I was away this past week I barely had any internet access, the week however was filled with disgrace!

Israel, has shown a new facet to the world… This is how the German perceived it according to Spiegel OnLine (H/T: IMRA):

The center-left daily Suddeutsche Zeitung writes:

“The macabre Israeli-Lebanese deal, which saw living Lebanese prisoners being swapped for the bodies of Israeli soldiers, is a major success for the Shiite militia.. The prisoner exchange shows who really has the power in Lebanon and who can force archenemy Israel to make concessions: It is Hezbollah, it is Nasrallah. That elevates the radicals’ image in Lebanon, inthe Arab world and in the Muslim world.”

[…]The new and obvious reality is that Israel has in fact rewarded and strengthened Hizbullah. Some in Lebanon refuse to cheer for Samir Kuntar,, since they perceive him as nothing more than the ruthless murderer he truly is. There is nothing heroic about killing an unarmed father and bludgeoning his 4 year old daughter to death with a rifle butt, after she witnessed her father savagely assassinated. And yet, Kuntar returned mostly as a hero, as someone worthy of admiration rather than contempt. I do not blame Hizbullah on this as much as I blame Allmerde and his entourage.

For the rest of this post, check out: Freedom’s Cost

In a move that is reminiscent of Darfur and the Congo the just “reelected” President of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe, has come up with a new tactic to assert the power he so blatantly stole:

Mugabe thugs raping teens: aid staff

DOZENS of teenage girls have been made pregnant after being taken into the bush and raped in torture camps by President Robert Mugabe’s youth militia operating near Mudzi, a town 160km northeast of Harare, human rights workers allege.

Read the rest on: Freedom’s Cost

Three years ago on this day, in London and within 50 seconds of each other, there were bombings at three subway stations and an hour later, at 9:47am, there was a fourth one on a bus in Tavistock Square. Fifty two innocent people died that day while 700 were injured. Has Britain learned any lessons?

Last year there was a failed terrorist plot by Muslim doctors, also in Britain, has their government learned any lessons? Rather than putting restrictions on the preachings of extremist Imams, rather than kick them out of the country, they are allowed to freely continue preaching their hatred… all in the spirit of free speech and… multiculturalism. Freedom of Speech is one of the cardinal principles of a free society, it is in fact what keeps that society free. However, another - and at least - as important a principle also says that the right to move one’s fist stops where the other’s cheek starts. What does that mean? It means that when freedom of speech is abused by preaching violence against any other segment of society it must proscribed!

Read the rest of this post at: Freedom’s Cost

Due to the hosting of the anti-Islamic movie “Fitna” on this blog there’s quite a discussion on the subject of freedom of speech going on. You can follow it here. I think that something must be noted, especially for people who are not regular readers.

Every single member of this blog holds freedom of speech to be an essential element of a working and free society. It is in that spirit in which this movie has been hosted. It is NOT neccesarily because we agree with the views expressed in the film (I haven’t yet seen it). It could well be that the film is inaccurate or even bigoted. It could be garbage. (more…)

Hillary Clinton touring a Las Vegas neighborhood yesterday:

Clinton said unscrupulous lending leads to bad mortgages, which lead to foreclosures, which lead to people with nowhere to go and vacant neighborhoods that can go rapidly downhill.

First of all, what’s wrong with this picture?

We have the evil lender.

We have the heartless bank.

We have “bad mortgages.”

Which lead to heartless capitalists foreclosing on the poor, unsuspecting homeowners.

There’s something missing in all of that and I will bet you only a conservative could find it.

(Answer below the fold)
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At Pharyngula, PZ Meyers lets off a blast of anti-torture steam that must have been building up for some time:

Here is all that torture is good for: inspiring fear in a population.

…

When the US government announces it’s support for torture, they aren’t talking about intelligence gathering: they are simply saying “Fear us.” They are taking the first step on the road to tyranny. (more…)

Needless to say, this story is now generating disgust around the world, the intensity of some of the reactions (and comments on this site) is quite remarkable. At higher levels reactions have been swift too with a debate in Canadian parliament yesterday:

“This is a tragic and grievous incident,” Mr. Day told the House of Commons. “We want to find out answers that can prevent these things from happening in the future.”

But Day, the federal Public Security Minister, refused to commit to a public inquiry though at this point. Given that the victim, Robert Dziekanski, was a Polish immigrant, Warzaw has entered the fray too:

Poland’s ambassador to Canada said Thursday the conduct of the four Mounties who tasered a Polish immigrant was out of line and called for immediate measures to prevent anyone else from suffering the same fate.

Other worthwhile links for more on this case are the Canadian blog The Politic which offers some terse commentary here and British Columbia’s key webzine The Tyee.

Remember my original post Beware Air Travel? Here is one of the comments it yielded:

It seems odd to criticize the ‘incompetence’ of the security personnel without mentioning the behavior of the passenger. He (and the other woman who recently died under similar circumstances) may be innocent in terms of terrorist risk, but that’s not the point: they’re being subdued because they’re posing a direct threat to the passengers and staff in the terminal with their irrational and violent behavior.

It is was a fair comment at the time, but as some suspected the ‘threat’ wasn’t all that urgent. We can now test this assumption against the video footage that Canadian authorities released yesterday. If you can stomach watching this go ahead, but do not think you will find any material that would support the continued use of Tasers by security personnel.

Once more: we are increasingly equipping our law enforcement apparatus (be it in the US or Canada) with tools and training that appear to be overly focused on ‘conflict ending’ rather than ‘conflict resolution’. That trend is unacceptable for any free society and needs to be reversed.

Today is Remembrance Day here in Canada as it is in the UK and Veterans Day in the US. Earlier this morning I was humbled to stand next on stage to Norm Kirby, a Canadian veteran who landed on the beaches of Normandy on D-Day. At the end of the war when he marched into The Netherlands he was at age 19, a platoon commander.

Shortly before he spoke I got to deliver my piece  - focused on freedom and why we should keep remembering - and I give it to you here in its entirety: (more…)

OK, this happened earlier this week, but in the spirit of my earlier post on this matter, I believe we should keep telling the world that the Dalai Lama is a welcome visitor. True to form, Beijing reacted with its usual bromides, ranging from ‘gross interference in China’s internal affairs’ to ‘disgusting behavior’. The latter of course would more aptly describe the act of shooting at refugees.

The hyper-security that is now the norm for regular passenger travel is an unleashed beast that knows no bounds. Quite recently I pointed to some disturbing incidents, but now it appears the entire information structure built around stepping on a flight is to undergo some drastic changes according to this blog (h/t Sullivan):

All travellers in the U.S. will be required to get government-issued credentials and official clearance before every flight, both within the United States as well as internationally.

All the dire predictions made about the Department of Homeland Security made at the time of its inception are steadily bearing fruit, and very bitter ones at that I might add.

Really, open source air travel will increasingly become a viable option.

Co-blogger Jason yesterday argued that now is probably not the best time to take a moral stand by welcoming the Dalai Lama, ostensibly because it will once more ‘offend’ China.

Well, I respectfully disagree and would argue that the entire global community has always gone out of its way to avoid the scorn of Beijing. As a consequence, the Chinese have become extremely adept in merging political and economic issues to their advantage and much to the disadvantage of say Tibet, Taiwan and Chinese dissidents. Photos such as the one on top of this post have become rarities as a result.

Former Hong Kong Governor Chris Patten was one of the few who dared to confront the Chinese leadership and for that was vilified by not only the Chinese but by many British politicians and business leaders as well. But argued Patten, there is no correlation between bending to Beijing and benefiting economically. Any form of kowtow in order to remain on speaking terms with China is likely to earn less respect from the Chinese in the long run, unnecessarily undermining the West’s position. So, every effort should be made to force China to live up to and accept certain codes of conduct and mutual respect, not to mention international agreements dealing with human rights. Rolling out the red carpet for the Dalai Lama is an important part of that and if that causes some aggravation in Zhongnanhai, well so be it.

Not long after the tragic and unnecessary death of Carol Ann Gotbaum another unruly traveler has died, this time of Taser inflicted injuries at Vancouver’s airport, this weekend:

The death of a middle-aged man at Vancouver airport after being stunned twice by an electric shock from a taser gun sparked new appeals yesterday for a moratorium on police use of the high-powered weapon.

The man in his 40s began behaving wildly in the international arrivals lounge of the Vancouver airport. He was sweating profusely, yelling, tipping his luggage cart over and throwing chairs about, RCMP spokesman Sgt. Pierre Lemaitre said. He grabbed a computer off a desk at an arrival gate and was pounding on windows.

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As a pro-American and free-market resident of Canada I have always been extraordinary pleased with the benefits offered by the NAFTA treaty, sort of what we would call the Reagan-Mulroney legacy. Yet free trade in Canada has always been a decisive issue, and the left often uses it as key evidence that Canada’s sovereignty has steadily eroded by the slash-and-burn capitalism that Americans, thanks to NAFTA, brought in across the 49^th parallel. And at times even conservatives have made these arguments if they felt it gave them some sort of electoral edge.

The same is true south of the border where most recently Obama Barack has toyed with some protectionist ideas. And on the American right it will not take you long to find some paleoconservatives who would gladly erect a wall between Canada and the US given the chance. The protectionist argument has ever since 9/11 been given the added rationale of ‘improved border security’ which so far has resulted in long waiting times at border crossings.

Well, it seems that average Canadians and Americans have a much better sense of free-trade and bilateral relations, according to this poll: (more…)

Melanie Phillips’ latest article is entitled “The drowning of common sense“. It was written after a young boy named Jordon Lyon drowned while emergency workers allegedly dithered rather than trying to save him. Not surprisingly, the police have a different understanding of the tragedy. Somehow it seems difficult to lay blame on the police now and from this distance, though Phillips believes otherwise.

Melanie goes on to write brilliantly about a problem in British society that is prevalent here in the U.S. as well - the “compensation culture” that demands that someone be made to pay for every unfortunate event that happens. (more…)