The Post has a good perspective on Canada’s refusal to allow George Galloway entry:
It’s a mystery to me why anyone cares what George Galloway thinks, no matter what the issue. From what I understand, he’s a self-promoting British MP of no particular stature, who specializes in making inane remarks, the better to draw attention to himself. We have plenty of those in Canada, why import more from Britain?
I derive considerable satisfaction from observing Galloway’s frustration at the idea that he is unable to unleash one of his bombastic jeremiads within Canada. Nevertheless, even though the ostensible reason for his exclusion is his financial support of terrorist organisations, in the interest of free speech it might have been better to let him in and froth at the mouth for a while.
After all, the only person who would have listened is Jack Layton.
Iran responds to Barack Obama’s video appeal with nuclear pledge
US President Barack Obama’s appeal for a ‘new beginning’ with Iran has been met by a pledge to turn on the country’s nuclear power plant this year.
Mr Obama sent Iran an unprecedented videotaped message offering a fresh start in diplomatic engagement after decades of US hostility to the Islamic Republic.
In an unusually swift reaction to Mr Obama’s overture, Aliakbar Javanfekr, an aide to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, said Iran welcomed “the interest of the American government to settle differences”.
But he said that the US government “should realise its previous mistakes and make an effort to amend them”.
Obama’s grovelling overture to Iran reminds of something; now what was it? Oh, yes, this:
the nation that invented the automobile cannot walk away from it. He said millions of jobs and scores of communities depend on saving the industry.
Does this mean he is going to be sending money to Germany to bolster its automotive industry?
Karl Friedrich Benz (1844-1929), Germany Patent DRP No. 37435: GASOLINE / First true automobile. Gasoline automobile powered by an internal combustion engine: three wheeled, Four cycle, engine and chassis form a single unit.
Did the rest of Obama’s speech make any more sense? Not really:
But I’m worried that it’s not just a matter of what he chooses to put in speeches, but what he knows. It looks very much as if the president is oblivious to everything we’ve learned about social programs and educational reforms in the last 40 years—and by “we” I include policy analysts on the left as well as right. The guy never indicates that he is aware that we’ve tried a whole bunch of the same stuff he wants to try and evaluated it repeatedly and—read my lips—it doesn’t work.
In pressing for a lasting ceasefire, international leaders including Canada must recognize the recent violence as a symptom of decades-long failure of the international community, State of Israel, and leaders of the Palestinian community in Gaza, the West Bank, and Jerusalem to make difficult but necessary commitments to a peaceful resolution of the conflict.
Canada must publicly recognize that no lasting peace is possible without justice, and without the adherence of all parties to the rule of law, especially those on which the international community has agreed, including the Geneva Conventions and the protection of non-combatants in militarily occupied territories. Ending the siege of Gaza and the Israeli occupation of the West Bank are two critical steps toward achieving justice and toward adherence to the rule of law.
The first paragraph is the decoy to create an illusion of impartiality.
In the second paragraph we get down to business. The ‘injustices’ singled out for special mention are: Israel’s siege of Gaza, civilian loss of life – presumably civilians in Gaza killed by Israelis – and the occupation of the West bank. No mention of the thousands of rockets fired at Israeli civilians from Gaza; no mention of the use of humans shields by Hamas; no mention of Hamas murdering its own people; no mention of the fact that Israel attempts to protect non-combatants, while Hamas deliberately targets them.
In short, another biased, pompously self-righteous, anti-Israel philippic from Fred Hiltz, the leftist interloper who has hijacked the Anglican church of Canada.
Our private secretaries were waiting for us. Mine is a pleasant young woman called Jessica. I am also entitled to a car and a driver. Entirely pointless since the No159 and No3 buses run past my door.
Jessica explained the situation is complicated. Red boxes – lead-lined so that if the Minister is blown up, the Government’s papers will survive – cannot be carried on public transport. Second, there will be times when a vote is called without warning and we will need to get to the House quickly. Third, I might be glad of a lift home at 3am after an adjournment debate.
She also explained that the funding of the Government car pool is geared to encourage maximum use of the car. The drivers are on a low basic wage and dependent on overtime. Jessica said I will need a mobile phone, a pager and a fax at home. I offered mild resistance, but fear I shall have to give way. The first of what will no doubt be many little defeats at official hands.
While we were talking, in strolled JP. He made a little show of being pleased to see me.
‘Thank you for having me,’ I said. ‘Glad you decided to join us,’ he said drily. The sarcasm remained in the air long after he departed. Of course, he must know that I turned down the wretched job.
Outside, I ran into Labour MP Frank Field. He confirmed that the Government car service was a job creation scheme.
From here: It would appear from the two statements issued by the Vatican and the speaker’s office that Nancy Pelosi and Pope Benedict did not share the same views during her audience with the pontiff.
U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi met Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican Wednesday morning, but may not have had a meeting of the minds if the two statements from their offices are any indication.
No journalists were at the 15-minute encounter and the Vatican and the speaker’s offices have not released any photos. However, according to their statements it appears the pope and the politician attended two different get-togethers.
“His Holiness took the opportunity to speak of the requirements of the natural moral law and the Church’s consistent teaching on the dignity of human life from conception to natural death which enjoins all Catholics, and especially legislators, jurists and those responsible for the common good of society, to work in cooperation with all men and women of good will in creating a just system of laws capable of protecting human life at all stages of its development,” the Vatican wrote, having released the statement moments before the two met.
Several hours later, Pelosi’s office gave her take on the tete-a-tete.
“It is with great joy that my husband, Paul, and I met with his Holiness, Pope Benedict XVI today,” Pelosi said in a statement released hours after the meeting. “In our conversation, I had the opportunity to praise the Church’s leadership in fighting poverty, hunger and global warming, as well as the Holy Father’s dedication to religious freedom and his upcoming trip and message to Israel. I was proud to show his Holiness a photograph of my family’s papal visit in the 1950s, as well as a recent picture of our children and grandchildren.”
Nancy Pelosi, pro-abortion Catholic, evidently isn’t interested in the Pope’s views on protecting innocent life and, true to liberal form, is the deaf adder that stoppeth her ear, preferring to talk about less personally demanding topics such as world hunger and global warming. I wonder if she rode a bike to visit the Pope or flew in an aeroplane at taxpayer expense.
The Pope’s reference to “requirements of the natural moral law” as a defence for protecting unborn babies is interesting since it extends the principle of protecting the unborn – quite rightly – beyond Roman Catholicism to all who still believe in right and wrong: almost everyone on the planet with the possible exception of Anglicans.
In a rare admission of Hamas’ wrong-doing, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (“UNRWA”) promptly condemned Hamas in a sternly worded press release for seizing its humanitarian supplies by force on February 3, 2009. For once, UNRWA did not deem it necessary, in the name of moral equivalency, to attack Israel at the same time.
The UN Secretary General’s deputy spokesperson Marie Okabe reinforced UNRWA’s condemnation of Hamas by essentially paraphrasing its press release at a briefing held on February 4th at UN headquarters that I attended. I looked around at other peoples’ faces in the briefing room and some appeared as surprised as I was that, for the first time, we were witnessing UNRWA and the Secretary General’s office actually criticizing Hamas alone in such strong terms. However, the matter-of-factness with which the Secretary General’s deputy spokesperson read her statement – as opposed to the anger we always hear from UN spokespersons whenever Israel is criticized – conveyed a rather nonchalant attitude toward the whole thing as if it were an unfortunate but isolated event. Of course it is anything but.
The incident that brought this development about involved the confiscation of over 3500 blankets and 406 food parcels by police affiliated with Hamas, who broke into an UNRWA warehouse in the Shatti beach refugee camp and seized the aid supplies by force. The supplies were to be distributed by UNRWA to five hundred families in Gaza. The confiscation took place after UNRWA staff had earlier refused to accede to Hamas’ demand and hand over the aid supplies to the Hamas-run Ministry of Social Affairs. The reason for the refusal, UNRWA said, was to ensure that the assistance would actually reach the intended beneficiaries.
Hamas wants total control over all aid – supplies and money – in order to enhance its claims to legitimacy and to bestow favors to its supporters in Gaza while depriving its enemies of any assistance.
Hamas has no interest in relieving the suffering of the civilians under its rule. In fact, Hamas prevented its own people from reaching lsraeli medical facilities set up just outside Gaza. It has regularly intercepted humanitarian convoys and stolen food items that had been donated for free distribution to needy Gazans. Instead, they were sold in the black market. After using Palestinian civilians as human shields during the conflict with Israel, Hamas is now stealing aid intended for suffering women and children whose images Hamas wants to continue using for propaganda purposes.
Another example of Hamas using its own people’s suffering to further its own evil ends – and how the West fell for it yet again.
The Anglican church’s idea of ending poverty is to assemble a bunch of old people, many of them men in funny purple dresses, and get them to hold up traffic by parading along a street waving meaningless placards. After their exertions, they naturally repair to a posh venue to gorge themselves on delicacies.
Anglicans will gather in Ottawa and New York on Thursday, Sept. 25, to renew their call for governments around the world to demonstrate their commitment to end global poverty and other social justice priorities outlined by the United Nations Millennium Development goals (MDGs).
This is how Anglicans plan on ushering in the New Jerusalem.
Allowing free trade is a different approach and, according to the National Post is one that actually helps the poor rather than merely increasing the already substantial girth of pot-bellied bishops.
More human beings have escaped poverty in the past 20 years than in any equivalent period in the history of the world.
Since 1990, China and India have pulled hundreds of millions of their people out of want. Their people eat better, live longer, and enjoy some measure of security. As they have prospered, they have in turn enriched the advanced world, selling us cheap goods and services and buying our food and technology.
Ominously, the anti-recession actions undertaken by the advanced countries may well aggravate the global trade collapse. The U.S. House of Representatives stuck a “Buy American” provision into its US$800-billion-plus stimulus package. The Senate has now extended the measure, with a requirement that “all manufactured goods” purchased with government money come from US suppliers. This protectionist amendment carries the strong backing of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.
More than the dialogue that so fascinates Obama, what the world needs most is trade, more trade. It is up to him to champion it, for his own country’s sake, and the world’s.
I wonder when Rowan Williams will march for free trade? Shortly after taking a stand against the rampant heresies in the North American church, I expect.
In order to explain why everything is getting colder when we are supposed to be on the precipice of a global warming catastrophe, Al Gore has turned to Venus for inspiration.
Al Gore has a new argument for why carbon dioxide is the global warming boogeyman – and it’s simply out of this world.
Testifying last week before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee with yet another one of his infamous slide shows, Al Gore observed that the carbon dioxide (CO2) in Venus’ atmosphere supercharges the second-planet-from-the-sun’s greenhouse effect resulting in surface temperatures of about 870 degrees Fahrenheit. Gore added that it’s not Venus’ proximity to the Sun that makes the planet much warmer than the Earth because Mercury, which is even closer to the Sun, is cooler than Venus. Based on this rationale, then, Gore warned that we need to stop emitting CO2 into our own atmosphere.
In order to distract Anglicans worried about the disintegration of their church, Rowan Williams looks to global warming for inspiration:
On the evening of Feb. 3, the primates heard a presentation about global warming, in which the Most Rev. David Moxon, co-Presiding Bishop of the Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia, suggested lifestyle changes to address climate change, such as reducing travel and promoting eco-friendly congregations. “The church has biblical, practical and moral obligation to cut down carbon emissions,” he told the media Feb. 4.
Richard Dawkins, in order to explain how life can appear spontaneously from inert matter, posits the intervention of aliens, possibly the same ones causing the global warming on Venus.
To distract American taxpayers from the suspicion that the stimulus is largely bogus, Obama encourages green space exploration, presumably with the intention of assisting the Venusians currently imperilling their planet.
One theme in this bill is superfluous spending items coated with green sugar to make them more palatable. Both NASA and NOAA come in for appropriations that properly belong in the regular budget, but this spending apparently qualifies for the stimulus bill because part of the money from each allocation is reserved for climate-change research. For instance, the bill grants NASA $450 million, but it states that the agency must spend at least $200 million on “climate-research missions,” which raises the question: Is there global warming in space?
Normal service will resume when it gets a little warmer.
purple dresses, and get them to hold up traffic by parading along a street waving meaningless placards. After their exertions, they naturally repair to a posh venue to 