Canada
#1 — CNews | HST to be removed on poppy sales
TORONTO – Remembrance Day poppies and wreaths will be exempt from Ontario’s new harmonized sales tax.
[...]
#2 — CNews | UN calls for Khadr’s release and rehabilitation
GUANTANAMO BAY U.S. NAVAL BASE, Cuba — The United Nations is calling for Omar Khadr to be rehabilitated, not incarcerated, and sent home to Canada immediately.
[...]
#3 — CNews | Veterans’ food bank cupboards bare
CALGARY – Even on the eve of Remembrance week, those who operate Calgary’s Veterans’ Food Bank say supplies have run unusually low.
[...]
#4 — Globe | Firefox add-on allows easy hacking of Facebook accounts
Think twice before logging into Facebook with free WiFi access — unless you don’t mind snoopers reading and potentially altering your profile.
[...]
#4 — Globe | Ships from the past power Canada’s navy of the future
HMCS Winnipeg, designed in the Cold War days for anti-submarine warfare, has an arsenal at her disposal that includes a 20 mm Gatling gun, a Bofors 57 mm gun, an evolved Sea Sparrow missile system and SSM harpoons to engage any challenge to Canada’s sovereignty.
[...]
#5 — Globe | Rob Ford bounce and ‘elite-phobic’ voters drive Harper surge
Stephen Harper can thank Rob Ford for a big surge in support in Ontario over the past week, according to a new EKOS poll.
[...]
#6 — NP | Danny Williams finds a strange new bedfellow
Stephen Harper and Danny Williams are like two people who dislike each other on sight. The problem for them both is that they need each other.
[...]
#7 — FP | Gold miners better buy than bullion: Sprott
Sprott Asset Management LP, which offers two funds that invest directly in gold bullion, said gold producers’ shares will offer better returns than the metal itself once mining companies start reporting earnings today.
[...]
#8 — OC | Judge finds teacher innocent of sex assault
OTTAWA – An Ottawa high school teacher wept and hugged her husband after a judge took the extraordinary step of declaring her innocent of allegations she sexually assaulted a male student.
[...]
#9 — OC | Editorial: Free from the handlers
A member of Parliament with ideas of his own — and the gumption to voice them — has become such an unusual animal that earlier this month Maxime Bernier had the political class slack-jawed in amazement.
[...]
#10 — MG | Winter forecast fit for a devil
EDMONTON– Winter is hell, or at least that’s the forecast.
The season is expected to be colder and longer than normal this year, but Environment Canada senior climatologist David Phillips said it might not be as brutal and unforgiving as some would have you believe.
[...]
#11 — Star | Court asked for reduced sentence to save jail costs
Eight years ago, 17-year-old Granzille Tucker left Jamaica and moved to Toronto to live with his grandmother.
But within three months of stepping off the plane, Tucker began amassing criminal convictions, several for violent offences, culminating in the April 12, 2007 shooting death of Bradley Frank.
[...]
World
#12 — BBC | US not tracking spending on Afghan projects, audit says
The US government has spent about $55bn on rebuilding in Afghanistan since 2001 but cannot easily show how the money was spent, a government watchdog says.
[...]
#13 — BBC | Obama tells Daily Show more time needed for reforms
US President Barack Obama has used a primetime appearance on Jon Stewart’s satirical Daily Show to appeal for more time to carry out his reforms.
[...]
W. Post | Milbank: On the Daily Show, Obama is the last laugh
#14 — BBC | Lethal pancreatic cancer ‘grows for decades’
Pancreatic cancer may lurk in the body for many years before patients fall ill, US scientists say
[...]
#15 — CNN | Palin: “Bless his (little pea pickin’) heart”
(CNN) – If Sarah Palin is looking for a top political strategist to help navigate the waters of her political future, Karl Rove may not be the guy.
[...]
#16 — CNN | Cell phone ‘time traveler’ seen in silent film (video available)
(CNN) — It’s not shocking to see a woman talking on her cell phone while walking down the street. It is, however, shocking when the woman is an extra in a silent film from 1928.
[...]
#17 — Fox | Researchers Find the ‘Liberal Gene’
Don’t hold liberals responsible for their opinion — they can’t help themselves.
[...]
#18 — Fox | Giant Lane-Straddling Bus Set to Take Over Urban Roads
People are calling it a straddling bus, but tiptoe train is more accurate.
The hovering people-mover is being developed by Song Youzhou, chief executive of Chinese design firm Shenzhen Hashi Future Parking Equipment, who hopes to bring the behemoth to the streets of Beijing next year, and has his eyes set on the American market.
[...]
Notes:
I threw a picture in of this vehicle because I was thinking of Toronto and Rob Ford. Both are much concerned with public transport and this might be worth a closer look.
#19 — Independent | Tests on spy’s body draw blank
Tests on the body of MI6 spy Gareth Williams have revealed no traces of any foreign substances that may have led to his death.
No evidence of drugs, alcohol or poisons were found during a battery of tests conducted by toxicologists, sources close to the inquiry said.
[...]
#20 — Telegraph | David Cameron must stand his ground on EU demands
Telegraph View: Our most instinctively Eurosceptic Prime Minister for 20 years faces a tricky set of challenges.
[...]
Re: #2.
“In every sense Omar represents the classic child soldier narrative; recruited by unscrupulous groups to undertake actions at the bidding of adults to fight battles they barely understand,” wrote Radhika Coomaraswamy, adding the “cardinal principle” is that child soldiers not be tried for war crimes or crimes against humanity.
Khadr a classic child soldier? This is what Coomaraswauy describes as a ‘cardinal principle’. OMG is the woman deliberately misleading, incompetent or just plain stupid. Compare what Radhika Coomaraswamy states with what her own organization states.
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, Article 38, (1989) proclaimed: “State parties shall take all feasible measures to ensure that persons who have not attained the age of 15 years do not take a direct part in hostilities.” However, minors who are over the age of 15 but still remain under the age of 18 are still voluntarily able to take part in combat as soldiers. In her mind a precise definition contained within a UN proclaimation is but a mere ‘basic generalization’?
Khadr barely understood what he was doing? Hell will freeze over (as though is going to happen anytime soon what with the moutains of radical Islamists being dumped screaming ‘you lied’ into the flames daily) before the likes of Radhika Coomaraswamy or her ilk would offer up a spare bedroom in their home for this not only remorseless but proud killer while he gets ‘rehabilitated’. Agreed to facts both by Khadr AND his legal counsel.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/pdf/omar-khadr-charges.pdf
#11, could someone please give a breakdown of the 87,000 cost of keeping one person in jail for a year. Do they take the cost of the prison system and apply it to each and every prisoner. Do they take the total cost and divide it by number of prisoners or how do they come up with that figure. To reduce the cost perhaps more prisoners would help.
‘Omar Khadr…should have been killed on the battlefield’
Agreed.
http://mooseandsquirrel.ca/2010/10/28/08:21/omar-khadr-should-have-been-killed-in-the-battlefield/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Moose-and-Squirrel+(MooseandSquirrel.ca)
Re:#4. All the advantages to having a modern navy and military in general are obvious to those who care to bother to look. All the usual military roles aside, consider this. The CF takes in young men and women most often inexperienced in the complexity of and unaware of the individual responsibilites of life we all must bear. It takes in some who don’t know who they are, what they will be and where they will end up in life. It eventually returns these same people back into civilian life but very different from when they went it. They take of the uniform and return to civilian life in firm possession of an invaluable wealth of life experience not taught or available on any university curriculum. They know where they’ve been, where they’re going and they are also blessed with an invaluable inherent wisdom far beyond their years. But even more importantly, they return with a tremendous love, respect and appreciation for their country. A truth completely foreign and incapable of being understood by our vast majority of university bred short on real life experience and with no concept of what true service to ones country actually means. Anybody can work for the government, but no anybody can be a serviceman or woman. Forget the continual increasing of funding for special interst groups and social programs that contribute nothing but create diversiveness and dependency. Use that money to build the new ships, buy the new fighter planes, tanks and artillary. The cost is recouped many times over and paid for in full by the contribution to society the now ex-military patriots bestow on our country. One more thing. If we are truly determined to protect our borders and national sovereignty focust less on recently graduated university students for CBSA officers and focus more on ex-military. But if counting the packages of Velveeta cheese and frozen turkeys in the possession of returning Canadians is going to occupy the majority of our border agents attention, then stick with the college kids.