Free Republic

KITCHENER — A Kitchener father is upset that police arrested him at his children’s’ school Wednesday, hauled him down to the station and strip-searched him, all because his four-year-old daughter drew a picture of a gun at school. “I’m picking up my kids and then, next thing you know, I’m locked up,” Jessie Sansone, 26, said Thursday. “I was in shock. This is completely insane. My daughter drew a gun on a piece of paper at school.” The school principal, police and child welfare officials, however, all stand by their actions. They said they had to investigate to determine whether...

Twelve times the guy ran for President - twelve times he failed. Maybe they could dig him up! Just kidding. An Eisenhower would be fine with me, however. Isn't there anybody out there? Anybody?

Kosovo's prime minister is the head of a "mafia-like" Albanian group responsible for smuggling weapons, drugs and human organs through eastern Europe, according to a Council of Europe inquiry report on organised crime. Hashim Thaçi is identified as "the boss" of a network that began operating criminal rackets in the run-up to the 1999 Kosovo war, and has held powerful sway over the country's government since. The report of the two-year inquiry, which cites FBI and other intelligence sources, has been obtained by the Guardian. It names Thaçi as having over the last decade exerted "violent control" over the heroin...

"....These are the few contenders among the many pretenders that I personally consider to have real stories in REE space: •Avalon Rare Metals (AVL.T) •Dacha Strategic Metals (DSM.V) •Hudson Resources (HUD.V) •Great Western Minerals (GWG.V) •Matamec Exploration (MAT.V) •Medallion Resources (MDL.V) •Molycorp (MCP.NYSE) •Neo-Material Technologies (NEM.T) •Quest Rare Minerals (QRM.V) •Rare Element Resources (REE.AMEX) •Rare Earth Metals (RA.V) •Stans Energy (RUU.V) •Tasman Metals (TSM.V) •UCore Uranium (UCU.V) What I have noticed over the past month is when MCP goes green on my screen, the “Cream of the Crop” (AVL, QRM, REE, and TSM) is mean and green, too. The same...

Canada’s spy agency is pulling out all the stops to block the release of decades-old intelligence on socialist icon Tommy Douglas. In an affidavit filed in Federal Court, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service argues that full disclosure of the file on Douglas could endanger the lives of confidential informants and jeopardize the agency’s ability to conduct secret surveillance. Indeed, CSIS suggests its very raison d’être would be imperilled by releasing the information compiled on the one-time Saskatchewan premier and federal NDP leader, widely revered as the father of medicare....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzJSyjCtcjQ

"...Idolatry attracts both wings of American politics: the right tends to confound the United States of America with the City of God, while the left makes an object of worship out of its utopian imagination..."

....Dalio: Let's call it a "D-process," which is different than a recession, and the only reason that people really don't understand this process is because it happens rarely. Everybody should, at this point, try to understand the depression process by reading about the Great Depression or the Latin American debt crisis or the Japanese experience so that it becomes part of their frame of reference. Most people didn't live through any of those experiences, and what they have gotten used to is the recession dynamic, and so they are quick to presume the recession dynamic. It is very clear to...

A federal Green party candidate in Vancouver-Kingsway is standing behind a controversial editorial he wrote more than four years ago in which he describes the falling of the World Trade Center twin towers as "beautiful.".... "When I saw the first tower cascade down into that enormous plume of dust and paper, there was a little voice inside me that said, 'Yeah!' When the second tower came down the same way, that little voice said, 'Beautiful!' When the visage of the Pentagon appeared on the TV with a gaping and smoking hole in its side, that little voice had nearly taken...

Monday We are out the back of the sprawling presidential compound, having a relaxed afternoon braai. With three US dollars’ worth of Zimbabwe currency on the fire, the flames have been burning for four hours. And the British say I have harmed this country? “Why do my people no longer love me?” I demand. “What more can I give to them?” I am attended by a team of recent graduates from the University of Zimbabwe. They were given the choice of working for me or going to jail. They are all extremely loyal....

....So here I am. And let me note that on Feb. 7, 2003, I wrote in this space: "Here's my plan for post-war Iraq: Saddam Hussein's head on a post, and a 'Good Luck' card for the populace." I even cited a long-forgotten Texas governor who ran for president in 2000 saying nation-building is not a suitable U.S. foreign-policy goal. It's not much help that if I were you I wouldn't start from here, since my time machine is broken and so is yours. But possibly I still give better advice than those hawks who, in 2003, imagined Iraq was...

Wars are won by destroying the enemy's will to fight. A nation is never really beaten until it sells its women. The French sold their women to the German occupiers in 1940, and the Germans and Japanese sold their women to the Americans after World War II. The women of the former Soviet Union are still selling themselves in huge numbers. Hundreds of thousands of female Ukrainian "tourists" entered Germany after the then-foreign minister Joschka Fischer loosened visa standards in 1999. That helps explain why Ukraine has the world's fastest rate of population decline. On a smaller scale, trafficking in...

....It is almost surreal now to read about the elemental hatred of Jews in the Spanish Inquisition, 19th-century Russian pogroms or the Holocaust. Yet here we are revisiting the old horrors of the savage past. Beheading? As we saw with Nick Berg and Daniel Pearl, our Neanderthal enemies in the Middle East have resurrected that ancient barbarity — and married it with 21st-century technology to beam the resulting gore instantaneously onto our computer screens. Xerxes and Attila, who stuck their victims' heads on poles for public display, would've been thrilled by such a gruesome show. Who would have thought centuries...

I've obtained a significant section of the NDP draft policy document. I'm told that it was available on the NDP website briefly before it was pulled. As mentioned, this document was largely assembled by local NDP EDAs. A lot of the document is troubling. As we know, the NDP is no supporter of the Canadian mission in Afghanistan. In fact, in one of its policy proposals, the Peterborough NDP EDA doesn't mince words: "BE IT RESOLVED that Canada remove its troops from Afghanistan." -- Peterborough NDP Other Electoral District Associations voice their opposition to the Afghan mission with a bit...

We all know the basic alternatives that form the familiar "spectrum" of American politics and culture. If a young person is turned off by religion or attracted by the achievements of science, and he wants to embrace a secular outlook, he is told--by both sides of the debate--that his place is with the collectivists and social subjectivists of the left. On the other hand, if he admires the free market and wants America to have a bold, independent national defense, then he is told--again, by both sides--that his natural home is with the religious right. But what if all of...

Breakpoint: What went Wrong By George Friedman On May 23, we published a Geopolitical Intelligence Report titled "Break Point." In that article, we wrote: "It is now nearly Memorial Day. The violence in Iraq will surge, but by July 4 there either will be clear signs that the Sunnis are controlling the insurgency -- or there won't. If they are controlling the insurgency, the United States will begin withdrawing troops in earnest. If they are not controlling the insurgency, the United States will begin withdrawing troops in earnest. Regardless of whether the [political settlement] holds, the U.S. war in Iraq...

The increasing potency of marijuana -- spurred on by hydroponic growers in places such as B.C. -- means the world should no longer consider pot a "soft" drug, according to a report released Monday by the United Nations. "Today, the harmful characteristics of cannabis are no longer that different from those of other plant-based drugs such as cocaine and heroin," Antonio Maria Costa, director of the UN's Office on Drugs and Crimes, said in a written statement. Each year, the UN produces a World Drug Report that surveys drug production and consumption worldwide. While this year's report covers everything from...

Stephen Harper's conservatism is new to Canadian politics. It is really a neo-conservative, social conservative government which, unlike any other Tory government, has peculiar rules it plays by. Above anything else, Harper believes that the state is inherently evil and cannot be trusted with anything. In Harper's Tory land, the state has no role to play in climate change or controlling long guns, and has no right to intervene in the economy. He loathes Keynesian economics, and believes the ideal state is by definition a non-socialist society. To Harper, socialism is Friedrich Hayek's "Road To Serfdom" totalitarianism. Any government action...

With the just-completed hockey playoffs coinciding this year with the World Cup of soccer, as well as the overlapping basketball and baseball seasons -- also Canadian football, the U.S. Open of golf and, later this week, Wimbledon -- we are afforded a rare, eclipse-like opportunity to compare the major spectator sports at close range. Compare, and declare: There is one game that stands out as objectively, scientifically, mathematically superior to the rest. I am of course talking about "the best game you can name," le sport des glorieux, the gentlemanly sport of hockey. Let's break it down by category. The...

An Ottawa man is in serious condition and was airlifted to the burn unit at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in Toronto after accidentally setting himself on fire yesterday morning while trying to cut open a gas tank with a chainsaw....

Alexandre Trudeau said Friday he would chaperone a man with alleged links to Al Qaeda to make the suspect’s life easier, prompting questions about his late father’s crackdown on Quebec terrorists. “I wasn’t alive then," said Trudeau before declining to comment on any suggested similarities between the security certificate used to arrest Adil Charkaoui and the War Measures Act invoked by then-prime minister Pierre Trudeau in 1970 to lock up hundreds of Quebecers.

This is an astonishing webcam on Hornby Island, BC.

Canadians have chosen change. They want a government that treats their tax dollars with respect. A government that puts ordinary working people and their families first. A government that is accountable. This Government has been given a mandate to lead the change demanded by the Canadian people. Leading change in a minority Parliament means working together. To this end, the Government will look for shared goals and common ideas that will help Canadians build a stronger Canada. It is time to turn a new leaf.

....Thankfully, the Church had already developed a strategy, dubbed "CCC", specifically designed to deal with a potential Muslim Offence Emergency (MOE) situation. As it seems likely that MOE response will assume increasing importance for all organisations in the coming decades, use of the Y Llan events as a case study is invaluable - organisations which adopt a strategy modelled on that of the church may well be spared trouble, while those who do not risk having their products boycotted, their buildings burnt and their representatives beheaded. The recommended CCC response to an MOE or a potential MOE rests upon three...

Mines and Mining Development Minister Amos Midzi recently proposed that the government acquire a 51 percent shareholding, 25 percent of which would be non-contributory, in a bid to reduce foreign ownership in mines. Industry officials say "non-contributory" means the government would acquire shares without paying for them.

Pot crusader Marc Emery says his appearance on the news program 60 Minutes on Sunday will be an opportunity for Americans to see him as just an ordinary guy who regards himself as the Luke Skywalker against their government's Darth Vader tactics.

As the volatile polls shift back and forth between predicting a majority or minority Conservative government, the possibility exists that Paul Martin will remain prime minister after January 23. If the combined seat count for the Liberals and the NDP exceeds the seat count for the Conservatives, Paul Martin, who is still prime minister until he resigns, can go to the Governor-General and advise her that he retains the confidence of the house. Paul Martin can do that if he shows that Jack Layton and the NDP are committed to supporting the Liberals in a coalition of some kind. It...

The federal Tories are dumping a B.C. candidate who faces charges of attempting to smuggle a car and booze across the Canada-U.S. border. Conservative Leader Stephen Harper said on Thursday that it's too late to replace Derek Zeisman as a candidate, but that he wouldn't be allowed to join the caucus. Derek Zeisman (courtesy derekzeisman.com) "Mr. Zeisman will not be sitting as a Conservative should he be elected," Harper said. "He'll have to get this matter resolved." Zeisman is running to replace retiring Conservative MP Jim Gouk in the riding of British Columbia Southern Interior....

In 2002, Chinese officials admitted that 25% of the loans written by the state owned banks were non-performing. Standard and Poors and a number of others said it was closer to 50%, and possibly more. Within the space of four years, the Chinese administration has revised its estimation of the rate of non-performing loans down to an average of about 12%. How can this be done so fast? I'm not really sure. We are, of course, talking about the writing down or otherwise accounting for of many hundreds of billions of dollars of bad loans. I assume that it's due...

"....A pine cone shortage may have led the squirrels to seek other food sources, although scientists are sceptical...."

I was a bit disappointed in the toy’s lack of realism. There was only one passenger to be screened. Where were the long lines? The passenger’s clothing wasn’t removable for strip searching. The passenger’s shoes couldn’t be removed either. Her luggage fit easily inside the X-ray machine. There were no silly warning signs not to carry guns or bombs onto the plane. And there was no No Fly List or Selectee List included in the playset. Another oddity was that the toy came with two guns, one for the police officer and one that either belonged to the X-ray screener...

An 11-year-old sixth-grade girl was arrested Friday afternoon at Fox Chapel Middle School on a charge of possessing a weapon. The weapon? A butter knife. The girl, who won't turn 12 until March and whose name is being withheld by the Times because she is a minor, was handcuffed, taken to the Hernando County Jail and charged with the possession of a weapon on school property, a third-degree felony.

The vultures of the venomous left are attacking on two fronts, first that the president didn't do what the incompetent mayor of New Orleans and the pouty governor of Louisiana should have done, and didn't, in the early hours after Katrina loosed the deluge on the city that care and good judgment forgot. Ray Nagin, the mayor, ordered a "mandatory" evacuation a day late, but kept the city's 2,000 school buses parked and locked in neat rows when there was still time to take the refugees to higher ground. The bright-yellow buses sit ruined now in four feet of dirty...

DOES ANYONE DOUBT [Jonah Goldberg ] That if 1,2,3... a dozen looters had been shot the first day New Orleans would be a better place today? (And again, I'm talking about the actual thieves not the people trying to survive). One thing that confuses the objections to the "shoot on sight" policy is that it sounds like looters will be getting shot day after day after day. You don't have to shoot on sight very long before would-be looters realize "hey, I might get shot on sight." We've now heard of multiple outrages as a result of people being stranded...

Illiberal ideas are becoming to be formulated, spread and preached under the name of ideologies or “isms”, which have – at least formally and nominally – nothing in common with the old-styled, explicit socialism. These ideas are, however, in many respects similar to it. There is always a limiting (or constraining) of human freedom, there is always ambitious social engineering, there is always an immodest “enforcement of a good” by those who are anointed (T. Sowell) on others against their will, there is always the crowding out of standard democratic methods by alternative political procedures, and there is always the...

I have a very simple solution to the entire Cindy Sheehan affair. Let her meet with the President. That's right. I've finally changed my tune. Let her meet with the President who thwarted the United Nations Security Council and made the case for war. Let her meet with the President who hindered the progress of United Nations weapons inspectors.....

Many are hopeful the threat of an economic slowdown will force the party to speed up much-needed reforms, but others remain skeptical. The government is relatively untested when it comes to stick-handling delicate fiscal matters, and its ability to make quick, informed decisions is bogged down by a glacial adherence to consensus-building and a generation of leaders born of the immensely destructive Cultural Revolution. That raises many frightening possibilities, not just for China but for all those investors who've pumped billions into its rickety institutions. "If the Chinese banks collapse, the whole world economy collapses," Wilson warns. "The world economy...

A former Hollywood stunt man now living in the Netherlands launched his greatest project to date Tuesday: a 45-foot replica Viking ship made of millions of wooden ice cream sticks and more than a ton of glue. Rob McDonald named the ship the "Mjollnir" after the hammer of the mythic Norse god of thunder, Thor. After the 13 ton boat was lifted into the water by crane, "Captain Rob," as he is known, stood calmly on the stern as a team of volunteers rowed the apparently sturdy vessel ... "I have a dream to show children they can do anything,"...

...With no socialism to provide international solidarity, good motives of tolerance and respect for other cultures have had the unintended consequence of leading a large part of post-modern liberal opinion into the position of 19th-century imperialists. It is presumptuous and oppressive to suggest that other cultures want the liberties we take for granted, their argument runs. So it may be, but believe that and the upshot is that democracy, feminism and human rights become good for whites but not for browns and brown-skinned people who contradict you are the tools of the neo-conservatives. On the other hand when confronted with...

<p>Be that as it may, in researching the subject, I arrived at a solution to my dilemma; categorize the sites using as a benchmark how far the blog deviates from the real world and descends into conspiratorial fantasy.</p> <p>I discovered that the more forcefully the denizens of these sites bragged about being a member of the “Reality Based Community” the farther they actually were from existing on the same plane of the universe as the rest of us. Some maintain a passing familiarity with reality – as if reality were like walking past a beautiful woman and getting a tantalizing whiff of an exotic perfume. Others have had reality slap them upside the head and still deny the evidence of it with their own eyes and ears.</p>

"We've become mad in our pursuit of drug-law violations," he said. "Generations to come will look back and scarcely believe what we've done to sick people."

I saw this at the Belmont Club - interesting work. http://www.newmapgame.com/gameplay.htm

Top federal Liberal officials forced an ad executive to secretly divert more than $1 million to the party's Quebec wing in exchange for sponsorship contracts, the executive told the Gomery inquiry in politically explosive testimony that had been kept under wraps by a publication ban that was finally lifted Thursday. The allegations of a longstanding corruption could give the opposition

THE active ingredient in cannabis protects arteries against harmful changes that lead to strokes and heart attacks, new research suggests. THC, or delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol, is known to affect the brain and make cannabis-users “high”. The new research shows that it also has an influence on blood vessels. A study of mice revealed that the compound blocks the process of inflammation, which is largely responsible for the narrowing of arteries. Inflammation combines with fatty deposits to produce obstructive “plaques”, a condition known as atherosclerosis. These can block arteries to the heart, causing angina and heart attacks, or to the brain, leading to...

There is an answer, of course. On 31 March, Zimbabwe goes to the polls. There is, in many places, a palpable sense that the MDC could this time triumph. They have fought a brave campaign: simply standing, in some areas, is evidence enough of courage. And there is, in every place where people are willing to speak, a clear message: the West, and its tourist dollars and its trade, are needed back again.

The report said, "In one corner, there was already cooked flesh from bodies and two bodies being grilled on a barbecue and, at the same time, they prepared her two little girls, putting them alive in two big pots filled with boiling water and oil.

The English poet Coleridge, of Ancient Mariner fame, once said that ""Frenchmen are like grains of gunpowder, -- each by itself smutty and contemptible, but mass them together and they are terrible indeed."

WASHINGTON (AP) - Some North Koreans who defect or seek political asylum abroad can face execution if they are forced back to their homeland, according to a State Department report. North Koreans sent home after leaving without authorization are subject to at least five years of "labor correction," the report said. In serious cases, they can receive "an indefinite term of imprisonment and forced labor, confiscation of property, or death," it said. The report said U.S. officials have been told that the harshest treatment is reserved for those who have had extensive contact with Christian missionaries and other activists in...