Daily Digest October 21, 2008

The DAILY DIGEST: INFORMATION and OPINION from ST. JOHN'S to VICTORIA.
ARCHIVED at http://cdndailydigest.blogspot.com/

EDITORIALs

ST.JOHN'S TELEGRAM -
Insult to injury

CORNER BROOK WESTERN STAR -
Don't expect a thaw anytime soon

CAPE BRETON POST -
Other problems besides Dion
http://www.capebretonpost.com/index.cfm?sid=181946&sc=151

AMHERST DAILY NEWS -
Money crunch on all levels

MONTREAL GAZETTE -
Stéphane Dion departs with grace and dignity

European free trade is a goal worth pursuing

Easy scapegoats

OTTAWA CITIZEN -
Toilet talk can save lives

Toward creative schools

OTTAWA SUN -
Politicians: Don't ignore why voters ignore you

KINGSTON WHIG STANDARD-
Make your kids street smart

BELLEVILLE INTELLIGENCER -
Expect current calm in Iraq could collapse into more unrest

TORONTO STAR -
Learning lessons in post-Dion era

Get going on economy

GLOBE & MAIL -
Only the first step to fixing their party
Liberal Party in dire need of renewal that it has put off for years
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20081020.wELiberals21/BNStory/specialComment/home

Canada's double standard
The government has protected the unregulated export of a known carcinogen, mainly to developing countries
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20081020.weasbestos21/BNStory/specialComment/home

NATIONAL POST -
Time for Tories to drop incrementalism
http://www.nationalpost.com/todays_paper/story.html?id=896579

Coddling the criminal
http://www.nationalpost.com/todays_paper/story.html?id=896580
    *
The Dion-Manley dilemma
http://www.nationalpost.com/todays_paper/story.html?id=896582

TORONTO SUN -

Drugs, guns far from entertainment

K-W RECORD -
Dion's resignation is a sad necessity

WINDSOR STAR -
Sarkozy and Quebec

SASKATOON STARPHOENIX -
Dion remaining as interim leader stymies Liberals

Sarkozy hurt sovereignists

REGINA LEADER-POST -
Enforcement saves lives

Good data will give healthy insight

CALGARY HERALD -
Time to revisit 'our fair share'

A little knowledge better for the Canadian soul?

CALGARY SUN -
Never-ending deportation is an affront

EDMONTON JOURNAL -
Stephane Dion pays the price

Child Advocate needs a louder voice

EDMONTON SUN -
No more frat house politics!
http://www.edmontonsun.com/Comment/Commentary/2008/10/20/7149511-sun.html

LETHBRIDGE HERALD -
Will cabinet see more women?
http://www.lethbridgeherald.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=570&Itemid=56

RED DEER ADVOCATE -
No justice without peacekeeping

I Important issues overlooked during election campaign

VANCOUVER SUN -
Court decision did not create a positive right to shelter for the homeless

Not all MRIs created equal

Boundary dilemma

VICTORIA TIMES-COLONIST -
Bar Watch only partial solution

A mass mammal extinction

Will death 100 make us pay attention to Afghan war?

Carbon tax not so toxic for Campbell


ISSUES

AFGHANISTAN -
Time 'Ripe' To Talk To Taliban, Envoy Says
http://www.nationalpost.com/todays_paper/story.html?id=896549

Hit and miss with Afghan air strikes
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/JJ22Df01.html

Saudis confirm push for Afghan-Taliban peace talks
Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal says the kingdom arranged meeting with Karzai brother and former Taliban leaders

Canada ready to help Afghan negotiation talks: Ambassador

Nato mission accused of 'wavering' political will in Afghanistan

A question worth 20 years
Afghan journalist's jail sentence a disgrace
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/greenslade/2008/oct/21/afghanistan-asia

Forcing the west back behind the barbed wire
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/oct/21/afghanistan


CANUSA/USACAN
New U.S. scanners zoom in on border crossings

Khadr's lawyers to ask for 'indefinite' delay in military trial

Ag official wants equal access to Canadian pesticides


ECONOMIC AFFAIRS
Bank of Canada trims its key rate, flags more cuts as economy sinks

A fiscal nightmare

Ottawa faces test on stake in banks
http://www.financialpost.com/news/story.html?id=894882

Rich getting richer in Canada as inequality gap grows
http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=896668


FOREIGN AFFAIRS

Friendly fire
Editorial: Even without the challenge of a resurgent Russia, Nato is buckling under the weight of its own contradictions
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/oct/21/nato-afghanistan

Nato chief attacks lack of will on Afghanistan
General John Craddock demands reform of the alliance and the way it makes decisions
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/oct/21/afghanistan-nato

Iraq Wants US Pact Changed
http://www.islamonline.net/servlet/Satellite?c=Article_C&cid=1224603220185&pagename=Zone-English-News/NWELayout


POLITICS IN THE PROVINCES
Former premiers push for BC offshore oil development, Campbell pushes back


POLITICAL OPINION -

National Post new politics page

Globe and Mail Politics Page 

Loyalists fight to keep Dion, despite his plans to resign MORE...

Liberals 'need to get on with' leadership race, Rae says MORE...

McKenna's move?s.. MORE...

Letting Dion stick around a gobsmackingly bad move. MORE...

While Liberals rethink, Tories reload.. MORE...

Dion still living in dreamland. MORE...

Dion should forget about repeating Trudeau's comeback.. MORE...

There was no choice: The Liberal 'prize' is back up for grabs. MORE...

He Said, They Said: A Campaign Deconstructed MORE...

Leadership void bedevils party in need of an overhaul.. MORE...

The Dion-Manley dilemma. MORE...

Liberals must get back to roots, Martin says. MORE...

I am the Dion of home handymen. MORE...

Stephane Dion pays the price MORE...

Stéphane Dion departs with grace and dignity.. MORE...

Learning lessons in post-Dion era. MORE...

Time for Tories to drop incrementalism... MORE...

Lazy government.. MORE...

Lessons of the election MORE...

Liberals lost the middle and the election. MORE...

Exit date demands exit strategy.. MORE...

Sparrow back in Tory nest after campaign suspension

How Dion ended up as Liberal leader?

Dion twice believed he had a chance to survive

Grits brace for bare-knuckle leadership clash of titans

List of would-be leaders rises from Liberal ashes

Liberals party at Turner bash

Liberals 'need to get on with' leadership race, Rae says

Possible successors a varied lot

Who's up next?

Grit leadership hopefuls take to airwaves

Quebec Liberals agree: New leader has task ahead

Dion made right call, P.E.I. Liberals agree

Sparrow back in Tory nest


PROGRAMMES
Canada blasted for defending asbestos exports

Feds hiding dangers, experts say

Cheese producers cheesed about new laws


OPINION AND INFORMATION
9/11 skeptics resurface
http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=892327

Loosen the money, ease the fear

Don't bet against the U.S.

Lessons of the election


INFOS 
Un rapport blâme en partie le Canada pour la torture de trois Canadiens en Syrie
http://info.branchez-vous.com/Nationales/081021/N102182AU.html

Une dizaine de candidats seraient intéressés à remplacer Stéphane Dion
http://info.branchez-vous.com/Nationales/081021/N102150AU.html

La militante écologiste canadienne Maude Barlow obtient un poste à l'ONU
http://info.branchez-vous.com/Nationales/081021/N102160AU.html

Stéphane Dion démissionnera mais seulement quand le PLC lui trouvera un remplaçant
http://info.branchez-vous.com/Nationales/081020/N1020185AU.html

Les libéraux saluent le courage de Dion mais questionnent son choix de rester
http://info.branchez-vous.com/Nationales/081020/N1020163AU.html

Les provinces misent sur la prudence et une accélération des investissements
http://info.branchez-vous.com/Nationales/081020/N1020149AU.html

Le plan ontarien de carte d'identité perfectionnée menacerait la vie privée
http://info.branchez-vous.com/Nationales/081020/N1020237AU.html

Contrôle de l'amiante
L'obstruction d'Ottawa dénoncée par des médecins
http://www.radio-canada.ca/nouvelles/National/2008/10/21/001-amiante-canada-amc.shtml

Banque du Canada
Le taux directeur passe à 2,25 %
http://www.radio-canada.ca/nouvelles/Economie-Affaires/2008/10/21/001-taux-directeur-canada.shtml

Conseil de la Fédération
Un déficit si nécessaire
http://www.radio-canada.ca/nouvelles/Politique/2008/10/20/004-Conseilfederationdeficit.shtml

Stéphane Dion s'incline
http://www.ledevoir.com/2008/10/21/211696.html

Dion reste à la barre jusqu'à ce que son successeur soit désigné...

Les successeurs possibles de Stéphane Dion

L'homme de la clarté: un héros au Canada anglais, un paria au Québec

Leadership libéral - Le vulnérable

BELOW(30)(30)(30)(30)(30)30)(30)(30)(30)(30)(30)30)(30)(30)(30)(30)(30)30)(30)(30)(30)(30)(30)(30)(30)(30)

Why is the time 'Ripe' To Talk To Taliban?

The article quotes a diplomat who gives the reason as the Taliban being worn down all of a sudden, and so "Ripe to talk."

Do you agree?

Particularly after watching the videos Stratos has most kindly made available to us?

There is another theory.  If you have come across it please let me know before I present it.

         Joe

Subject: Inside Afghanistan
From: "Efstratios Psarianos"
Video:  24 hours in Helmand province, Afghanistan ...

INSIDE AFGHANISTAN WITH BEN ANDERSON - Trailer

INSIDE AFGHANISTAN WITH BEN ANDERSON - Part 1 of 8
Afghanistan's National Army and their British babysitters.
INSIDE AFGHANISTAN WITH BEN ANDERSON - Part 2 of 8
ANA soldiers collude with the competition/enemy.
INSIDE AFGHANISTAN WITH BEN ANDERSON - Part 3 of 8
This guy lives for firing his RPG.
INSIDE AFGHANISTAN WITH BEN ANDERSON - Part 4 of 8
Bad strafe.
INSIDE AFGHANISTAN WITH BEN ANDERSON - Part 5 of 8
All fun and games, as usual.
INSIDE AFGHANISTAN WITH BEN ANDERSON - Part 6 of 8
Nothing like a little opium to get you ready for a firefight.
INSIDE AFGHANISTAN WITH BEN ANDERSON - Part 7 of 8
Please don't land on me.
INSIDE AFGHANISTAN WITH BEN ANDERSON - Part 8 of 8
And that's a wrap.

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Eugene Parks
Victoria, B.C.
Canada's hurting, adrift

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From: "Wendy Forrest"
Subject: Facebook and the Bank of Canada

 Hi Joe -
Claudia suggested to me that your might post information about a Facebook group I have created which talks about monetary reform and the Bank of Canada.  You may have subscribers who belong to Facebook.  I know that its used for datamining, but what isn't these days?  I don't care because its also being used for increasing awareness and wonderful activism (and a lot of crap too). 

Check it out for yourself.  The way I figure it, I may go down, but at least it will be kicking and screaming...and maybe waking up a few people along the way :-)
 
"$how me the money - Our Bank of Canada explained once and for all"
http://www.new.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2697600352
 
The group now has 1,251 members and keeps growing. Hopefully these are people that are learning and sharing information with others.  Monetary reform is the only thing that can save Canada - you can easily track the progression of the dismantling of Canada since we stopped using our own Bank of Canada properly in 1974.  We have a perfect opportunity these days - with the BofC bailing out US banks but not helping the people for whom it was nationalized in 1938. 
 
Thanks for your consideration.
 
Wendy

What is the Security & Prosperity Partnership?  Watch:  The Nation's Deathbed
-
"I am a Canadian, free to speak without fear, free to worship in my own way, free to stand for what I think right, free to oppose what I believe wrong, and free to choose those who shall govern my country. This heritage of freedom I pledge to uphold for myself and all mankind."
-John Diefenbaker
From the Canadian Bill of Rights, July 1, 1960.

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From: "Rebecca Gingrich"
Subject:Canada just donated $100M for this scam!

Thirty years of warmer temperatures go poof
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2008/10/20/lorne-gunter-thirty-years-of-warmer-temperatures-go-poof.aspx

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From: alan heisey <hize@sympatico.ca>
To: "joe hueglin, daily digest" <joe.hueglin@bellnet.ca>
Subject: sunday edition j please run item about our ads i seem the only commentator to have these views!

Publisher is Alan Heisey, 38 Avoca Avenue, L.P.H #6, Toronto, ON, 
Canada, M4T 2B9
Phone 416 923 5381, <hize@earthlink.net> Emailed from Toronto.

Publisher comments

Our central ad series hurt “S” + our campaign bigtime!

Slothful party informing keeps me out of Council races

Our central ad series hurt our campaign bigtime!

The morning after the election I realized that The Conservative Party 
of Canada ran well ahead of its leader, Stephen Harper. Last 
Saturday's issue of the Star featured a major report on what didn't
go well in the Conservative campaign, so well conceptualized as it was 
said to be. I was amazed that there was not a single word about the 
effectiveness or otherwise, of our major print and broadcast media 
campaign. For my taste that continuing, endless campaign was not 
neutral, but profoundly hurtful, not just to the reputation of the 
leader of the opposition but to our leader and to ourselves.

All my gentlemanly and sporting instincts as an old Canadian, in every 
sense of the word, were regularly offended by the unending personal 
attacks on Stephane Dion. Nobody seems to have noticed but the awkward 
photo of the opposition leader and the continuing exhortations to not 
trust him, "not a leader",  were in the tradition of a previous 
Tory campaign ad which mocked the facial features of Jean Chretien and 
laid a giant, single-shot, far-reaching egg.

An old Tory, former M.P., claimed that negative advertising had helped 
substantially in a provincial campaign win with Mike Harris. But in 
this campaign the Tory party web site was pockmarked with photos of 
Dion.  The campaign brochure I delivered faithfully in my Yonge and 
St.Clair condo with my charming candidate, Heather Jewell, had Dion's 
mocking photo, his name, alone, as the headline in red reverse, his 
name printed FOUR times and not a photo or mention of our party 
leader. One of my neighbours pointed out how negative it was, and it 
surely was!

Our party leader had bad advice about the power of his handsome mug 
appearing everywhere, ""All Harper, all the time" as one of the Star's 
editorials summed it up. In an issue of earthworm at the time I mocked 
his 2007 year-end calendar which featured him in endless situations, 
never in a kitchen with a stolid working stiff and his wife and kids.
Then to learn that our, apparently deliberately late-scheduled  policy 
pamphlet (I'm dying for a copy to put in my cottage outhouse along 
with the Xmas calendar) is rampant with himself in endless photos, it 
made me see that an unintended, subliminal campaign image was built 
around the sun king versus the ugly duckling.

Our ad campaign, preoccupied from first to last with Dion's 
inadequacies, struck me as so overdrawn as to be counter productive  - 
actually driving voters away with its excesses. Dion's substantial 
inadequacies in the English language were complicated by his abstract 
platform built around the over-rated magic of the word "green "
They deserved the regular, persistent attacks which they got. However, 
the piling on went well beyond the nuances of good judgement which 
arise when one discusses one's competitor.

One measure of it all was the supposed increase of only 1% in the 
popular vote which redounded to our party. The more vital measure was 
the sure increase in seats, which earns Steven Harper a ringing vote 
of endorsement to learn from his mistakes and get on with the running 
of the country in these difficult times.

Lawrence Martin in the Globe, shared my view of our leader's 
situation in the latter stages of the campaign. With the enthusiasm of 
all commentators for ever-more leadership conventions, he forecast 
that Steven Harper would leave later on in the life of this 
parliament. I forecast, rather, that this still young tiger, so 
splendidly bilingual, will cut through the humble pie quick and learn 
big from this, which I consider his one, major, campaign mistake.

____________________________________________
Slothful party informing keeps me out of Council races

Regular readers of this rag will realize how long frustrated I have 
been by the inability to learn directly and easily about the national 
dimensions of our citizen party's activities. Several years ago, 
while a director of the St. Paulâ's conservative Association I was 
forwarded copies of the intermittent emails from the national party 
offices, but they stopped when I was dropped from the board.
Thus it was only by the kind information from another e.d.a. officer 
that I learned quite late that nominations for the National Council of 
the party closed at the end of August!

I phoned a lady in the party offices who told me helpfully that the 
information had been published earlier in the party web site. This set 
me to thinking about how totally inadequate I consider the present 
operation of our web site is!

To begin with, web sites, however much loved of bloggers, post 
information where one can come and access it, if one is interested. In 
my own case I prefer dumping these fortnightly, generally, points of 
view right at your computer, rather than praying you will thrash 
through the mass of political messages to find these pearls.(!)

I find that our party had no difficulty e--mailing me directly about 
urgent developments in the recent election and I think the president 
of our national party or his associate should be sending me and all 
other members of the party a useful digest about citizen activities 
perhaps once each week or two. I support these arriving whenever, 
through the offices of my local association president, though I think 
there are enough presidents in the 306 who would have trouble doing it 
faithfully that the bulletins should also be sent to the e.d.a. 
secretary and finance chairperson. (While I am at it, will the 
minister responsible for Elections Canada please address the title 
aggrandizement whereby the association secretary, or equivalent, is 
known as - ready? "CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER"

I feel certain that some are aware of what I view as absolute 
arrogance in the higher ranks of the party with regard to failing to 
issue a report of the constitution committee before now, to assist 
interested parties and associations to review proposals and prepare to 
debate them at the convention starting in a little over three weeks. 
After all the last proposals had to be submitted at the first of 
January so the committee could dawdle while we mushrooms fume!
One of the proposals concerns divisionalizing election of provincial 
directors in those provinces with two or more directors. One must 
assume, since the executive has closed off nominations August 31 that 
if the general meeting were to recommend same, such could not be made 
part of the elections until the convention in 2010!

(This is precisely why I moved some conventions ago, that notice need 
not be given if one or more delegates from one hundred or more ridings 
signed a motion that notice be waived! Please, bright lights at HQ, be 
ready for same.)

Me, I've had too much and will not run for the fifth proposed 
councillorship for Ontario  even if the delegates so instruct our slow- moving executive. boohoo.
However, I do take heart that a very faithful, present Ontario 
director at large, Lois Brown, has now been elected as M.P.! Lois 
turned up election night at the previous wake in Toronto Centre two 
years ago, where I had done a little scrutineering, which I though was 
sure above and beyond what we downtowners could ever expect!! Congrats 
to all others successful, of course, and a reminder to those not over 
the bar of the late Senator Grattan O'Leary's view of a lost 
election as 'the recent !'

Please, will someone involved in party communications undertake that 
part of the web site will be revised methodically only once every week 
or two, and then stabilized for the same time period, so that those of 
us who do not want to have to open the site every day can view it 
predictably on that certain schedule and stay in touch. Not rocket 
science, be sure!

So little media or Grit interest in rep by pop's bill C-54

Your correspondent considers his primary issue in public life is equal 
representation by population. The recent election was a huge 
disappointment in the lack of media or Liberal or city politicians
concern for the proposed Conservative bill, which I had understood was 
C-22, but is apparently C-54. However, I have recently heard that 
Toronto mayor David Miller has finally spoken up about it, the 
election being over!

More substantially, the Globe ran an article endorsing proportional 
representation right after the election and the Star ran the following 
article addressing the substantial flaws in the Conservative bill:

                 OPINION (The Star)

Ontario minorities left standing in Tory game of musical chairs ...

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