OfficiallyScrewed.com

Auditor General Sheila Fraser gave out the awards to the Crown Corporations submitting the best annual reports. The program has been around since 1993 to help promote good reporting.

The AG, with a team of 7 judges, determined that the winners for this year were Canada Deposit Insurance Corporation (CDIC) and the Enterprise Cape Breton Corporation. CDIC won in the larger corporation category.

What I find amazing is that they had reviewed the reports of 46 Crown Corporations yet only select the top two.

The AG could take a lesson from Neilson ratings or the best to worst college lists published annually. They should lay it on the line and rank them 1 to 46. Wouldn’t this put some pressure on the organizations to put accountability into their reporting? Naming 2 while 46 get off easy could be reversed to pegging the worst 2 so they know where they rank and can get their asses in gear.

Simply announcing intentions to rank the Crown Corporations reports would whip them all into line in a year or two.

Listening to Lowell Green this morning, he mentioned hearing that images of Mohammad were not new. So I quickly did some googling and came up with this gem from the Washington Post.

While rare in the 1,400 years of Islamic art, depictions of Muhammad are found in the collections of such institutions as New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Bibliotheque Nationale de France in Paris and the Edinburgh University library. Muhammad has been portrayed in the work of revered Muslim artists and of such Western figures as William Blake, Auguste Rodin and Salvador Dali — as well as the creators of the cable-TV cartoon series “South Park.”

In addition, we have the the website Answering-Islam.org.uk siting the Qu’ran with the following support.

Numerous passages in the Qur’an prohibit idolatry, and worshipping statues or pictures, but there is not even single verse in the Qur’an that explicitly says not to have any pictures of Muhammad. This bears repeating: There is not a single verse in the Qur’an that prohibits making or having pictures of Muhammad or people or animals or trees. In fact, there are some verses in the Qur’an which mention images in a positive context and which therefore presuppose that some statues or images were approved by God, see the article Muhammad and Images.

But the article continues with a very critical point that must be made. This MUST be read.

It is clear that making pictures is a horrible sin in Islam. There are dozens of narrations that emphasize and reiterate this point. However, it is always said that Allah will punish those people on the Day of Judgment. There is no command for Muslims to go out now and punish those painters themselves. This is particularly relevant since Muhammad was not shy in this regard.

I am not sure about this source, but if this is the case, then the rioting and uproar over this whole issue is, again, invalid. The Day of Judgment is where those who portray images will get their just due. In addition, there is continued growth of support that the whole concept of no images is to prevent idol worship. Which, again, supports what I said here. I think that portraying images of anyone, including Mohammad, is actually within the guidelines of the Qu’ran because images in a newspaper, cartoons, educational imagery, are fine, as long as you don’t idolize the photo or painting by putting up on the wall in a place of honour. I can understand the disdain for the disrespect of certain cartoons, but again, why are people rioting? Are people afraid of images in general? I am not sure, but I think the reason may have something to do with this or this. You can read more from other bloggers on this subject here, and here, and here

In a divisive turn of events, the Federal NDP is looking to reverse the decision to eject Buzz Hargrove from the party as a member. The Ontario branch had removed Buzz on constitutional grounds, and because of the way the party is structured, this effectively booted Buzz from the national party too.

Jack Layton called Buzz Hargrove last Friday, leaving a positive voice mail which indicated Jack was looking forward to working things out with Buzz to ensure he is on board with the NDP fully next election. They are even meeting today. The party is now looking at ways to reinstate Buzz nationally.

This begs the question: With Toronto being such a core support location for the NDP, does the decision to boot Buzz create a division between Ontario Dippers and the rest of the leftist group in Canada?

I don’t know. But I will say this. A large group within the party wants him out (including Judy Wasylycia-Leis). The leader sounds like he likes Buzz and wants him in. Sound familiar? It should. It parallels the Emerson/Fortier appointments.

Jack’s next move will be watched closely. How sweet would the irony be if he reversed the Ontario Dipper decision.

Today, Jack Aubry of the Ottawa Citizen, reports on the bilingualism within our new federal Cabinet.  The results are surprising, but again, show that the Tories are working hard to ensure Quebec feels like part of Canada.

The Tory Cabinet has 15 of 27 ministers who fall into the bilingual category (55.5%), whereas, the Liberal Cabinet under Paul Martin had 19 of 39 bilingual ministers (48.7%).

Surprise, surprise, surprise.

This supports my recent post about the diversity within the Tory ranks.

Well, in a sudden twist to their threat to pull out of the NPT, Iranian officials are turning their view around.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi urged a peaceful solution to the dispute over his country’s nuclear program. “We are still committed to the provisions of the NPT. But we can’t accept its use as a (political) instrument. We will co-operate in the treaty and the safeguards’ framework,” Asefi said at a weekly news conference.

A day earlier, the Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, had hinted at a pull out.

Buzz Hargrove had his NDP membership revoked for endorsing an opposing party in the 2006 federal election, which is against the party’s constitution.

Well I can’t say that I am surprised. Buzz was three-faced this election and was scrambling to keep Tories out of office and it came back to bite him.