On the weekend the Winnipeg Free Press was defending the use of information obtained through torture. Today it is formenting fear of immigrants as a major source of communicable diseases. The editorial is designed to inspire fear and loathing of immigrants. The first half focuses on the case of Johnson Aziga, an HIV-positive immigrant from [...]

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Jeremy Hinzman, his wife Nga Nguyen and their children. War resister Jeremy Hinzman, who was to have been deported today, received an 11th-hour reprieve yesterday when Federal Court Justice Richard Mosley granted a stay of removal. Hinzman will be permitted to remain in Canada until the Federal Court has had the opportunity to determine whether [...]

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Taliban insurgents killed three humanitarian aid workers and their driver yesterday in an attack that is being condemned, rightfully, as murder. Dead are two Canadians, Jacqueline Kirk (left) and Shirley Case, an American, Nicole Dial and an Afghan, Mohammad Aimal. By all accounts, they were decent, loving people who didn’t deserve what was done to [...]

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While only a congenital idiot would call Stephen Harper a fascist, most would label him a right winger in today’s political parlance, some derisively, others with pride. Politically speaking, Harper is, arguably, farther right than Adolf Hitler,* if all you take into account are his economic ideas. On other significant questions, thankfully, Harper is in [...]

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“Why, of course, the people don’t want war. Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece. Naturally, the common people don’t want war; neither in Russia nor [...]

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By now, everyone has heard that George Carlin died on Sunday of a heart attack. Adoring broadcasters have been playing clips of some of his more controversial routines and editing out the naughty bits, a development that I’m sure Carlin would have mocked mercilessly. I can hear him now: “Those motherfuckers! How dare they play [...]

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Forgive the stereotyping, but Americans are legends in their own minds on the subject of free speech. Or, at least they were until George Bush invaded Afghanistan and declared that any criticism, however muted, was tantamount to terrorism. Perhaps this kind of declaration was inevitable in a country where the public political discourse is limited [...]

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Geeze bureaucrats piss me off — especially those devious but less than artful dealers in weasel words who are employed by Ministers of the Crown to answer straight forward queries made by earnest citizens, such as myself. As a case in point, I recently wrote our Prime Minister asking, with characteristic politeness, why labour leaders [...]

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The Net is awash in weapons of mass deception. DeSmogBlog, a web site dedicated to defusing the WMDs employed by climate change deniers, identified one yesterday that deserves your attention. 500 Scientists with Documented Doubts – about the Heartland Institute? 29 Apr 08 UPDATE: we have received notes now from 45 outraged scientists whose names [...]

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Independent Tribunal Established to Investigate Mass Grave Sites For a century, the Canadian Government with the assistance of major Canadian churches kidnapped thousands of aboriginal kids and locked them up in residential schools where they could be “civilized.” Far from their families and communities, young and defenseless, they were beaten for speaking their languages. Many [...]

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