Ignatieff, a blast from the past.

There is already a long list of times where Ignatieff has put his foot in his mouth and has had to go back to"refine" his own words, but it seems to me that this example has dropped off of the radar.

At a news conference before the vote, Maureen Basnicki, whose husband Ken was among two dozen Canadian victims of the 9/11 al-Qaeda attacks, urged MPs to "stop playing politics" and to "vote with their conscience and not with their party.

Deputy Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff said he sympathized with terror victims but labelled their appearance during the debate as "just a sideshow," prompting an angry response from Basnicki.

"Sideshow? I was a victim of terrorism. My husband was murdered. I don't like to be a victim of politics. The issue here is the security of Canadians," Basnicki remarked.

With friends like these......

Khadija Abdul Qahar, formerly known as Beverly Giesbrecht before she changed her name, a Canadian held hostage after she travelled to the lawless tribal belt of northern Pakistan says the Taliban will behead her by the end of the month if a ransom isn't paid. According to a newly released video. Story: source1 source2 Update:Darcey has some of the video up here.

Her web site.

a recent letter to her supporters.

an interesting bit of commentary found on her website.

after that last link I could not read on any further.


With friends like these........

Will history repeat itself....

..and this time will more people be paying attention?


Danish newspapers reprint controversial cartoons with a history.


The outrage starts .








(AFP RIZWAN TABASSUM)



Governments get involved.

Telling comments are made, and editorials are written.

“There could have been other ways to do it without the drawing, which I personally do not like,” Abdul Wahid Petersen, a moderate imam and a Protestant who converted to Islam, told a foreign news agency.
He said, “It’s not a good idea to reproduce it and the newspapers could have defended the cartoonist differently, without resorting to provocation.” “It’s good to have a dialogue on freedom of expression, but you shouldn’t seek out a confrontation from the start,” he said.

Children's television characters get in on the action.

People eat less cheese.

and people die. (no link yet, but.........)




All because of these cartoons.



And there are still people who don't get it, even though they all have seen it before.

Doctors who want to kill you

2 of the 7 so far arrested for the terror attacks in the UK are said to be medical doctors.


Not alienated youth, not poor Arabs, but practicing doctors who seem to have not taken their oath seriously and tried to kill hundreds of innocent people.

The common denominator again is the same, but will anymore people wake up and see it.


Al

Free Homes. It is in the Constitution.

Did you know the the Canadian Constitution guarantees housing, shelter and food to everyone in Canada? I was not aware of this either, but according to 'protester' David Cunningham of the Anti-Poverty Committee, these rights are included in the constitution.

Listen to the interview here, the constitution comment starts around the 7:45 mark. Ht SDA

Damn, and I have been wasting all this time working to pay for all of those things when all I had to do was put out my hand and get my constitutionally granted house.

Time to head downtown and trash Premier Stelmach's office. Maybe someone could let the CBC know that I am on my way so they have time to set up their cameras.


Al

The Liberals miss the good old days?

I find the Liberals to be full of nostalgia as of late for a time when they were still in power. For them everything was rosy and much better than it is today, take the Afghan prisoner ruckus that the Liberals and their close friends are trying to milk for all it is worth as an example.

Care to join me in a trip down memory lane......

Does anyone remember this picture?

For those that do not, this picture is of Canada's own JTF 2 in Afghanistan with prisoners that they had taken and was published Jan 2002 (AP / DarioLopez-Mills) .

Please note the date of the photo January 2002. A time where the Liberal led Government of Canada was not even admitting to Canadians that we had troops in Afghanistan; never mind that they were already involved in active combat and were taking prisoners.

When asked in QP about how Canadian Forces would deal with prisoners, PM JeanChrétien said "You are asking me a purely hypothetical question at this time." totally unaware that the event(s) had even happened and having no idea what was going on with prisoners. CBC NEWS SOURCE

The Prime Minister of Canada, Jean Chrétien, the man that sent our troops into war, did not know what our forces were doing on the other side of the world in the name of Canada!

Good times, good times.

A more positive note for the Liberals was that after a few years in Afghanistan, and after numerous prisoners were handed over to the Afghan authorities, the Paul Martin government negotiated a prisoner transfer agreement. Does anyone want to guess why the Liberals negotiated that deal? Could it be that allegations of coercion and torture just did not start in March of last year when the CPC took over, and that this has been an issue from the time Chrétien first showed all that "Liberal compassion" for the Canadian Armed Forces in question period?

That same transfer agreement, which was good enough for the Liberals, remained intact right up until yesterday when the Conservative Government negotiated the right for Canadian authorities to visit all detention facilities to check on prisoners. Why this was not in the agreement in the first place is beyond me, but maybe while those Liberals are going back down memory lane they could ask themselves why they didn't add this clause when they negotiated the deal!

Thanks for the memories, Liberals.

----------------------

On another related point; I am getting tired of Liberals deliberately misleading Canadians on the role of the International Red Cross with Afghan prisoners.

From a Liberal Press release: "...Minister O’Connor told Canadians the Red Cross was responsible for monitoring the treatment of detainees, until the Red Cross came forward to confirm that was not its mandate."

This from the ICRC: "According to its international mandate, the ICRC visits detainees held as a result of armed conflict and other situations of violence being held by the Afghan authorities and forces such as the United States and NATO. Delegates regularly assess the conditions of detention, the treatment of detainees and respect of their fundamental judicial guarantees."

I don't think the truth could be any clearer. The Liberals again are lying for their own political gain and while lying may bring back memories of the good old days for many Liberals, it just goes to show the rest of us that the Liberal good old days should be remembered for what they really were.

Dion thinks he is now a leader, but at what cost?

Last night Stephane Dion put his stamp on the Liberal Party of Canada when he whipped his caucus to vote against the extension of 2 provisions of the Anti Terror Act; and in doing so lost any hope what so ever that the centrist voters of this country will vote Liberal in the next election.

Absolutely unbelievable. If Dion wanted to play leader and show everyone just how well he can lead the New Dion Liberals ( NDL), his timing and choice of hill to die on may just be one of the stupidest decisions made by a Canadian politician in recent memory. You cannot play politics with the safety of Canadians and expect them not to notice; and it was all politics from start to finish for Dion and the whipped spineless Liberals who voted against their own legislation. Legislation which is still required, has already passed a Charter challenge, is supported by the majority of Canadians, and is still supported by, dare I say, a majority of those that call themselves Liberals.

Dion has given himself and the once proud Liberal Party over to the far left faction within the LPC, a group that while I suspect has been growing for years, still make up a minority of those that vote Liberal. The list is long of those within the party that oppose this decision including Keith Martin, John Manley, Roy Cullen, Tom Wappel, Bob Rae, Derek Lee, Anne McLellan, Irwin Cotler, among others. Law enforcement, every major MSM editorial board in the country, The Liberal dominated Senate, families of terror victims, and the majority of center voters are also in favour of these provisions being extended, as well there is a very real risk that this may derail the Air India investigation.

Does any of this matter to Dion? I doubt it, because in spite of it all Dion made his call and whipped his caucus to support this bizarre move to the left. What does Dion see as having been accomplished by his twisted decision to vote against former Liberal legislation? Where is the upside to this, not only for himself and party but also for the security of Canadians? While I myself would like some answers, I think I can safely say that there are plenty of Liberal voters out there who would also like to have these same questions answered. He can ignore me without risk, but can he ignore the others?

Al

Update:

Tom Wappel talks about the Liberal Flip flop and why he voted the way he did. Looks like the talk about an open discussion in the Liberal caucus is just more Liberal BS. h/t Middle Earth
From the CTV story:

"Given that it was Liberal legislation, given that our own Liberal ministers told us that there was nothing that they could suggest to us to fix in the act, I'm flabbergasted that I now find myself the only person supporting the Liberal legislation that the Liberal ministers supported,'' Wappel said in an interview.

Before the Liberals were turfed from power last year, two of their ministers, Anne McLellan and Cotler, appeared before the sub-committee and defended the act. Both, Wappel noted, recommended renewal of two controversial provisions empowering police to detain terrorist suspects without charge and to compel testimony before a judge.

In its report last October, the sub-committee also recommended renewal of the two provisions.

Wappel noted that there was not a peep of opposition from Liberals at that time. Nor did the matter become an issue during the Liberal leadership race, won by Dion on Dec. 2.

It was only after a caucus committee meeting on Feb. 5 that he learned the new leader had decreed "a 180 degree reversal'' of the Liberal stance on the issue.

"Under no circumstances did I expect that it would be anything but a formality and, yes, we'll support the extension . . . To me it was a total shock,'' Wappel said.