts to enrich the equalization program.
That is, he no longer wants Ontario to help the other provinces along to the large extent that obtained in the past, and he may have some justification. But the matter will be resolved, I would think, on a technical level, after determining an honest accounting methodology and adding things up for comparison. At the same time, some provinces are economically stagant and are accustomed to much of their able-bodied workforce embracing a culture of poverty that is expensive for other provinces. - Politicarp

Further Resrtouces:

Richard Gwyn: Is Harper the author of own "fiscal imbalance" woes?

Klein seen to back McGuinty

Friday, May 26, 2006

Politics: USA: Immigration law negotiatns btwn Senators & Reprsntves select committee, diametrically opposed, Bush called in

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FoxNews has posted a comparison of the opposing versions for the proposed new immigration law offered by the House of Representatives and the Senate. Tho quoting the FN text, I've had to snip the parallels, where they exist between the two, to make the comparison more line-by-line. The Senate version was just passed (while the summary of its items below was published prior to passage); the House version was passsed in December 2005.

Senate: Allows illegal immigrants in the country five years or more to remain, continue working and eventually become legal residents after paying fines, back taxes and learning English.

House: No provisions providing path to legal residency or citizenship for illegal immigrants. No new temporary guest worker program.

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Senate: Requires illegal immigrants in the U.S. between two and five years to go to a point of entry at the border and file an application to return.

— Requires those in the country less than two years to leave.

House: Makes illegal presence in the country a felony and increases penalties for first-time illegal entry to the U.S.

— Requires mandatory detention for all non-Mexican illegal immigrants arrested at ports of entry or at land and sea borders.

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Senate No provisions for the following -

House: Makes it a felony to assist, encourage, direct or induce a person to enter or attempt to enter or remain in the United States illegally. [This item targets brokers, shippers, and guides.]

– Beginning in six years, all employers would have to use a database to verify Social Security numbers of all employees.

— Increases maximum fines for employers of illegal workers from current $10,000 to $40,000 per violation and establishes prison sentences of up to 30 years for repeat offenders.

– Establishes mandatory sentences for smuggling illegal immigrants and for re-entering the United States illegally after deportation.

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Senate: Creates a special guest worker program for an estimated 1.5 million immigrant farm workers, who could also earn legal permanent residency.

House : no provision.

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Senate: Provides up to 325,000 temporary visas a year for future workers, with additional visas possible based on labor market demands.

House: no provision.

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Senate Adds up to 14,000 Border Patrol agents by 2011 to the current force of 11,300 agents, for a potential total of 25,300.

House : No provision.

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Senate Authorizes additional detention facilities for apprehended illegal immigrants.

House: no provision.

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Senate: No provision for either of the following - House: Makes a drunken driving conviction a deportable offense.

– Requires building two-layer fences along 700 miles of the 2,000-mile border between Mexico and the United States.

I think this closer comparison gives more clarity regarding the big gaps in each house's proposal, aside from the more sheerly philosophical differences. - Politicarp

Further Resources:

Rep Sensenbrenner > House, Senate are 180 degrees opposite
Mexico's Vincente Fox will cooperate with immigation reform

Thursday, May 25, 2006

Politics: Iraq: Partitioning Iraq is up to the Iraqis, and their history goes against the very idea

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Reidar Visser takes on the "supporters of an Iraq divided into three," who he finds "ignore the lessons of Iraq's history." Visser, a historian who has written in English on Basra, the Failed Gulf State: Separatism and Nationalism in Southern Iraq (2005), details the errors of Western politicians and think-tankers who conduct exercizes in re-writing internal Iraq boundaries. Visser finds the religious and ethnic divisions of Iraqis today not so absolute as the partitionists claim, insisting that regionalism is more a factor for autonomy movements within the country.

Struggle for Iraq

In the north, there are regionalist splits between the Kurds along east vs west lines; there are some Basra independentists grouped without regard to ethno-religious differences among themselves.

But none of these regionalist tendencies are strong enuff to break-up the country. And this is the time for all such to set themselves ahowling, because the Constitution offers them a window of opportunity, after which the unity of Iraq will be confirmed. Exceptionalisms are possible in the abstract, as the Constitution details some specific guidelines for a would-be region's establishing its relative autonomy. But this set of possiblities are not the leading probabilties, and the fact that a first full-Iraqi government has been formed, with an admirable measure of pluralism (if not perfection), while the Gates of Hell have not prevailed against it, says something about a very widespread national Iraqi identity that people of all kinds of additional interests are loathe to abandon. The terrorists have not been able to kill off Iraqi national idenity. - Politicarp

Further Resources:

BBC's doddier - The Struggle for Iraq
Blair-Bush confab - troop size in Iraq
Top Marine checks on civlian deaths in Iraq

Politics: Northern Ireland UK: Paisley's DUP rejects common ticket and de facto coalition govt with former IRA terrorists

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Northern Ireland's 108 assembly members gathered on Monday for the first time since they were elected in November 2003.

Yesterday BBC reported an astute manoeuvre in parliamentary politics in Northern Ireland's Stormont, the Northern Ireland Legislative Assembly. The move was made by Gerry Adams, leader of the Sinn Fein political party - built to front for the terrorist organization Irish Republican Army, now presumably defunct. Adams guided his SF party to displace the non-violent Catholic-based nationalist party, Social Democratic Labour Party (SDLP).

Among "Catholic" voters, the shouldering aside of SDLP by the terrorist-spawned SF is a story in itself. SF has become the party with the second largest number of votes in Northern Ireland. In the British Parliament's House of Commons (nicknamed "Westminster"), SF has 5 seats (a gain of 1) none of which it uses, while the SDLP gained 1 and lost 1, to end up with only 3 seats at Westminster (popular vote: SF-174,530; SDLP-125,626, coming in third).

The details of the Catholic vote results from Britain's Oct 2005 Parlieamentary elections are worth attention because the SDLP is the main party of those now convincingly calling for a return to the Good Friday Agreement in which the Brit govt under Tony Blair guaranteed, and all parties previously agreed upon, an arrangement based on the principle of a plurality of parties participating in a NI home-rule government. Nowadays, the SDLP complains that Blair reneged on his commitments, deciding instead to deal only with Sinn Fein for the Catholic side, and making secret accomodations to the Protestant side's then-second party.

North Ireland Vote Results - Oct 2005

Thus, we come to yesterday's and today's developments in which Ian Paisley, at Stormont in Belfast immediately shot down the proposal of the SinnFeinistos that Paisley be elected First Minister of the new government and that convicted terrorist Martin McGuinness be elected First Deputy Minister. It was a ploy whereby technically SF could not be accused of refusing to cooperate; but, as easily, Sinn Fein could, on an intermim basis, have simply allowed Paisley's Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) to run the regional state-bureaucracy, as a minority govt without support of a coalition (we do it in Canada). Or, it could have nominated an SDLPer to be First Deputy Minister. Or, Gerry Adams could at least have avoided nominating so disingenuously, a convicted terrorist to a post alongside Paisley. Surely, some members of the SF Stormont caucus have never committed an actual act of terrorism?

I think Paisley was taken by surprise, but he nevertheless immediately rose to the occasion and made exceeding short shrift of the SF ploy.

Declining the nomination, Mr Paisley said his "reasons were well known and had been endorsed by the majority of the unionist voters".

Despite Mr Paisley declining the first minister's post, it is still possible for members to debate policy matters under the assembly's temporary rules, although laws cannot be made.

Speaking afterwards, Mr Paisley said: "Our stand is clear, it is not going to be altered and it is simple: let's have British democracy in British Ulster."

Mr Paisley also said he would refuse to sit with Ulster Unionist [Party - UUP] leader Sir Reg Empey because of his association with [Protestant Unionist Party - ] PUP leader David Ervine, whose party has links to the loyalist paramilitary [Ulster Volunteer Force] UVF.

The UUP's move could mean they receive an extra ministerial post, at the expense of Sinn Fein, if a government is formed.

"If Mr Empey wants the support of a terrorist organisation [PUP-UVF], let him have it, but he'll not have my support," Mr Paisley added.
Paisley gives the most consistent Christian-democratic leadership on the over-arching NI issue of cooperation or no with those who have engaged in actual terrorist acts, or are aligned with such. Paisley says, No! DUP wants British democracy. Period. - It was this stance that motivated the "Protestant" voters of NI to shift massively from UUP to DUP in October. As a consequence, UUP fell from largest to second Prot party, while DUP grew from second-place among Prots to first (DUP went from 4 seats to 9 at Westminster, UUP fell from 5 seats to 1, while the PUPies gained no seats there). Thus, the DUP became the largest party overall in Northern Ireland.

NI election map

Or, is Paisley really quite so innocent? Certainly, he doesn't mix with terrorists, whether Caths or Prots. Yet, SDLP says DUP has entered into over 100 secret understandings, memoranda, and notes with Blair; Paisley himself has long been an elected member of the European Parliament, and while present as a member of the British EU delegation he has railed ignominiously and, from his own standpoint, unnecessarily - against the very Pope who had as much to do with the collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe as did Ronald Reagan and his convert Mikhail Gorbachev.

SDLP regards Tony Blair as duplicitous; so does much of Paisley's constituency, I understand. But one thing is sure: if the parties in the Stormont can't devise among themselves a way to govern Northern Ireland together, come November 2006 home-rule will have died, and Tony Blair will rule NI in tandem with the Republic of Ireland to the south. - Politicarp

Further Resources:


Sir Roger Empey, UPP [2001 profile]
Progressive Unionist Party
Vanguard Progressive Unionist Party
George Seawright
David Ervine
Ulster Volunteer Force
Loyalyist Volunteer Force
Ulster Defense Association

Monday, May 22, 2006

Politics: Iraq: Iraq and Afghanistan regress again, a cartoon by Yaakov Kirschen

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Iraq boycotts Israel, cartoonYaakovKirschen
"Progress Report," an original cartoon by Yaakov Kirschen©May22, 2006
Republished digitally with the artists' permission.Iraq boycotts Israel & Afghnstn becoming narco-state

Tags: Iraq boycotts Israel, Afghan narco-state

Friday, May 19, 2006

Politics: USA: Bush's management style dissected, trisected, lie-sected and insected in critics notes NYT

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In a long 5-webpage article New York Times published Michiko Kakutani's article, bearing the awkward-to-say-the-least title, "All the President's Books (Minding History's Whys and Wherefores)." The title is misleading; I went to it because I thawt readers mite be treated to a discussion of the books Bush has been reading in his too-few spare moments since he entered the wartime presidency. Natan Scharanski would be one of the author's on the list, and so would Abraham Kuyper's Princeton Lectures. But nothing like this obtains.

Instead in NYT's series "Critic's Notebook," we get a synthesis of everyone's book about the Presidency of George W. Bush, but not even that. There is a limit and a definitely non-neutral line of ideology whereby Kakutani produces a majority-rules judgment ostensibly on Bush's "management style." I must say there is some attention to the chief executive's management style in the Kakutani metareview, and his write-up is just that - a metareview - not a management review such as you would expect to get from a professor of management at an accredited grad school of business. It's a tale-spinning "review" of "reviews." not based on any direct contact with the President himself, but rather on books that others wrote who (for the larger part) either served under Bush, were found inadequate and let go, or who talked to people who had contact with Bush, sometimes one suspects with considerable malice aforethawt.

In other words, the genre of the article is itself disputable, as well as disreputable for its reliance on the disputatiousness of voluble discontentos.

Kakutani's is the kind of review I would have to have written, a survey of other people's write-ups of the Chief - who is, of course, the chief execuivtive officer of the United States and the Commander-in-Chief of its armed forces - but I'm sure that the positive reviews would have gotten more attention from me than Kakutani is able to accord either the positives of David Frum or Fred Barnes, while Kakatuni does seize one statement from Barnes and then saw on it as tho it were some Holy Writ to be floated up from context and bloated into an abstract proposition to be absolutized as the Definitive Truth about the man(agement style of the President).

Here's the Barnesism that now is stamped on the President's forehead by Kakatuni:

...[I]n Rebel-in-Chief, his recent paean to the president, Fred Barnes describes Mr. Bush as an innovative leader who "operates in Washington like the head of a small occupying army of insurgents," a visionary who finds it "easy to overturn major policies with scarcely a second thought."
While it doesn't have to be taken pejoratively, that's the usage to which Kookatuni puts it. So, with a floated bloated Barnesian boosterism as its motto, the entire article becomes a kakophony of many axes grinding simultaneously to bring down Bush's service to the country under the pretence that he's obliged to obey a hundred thousand bureaucrat "specialists," each with his/her debate-opponents within the lot of them. Kakookchiecoo hasn't a clue that Bush's management method with a bureaucracy built by Clinton is a legit alternative (take the glaring example of the CIA, for instance, where even the "moderate Republicans" have been said to be undermining the Chief's policy from the begining, largely continuing its pre-9/11 bad habits at least until the arrival of the new Director Peter Goss, devoted to the status quo and incompetent even to "run" intelligence field agents, a debating society and little more).

Or, if Kaktuni does have a clue, he does everything he can to head-off a calm management-science appraisal of Bush, a wartime president.

This NYT's writer does all this with rhetorical aplomb: "smacks of arrogance and hubris," "disregard for both history and long-term consequences," "stubborness," "lack of common sense" (all these are deftly lifted from one-time Bush-considerate Francis Fukuyama). "simple solution, bumper sticker description of problem," "no real interest in complicated analyses; on the issues that they cared about, they already knew the answers" (Richard A. Clarke), "out-of-channels policymaking," "almost crisis-atmosphere meetings, making decisions on the fly," intelligence "cherry-picked," "idées fixes," established "parallel process" to "statutory process" (a key management strategy to a labyrinthine complex of bureaucratic red-tapestry, I mite add, when a business culture is obstructive and turf-guarding against other bureaucrats and competitors in the same bureau, as typical of the post-Clinton civil-service up to its h+est levels, entrenched by his divertissement), "somewhat ad hoc, "disorganized," Steven Simon and Daniel Benjamin > "working 'out of channels,' issuing directives without ever having their plans scrubbed in the kind of tedious, iterative process that the government typically uses to make sure it is ready for any contingency" (but these weren't Bush's doings, even if true, as they dealt with the nuts and bolts of occupation of Iraq).

Fukuyama goes after neocons in govt instead, whereas Bush is not and never has been a neo-conservative: "neoconservative policymakers, who felt they had been looked down upon by the foreign policy establishment for years, were 'excessively distrustful of anyone who did not share their views.' " More to the point regarding the huge number of leftovers from Clinton-period hirings (another detail that Kukatani never analyzes as we noted regarding the CIA, this time the same thing in the State Department): "ideological and turf battles."

Virtually every book about the war in Iraq -- whether by a reporter, or a military, intelligence or Coalition Provisional Authority insider -- is replete with examples in which expert advice was ignored or rebuffed by the administration.
But, of course, what would one expect of leftover Clintonite experts engaged in ideological and turf battles whose advice was not taken? And who writes "insider" books but those passed over, kicked out, or self-important and self-justifying grumps - remember we are talking of a horde, of many thousands from among whom only a few can see their ideas carried forward or picked up by h+er-ups to be made into policy. It's from the horde that a sampling emerges to become bookwriters of a classy kind of Enquirer sort, which kind necessarily can't be sold if the volume of each is either under-dramatic or onlty meagerly-critical. It's the book business to which these debate-club bureaucrats turn when they're turfed.

Then, there's the general Takutani-take on the size of the military force used in Iraq that becomes irksome in its tendentiousness against the Chief: but it's not the Commander-in-Chief's provenance, the buck stops with Rumsfeld (not Bush) who did not go along with reports of think tanks:

The Rand Corporation, the Army War College, the United States Institute of Peace, and the Institute for National Strategic Studies of the National Defense University also produced reports, Mr. Packer notes, that "were striking for their unanimity of opinion": "Security and reconstruction in postwar Iraq would require large numbers of troops for an extended period, and international cooperation would be essential." These troops would be needed to seal the country's borders, secure armament caches, contain local militias and restore a sense of law and order. Last month, Colin Powell gave an interview in which he said that he too had recommended before the war that a higher number of troops be sent to Iraq.
What are the counter-arguments that impressed Rumsfeld more than Powell and like-minded on the troop size? One doesn't have to be editor of Foreign Affairs or a student of military logistics to understand there are no infallible judgments to be made here. That the whole lot of analysists cited could have been then, and could yet be mistaken, that there may have been no good solution to the issue, only a least worst as far as they/we knew/know, and that Kakutani is being disingenuous when he cherry-picks Packer's remarks, without giving the counter-arguments which were available to another thousand specialists on the multitude of factors that had to be weighed.

Hindsight, even in Rumsfeld's case, can't replace the existential responsiblity of making a choice in the moment when it has to be made by that particular official, according to the info on hand then.

"Warnings not heeded" - how many hundreds of thousands of warnings were out there on almost every topic, a vast ocean of opinionated noise. The term "warning" carries no inherent moral force, no matter which wordsmith is deploying it, as anyone who has been falsely warned thru the course of life knows. As anyone could know who cares to recall, the entire structure of the war was delayed by

1.) the UN's failure to act, which Bush compliantly waited out until too late because at that point he still thawt the UN was valuable enuff to give it more time (I could say this was a terrible error on Bush's part, but what's the sense in that? - no more than much of what Kakutani says of Rumsfeld, misdirecting the K-ire at Bush);

and 2.) our NATO ally Turkey switched position at the last minute, using its support as a bargaining chip, and then refused to allow US military personnel and equipment to off-load for the run overland from Turkish ports to the theatre of war at a place where Rumsfled and the generals had planned to open in Northern Iraq in a 2-pronged initial strategy. These two factor's necessitated a re-jigging of the entire war plan, and could easily have been a key to the matter of the size of the force. Still, Rumsfeld tried to keep the total numbers down, a decision that may indeed have been insisted upon by Bush for political reasons. So to think Kakutani adds even one scintilla of wisdom on this topic, is as erroneous as were the presumptions of Powell, Packer, and the pack. None were in a better position to know the magic number than the Secretary of Defense and his Commander in Chief.

Well, dear readers, I've taken you thru the Kakutani tune, exhibiting the rhetorical tenor of his mordantly obsessive overkill of Bush's management style, thru the first three pages of his five pages. I break off now here, and am not sure I'll be in the mood to come back to finish combing all 5 of the Takutani effort (altho I've read then all, of course).

What I have presented from NYTutani is his exercize in overdetermination of the subject matter, too tilted to one side without any serious presenation of counter-assessments on almost every point he makes, often misdirecting his malice onto the President, on the two assumptions necessary to his thesis, that the President is to blame for everyting that happens in his administration and for not obeying every bureaucratic Tom, Dick, and Harry competing with every other b-crat in the field - of course, an impossible task. And ulitmately evidence for nothing other than Mr Kakutani's capacity for irrationality, and NYT's capacity for publishing such. - Politicarp

Further resources:

Issue-management hidden by Kakutani
Another case where Kakutani proves inept

Wednesday, May 17, 2006

Canada: Afghanistan War: Parliament votes 149-145 to continue war against anti-democracy forces in Afghanistan

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I just witnessed the vote in Canada's House of Commons to continue participation in the war of Afghanistan and its allies against the the leftover ferocity of the Taliban and Al-Quaeda (the latter now almost invisible) trying to destroy the Afghani's fledgling democracy. The commons vote features the Conservatives on one side with the New Democrat Party (socialists) and the Bloc Québecois (one-province nationalists who don't want to support any war of Canada which is of course mostly English-speaking, not French-speaking; but among the Conservatives are 10 French-speaking Québecois who reflect the fact that a good number of Québecois citizens serve as officers and ranks in the Canadian Forces, including in the Afghan War).

Cnda's mission Afghanistan

The real news, however, is that the Liberal Caucus in the Commons allowed its members to vote freely Yes or No. Historically, the Federal Liberals do not allow a free vote very often, while already in their last term of forming the government the Libs allowed ordinary Members of Parliament in their ranks to vote freely, holding only Cabinet Members to discipline on the gmarriage vote they pushed thru with the NDP and BQ. Also, importantly for Canadian politics and the Liberal Party, the president pro temp of the Lib caucus in the Commons, Bill Graham (formerly a minister of foreign affairs, and then minister of defense) voted to extend Canadian Forces' mandate in A-stan. Further, one of the key candidates for the Lib Party leadership, Michael Ignatieff, until recently a professor of human r+ts at Harvard, voted for the extension. On the other hand, former Lib Prime Minister Paul Martin ducked out. A no show. A lame duck to be sure. Again, on the negative side, most Libs voted No. They came close with the NDP and BQ, but the Yes vote won by 4 votes. - Politicarp

Goddard, Capt. Nichola > died  CdnFrces

Capt. Nichola Goddard: Rest in Peace

A combat officer of the Canadian Forces, Captain Nichola Goddard was killed yesterday while serving under command of the CF Afghanistan Mission. We extend our condolences to all her family, friends, and comrades. Warrior Goddard was the first woman combat soldier to die in Canadian military service, but not the first woman in the Forces to die in other than combat duties. - Owlb

More resources:

Preview of Tories' Call for Vote on Afghan War
Gen. Dallaire's position was refuted on CTV by Gen Mackenzie tonite
Toronto Star plays at military wisequy

Iran: Bomb-timing: Israel-Bush difference on Iran bomb-timing, a cartoon by Yaakov Kirschen

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Bushwhacker, cartoon by Yaakov Kirschen
"Bushwacked?!" by Yaakov Kirschen©May17,2k6
Published with permission of the artist.

Tuesday, May 16, 2006

Canada: Guns: Account scandal re Gun Registry exposed, Toronto Mayor wants to keep boondoggle going

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Today I learned that Canada has two classy civil servants - both of them women. I'd been watching the representation of Canada in Haiti by our Governor General, Michaëlle Jean (recently appointed by the now-fallen Liberal govt of Paul Martin; I realized just today that her return to her land of birth on a state visit was a very good thing. Especially so, since Canada has been trying to be of help for some years in that desperately poor, politically tumultuous, and terribly violent society. It seems there are too many guns around, to many machetes, too many gangs and paramilitaries.

Auditor General's Report

Today was the occasion of a second woman civil-servant making headlines in Canada; and, in her understated style, the Federal Auditor General Sheila Fraser made her yearly report, again lowering the boom on the ousted Liberals - this time for their regime of false reporting on financial records of their once-vaunted Gun Registery (which has proved to be a classical boondoggle) sold to the public as the solution to violent crime. (She also exposed the tremendous lag in providing housing on Native Reserves; and the recruitment problem of the Canadian Forces, a problem rather of retention presented on the eve of a Parliamentary vote to extend the CF mandate in Afghanistan, or pull the plug. But more on these important matters another day.) The AG pulled no punches regarding all threeproblems.

Instantly, we have had word that the new Conserative govt will be fulfilling another of that party's campaign promises - to cutback the financially ever-hemorrhaging agency. It will be placed under the purview of the RCMP, which I think is a good move. At the same time, it will not be expanded; there will be an amnesty for handgun owners who did not register, a group who constitute a lively phalanx of activists and whose demographic is said to be largely rural. People who want to register their privately-owned weapons, including firearms like rifles and shotguns, will still be able to do so. This feature meets an interest of the gun-owners, who may be possessors of more than one weapon or may be collectors. Registration means that if the weapons are stolen, there's greater likelihood of these being recovered.

The demand for registration of all weapons, which seems to be dead until such a time as when the Liberals get re-elected, is made by urban police forces. One can understand this interest. However, the blatant manoeuvering of urban politicians, like Metro Toronto's Mayor David Miller, ostensibly in support of our urban police - actually is a quite different interest; and, I believe, far less transparent. There's no doubt that Miller's gun-reggie partisans have a long history of being anti-police; but now that he's in office and the number-one city issue is urban terrorism and youth-gang shootings, Miller if he and his are to have any political future must sidle up to the police, adopting their interest. This is what is happening in Miller's attack on the Conservatives for solving the Liberal Gun Registry financial scandal in the manner the Conservs have today indicated.

But Miller and the local Liberal/NDP coalition have done nothing else of note to remove the gangs and stop the shootups. They've blamed everyone else for the problem, rapping the robes of august somnolescence ever more titely around their fat rear-ends. There's a vacuum at city hall on real mobilization against the gangsters who terrorize their peers, while all ages of persons become more and more afraid to use the city sidewalks at nite. So, Miller in blasting the Conservative move against the farcical Gun Registry and in sidling up to the police on this one limited issue, actually is diverting attention from the city's inaction and claiming it's own powerlessness.

I don't know if banning handguns, for instance, is really in the interest of urban dwellers, as His Worship the Mayor stoutly maintains. But in a chauffered steel-plated limo, peering out at the sidewalks he rarely walks day or nite, and then only for photo ops, he has a completely different relation to the tide of violence to which we non-worships must be alert in Toronto. Surely, his dwelling is more secure than mine, where I've had to face on two separate occasions intruders, and experienced them as life-threatening. Were I armed with a handgun ....

Miller's stance means we can't defend ourselves against the thugs, who are bigger and faster than we are, especially if we're less steady on our feet and less agile and more elderly, or in a wheel chair.

But let's say the tilt of wisdom is with the police and the Mayor in regard to large cities with gangsters and a shoot'em-up culture. Then I say: Let's allow cities to have plebiscites to vote to ban all guns in their territorial jurisdications (apeal to Conservative localism for the Federal enabling legislation). Let's shutdown radio stations and TV channels broadcasting programs that promote, even glorify killer music, videos, and gangster movies. Let's have massive anti-violence advertizing on all the media, and jam the media that comes in from elswhere teaching the violent way of life. Let's throw gangsters in jail for a long time.

In other words, let the rural areas handle guns in their own way, while upon democratic confirmation let's ban guns in Toronto while not pretending gun-bans or gun-registeries are going to change the situation of rampant urban violence much at all. Mayor Miller is not aiming at the cultural roots of the issue, because he's afraid to get honest about it. - Politicarp

Sidebar Poll:

Keep, axe, cutback, or 2-prong Gun Registry? Scroll down the Page 1 Sidebar to the red poll box and vote!

More sources:

Greater Toronto Area Bloggers post (short version of above)
Auditor General's Report - 3 main issues
On street gangs and guns - Mackenzie Institute (Jan 2006)
Tories won't kill registry immediately

Wednesday, May 10, 2006

USA: Illegal Immigrants: Immigration USA, not yesterday, but now - false historical analogies don't help

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The Germans refused for decades to give up their native tongue and raucous beer gardens. The Irish of Hell's Kitchen brawled and clung to political sinecures. The Jews crowded into the Lower East Side, speaking Yiddish, fomenting socialism and resisting forced assimilation. And by their sheer numbers, the immigrants depressed wages in the city.

As for the multitudes of Italians, who settled Mulberry Street, East Harlem and Canarsie? In 1970, seven decades after their arrival, Italians lagged behind every immigrant group in educational achievement.

The bitter arguments of the past echo loudly these days as Congress debates toughening the nation's immigration laws and immigrants from Latin America and Asia swell the streets of U.S. cities in protest. Most of the concerns voiced today -- that too many immigrants seek economic advantage and fail to understand democracy, that they refuse to learn English, overcrowd homes and overwhelm public services -- were heard a century ago. And there was a nub of truth to some complaints, not least that the vast influx of immigrants drove down working-class wages.
The foregoing picture by Michael Powell, "US Immigration Debate is a road well travelled," Washington Post, May8,2k6, seems to have been constructed by the author to set up his line discourse intent to elaborate what that flood of "16 million immigrants" coming into the country thru Ellis Island "from 1882 to 1922" - perhaps the most famous point of entry of immigrants in world history - what it means now. Because now there's an even more reknown "point" of entry, or pointless chain of entries. It's a 1,900-miles-long border between Mexico and the the US (the border with Canada is ruffly twice the length).
Border btwn McAllenTX ProgressoMX
Photo by Lacey Dodge©May9,2k6

That's the problem with Powell's account. We wants to distract the conversation to historical analogies that no longer hold.

One of his later themes elicits more candor from Powell. The contrast between a multitude of foreign-language enclaves in the Ellis Island civilization of New York then, and the singular language-community and homogenic non-American cultural signature of the Mexicans, illegals and legals together. Notice the sentence set off by parentheses in what follows.

Americans worried about the primacy of English at the turn of the 20th century, most first-generation immigrants quickly shed native languages -- in polyglot New York no single language could dominate. This remains true as the three largest immigrant groups -- Dominicans, Chinese and South Asians -- share no language but English. (The vast Spanish-speaking Mexican influx into Southern California is another matter and potentially more problematic as immigrants have less incentive to drop a shared language, say sociologists.)
The article is quite interesting to a person with the socialogical and anthroplogical interests I have; and the multi-ethnic good will that makes me a happy resident of Toronto, where I live in a multi-ethnic neighbourhood of immigrants and skin-colours galore, and where I rent from a young Chinese couple (with a little girl and another kid on the way). The parents themselves immigrated from Communist China.

But the current Mexican immigration into the US is another thing entirely, one side of it is legal and orderly. As such it involves planning the faclities of welcoming, education, and health, and teaching of English as a Second Language - all of which can be projected in terms of the numbers of newcomers according to the rules, cost-accounted, and prepared for. Illegal immigration is another matter entirely.

Toronto is enriched by Hispanic immigrants communities from all over Latin America (and other communities from all over the Carribbean as well). I enjoy dining, at the invitation of friends, in one or another of several Mexican-cuisine restaurants in the city. I like lots of Mexican music. I admire the folkloric arts and the great mosaics that typify Mecican culture most to me, and the tradition of powerful modernist painting in Mexico.

After English and French, I know a bit of Spanish grammar, so can read-and-guess my way thru some news articles. I've read a stack of Hispanic novels in translation, and have lived with a few poems by a handful of Latin American poets - preferring bilingual editions so that I can sound out the Spanish and try to catch in the inherent rhythm and in workmanship of any rhyming the flow of sounded-ideas in the original. That way, you get to "see thru" the various translations of a given poem, to favour one as the best, even come up with your own version of a few lines that are especially uncanny in metaphor and taste.

For such reasons, I can see at least some schools in some areas of the US offering Heritage Langauge courses in Spanish to legal Mexican immigrants and other other Hispanic legals. But up until one is 26, one has the best chance, neurologically speaking, to hear and talk English well, languge-learning should be emphasized. From first grade thru twelve, immigrant children and the children born in the USA to immigrant parents should be learning English (in Canada, either English or, in Quebec, French, later on perhaps English too).

Illegal immigration is another matter. And it has much to do with the failure of Mexican business which desperately needs new blood, new capital investment from the USA and Canada, and new styles of business culture - all motivated by offering employment to Mexicans in Mexico. Without this latter idea coming to realization, the mass illegal immigrant flood will not stop. More on these matters later. - Politicarp

For further reflection:

• The best immigration reform Stimulating growth south of the border

• Mexico's Presdient Vincente Fox predicts Nuevo Laredo drug backlash

Saturday, May 06, 2006

Mexico: Election politics of violence: Mexico's pattern of nose-thumbing at the law tied to deadbeat business culture

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Leaving aside the recent swarming of American law by illegals and their friends, the pall of Mexican law-breaking volatility has settled on that homeland too (should we call it "The Source">?). No longer a phenom of the Mexican side of the border, close to the USA, as in the case of Nueva Loredo, where renegade anti-drug forces have joined forces with the Mexico's drug mafia, la violencia mexicana has spread to Acapulco and other points, even more southerly, in honour of the upcoming national elections. El Presidente Vincente Fox may have displaced the 77-year one-party state of the then-archcorrupt Partido revolucionario instituto (PRI), but he has not been able to overcome his own complaisant approach to business, nor that of his owning-class, nor of the Mexican banks, and has allowed the internal economy of Mexico to drift aimlessly, dependent on tourists from the US and Canada, and the wages sent home to relatives by the illegals gone north.

While Mexico reproduces its population with a huge surplus yearly (modern medicine helps to the extent that the infant mortality rate is reduced), yet the entire infrastructure of the society is incapable of either educating or employing that ever-burgeoning population. Indeed, business investment doesn't happen, dosn't create new jobs, even tho they mite be as labour-intensive as the low-pay jobs found by the emigrants once they arrive illegally in the USA as immigrants. Mexican business doesn't generate jobs.

The news of the day is that election campaigns in Mexico are increasingly marked by horrific acts of violence, only sporadically and not so much an election death-squad movement yet (we are led to believe). But it's clear that the Iraqi war imagery, the TV newscasts of illegals filtering out and across the border to challenge los gringos of the new Minutemen movement statside, and the massing of the Mexican millions in cities all across the states - all this is having its combined effect within Mexico itself.

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Street riots, decapitations of police officers by drug gangs and the worst union conflict in years have raised tension in Mexico's presidential race with the government under fire for its handling of the violence.

Thousands of police swarmed a town near Mexico City this week to free fellow officers taken hostage in riots that left a 14-year-old boy dead and led to scores of arrests.

The violence, triggered by a dispute with police over unlicensed flower sellers, came two weeks after two steel workers were killed during running battles with police sent in to break a long strike.

The same day, the heads of two policemen decapitated by presumed drug gang hitmen were found outside government offices in Acapulco, a symbol of the spiraling drug violence that has spread from the US border to Pacific coast resorts.

The events are unrelated and localized, and foreign analysts see little risk of wider instability. But they have raised the temperature of the election campaign, with one candidate warning of worse to come.

"Things are going to be violent," said Roberto Madrazo, who is running in third place as candidate of the opposition Institutional Revolutionary Party, which ruled Mexico for 71 years before it was ousted in the last election in 2000.

"We are going to have a very heated climate for the election."
While the Reuters report by Catherine Bremer, "Violence unsettles Mexican election campaign" (May5,2k6) downplays any pattern with the phrase "events are unrelated and localized," she gives the actual schematics away when, one page later, she adds that the machete-mob-run town of San Salvador Atenco has been linked up to the "rebel army on alert" under "Subcommandante Marcos" (no he doesn't command a submarine) in far-away Chiapas state to the far south - a strongly anti-evangelical terrorist movement manipulating the "Catholic" Mayan population there.

Fortunately there is some good news coming out of Mexico amidst all this mayhem, as in the last few weeks the Conservative Party's candidate for President, Felipe Calderon, has cawt up rapidly on his leading opponent, Luis Manuel Lopez Obrador. But not for love of Calderon's predecessor, the hapless Vincente Fox, whose lethargy in the face of a lethargic business culture and in policing the drugs and violence overload, has created the vacuum the left has tried to fill with further violence, tho the head of their ticket claims he's "a pacificst." The vote will take place July 2, 2k6. - Politicarp

Canada: Politics: Prime Minister Harper guest of Ontario's PM Dalton McGuinty at private meeting, Harper endorses DMcG's rival

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A very important meeting took place a few days back in a private suite in a downtown Toronto hotel; it was a meeting of political import in the broadest sense. The host, Dalton McGuinty, premier of the province of Ontario, took the discussion of 'fiscal imbalance' forward from its hitherto limitation in Canadian Federal / Quebec relations to those of Federal / Ontario relations. A most important step for the political concept involved, but also for the situation of the Ontario economy which, tho Canada's largest provincial component, is seeing difficult times. A better balance is a reasonable and just here in Ontario as it is in Quebec, tho minus the special case of culture and language difference in the latter.

Ontario

Looking on from a francophone perspective, LeDevoir, the Montreal h+brow daily, carried a short item:

Toronto -- Tax imbalance between Ottawa and the provinces was the principal subject of yesterday's meeting between the Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his Ontarian counterpart Dalton McGuinty.

Mr. Harper refused to answer the questions of the journalists and he avoided the cameras of television before his 45 minutes meeting with Mr. McGuinty in a Toronto hotel. Mr. McGuinty indicated that the meeting was profitable and that it would be used to prepare the ground for the next talks on tax imbalance. "I invited Mr. Harper to a private meeting in order to speak to him about the Ontarian files and he was very receptive", said Mr. McGuinty to the journalists after the meeting. "I did not expect that he'd be able to discuss the position of the federal government at this stage of the discussions." Mr. McGuinty affirmed that Mr. Harper made a point of obtaining a national consensus in the file of tax imbalance. The two Prime Ministers await the report of a federal committee on the question of the equalization.

. The foregoing was a free translation of refWrite publisher, Albert Gedraitis, with the help of Apple's Sherlock 3 app, and Systran, the online translator feature.

On TV later in the evening, the news carried word that Harper had left the get-together with McGuinty to attend a fundraising event for the Leader of the Ontario Conservative Party, John Tory. In which he did his bit of cheerleading, so to speak, to the dismay of the mainstream libleft press who has heaped disdain on Harper, and who don't want Tory to win in Canada's largest English-speaking province and former economic engine of the country.

refWrite has long opposed Dalton McGuinty for his violation of the UN Human Rights panel that brawt in a decision against Ontario's biggotted discrimination in educational support to only two religions - the secularist "public" school system, and the Roman Catholic school system (to which McGuinty and family are strongly attached, as is the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Louise Arbour - in violation of her juridical role). This combine is allied to the secularist teachers unnions in Ontario, and together they took away the new grants allocated by the previous Conservative govt to schools of other faith-communities. The legislation was not flawless, as it was allocated only to schools outside the secularists and Roman Catholics, only to schools with a narrowly defined "religious" basis. My analysis would have the state support schools of any system which has 1.) a full-dress educational philosophy that can be addressed and defended as such (Christian, Judaic, secularist Jewish, Muslim, Sikh, Buddhist, atheist, Montessori, Waldorf, etc); 2.) a curriculum that makes practical the philosophy and is discussable by all the other curriculum-generating educational-philosohical communities in the province; and 3.) adheres to the pluralism of Ontario society, teaches against violence and jihad, while teaching for the peaceful enhancement of the social order in all its diversity in Ontario. Something like that. The govt, not as educationists, but as doer of justice for all communities and between communities, while attending to the common good whereby certain basic standards must be agreed upon and enforced to bring every school, of every educational philosophy, and of every curriculum into line with meeting the needs of all Ontario's school-goers as they face life here in the 21st century. Something like that.

Because of the bigotry of McGuinty's position, and the Ontario Liberals with him, sacrificing educational equality for all to the special-interest pressure politics of the secualrist teacher unions, McGuinty is unsupportable by anyone with a decent sense of justice and educational freedom. But the statist mentality is extremely strong in Ontario; there's talk about freedom in general, but no freedom in the particulars of financial supppoort for diverse educational communities. John Tory of the Ontario Conservatives in contrast has supported the flawed but major step forward of the previous Conservative govt - the step forward that McGuinty quashed as soon as he took power, even tho he and his family have benefitted from govt-tax support for the Roman Catholic school system. Therefore, Harper's support for Joyn Tory strikes us as a very good thing. - Politicarp

Friday, May 05, 2006

Canada: Politics: Harper's 2-pronged anti-separatist strategy in Quebec seeks cultural-language justice for 'special' province

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Having taken a critical step further along the path to solve the problem of "fiscal imbalance" between what Federal taxes accrue from a given province (think Quebec, think Ontario), and what that particular province receives back in Fed expenditures, taking that step further in the budget speech of Finance Minister Jim Flaherty earlier this week, now Prime Minister Stephen Harper is working on the outstanding cultural issues obtaining in regard to intergovernmental relations between the Canadian Feds and the governement of the province of Quebec - where a majority of the population speak only French.

Advancing this second prong of his two pronged strategy to open the way for Quebec's more contented participation in Canadian life and its fed politics - thereby outflanking the discredited federal Liberals while boosting Quebec's provincial Liberals as the bulwark against the separatist plan to make Quebec an independent state, Harper was invited to speak to the Quebec National Assembly by Jean Charest's provincial Liberal government. To the outrage of the Parti Quebecois and the fed Libs in Quebec.

The cultural front of the battle contra separatism was addressed today in the National Assembly by Harper's announcement that "Canada would allow the province to play a role in the United Nations' culturtal agency, UNESCO, according to David Ljunggren, reporting for Reuters Canada under the jaundiced headline, "Harper makes more Quebec concessions" (May5,2k6). I say jaundiced, because I regard the Harper move as a matter of simply justice to the distinct cultural and linguistic identity of the province that thereby has special societal connections to the world's other francophone societies. Yet, in that it was acted upon, Harper did make a political move, so call it a "concession" if you think greater cultural justice for Quebec is to be trifledm as does the headline writer at Reuters in its MSM miasma.

On Harper's part, this move was nothing new, rather "it fulfills a promise he made in the run-up to the January 23 (2006) federal election, when his Conservatives won a narrow victory in large part due to unexpectedly high levles of support in Quebec." Yet, it was not "mere" politics today, but a step to accomplish this particular act toward greater cultural justice.

"We are at the dawn of a new era, an era that will see us build a strong, united, free and independent Canada in which a confident, autonomous, proud and unified Quebec can develop its full potential," Harper told Quebec legislators.

Quebec will now have a permanent representative inside Canada's UNESCO delegation, who will help devise policy.
The article does note the strong connection between Harper and Charest, a provincial Liberal Prime Minister who formerly was as a young man a Minister in the Conservative federal government of Brian Mulroney, then at the party's lowest ebb Leaders of the federal Conservatives. He then switched party's to run for the leadership of the Quebec Liberals, to revive that party, and to defeat the Parti Quebecois. He accomplished all this, but he is not popular these days, even in his own party. This move of Harper will "boost" Charest's prospects. When he finishes up in his present post, maybe Harper will still be around to appoint him to the senate - unless, of course, Harper is able to keep yet another campgain promise - to work to create an elected Senate!

Still, in all this we should not forget that Quebec's National Assembly is not a legislature of Libs and PQ separatists only. A third small party, Action Democratique de Quebec, is alive and represented in that august chamber. Indeed, ADQ is the party from which the fed Conservs attracted as candidates - and winning canidates in several cases! - to represent Quebec in the new fed governing party. These Members of Parliament from Quebec will be able to claim that they with their ADQ party affiliations provinically - contra both the Bloc Quebecois and the fed Libs - gained the UNESCO special participation for their home privince and its dominant culture and language.

Harper is demonstrarting himself to be be an astute poltician, with a real eye for justice, I conclude. - Politicarp

Further sources:
• Haper's promise to Quebec of international representation on culture and language.
• Agreement signed between Fed Canada and Quebec on UNESCO representation.

Thursday, May 04, 2006

Economy: USA: Strong consumer confidence is edged by rising oil prices as inflationary leader-trend

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As recently as April 25, a prestigious economic business agency, the Conference Board, issued an analysis of US economic tends from the indecial standpoint of "consumer confidence." The results reported at the time, not so long ago, are extraordinary:

Consumers shrugged off higher gasoline prices in April and sent a widely watched barometer of consumer confidence to its highest level in almost four years, a private research group said Tuesday.
Consumer Confidence Index
Consumer Confidence Index,Aug2k5-Apr2k6
Conference Board NY,
But the New York-based Conference Board warned that if fuel prices continue to rise, it would cast a pall on consumer spending, which accounts for two-thirds of all U.S. economic activity.

The Conference Board said that its consumer confidence index rose to 109.6, up from a revised 107.5 in March. April's reading was the highest since the index touched 110.3 in May 2002. Analysts had expected a reading of 106.4.
The report is by Anne D'Innocenzio, the well-known economics reporter for Associated Press, and I found it in Business Week who bases her coverage on the Consumer Confidence Index of CB, as reported on CB's site by CB staff member, Lynn Franco. So, these two sources are those to watch on this crucial USA economic indicator: Anne D'Inncenzio and Lynn Franco. What's more, a similiar index is maintained in Canada by the Conference Board of Canada, but to access it costs an arm and a leg, so it is restricted to business and the very rich. This arrangement of sequestering consumer and business attitudes indeces for insiders is a metaphor for the contempt Canadian business shows towards consumers (not absent in the USA, but counterbalanced decisi

Neverthless, I think for now we can generlize that consumer confidence is h+ in both USA and Canada, but extraordinarly so USA. We can't say it's so in "North America" because officially that includes Mexico, where we're totally in the dark about consumer confidence, except for the floodtide of illegals crossing the border in to USA. (But that's another story.)

What's singular about the USA h+ on the index is that it achieved its stellar rank despite the rising oil prices, the unpopularity of the President whose economy-craft brawt about the present health of the system not least by means of tax-cuts, including those for investors. Another factor that would work against h+ consumer confidence, one mite assume, would be the string of disasters that have hit the infrastructure in the last year - as in the case of Katrina's devestation of braod stretches of American South. Especially the city of New Orleans. Recovery and re-bulding certainly works in favour of positive economic trends, but whould it contribute to the rising of the specific consumer confidence? Whether so or no, that index is up to an amazing degree. Even discontent over the war against terrorism and skyrocketing national security expenditures at home (which does translate into more jobs), does not so far deflate or level out consumer confidence. America's consumers are buying or planning to buy in the next several months the goods and services that typify a growth economy. That trend leaves unanswered the critique of growth as an economic norm (Goudzwaard and other Christian economists), but that fact entails to large a discussion to engage with here. - Owlb

Wednesday, May 03, 2006

Canada: Economy: 1st Conserv Federal Budget in 13 years wins accolades and damnations; click here for complete text

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The federal Conservative government led by Prime Minister Steven Harper presented, in the persom of Finance Minister James Flaherty, its first budget (the first Tory budget in the 13 years). It was a good startup offering, and it came yesterday in a period of a huge revenue surplus based on a generally prosperous Canadian economy.

As Flaherty made clear, this budget was nevertheless an interim instrument, as it would take the next year to gain full knowledge of the leftover obligations incurred by the previous Liberal govt, the re-organization and culling of the system of entitlements left behind by the errant Libs - together with making the first round of Tory-conceived entitlements rational in terms of bureuacratic operations with efficiency.

Money in a pile
Canada's Conservative Budget 2006

The Conservs are seriously committed to restraining govt-bureaucracy expansion, altho most Tory MPs don't seem to espouse the Liberatrain nonsense that "The govt which governs least governs best." Rather, the issue is one of optimatics: what is the optimal size of the number of paid employees on the (fed) govt payroll? But this can only be determined once the basic policy shifts have been determined - like expansion of the personannel of the revamped Canadian Forces, likewise of those of policing in domestic jurisdictions.

The new entitlements announced yesterday, such as the grants to famliies for childcare and for sports participation, may require no new hirings, should the umbrella departments drop other programs and then transfer workers from the phased-out projects to the new entitlements projects

Perhaps the best thing the govt did was to drop from income tax rolls thos who earned only #$10,000 or less. This doesn't mean such people will now "pay no taxes" as the extreme r+t and the extreme left have claimed. Rather, the class of small-earners like that of no-earners will still pay the fed General Sales Tax (which has indeed been lowered from 7% to 6% and then a year later on will come down to 5%). So, the needs of the very poor are being incrementally addressed. On the other hand, the Income Tax has been raised half a percent.

A representative economist for the Libertarian Fraser Inistitute in British Columbia, took to the airwaves to lament that the tax cuts for business were not enuff; they wouldn't stimulate intense new investment (but we all know that such investment does not necessarily go into companies that create further employment in Canada, so the extreme r+it wing on fiscal issues is a most unsure guide).

In the criticisms of the Conserv budget, the socialist bureacuracy-expansionist party, the New Democrats, vowed to vote against the budget (a move toward No Confidence, which if it won would force the resignation of the new Conseve govt). Principally, the NDP was foaming at the scuttling of the previous govt's scheme to saddle the country with a national childcare bureaucracy of unionized child-care careerists able to strike at whim and serving a one-size-fits-all mode of kidcare that would cut out many of those closest to each kid and otherwise unemployed (grandparents and other relatives, informal neighborhood carefolk who would be paid rather low fees in perhaps most cases, and religion-specific groupings that combine volunteering and modest-pay kidcare arrrangments based on single-religion commitment or not, as each such grouping chooses).

Using their flagship issue of bureaucratic-mode chlidcare as their excuse to vote against the govt, the Libs and NDP at the same time know full well there's no chance of winning and bringing down the Conserv govt, thus precipating a new election that the country doesn't want so soon after the last one only a few months ago. Fortunately, the Bloc Quebecois the second-largest of the three oppoistion parties, has announced it will support the budget because of the Conserv promise to address the problem that Quebec is so concerned about - "fiscal imbalance."

Quebec, for instance, claims to pay out far more than it receives from the feds (but so does Ontario now that it's lost its place as economic leader of Canada; and so could Alberta which is now the economic leaders and rolling in govt-revenues surpluses ). In any case, Harper and Flaherty have entered into discussions with the Lib provincial govt of Quebec, headed by its Premier Jean Charest around the issue of "fiscal imblance" to achieve a solution that will affect all provinces. Comparatively, we should note that Quebec already has a bureauracy-driven childcare system on a one-size-fits-all basis, and doesn't help a mother or her spouse who prefers to care for their child/ren at home, or make other arrangements with relatives, neighbours, or religion-specific groups existing for less formal childcare purposes.

The Q-Bloc realizes that Quebec already has done on its own for itself what the Lib/NDP coalition want to impose on the entire country; Quebec doesn't need a fed bureau-child encroachement; so the Bloc will test the Conservs on producing a solution to the problem of "fiscal imbalance," thus support the Conserv budget (altho the Bloc is a socialist party in most respects).

Now, what the Libs and NDP have done in voting against the resolution of the fiscal imbalance experienced by Quebec, Ontario and other provinces as to the ratio of their citizens' and corporations's payouts to the feds, compared to the monies received back by these provincial govts from the fed govt revenues, is vote for fed-favouring fiscal imbalance. This could function like a suicide-bomb they've strapped to their bodies politic. They want to maintain the fiscal imbalance against Ontario and Quebec, so that other provinces which don't want 1-size-fits-all-parents for bureaucratchild care in cauff-centers can't opt out - while those which do (like Ontario perhaps) could get their act together and impose a totalitarian bureaucare on children when both their parents want to hold jobs. The children thus to become creatures of the state.

The peculiar political logic of the Lib/NDP coalition in choosing the priority of statist childcontrol over balancing fiscal arrangments between the feds and provinces so that, if a province chooses for totalitarian child arrangements, it could do so on its own as Quebec has already modelled for all. In Quebec, this pattern is part of its overall extreme secularization process. - Politicarp

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