Western Standard back issues from August 2006:
Uncommon sense: why reporters can't stand a PM with principles.(EDITOR'S NOTE)
Aug 14, 2006; ... In the newsrooms of Toronto, this is going to take some getting used to. They're still recovering from the fallout that followed their attack on the prime minister's defence of Israel in the Lebanese conflict. Or rather, the lack of fallout. When Stephen Harper said Israel had a right to ...
Hoedown at the WS corral: we couldn't call ourselves the Western Standard if we didn't celebrate the western Stampede spirit.(PUBLISHER'S LETTER)
Aug 14, 2006; ... Though our branches spread from coast to coast, the Western Standard's roots are in Calgary. So, of course, we had to throw a Stampede party last month. Two hundred folks jammed in to get a hamburger or hotdog barbecued by me, or by our chairman Lyle Dunkley if they wanted their beef ...
Feedback.(Letter to the editor)
Aug 14, 2006; ... In calling Tommy Douglas's philosophies "bizarre," you are guilty of hijacking history yourself ("Hijacking history," July 3). Douglas's views, although abhorrent by today's enlightened standards, were not far off the mainstream views of the day. As John Robson points out with regard to ...
Way too close for comfort.(OIL-FOR-FOOD SCANDAL)
Aug 14, 2006; ... The mystery of the United Nations oil-for-food scandal has always been: how did Saddam Hussein, an international pariah, get so lucky? A $64-billion aid program, designed for corruption, landed right in his lap. Tens of billions of stolen dollars later, the conviction of Tongsun Park has ...
Now that he's lost a bid to return to federal politics, will we be seeing Svend Robinson again soon?(WHADDYA KNOW?)
Aug 14, 2006; ... Count on it. It's been nearly seven months since Robinson's nervy, yet failed attempt to get elected back into Parliament--two years after resigning over being arrested for stealing jewelry. But fans of the environmental/Palestinian/gay/anti-war/poverty activist can catch him next before ...
Czech mates.(SATELLITE DISH)
Aug 14, 2006; ... On the morning of July 1, the Czech Republic officially joined Canada, South Africa and Spain in the global gay-marriage club. Legislation passed in March allows Czech same-sex couples to form conjugal unions, enjoying all the legal prerogatives of heterosexual pairings except adoption ....
Brown-market goods.(SATELLITE DISH)
Aug 14, 2006; ... Jyllands-Posten reports that Denmark faces a novel border-control problem: poop smuggling. The Scandinavian state is trying to protect lakes and rivers from oxygen imbalance by introducing tight limits on fertilizer use by farmers. Faced with suboptimal yields, some ...
In vino, harsh veritas.(SATELLITE DISH)
Aug 14, 2006; ... Elsewhere in Europe, everyone's talking about the so-called "wine lake." New World competition has finally forced the EU to confront the inanity of paying a half-billion euros a year for surplus wines and turning them into industrial alcohol. In June, a European Commission report demanded ...
Blame global warming.(SATELLITE DISH)
Aug 14, 2006; ... Those who think of the Netherlands as laid-back may be surprised to learn that every July the country becomes obsessed with marching. That's when a million or so Dutchmen descend on Nijmegen for the start of the Vierdaagse ("four days"). Founded as an army exercise in 1909, the festival ...
They're ba-ack!(SATELLITE DISH)
Aug 14, 2006; ... From Central Asia comes unsettling news for Canadian troops trying to rebuild Afghanistan. According to Radio Liberty, the Afghanistan's executive council wants parliament to consider a revival of a dreaded institution: the Department for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice ....
Poison pen.(WESTERN FRONT)(Cartoon)
Aug 14, 2006 ... SON OF FRANKENSTEIN ...
Buzzwords.(WESTERN FRONT)
Aug 14, 2006 ... <Pre> "It just shows the arrogance. Klein's fishing is more important than the people's business." --ALBERTA NDP HOUSE LEADER RAY MARTIN, RESPONDING TO A NOTICE THAT THE LEGISLATURE'S SCHEDULE IS BEING RESCHEDULED TO A WEEK EARLIER SO IT DOESN'T CONFLICT WITH PREMIER RALPH KLEIN'S ...
Plummeting toward Saskatchewan.(FIRST PERSON)
Aug 14, 2006; ... On Aug. 16, 1960, USAF test pilot Joe Kittinger climbed into the gondola of a 200-foot-tall helium balloon, ascended to a height of 31,300 metres, and stepped into the void wearing a pressure suit. As legendary feats of bravado go, it remains one of the simplest; Newton's equations did ...
Out from the shadows: some may consider prostitution immoral. But is it moral to keep it illegal?(FACEOFF)
Aug 14, 2006 ... From: Michael Coren <mcoren@westernstandard.ca> To: Marni Soupcoff <msoupcoff@westernstandard.ca> Date: July 31, 2006 11:07 AM Subject: Should prostitution be a crime? This summer's World Cup attracted more than soccer fans. It also meant that ...
The phoniness of ceasefires: the UN wants Israel and Lebanon to agree to a temporary break in the fighting. Nothing could be deadlier.(MIDEAST CONFLICT)
Aug 14, 2006; ... Those of us old enough to remember the Second World War face many painful reminders of how things have changed in Americans' behaviour during a war. Back then, the president's defeated opponent in the 1940 election--Wendell Wilkie--not only supported the war, he became a personal envoy ...
Keep on taxin': Canada's truckers get ready to haul their tax-discrimination lawsuit to the Supreme Court.(BUSINESS)
Aug 14, 2006; ... Picture a large-gutted, left-arm-tanned trucker grinding the gears of his 18-wheeler down the Trans-Canada on zero sleep, racing a trailer full of confectionary goods to some warehouse in Moose Jaw. Now, imagine a stiff-necked, flat-footed federal civil servant, hauling a briefcase full of ...
Getting off the bus: the cost of public transit is huge, though buses and subways are less efficient than ever. Are we ready to consider the alternatives?(ECONOMY)
Aug 14, 2006; ... How much will Toronto taxpayers end up paying for their public transit service to be even worse than it is today? That's the question, as the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) and its staff union, the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 113, negotiate a new deal. Workers are demanding more ...
The race is off: in a quiet but surprising note, the prime minister comes out against special native fishing policies. So what's he going to do about it?(NATIVE AFFAIRS)
Aug 14, 2006; ... Jim Smith skippered his first fishing boat in B.C.'s salmon-rich Fraser River 52 years ago, when he was just 13. His father was a fisherman, too, and Smith says with evident nostalgia that fishing is in his blood. But Smith now believes the smartest thing he ever did was to persuade his ...
It's the religion, stupid: journalists will never understand the motives of suicide bombers until they understand their beliefs.(TERRORISM)
Aug 14, 2006; ... Doug Saunders, The Globe and Mail columnist, like many others in the western world, confesses himself genuinely "shocked" by the spectacle of Britain's homegrown terrorists, who murder their fellow citizens. Children of immigrants, after all, are supposed to "integrate" into western ...
Mideast v2.0: how Israel's war against Hezbollah could reshape the region and save millions from disaster.(Cover story)
Aug 14, 2006; ... If anyone understands the reality of what's happening on Israel's northern border, it's Avi Shachar. The 43-year-old Torontonian spent 17 years with Israeli military intelligence, most of that time posted in the north. For five years, Shachar was stationed in Lebanon itself, as part of ...
Alan Dershowitz.(QUESTION PERIOD)
Aug 14, 2006; ... Born Sept. 1, 1938, Brooklyn, New York. Lawyer, professor at Harvard Law School, author. Analyst of civil liberties issues and Middle East affairs. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] WS: You have written about the "arithmetic of pain," in which terrorist organizations ...
Thanks to Israel: fighting off the global Islamic jihad isn't an easy task. We should be grateful the Jewish state is doing what it can.(MIDEAST)
Aug 14, 2006; ... A surprisingly high proportion of the Canadian population (as measured in polls) get it: that Israel is fighting the same enemies who threaten Canada. Hezbollah and Hamas, both of which have become long arms of revolutionary Iran, concentrate their efforts on the annihilation of ...
A Bedouin state of mind: centuries ago, two great religious scholars understood the irrationality and evil that fuels today's terrorists. Perhaps better than we do.(RELIGION)
Aug 14, 2006; ... ANNABA, ALGERIA--The port city of Annaba is on the coast of Algeria, near the eastern border with Tunisia. I set out for Annaba with a copy of St. Augustine's Confessions, hoping to understand something of Algeria's present--and of the Arab-Muslim world of which it is a part--by making a ...
A land of means by no means: is Quebec wealthy enough to go it alone? That depends on whose wealth we're talking about.(QUEBEC SEPARATISM)
Aug 14, 2006; ... A little debate enflamed the Quebec chattering classes in early July, and died out quickly as our two-month summer and the mosquitoes passed in high gear. The question: does Quebec have the means to be a sovereign country? Yes, said the Liberal premier, Jean Charest, while in France and ...
A marriage of inconvenience: can Alberta really handle a life wedded to whiny, demanding, left-wing B.C.?(THE COLONIES)
Aug 14, 2006; ... I am an Albertan by nature, naturalization and neck hue, but lately business requires me to spend the bulk of my weeks in B.C. I'm thus given the opportunity to contemplate any possible merging of the two provinces from an the across-the-Rockies perspective. The pipedream of the republic ...
Big fat trouble: Ottawa's trans fat rules could cost us--big. Maybe it had better look at the facts, first.(SAY IT AIN'T SO)
Aug 14, 2006; ... Last year, federal NDP MP Pat Martin sponsored a motion asking Health Canada and the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada to head up a task force that would devise a strategy to "effectively eliminate or reduce processed trans fats in Canadian foods to the lowest level possible." At the ...
Follow the money: will a food registry turn out to be any more efficient or useful than our other government registries?(BUSINESS)
Aug 14, 2006; ... You may not have heard of the most recent buzzword in the food business. It's called Can-Trace. It's the public face of the Canadian Food Traceability Initiative and it started out as an ad hoc group by the food industry, including distributors and retailers. [ILLUSTRATION ...
Publisher's picks.
Aug 14, 2006; ... What would happen if an African warlord moved to small-town Canada? How would he be treated in our country--and what would Canada's political class have to say about him? Governor of the Northern Province is an ironic novel based on this premise. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] ...
II much independence: it's hard not to admire Kevin Smith's indy rebelliousness. Clerks II makes it a bit easier.(MOVIES)
Aug 14, 2006; ... Summer is Hollywood's domain, a time when blockbusters dominate the local multiplex and fill up its money tanks with lucrative opening weekends and (hopefully) extended runs. What better time to acknowledge one of the few original voices that, like a remora, clings to the bottom of the ...
Barbaro's bigger victory: a broken leg ended the superhorse's Triple Crown run, but his astonishing recovery could rescue the prestige of his sport.(SPORTS)
Aug 14, 2006; ... If you go to the track and watch a thousand thoroughbred races, you'll be impressed one thousand times over--maybe no less so the last time than the first--by the power and magnificence of these animals whose lives are consecrated to our esthetic and competitive pleasure. If you're lucky, ...
Poem, poem on the range: the Stony Plain Cowboy Poetry Gathering showcases the artistic side of the redneck.(ARTS WEST)
Aug 14, 2006; ... Cowboy mythology runs deep and still a bit wild in the prairies, where ranchers take pride in surviving each season, and city folk take pride in knowing them. The sight of a couple of cowboys riding horses, checking the herd, still is common along rural roadways. And when set against vast ...
This week on '18 in a bungalow': it sounds scarier than Fear Factor, but our reality episode had one heck of a surprise ending.(FAMILY)
Aug 14, 2006; ... I have an idea for a reality television show: two families with 14 children between them, live for a week in a 1,600-square-foot bungalow--with only a normal-size water heater. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Imagine the drama as two territorial moms square off over the ...
Makowecki envisioned the future of perogies.(WESTERN RECORD)
Aug 14, 2006; ... DIED Former founder and chairman of Heritage Frozen Foods Ltd. Walter Makowecki, 80, from the complications of heart surgery, in Edmonton, on June 22. The man who built a national business on perogies, Ukrainian dumplings made of flour, potatoes and cheese, was born in Lac ...
The axis of evenhandedness: in the eyes of the UN, it's those who fight Islamic terrorists who are the real criminals.(MARK STEYN)
Aug 14, 2006; ... There's a hoary old joke from a few years back in which the Secretary-General proposes that, in the interests of global peace and harmony, the world's soccer players should come together and form one United Nations global soccer team. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] "Great ...
The untruth hurts: when reporters play politics with peoples' lives.(EDITOR'S NOTE)
Aug 28, 2006; ... On Aug. 7, Reuters pulled 920 images by Lebanese photographer Adnan Hajj after U.S. bloggers noticed that Hajj's scenes from the Israel-Hezbollah conflict appeared tampered with. They were right: in one, smoke from bombed-out Hezbollah installations was copied and pasted across Beirut's ...
Greetings from camp capitalism: the annual Liberty Summer Seminar is where individual freedom meets collective fun.(PUBLISHER'S LETTER)
Aug 28, 2006; ... Peter Jaworski's annual Liberty Summer Seminar in Orono, Ont., just keeps getting better. And I'm not just talking about the food, for which it is worth trekking an hour east of Toronto in its own right. The list of liberty-oriented speakers is top-notch, this year including our friends ...
Feedback.(Letter to the editor)
Aug 28, 2006; ... I'm so grateful you've told the true story behind the death of Phoenix Sinclair and the broken system of Manitoba Child and Family Services ("Forgotten," July 31). I went to school for six years so I could help children like Phoenix, but due to the new system I cannot get a social work job ...
Taking it like a woman.(GENDER POLITICS)
Aug 28, 2006; ... Play nice with others or you'll get a time out. That's the rule in preschool, but who'd expect a world-class mountain biker to be disciplined like a cranky kindergartner? Yet that's what happened to downhill bike racer Danika Schroeter after she dared speak out against the use of ...
Has anyone properly honoured the legacy of Adam Smith, the father of capitalism?(WHADDYA KNOW?)
Aug 28, 2006; ... Thanks to a Calgary entrepreneur, the answer is yes. For years, the gravesite of Smith--author of capitalism's bible, Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations--in Edinburgh, Scotland, lay neglected and in ruins. By contrast, the London grave of Karl Marx, who developed ...
Our world-renowned taxes.(SATELLITE DISH)
Aug 28, 2006; ... It's the third rail of Hong Kong politics, but Henry Tang, Hong Kong's treasurer, has grasped it. He's being execrated, says the Asia Times, for suggesting the megalopolis needs a five per cent goods and services tax to stabilize government revenues, which normally depend on volatile land ...
Has kimchi lost its Seoul?(SATELLITE DISH)
Aug 28, 2006; ... Shocking news from South Korea: in the first half of 2006, the republic became a net importer of kimchi, the national dish. The Korea Times says that imports of the spicy fermented cabbage, mostly from China, totalled US$40.3 million; exports came to $33.6 million. (Your ...
The U.K.'s new cargo class.(SATELLITE DISH)
Aug 28, 2006; ... On the Continent, trade is booming in at least one commodity. Flemish newspapers revealed in late July that a scanner designed to detect human heartbeats in shipping containers had broken down in the Belgian port of Ostend. The port authority admitted that illegal immigrants looking to get ...
When more is less.(SATELLITE DISH)
Aug 28, 2006; ... In 2002, new euro notes were introduced Continent-wide as authorities boasted of novel security features. Now The Independent of London reports that counterfeiting has rebounded to pre-monetary union levels, with 30 per cent of bum bills turning up in France. Eastern Europe, Italy and ...
No wrapper? No problem.(SATELLITE DISH)
Aug 28, 2006; ... At times you see a phrase in the news and you just know it won't be the last time. In Australia, a court has been told that a man who knowingly spread HIV through gay sex suffers from "condom phobia." According to The Sydney Morning Herald, 48-year-old Michael Neal of Coburg faces 30 ...
Serve chilled.(SATELLITE DISH)
Aug 28, 2006; ... The news is cheerier in Narsaq, Greenland, where entrepreneur Salik Hard has opened the island's first microbrewery. With help from the autonomous Greenland government, Hard hopes to make 400,000 litres a year of ale brewed with 2,000-year-old water from the Arctic ice cap. According ...
Poison pen.(WESTERN FRONT)(Cartoon)
Aug 28, 2006 ... COMMUNISM ...
When death is right under your nose.(ANTHRAX OUTBREAK)
Aug 28, 2006; ... When city dwellers hear mention of anthrax, they're likely to think of it as a dangerous novelty sometimes used by terrorists to sow chaos through the mail. In fact, it was the first disease to be traced to a specific bacterium, and remains a persistent, though rare, threat in the world of ...
Buzzwords.(WESTERN FRONT)
Aug 28, 2006 ... <Pre> "It doesn't change anything." --DEFENCE MINISTER GORDON O'CONNER STANDS FIRM ON THE AFGHANISTAN MISSION, A DAY AFTER FOUR SOLDIERS WERE KILLED AND ANOTHER 10 WOUNDED (AUG. 3) "The Liberals are divided; they're divided on our policy in the Middle East, whether or not to support ...
A right to be racist: should we force businesses to be tolerant, or just try to put the intolerant out of business?(FACEOFF)
Aug 28, 2006 ... From: Michael Coren <mcoren@westernstandard.ca> To: Marni Soupcoff <msoupcoff@westernstandard.ca> Date: August 14, 2006 10:41 AM Subject: Should we punish bigoted businesses? Owners of the Resto Bar le Surf in Longueuil, Que., were recently ...
Breaking the board: Ottawa wants to end the CWB's monopoly on western grain. But the board isn't giving it up without a fight.(BUSINESS)
Aug 28, 2006; ... A meeting between the federal agriculture minister and a bunch of farm groups to discuss the future of grain exports in Canada might not seem like a provocative act. But to the Canadian Wheat Board, it was likely considered an act of war when Chuck Strahl convened the discussion in ...
David Anderson.(QUESTION PERIOD)(Interview)
Aug 28, 2006; ... Born August 15, 1957, Frontier, Sask. Conservative member of Parliament for Cypress Hill-Grasslands, Sask. Parliamentary secretary to the minister of agriculture and agri-food for the Canadian Wheat Board. Farmer. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] WS: Why do you ...
The best kind of bigotry: Mel Gibson's anti-Semitism may not be tolerated in Hollywood, but some kinds of hateful rants are just fine.(RELIGION)
Aug 28, 2006; ... If there's anything that Vanity Fair columnist Christopher Hitchens particularly hates, it's hate-mongers, and he knew all along that actor-producer Mel Gibson was an anti-Semitic hate-monger. So it pleased Hitchens greatly last month to see Gibson get picked up for drunk driving, ...
The third way's third strike; First the U.S., then Canada, now Britain. Tony Blair's political collapse makes it official: new socialism's been one big flop.(POLITICS)
Aug 28, 2006; ... Ten years ago, Tony Blair's triumph looked world-historic. He seemed like a real-life Jed Bartlet, TV's West Wing dream liberal Democrat with a social conscience, a Nobel Prize in economics and a backbone in foreign policy. And, philosophically, Blair's "third way" offered what ...
A moderate influence: Americans love Khalid Abou El Fadl's positive spin on Islam. Too bad the fanatics don't read his books.(TERRORISM)
Aug 28, 2006; ... Should Muslims use toothpaste? The question is serious. The Prophet, who lived before the invention of toothpaste, used a little twig called "miswak," which is still available. Moreover, the pigs and monkeys of the West use toothpaste, and promote it with in-your-face print ads and TV ...
Barristers vs. bombers: new laws could make it easier for Canadian terror victims to sue those nations funding the attacks.(JUSTICE)
Aug 28, 2006; ... It's a typical tourist snapshot. Three friends around a table at an outdoor restaurant, their broad smiles filling the frame. Three friends: oblivious to the fact that, as their happy moment in Jerusalem was being captured for posterity, three Palestinian suicide bombers were on their way ...
The anti-Harper poll that wasn't: take a Globe and Mail survey showing problems with Ottawa's Israel policy, correct the errors and what do you get? A whole different result.(MEDIA)
Aug 28, 2006; ... If you were from a foreign country and relied exclusively on The Globe and Mail for your information about Canada, you'd get the impression most Canadians are bloody outraged at Prime Minister Stephen Harper's policy to stand by Israel in the current crisis in the Middle East. Never mind ...
It's us against the dismal scientists: economists can either make citizens stronger or government stronger. Guess which one most choose?(ECONOMY)
Aug 28, 2006; ... As those of my readers who wander the World Wide Web would have discovered, I am, in another life, an economist who does some academic work and some consulting. (I am never paid by third parties to write and sign articles on command, though.) [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] ...
You're not going that easy: a court ruling could mean fewer extraditions.(JUSTICE)
Aug 28, 2006; ... Canadian supporters of marijuana legalization thought the Supreme Court had given their hero, pot advocate Marc Emery, the perfect wedding present. Two days before the 48-year-old Emery married his 21-year-old assistant on July 23, the court ruled that Canadians can't be extradited unless ...
Enough is enough: incurable pedophiles like Peter Whitmore are repeatedly freed from jail to prey on our children again and again and again. Isn't it time we stopped them?(Cover story)
Aug 28, 2006; ... He was convicted in 1993 for sexually attacking four Toronto boys. He spent 16 months in prison--just a few months for every innocent childhood he shattered, every innocent family he punctured with anguish. A mere nine days after his release from jail, he kidnapped an eight-year-old ...
Manitoba's spirited status quo: it's got a fancy new slogan and a perky new leader on the come. But does Manitoba have a future?(THE COLONIES)
Aug 28, 2006; ... Whither Manitoba? Still withering? One hears so little from this black hole at the geographical centre of the Dominion--besides the occasional quip from aging media darling Gary Doer at premiers' conferences--that it's difficult to know what's shaking in the 'Tobe ... or possibly even ...
The Casey Files: currency regime change.(GOLD IN THE SPOTLIGHT)
Aug 28, 2006; ... There is a major change coming that will catch most investors by surprise: the end of the U.S. dollar as the de-facto world reserve currency. Play it right and you can make life-changing returns. Central banks looking to exit the dollar In the International ...
Clean Coal Summit: coal continues its dominance in power production.(COAL IN THE SPOTLIGHT)
Aug 28, 2006; ... At the recent Clean Coal Summit in Vancouver, industry delegates were told that coal will continue to be the main fuel source for power production into the foreseeable future. It's abundant, affordable and globally accessible--and, with the help of new technology, even clean. ...
Beard expects growth in coal tailings pond recovery business.(COAL IN THE SPOTLIGHT)
Aug 28, 2006; ... The publicly traded Beard Company was incorporated in 1974 and is headquartered in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Through its Beard Technologies (BTI) division, the company operates a coal reclamation segment focused on fine coal reclamation facilities in the United States; and ...
Coal gasification plants lauded for clean power production.(COAL IN THE SPOTLIGHT)
Aug 28, 2006; ... Clean Coal Summit co-chair Dr. Mark Hart of West Hawk Development told delegates at the June conference that Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) coal plants are operating successfully around the world, and it's time to bring them to Canada. In fact, there are 117 IGCC plants ...
UC Resources intersects high grade gold and silver upon completion of second phase drilling at the Copalquin property in Mexico.(MEXICO IN THE SPOTLIGHT)
Aug 28, 2006; ... UC Resources recently released its assay results from the second phase of drilling on the company's Copalquin property in Durango State, Mexico. The Copalquin property comprises more than 64,000 hectares and covers all of the historic mine workings in the former Copalquin mining district. ...