Beating Al Queda At Their Own Game

What He Said 3 Comments

Wizbang makes a case for bombing Spain.

Rather than kill 200 people he should kill maybe 300 or so to show our power. Then, before the Spanish have time to bury their dead, he should release a grainy, low quality video saying that if the Spanish do not return Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar to power we will bomb them again. If history is our guide, we will be rewarded with a U.S. friendly administration.

If it worked for Al Queda…

All of this of course begs the question, why stop at Spain? When Jacques Chirac’s reelection is at hand, a single bomber could insure the French see us as an ally again. German elections are always fun to watch anyway, why not let a few kilotons fly their way?

Hat tip – Outside The Beltway

Hey, Who Turned Out The Lights?

March 17, 2004

Roadkill 1 Comment

Another scathing Auditor General’s report – this time, national security.

The Office of Critical Infrastructure Protection and Emergency Preparedness — which has a budget of $52 million per year — will come under particularly heavy criticism.
It faced a big test last August 14 when most of Ontario was hit with a power blackout and was found wanting.
For example, OCIPEP lost telephone, electricity and computer services at its own building.

Just great. 52 million bucks a year, and the brain trust at the command center for Emergency Preparedness never thought to pick up a couple of generators.

CTV’s Craig Oliver says unlike the auditor general’s�sponsorship scandal report, which came out February 10 and is still causing political reverberations, no wrongdoing will be suggested.

I see. If Liberal hacks skim off public money that was destined to be pissed away in unnecessary advertising schemes anyway – that’s “wrongdoing”.
But if Liberal negligence and incompetence exposes living breathing Canadians to terrorism, death, destruction and chaos – it’s not?

Account Security

March 17, 2004

stuff 1 Comment

In this day and age of identity theft, I’ve often joked that anyone who steals mine was going to a lot of trouble to get their credit rating downgraded.
But when I recieved a call last month from someone purporting to be from my bank, I refused to volunteer the information they requested to “confirm” my identity. I asked they call my local manager and she could discuss any alleged problem with me. The first caller said they would do just that – and I didn’t hear anything more. When I was in the bank later that day, I mentioned the incident. The employees were concerned.
Two days later, it happened again. This time I was ready for them.

“Hello, is this Catherine McMillan? This is *The Bank. We have a problem with one of your accounts.”
“Really?”
“But first I need to verify your identity. What is your date of birth and phone number?”

(You mean the number of the phone I just answered?)

“Don’t you have that already?”
“Yes, I’m looking right at it. I need to make sure I’m talking to the right person.”
“Sorry, I don’t give out personal information on the phone. I have no way to tell if you are who you say you are. So, why don’t you call Betty, my manager? The Bank is about 50 yards from here – I can just go talk to her.”
Click*

Thought so. Screw you, scam artist. You’re going to have to get up earlier than that to fool me.
Yesterday, I got a terse letter from the The Bank. There was a problem with one of my accounts. Their attempts to contact me by phone had been “unsuccessful”. Persistant bastards, I thought … it was a cheap photocopy, with the logo fading off at the top. But the information looked legit, they had the account number right. And I figured, it’s not like there’s any real money in it. I called and sure enough, was asked for the same information to verify my identity. And it was legit. The problem proved to be minor.
Wow. Small wonder so many people fall victim to scams.
* Bank identity deleted to protect the innocent and what little money I do have.

Anti-Semitism, Overt and Covert

Insufferable Twits 6 Comments

Sunday I recieved a call from a casual acquaintance, inviting me to dinner to celebrate a visit home of a mutual friend in the Canadian military. I told her I’d love to come, our friend spent time on the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz and I could hardly wait to hear about it.
The response was cool. And then she volunteered her displeasure at Americans, and the Iraq war.

Globe and Mail – March 16
Vaughan, Ontario.
The chief said that 13 spots were vandalized with racist messages, letters of the alphabet and swastikas, some of them incorrectly drawn. Painted in black, the graffiti were left on garage doors, cars and front doors of homes.

Then she complained, “The jews are always trying to take over other countries.”

Ms. Bromberg said that the individuals vandalized only Jewish homes, leading her to believe that they understand enough about Jewish culture to recognize the traditional scroll-work on these house’s doors.

I asked her, “Oh? Which countries?”

One of these households included an elderly women who had lived through the Holocaust, she said.

“Israel”, she hesitated, not sure of the others. “It shouldn’t exist.”

“Imagine, as you will, the case of one of the individuals that called our hotline, a member of his household is actually a Holocaust survivor,” she said. “And she was the one, an elderly woman as you can imagine, opening the door to see swastikas on it. It’s shocking.”

“And where should the Israelis go?” I asked. “Would you just march them into the sea?”

But she added that the crime is an attack that will be felt by more than just the victims.

“No, it’s too late for that. But they should never have put them there in the first place.” She had clearly given this much thought. “You can’t just set up a country like that. In someone else’s country.”

“This is a crime that affects not only the individuals targeted but the whole community,” she said. “This has shaken the whole community to the core.”

“Why is that? Really? After the war, where were they supposed to go?” I asked. “And you do know that every country that exists came about through claiming of land possessed by someone who arrived earlier. Canada, for example. Why are your rules different for us than for Israel? ”

Chief La Barge echoed her comments.

Yes, she could certainly agree with that. We had stolen the land from the Indians.

“This is a crime that has many victims,” he said. “The prosecution of hate crimes can sometimes be difficult, but we are committed to bringing to justice those individuals that engage in this type of criminal and hurtful activity.”

“So, where should you and I go? I could go back to the British Isles and reclaim my ancestral land and restitution from the British who engineered the potato famine. Somebody should pay for that, don’t you think?” .

The chief said that the number of hate crimes reported in the jurisdiction jumped by 50 per cent from 2002 to 2003, climbing from 61 to 91. So far this year, not even a quarter done, there have 23 such incidents reported, the majority of them anti-Semitic.

She laughed nervously. And the subject changed.
It’s not the hate crimes that worry me.
It’s the hate thought that exists in places you never dreamed of.
(Outside The Beltway: traffic jam addition)

No War, For Oil – Chretien Connection

Roadkill No Comments

A New York Post article today The French War For Oil is all about France. Kenneth Timmerman forgot to mention another anti-war country with oil interests in Iraq – Canada.

… the French interest in maintaining Saddam Hussein in power was spelled out in excruciating detail. The price tag: close to $100 billion. That was what French oil companies stood to profit in the first seven years of their exclusive oil arrangements – had Saddam remained in power.
…
Almost as soon as the guns went silent after the first Gulf war in 1991, French oil giants Total SA and Elf Aquitaine – who have now merged and expanded to become TotalFinaElf – sought a competitive advantage over their rivals in Iraq by negotiating exclusive production-sharing contracts with Saddam’s regime that were intended to give them a stranglehold on Iraq’s future oil production for decades to come.
…
The Total contract, a copy of which I obtained, was “very one-sided,” says Hillman. (Hillman, a political economist and a managing partner at Trireme Investments in New York, did a detailed analysis of the contract.) An ordinary production agreement typically grants the foreign partner a maximum of 50 percent of the gross proceeds of the oil produced at the field they develop. But this deal gave Total 75 percent of the total production. “This is highly unusual,” he said. Indeed, it was extortion.
But Saddam willingly agreed: He saw the Total deal, and a similar one with Elf, as the price he had to pay to secure French political support at the United Nations.

What is the Canadian connection ?
Paul Desmarais Sr. His sons, Andr� and Paul Desmarais Jr. are the current co-CEO’s of Power Corporation of Canada, the majority shareholder in France’s TotalFinaElf.
Andr� is married to former PM Jean Chretien’s daughter, France.
Stockwell Day (Alliance) – during Question Period:

“I do not fault the Prime Minister’s family ties with his nephew, our Ambassador to France,” said Day “or with Paul Desmarais Sr. who is the largest individual shareholder of France’s largest corporation, TotalFinaElf, which has billions of dollars of contracts with Saddam’s former regime. With this valuable source of information and experience at his fingertips, has the Prime Minister ever discussed Iraq or France with his family or friends in the Desmarais empire?”

This link lists the prominant Canadian politicians who include PowerCorp on their resume – they include Trudeau, Mulroney – and current Prime Minister Paul Martin.
With the revelations about the UN Oil-for-food kickback scandal finally breaking the surface, and the depth of corruption in the Chretien government emerging via Adscam, the Chirac-TotalFinaElf-PowerCorp-Chretien connections are just hanging there for the picking, like rotten fruit from a tree.
That is, if the anti-American leftists in the Canadian media can bring themselves to face the possibility that Canada’s “principled” position on Iraq was all about oil.

Kerry: “Firehose On Terror”

What He Said No Comments

Bill Hobbs has a devastating analysis of the approach the Man Who Would Be President wants to take to terror.

For John Kerry, our “first responders” in the War on Terror are the people who respond to an attack with firehoses, bulldozers and cadaver dogs. For President George Bush, our “first responders” are the 101st Airborne, the Third Infantry Division, the Navy and the Air Force. They get no mention in Kerry’s self-described “Agenda to Support Front Lines in America’s War on Terror,” which contains not a single single word about offense.

If we don’t think the choice Americans make at the polls this November matters to the security of Canadians, try Stewart Bell’s newly released “Cold Terror: How Canada Nurtures and Exports Terrorism to the World”.
A fence straddling, appeasing, left-leaning administration to the south is unlikely to kick our own politicians into taking action to reverse Canada’s shameful immigration and refugee policies.
Hat tip – Instapundit

Laughing Wolf

Blogging 1 Comment

The Commissar has tracked down another subversive capitalist masquerading as blogger – Laughing Wolf

A Tale Of Two Polls

BBC commissioned poll in Iraq

Media 5 Comments

The poll suggests that Iraqis are happier than they were before the invasion, optimistic about the future and opposed to violence.
It suggests that the reporting of the daily attacks on the occupying forces in Iraq could be obscuring another picture.
Seventy percent said that things were going well or quite well in their lives, while only 29% felt things were bad.
And 56% said that things were better now than they were before the war.
Almost half (49%) believed the invasion of Iraq by the US-led coalition was right, although 41% felt that the invasion “humiliated Iraq”.
More than three quarters (79%) want Iraq to remain united, and only 20% want it to become an Islamic state.

CTV/Globe and Mail/Ipsos Reid poll of Canadians

Prime Minster Paul Martin … reiterated his support of Canada’s decision not to send troops to Iraq, a view shared by 74 per cent of Canadians in a new CTV/Globe and Mail/Ipsos Reid poll.
63 per cent of Canadians believe the United States made a mistake in going to war in Iraq.That’s a dramatic jump of 16 points since December.
Other findings of the poll:
67 per cent agree that U.S. President George Bush knowingly lied to the world in order to justify his war with Iraq.
61 percent agree “true democracy will never come to the region,” despite all the U.S. efforts.
69 per cent�agree that because of what has happened, the U.S. “will learn a valuable lesson” that it is better for them to work with countries around the world rather than to act on their own in issues of world crisis.
54 per cent disagree that because of what happened on Sept. 11 2001, the U.S. is justified in any action it takes to protect itself from future terrorist attacks.

What do the Iraqis know that Canadians don’t?
The truth?
The Canadian poll was blasting all over the airwaves today. A representative from Ipsos-Reid was interviewed on local talk radio – and it was most enlightening. In discussing the poll results there was no qualification offered for the belief that “Bush lied”, as in pointing out that no one has any evidence that this is true. He offered that the poll results indicated that Chretien had chosen the correct position regarding Iraq – as though popular opinion should guide national security policy.
Very revealing. I wonder how the questions were worded. Check the second last paragraph, for example – the learned a valuable lesson result.

Sex Theme Park

Mao. Grave. Revolutions per second?

Penis News 1 Comment

China’s largest adult-only sexuality museum and combined natural theme park has opened in southern Guangdong province, boasting such attractions as “penis-like” rocks and “vagina-like” caves.

I bet they have one nifty interactive center.

Steyn, Futurist

What He Said 1 Comment

The Death Of Europe

For the Americans, it doesn’t make much difference whether the Austro-Swedish or Eurabian option prevails. This is nothing to do with disagreements over Iraq: you can’t “mend bridges” when the opposite bank is sinking into the river.

Quote of the Year

Uncategorized 3 Comments

Stephen Den Beste

The people of Spain marched in the streets on Friday.
Then they crawled on their knees into their voting booths on Sunday.

Western Alienation Part III

Uncategorized 5 Comments

I spoke with a friend in Ontario today, whose company has just struggled through a difficult period, and now, is being subjected to yet another audit.
It turns out this audit is on a reassessment they came up with during a previous audit. I’ve lost track of how many times this company has been subjected to federal or provincial tax scrutiny. They have never been found guilty of any misdeeds and on at least one occassion, claimed a substancial refund.
I not so jokingly suggested she tell them where to shove it, until they’re finished with the Liberal Party of Canada.
And then I suggested that if Ontario decides, yet again, to vote the bastards back into power, it’s time for a separation movement in the West.
No, not this separation movement.
This one.

Uh Oh…

Environment Canada radar map for Saskatchewan. Spring is officially postponed.

911 days after 911

Winds Of Change has a roundup of links about yesterday’s Madrid bombings. Among them is noted that Spain’s “311” was 911 days after “911”.
Lileks:

There’s a small padded room in my mind where I imagine the theories of the daft: OMG Bushitler did this, it’s part of a campaign to make us “afraid,” it’ll only get worse. That’s one take, from the foil-chapeau brigade, a decided minority. Then there’s the schadenfreuders: well, Spain supported the war in Iraq. Payback’s a bitch, eh? As if there was some sort of epiphany in the terrorist community: whoa, Spain is assisting the Crusaders now. I know it’s going out on a limb, but I propose adding Spain to the list of Western Christian polyglot democracies to destroy. All in favor, say aye. Of course one can say that the jihadists attacked Spain for its role, but to suggest that Spain earned this atrocity means that the two causes are morally indistinguishable.
To some, they are. To some, the act of “resistance” has such a romantic pull they cannot possibly renounce the use of flamboyant violence – until they find themselves in a train station on an average weekday morning, ears ringing, eyes clouded, looking down at their shirt, wondering why it’s so red all of a sudden.

Insufferable Twit Watch

Insufferable Twits No Comments

I’m starting a new category here at SDA. I’m calling it the Insufferable Twit Watch. For my inaugeral entry, I feature a local radio personality – Saskatoon’s 650 CKOM program director, Kurt Leavins.
Leavins has an afternoon show, informally known as the Anti-American Bush-Bashing Hour. Leavins does not take calls, so he’s got free reign to spout off with whatever canard-de-jour is floating through the CNN headline banner. I do email him from time to time, when he says something particularly egrarious. To his credit, he always replies, but he never, never admits an error or corrections on air. (I’ve included one such email exchange in the expanded entry)
Yesterday, Leavins offered his thoughts on the train bombings in Madrid. He mentioned that Al Queda had taken responsibility and then, in his usual “I told you so” voice, reminded we memory-challenged listeners of Spain’s involvement in the Iraq war;

[Paraphrased quote] — Don’t get me wrong, I’m sorry that this happened, but you know — given Spains involvement in the Iraq war — “you had to see it coming”.

Memo to Kurt Leavins:
The war with Al Queda was not initiated by George W. Bush. It did not commence with an invasion of Iraq, or the toppling of Saddam Hussein.
Perhaps you slept in on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001. Perhaps you haven’t heard.
At about 9 am that morning, Al Queda launched an attack using hijacked airliners that destroyed both towers of the World Trade Center, part of the Pentagon, while a fourth plane crashed short of its target in a field in Pennsylvania. Prior to this, Al Queda and its islamofascist affiliates had a long, sordid history of attacking military and civilian targets around the world.
And perhaps you haven’t been reading the papers.
Canadian troops are currently serving in Afghanistan – the same Afghanistan that harboured Bin Laden and provided safe haven for Al Queda training camps and a launching point for terrorism. For our efforts, Canada has been added to the list of official targets for Al Queda retaliation.
I hope that when the day comes that it is the CN Tower lying in a pile of flame and broken bodies, or the Parliament buildings hoplessly contaminated through a dirty bomb attack, you’ll remember those words and remind us, too, that “we had to see it coming”, so that we can be properly reflective and humiliated by our error in backing the American fight against terror and tyranny.

Congratulations, Kurt Leavins – SDA’s Insufferable Twit for March 12, 2004.
Update: Think I’m being harsh? Leavins just announced the topic for his “Afternoon Show” today – “Did They Bring This Bombing Upon Themselves?”
Hitchhiking on the Beltway Traffic Jam.

Continue reading →

Victor Davis Hansen

Military analyst and historian extraordinaire…. VDH has a new blog.
While you’re at it, go read his essays at National Review.

What Hockey Was

March 11, 2004

Hockey was part of my growing up. Going to a hockey game when I was a kid meant cheering the Arcola-Kisbey Combines – which escalated into a (mostly) verbal blood feud if the opponant was the despised Carlyle Cougars, from the rival town to the east.
One end of the rink had a large lobby for the little kids and seniors who preferred to stay warm, the glass looking onto the ice surface protected by chain link. A hard shot could stretch the chain link enough to break a window, though that didn’t happen very often. When it did, the player responsible was legend for a month.
Most watched from the stands, in the cold – elbow to elbow, on 4 rows of wooden bleachers, drinking hot chocolate or coffee, shifting weight from leg to leg in a vain attempt to keep toes from freezing, yelling encouragement, insulting the enemy, cheering the goals.
Watching from the bleachers meant staying sharp and never taking your eye off the game – the wooden boards had no plexiglass, and you had to be ever ready to dodge a 60 mph puck. The reckless older boys stood against those boards, leaning over as far as their torsos would allow, to catch the action when it was at the other end of the rink – ducking and scrambling when the play returned to their own, and players body checked and thrown halfway over, sticks flying.
The moisture from our breath froze in the air and rose to the roof to form hoarfrost. The sound of skates carving ice, body checks, cheers and taunts echoed in the cold.
Sometimes there were fights, and nearly always they were fair, square and honorably fought. And sometimes there were injuries, but absent a freak accident, they were minor – the players had jobs, families or school to go back to in the morning. They were not paid. They kept the sticks down.
Between the periods, you waited as players first made their way off the ice and into their dressing rooms, and then you followed the rest of the crowd, shuffling politely into the warmth. You lined up for a home cooked burger and fries drenched in vinegar, salt and ketchup.
No one was paid for anything. Volunteers served as time keepers and referees, took in the gate, made the pies, served in the kitchen, cleaned the bathrooms, chaperoned the kids. Volunteers scraped the tortured ice with hand shovels and reflooded the surface in preparation for the next period. Many decades earlier, volunteers had built the rink. (They still do. When the rink burned down 2 years ago, volunteers raised the money and rebuilt it.)
That was hockey.
I haven’t been to a game for years. Not since they put the plexiglass up.

DEAR MR. SASKATCHEWAN

March 11, 2004

Saskatchewan wins a prize…

RE: CONFIDENTIAL BUSINESS PROPOSAL
SIR,
I AM MAKING THIS CONTACT ON BEHALF OF MY ORGANIZATION, THE AMERICAN CAPITAL OF CULTURE TO INFORM YOU THAT YOUR PROVINCE HAS BEEN CHOSEN FOR OUR PRESTIGIOUS AWARD – THE AMERICAN CAPITAL OF CULTURE FOR 2005.
MY AIM OF CONTACTING YOU IS TO SEEK YOUR ASSISTANCE IN TRANSFERRING THE SUM OF FOUR HUNDRED AND FIFTY THOUSAND DOLLARS ONLY (US$450,000) OUT OF SASKATCHEWAN AND INTO OUR TRUSTED BANK ACCOUNT ABROAD, FOR THE PURPOSE OF PROMOTING YOUR BEAUTIFUL PROVINCE’S CULTURE.
IS REST ASSURED THAT THERE IS NO RISK INVOLVED SINCE I HAVE TAKEN CARE OF EVERYTHING HERE IN SPAIN.
I WANT YOU TO IMMEDIATELY INFORM ME OF YOUR WILLINGNESS IN ASSISTING / CO-OPERATING WITH US ON MY E-MAIL ADDRESS SO THAT I CAN SEND YOU FULL DETAILS OF THIS TRANSACTION AND LET MAKE REARRANGEMENT FOR A MEETING AND DISCUSS AT LENGTH ON HOW TO TRANSFER THE SAID FUND. FINALLY, I AM TRUSTING ON YOUR FULL UNDERSTANDING OF THE ABOVE AND HOPING THAT YOU UNDERSTAND THE NEED FOR ABSOLUTE CONFIDENTIALITY.
AWAITING WITH INTEREST YOUR RESPONSE AND HOPING TO DEVELOP GOOD BUSINESS RELATIONSHIP WITH YOU.
YOURS FAITHFULLY,
XAVIER TUDELA
PRESIDENT
AMERICAN CAPITAL OF CULTURE

… for Most Gullible Government in America.

Bertuzzi Redux

March 11, 2004