Month: July 2006

Smackdown – Harper Questions U.N. Presence In Warzone

Mulder

Stephen Harper laid a smackdown on the United Nations and questioned their presence in the Middle East warzone.

“We want to find out why this United Nations post was attacked and also why it remained manned during what is now, more or less, a war during obvious danger to these individuals,” he told reporters.

Asked about UN head Kofi Annan’s statement suggesting Israel had targeted the outpost, Harper said: “I certainly doubt that to be the case.”

I can just picture Kofi Annan fuming right now and asking himself when Canada got a backbone.

I think it was the morning of January 24th, 2006.

Lowell Green And I – LRT Boondoggle and OPP Investigation By Ottawa Police

Mulder

Today while listening to CFRA online, I decided to give Lowell my weekly call. This often happens while I am driving on the road between sales calls, but today I happened to be at home so I taped the online broadcast of my call. NOTE: This was NOT recorded on my end, but the online delayed call. Unless I end up getting sued, I hope to record all my calls in the future.

My points today were on the ineptness of our City Council via their allowance of our already hurting police force being used to investigate the OPP situation in Caledonia and also the situation where our LRT now has First Nations land claims threatening to either stop it or, at minimum, drive up the cost via a buy out of crown land the Algonquins say they have the rights to.

Here is my call.

"I hope this doesn't mean we will face additional significant costs."

Mulder

Whenever a politician speaks those words, hide your wallet. In what is a surprising turn of events for the citizens and some councilors, but NOT a surprise to the City of Ottawa, this whole affair looks to spell disaster for Canadian tax payers.

THE ALGONQUIN First Nations have asked the city to stop its proposed light rail transit project until a land claim against a portion of the route has been resolved.

Algonquin Chief Kirby Whiteduck told the Sun yesterday that his council has asked the city not to proceed with the construction that will take the rail line through a portion of the National Capital Commission’s Greenbelt between Leitrim and Hunt Club roads.

…

The province has also said the group has a good case. Negotiations began in January but it could take years before a final settlement is reached with compensation including a mix of Crown land and money.

Here we go. The first of the “add on” costs has started.

City solicitor Rick O’Connor said the city only learned of the issue from the federal government in March and that the project has received environment approval from the provincial and federal governments and will move forward.

“As far as we are concerned it won’t delay the project,” he said.

So the city was aware of the Algonquin claim in March (or earlier), which is about 4 months before they approved the route and no one was notified of this and they plan to go ahead with the LRT. Since negotiations have been ongoing since January, it means others have been aware for at least 6 months and not one peep during the LRT negotiations.

I guess every city is allowed its three quarters of a BILLION dollar Goof Up.

Way to spend our gas tax revenue Mayor Bob. Good job. Ram the LRT through and then stiff Canadians with the compensation bills.

How Do You Spell Conflict Of Interest? EmCeeGeeYouEyeEnTeeWhy

Mulder

Or M-C-G-U-I-N-T-Y for those who prefer the actual letters.

Today I am livid. Why?? This is why.

Earlier in the day, OPP Commissioner Gwen Boniface announced that Ottawa police would investigate the actions of provincial police officers during an assault on two television camera operators at the protest scene.

First of all I live in Ottawa and it is MY property taxes paying for the Ottawa Police force. Since the city of Ottawa amalgamated our police force has dropped by close to 25% (252 now vs. 330 before amalgamation) in terms of the number of officers we have on the force. The city has grown from 780,000 (in the areas that amalgamated) to 845,000 now, the property taxes have gone up and now we are sending our boys to Caledonia to investigate the assault of the TV crew that OPP officers stood by watching.

Secondly, our illustrious Premier, the Yellow Bellied McShifty, whose family is very closely tied to our community was elected in Ottawa South. Does this not smack of a conflict of interest? McShifty has been at the heart of this whole conflict since it escalated out of control and having the Police force that protects his jurisdiction do the investigation is simply wrong.

Every citizen of Ontario has a big reason to be worried about this “investigation” *nudge nudge wink wink say no more* and every citizen of Ottawa has two reasons to be ticked off.

OfficiallyScrewed … again.

H/T Dust My Broom for the Globe and Mail quote.

ADDENDUM:  Today the Ottawa Police Chief Vince Bevan announced he will be stepping down in 6 months. Hmmmmmm … a man with good morals announces his retirement on the same day his police force is announced to be investigating the OPP affair in Caledonia.

ADDENDUM II:  Sandra Blaikie of A Channel was just giving her pre show info to CFRA and said Vince Bevan’s resignation was totally unexpected.  Double Hmmmm….

Dan McTeague Can Say He Is Sorry Anytime

Mulder

My comparisons between the Middle East (ME) and the Tsunami Zone in South East Asia (SEA) and how the Conservatives have handled ME the past week and how the Liberals handled the SEA zone after the Tsunami that hit on Dec. 26, 2004.

ME – Warzone
SEA – Non-Warzone

+1 for the Tories for managing negotiations with Israel for safe passage of Canadian boats

ME – Ongoing breakouts make emergency situations hard to handle
SEA – Tsunami hit and everyone watching news KNEW help would be needed

+1 for the Tories for not overreacting but waiting for confirmation of trouble.

ME – Tories took 4 days to react after Israel began it’s bombing, and another 4 for the first ship to evacuate Canadians to arrive without any local military personnel
SEA – Liberals didn’t get 200 DART personnel off the ground in Canada until Thursday January 6th, a full 11 days after the Tsunami.

+1 for Tories for their quick reaction once an emergency situation was confirmed

ME – Summer offseason may have slowed reaction by Tories
SEA – Holiday season may have slowed reaction by Liberals

-1 for both parties

ME – Canada has no heavy lift to help
SEA – Canada rents Russian airlift

-1 for Liberals letting our military capabilities deteriorate.

Score To Date?

Tories +2
Liberals -2

When can Mr. MacKay expect to hear your apology Mr. McTeague? Or are you washing egg off your face in cottage lake water away from the medias prying eyes?

Sheila Copps Out

Mulder

I think visions of a Chretienite are dancing in the eyes of those reading the Toronto Sun today.

Sheila Copps is towing the Chretien line of 1991 when he fought the UN resolution to go to war on behalf of Kuwait. She is following the Liberal plan of doing nothing after a dozen UN resolutions telling Iraq to stand down held Canada out of the second round of war in Iraq. And she is quoting from the Liberal play book when she says, and I quote her directly:

It is sometimes wiser to do nothing than to do something in politics.

Excuse me Sheila, but I don’t think Stephen Harper is of the same ilk as you and your “do-nothing” Liberal friends.

I guess Sheila would rather have those two morons from the Kit Kat commercial run the country. Let’s just all chillax and take a freaking break from doing nothing.

SheilaKitKat

You Know That Picture Of Israeli Children Doodling On Bombs?

Mulder

Well it has a story behind it that you won’t read in the MSM.

Kiryat Shmona has been under constant bombardment from South Lebanon since the first day of the conflict. It was a ghost town, explained Shelly. There was not a single person on the streets and all the businesses were closed. The residents who had friends, family or money for alternate housing out of missile range had left, leaving behind the few who had neither the funds nor connections that would allow them to escape the missiles crashing and booming on their town day and night. The noise was terrifying, people were dying outside, the kids were scared out of their minds and they had been told over and over that some man named Nasrallah was responsible for their having to cower underground for days on end.

On the day that photo was taken, the girls had emerged from the underground bomb shelters for the first time in five days. A new army unit had just arrived in the town and was preparing to shell the area across the border.

…

Apparently one or some of the parents wrote messages in Hebrew and English on the tank shells to Nasrallah. “To Nasrallah with love,” they wrote to the man whose name was for them a devilish image on television – the man who mockingly told Israelis, via speeches that were broadcast on Al Manar and Israeli television, that Hezbollah was preparing to launch even more missiles at them. That he was happy they were suffering.

The photograpers gathered around. Twelve of them. Do you know how many that is? It’s a lot. And they were all simultaneously leaning in with their long camera lenses, clicking the shutter over and over. The parents handed the markers to the kids and they drew little Israeli flags on the shells. Photographers look for striking images, and what is more striking than pretty, innocent little girls contrasted with the ugliness of war?

I think the parents exhibited poor judgment, but after reading this article, your rage may subside quite a bit. Mine did.

From Israel With Love

I Think Intel Might Be In Trouble – AMD To Buy Canadian Graphics Chip Giant ATI for $5.5B

Mulder

Source says Applied Micro Devices could announce deal with #2 Canadian chipmaker as early as Monday

When I read the post at Digg, I was thinking “no way” but sure enough CNN Money is reporting the following.

Advanced Micro Devices, the No. 2 supplier of computer processors, is close to a deal to buy graphics chip maker ATI for $5.5 billion, a source familiar with the situation said on Friday.

Any such deal would shake up the processor industry, which is witnessing a battle over market share between AMD and larger rival Intel

For those who aren’t familiar, ATI is a company very close to my heart. (no disclosure needed because they are not close to my wallet. Too bad.) This Canadian giant of graphics has been a mainstay in almost every gamerz computer at some point in time via their Radeon series graphics cards/processors.

With Dell opening up to using AMD this year, and the ATI-Dell relationship, this is not going to be pretty for Intel. AMD also laid the gauntlet down recently and announced plans to release a true quad-core processor in 2007, which looks to have forced Intel to either open their hand up or play catch up.

The only thing that could be worse is if Lenova was to sign up AMD as their primary processor supplier. (Watch for it!)

It also raises a question that has me perplexed. Who would be Canada’s #1 chip maker?

Psychedelic Saturday – Party Time

Mulder

This week I pulled a gem out from the vault. Even non Deadheads will appreciate this version of Scarlet Begonias (into) Fire On The Mountain. It’s from Ithaca NY in 1977 and many feel it is one of their best versions of the song. I might argue that Pine Knob 1991 or Copps Colosseum 1994 might be better but that would just be picking at straws.

I also picked some tunes sure to get your feet tapping so sit back, grab a beer, or whatever, and enjoy the set.

SET LIST

Phish – Bouncing Around The Room
George Baker Selection – Little Green Bag
Three Dog Night – Mama Told Me Not To Come
Grateful Dead – Scarlet-Fire (i.e. Scarlett Begonias —> Fire On The Mountain)