February 2007
Monthly Archive
February 15, 2007
A German court has sentenced Ernst Zundel to imprisonment for five years after finding him guilty on 14-charges of incitement. The holocaust-denier was deported from Canada in 2005.
Zundel’s trial, which began last November, has been described as “raucous.” At least some of his team of five lawyers apparently shared his views and, according to the Toronto Star, tried to turn the trial into a soapbox:
“The initial attempt to try him collapsed last March over a dispute with one of his lawyers, Sylvia Stolz.
“At one stage she had to be carried from the courtroom, screaming ‘Resistance! The German people are rising up,’ after defying an order banning her from the trial on grounds she tried to sabotage the proceedings by denouncing the court as a “tool of foreign domination.”
“In the current trial, defence lawyer Ludwig Bock quoted from Adolf Hitler’s ‘Mein Kampf’ and from Nazi race laws in his closing statements last week as argued for Zundel’s acquittal.
Bock accused the Mannheim state court of not wanting to face a ‘scientific analysis’ of the Holocaust and alleged that prosecutors — one of whom has termed Zundel a “rat catcher” — had defamed his client.
“Another of Zundel’s five lawyers, Herbert Schaller, told the court that all of its evidence that the Holocaust took place was based only on witness reports, instead of hard facts.”
February 14, 2007
Alberta premier Ed Stelmach has put Ottawa on notice – keep your environmentalist mitts off our oil industry. From the National Post:
“Referring to the federal environment file as a “runaway train” with “every political party trying to get ahead of each other” on cutting greenhouse gases, Mr. Stelmach promised that sacrificing Alberta’s energy sector on an altar of green would end in disaster, given that the province already shoulders a major part of the country’s economic load.
“Last week in Ottawa, Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced that the “era of voluntary compliance” to federal greenhouse gas emission standards was “over” and his government is scheduled to deliver a set of aggressive intensity-reduction targets next week. The new regulations are expected to hit the Alberta oil sands especially hard, since the region represents the largest greenhouse gas emitters in the country.”
This puts Harpo in an awkward position. Fully 9 of the top 15 GHG emitters in Canada are in Alberta and when it comes to CO2, all roads lead to Ft. McMurray.
February 14, 2007
The CanWest news service reports that an outfit calling itself “The Al-Qaeda Organization in the Arabian Peninsula” has called for attacks on sources that supply oil to the US, especially Canada. The message apparently singles out Canada as the number one supplier of petroleum and gas to America.
“Last week’s message is contained in Sawt al-Jihad (Voice of Jihad), the group’s online magazine. A feature article, titled “Bin Laden’s Oil Weapon,” encourages al-Qaeda operatives to continue to follow directives from Mr. bin Laden to strike oil targets not only in Saudi Arabia, but elsewhere, according to a translation by the SITE Institute, a non-profit U.S. group that monitors terrorist websites.
“Three western countries are singled out in the call-to-arms — Canada first, followed by Mexico and Venezuela. Would-be attackers are instructed to target oilfields, pipelines, loading platforms and carriers.”
CSIS has declined to comment on whether they consider the threat serious. Canada would seem very vulnerable given the amount of unprotected pipeline in the country.
February 14, 2007
You don’t often hear Crown Counsel groveling before a court but that’s just what’s going on as the Truscott hearing wraps up. The Crown is pleading to the Ontario Court of Appeal to order a retrial rather than acquit Truscott while admitting there will be no retrial if ordered because too many witnesses are now gone.
The Ontario Court of Appeal has given the Crown a good mauling in the course of this hearing and I think there’s a good chance they may actually grant Truscott’s request that they find him “innocent”.
The Court said that the very fact that then Justice Minister Irwin Cotler ordered the review shows he must have wanted the judges to go as far as they deemed necessary in the interests of justice.
“To that extent, doesn’t the integrity of the system require a fulsome, broad examination of the new evidence, to put to rest the questions raised by the minister?” Judge Doherty asked.
February 14, 2007
Treasury Board president Vic Toews is nothing if not “holier than thou” and that leaves him with some explaining to do. It concerns the guy who runs Vic’s regional office in Winnipeg or, more precisely, that guy’s wife. It concerns how Patricia Haasbeek scored a $124,000 a year cushy post on the National Parole Board.
Vic, of course, says he had nothing to do with it, couldn’t even if he tried. Well then, who did? If Patricia Haasbeek has some genuine qualifications for the job, let’s hear about them. Let’s also hear about who actually gave her the job and how she was chosen over other candidates.
C’mon Vic, fess up. It’s all in the name of transparency and accountability after all.
February 14, 2007
I’ve heard the criticisms of the Canadian Senate but I always found them a little thin. So they’re unelected, so what? The type of people you want in the Senate, the “best and brightest,” with some exceptions are the type you wouldn’t find running for office. Being unelected they’re also less beholden to the party machine. And as the Globe’s Simpson routinely points out, being unelected keeps them advisory while elected senators would have a legitimate claim to be legislative. No thanks.
Look in the House of Commons and you’ll see lots of elected types you sure as hell would never want in the Senate.
This week the Senate made the case for keeping it as it is. The defence committee’s unanimous report on Afghanistan spoke a truth we could never hope to hear in the lower house. Conservatives and Liberals came together to serve Canada by exposing the truth about “the mission” in Afghanistan. Their report was infinitely better than anything from the Commons including that faux debate.
“Sober second thought” it is, for this guy anyway.
February 14, 2007
When are these guys going to get it? GM on the skids, Ford not much better. Now it’s Chrysler’s turn to slash jobs. It’s announced it’ll trim 13,000 jobs or 16% of its workforce. 11,000 of those will be hourly jobs – assembly line mainly – and, of those, 2,000 will be dropped in Canada.
After turning a profit in 2005, Chrysler said it lost $1.5-billion in 2006 on earnings of $7.3-billion.
Chrysler is in for its second restructuring of the decade. Some think its an attempt to streamline the automaker so Daimler-Benz can flog it.
For some reason the Big Three keep spurning the market, turning out muscle-cars when buyers are clamoring for fuel efficiency. It’s the Detroit Disease – they can’t seem to shake this idea that they, not the buying public, will define the automotive market. That’s a mindset that will take them to their graves.
February 14, 2007
America and its illegal immigrants are tightly interwoven. They’ve become such a high performing, lowly paid segment of the economy that most American politicians realize they can’t do without them.
But how to live with them in the age of the “plastic” society? Bank of America wants their business and has unveiled a credit card for illegals – those who have no Social Security numbers. The LA Times reports that many lenders see money to be made by tapping into this growing market:
“The cards, which critics say will enable illegal immigrants to put down roots more easily in the United States, carry higher than usual interest rates and allow users to charge only $500.
“The cards are designed to be a first step for immigrants trying to build a credit history, bank spokeswoman Alexandra C. Trower said today.
“Charlotte, N.C.-based Bank of America, the nation’s largest retail bank, is test-marketing the card program in Los Angeles County. It plans to introduce it nationwide if all goes well, according to the Wall Street Journal, which first reported on the program.
“Bank of America, Wells Fargo Bank, Citibank and other big retail institutions are all intent on establishing relations with Latinos, whose growing numbers and economic muscle make them the largest “unbanked” segment of U.S. society.”
February 14, 2007
The fate of German, WWII U-boat U-864 has finally been decided.
The sub, resting on the bottom off the coast of Norway, is to be buried so that its cargo of toxic mercury won’t contaminate the coastline. Plans are underway to bury 864 beneath a bed of absorbent sand that will then be covered with heavier fill to prevent erosion.
U-864 was sunk toward the end of the war by the British sub HMS Venturer while it was enroute to Japan with a cargo of 65 tonnes of mercury.
The Norwegian government rejected requests from local fishermen to raise the sub because the risk of spreading the mercury contamination was just too great.
February 14, 2007
Names like Eli Lilly and GlaxoSmthKline are often found at the heights of the international pharmaceutical industry. Now they’ve become key targets in a British probe of companies alleged to have paid kickbacks to Saddam Hussein under the UN’s “oil for food” programme. From The Guardian:
“They are on a long list of international companies accused in a UN report of paying kickbacks under the discredited oil-for-food sanctions regime, which enabled Saddam to illicitly amass an estimated $1.8bn. Ministers have agreed to fund the investigation with £22m over three years.
“The investigation – the first official inquiry into the oil-for-food scandal – was urged on the British government by Paul Volcker, a former chairman of the US Federal Reserve, who compiled a UN report, delivered two years ago, into abuses of the programme after investigating the sanctions regime that enabled Saddam to survive for so long.
“Mr Volcker said the programme – in which Iraq was only allowed to sell limited amounts of oil abroad to buy food and medicines – had become corrupted as the Saddam regime demanded kickbacks from foreign companies in return for the contracts. He identified French and Russian politicians as the chief culprits.
“Mr Volcker said the kickbacks were disguised by various subterfuges. Contracts were inflated, usually by 10% to cover so-called “after-sales services” fees. More than 2,200 companies were listed, using evidence drawn from banking records and Iraqi government documents.”
It’s curious that the United States, Volcker’s own country, didn’t launch this probe. Then again, Big Pharma is the top contributor to the Republicans in that very same United States.
Another footnote. The Brits are funding this equiry to the tune of 22-million pounds sterling. Contrast that to the pittance Bush spent on investigating 9/11.
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