Buffy Sainte-Marie performs

she is just as gorgeous as ever!

oh good, he's calling other governments ideologies evil! maybe he should tell his mamma!!

and saying that his government is a big supporter of israel....when the fuck did this shit start????  harper you suck dude!  honestly, as if the russian fighter jet shit wasn't enough.  someone needs to go in and haul him by his ear!

Prime Minister Stephen Harper said the NATO mission in Afghanistan is a serious test and its failure could have major ramifications for the military alliance, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Harper also said the Iranian government's ideology was "evil," the newspaper reported in its online edition late Friday.

"NATO has taken on a United Nations mission and NATO must succeed or I do think the future of NATO as we've known it is in considerable doubt," Harper said in an interview with the newspaper's editorial board.

"We have to get our act together . . . or NATO will not be able to undertake these kinds of missions in the future. There may be some around the NATO table who don't think it should. But if that's their position, that's not what they are saying."

As part of the NATO operation, Canada has about 2,700 soldiers based in Kandahar in southern Afghanistan on a mission due to end in 2011. More than 100 Canadian soldiers have been killed in the conflict.

The article said Harper was encouraged by U.S. President Barack Obama's decision to increase troop numbers in Afghanistan and that Harper thought the situation needs a return of U.S. focus that had been lost because of the war in Iraq.

"I would encourage the (Obama) administration to really assess what its objectives are and to make sure they are realistic and achievable," he said.

Harper, who leads a minority Conservative government, also criticized Iran, which the West accuses of covertly seeking to build nuclear weapons. Iran denies the charge.

"It concerns me that we have a regime with both an ideology that is obviously evil, combined with a desire to procure technology to act on that ideology," Harper said.

"My government is a very strong supporter of the state of Israel and considers the Iranian threats to be absolutely unacceptable and beyond the pale."

Canada's relations with Iran have been strained since 2003, when Iranian-Canadian photographer Zahra Kazemi died in custody in Tehran after being arrested.

Harper also complained that Russia has been testing Canadian airspace in the Arctic more frequently, which he said was "an aggression that is increasingly troublesome."

Canadian fighter planes scrambled to intercept an approaching Russian bomber less than 24 hours before Obama's visit to Ottawa last week, Canadian Defense Minister Peter MacKay said on Friday.

leave afghanistan.....it isn't worth the cost of children's deaths

THE CANADIAN PRESS

KANDAHAR–A Panjwaii district elder is accusing Canadian troops in Afghanistan of leaving behind an unexploded shell that has killed two children in a village set aside for the handicapped.

The explosion today prompted a furious demonstration by dozens of people outside of the provincial council office in Kandahar city.

The blood-spattered bodies of two boys were on display from the open back of a small, wooden taxi as the angry crowd chanted: ``Death to Canadians."

In a statement to the provincial police chief, a villager elder is blaming Canadian troops for the tragedy.

The Canadian military has yet to formally respond to the allegations.

The blast apparently occurred at the Mohammed Bin Rashid Village – named for its founder, the ruler of Dubai – about 15 kilometres outside the city.

and now we torture?? what a slippery slope we are walking.

Three Canadians who were jailed and tortured in Syria are filing new lawsuits against the federal government, armed with fresh information from an inquiry that implicated several agencies in their ordeals.

The renewed legal actions come four months after a commission of inquiry said Canadian officials contributed to the brutalization of Ahmad El Maati, Muayyed Nureddin and Abdullah Almalki by sharing information – including unfounded and inflammatory accounts of extremist links – with foreign intelligence and police agencies.

Former Supreme Court judge Frank Iacobucci cited the RCMP, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and Foreign Affairs for mistakes.

Iacobucci concluded the three men were tortured in Syrian custody and, in the case of El Maati, in Egypt as well. None of the men – all of whom are now in Canada and deny involvement in terrorism – has ever been charged.

Initial lawsuits by the three were put on hold during the inquiry, which lasted almost two years. Now the men are renewing legal efforts to wrest compensation from the government.

El Maati and Nureddin are seeking permission to amend their original suits, and have filed proposed new claims with the Ontario Superior Court. Almalki plans to update his claim in coming days.

In interviews, El Maati and Nureddin stressed that while they're suing for monetary damages, a federal apology is crucial.

"The apology's very important for me, because without (an) apology the suspicion is still hanging over my head," said Nureddin, who fled Saddam Hussein's Iraqi regime 15 years ago.

"We're living in Canada, a democratic society. We should see accountability."

Both El Maati and Nureddin say they have been shattered by their experiences, left physically and psychologically bruised, and unable to work due to the trauma. Even worse, they feel cut off from the world, having been ostracized by numerous friends and community members who fear any association will bring suspicion upon themselves.

El Maati, a former truck driver, was arrested in November 2001 upon flying to Syria to celebrate his wedding – nuptials that never took place.

"All my dreams were shattered," said El Maati, who lives with his mother in Toronto.

False confessions extracted under torture from El Maati were used to justify a telephone wiretap in Canada. After several weeks in Syria, he was flown to Egypt and further abused during two years of detention there.

His battered body has undergone several operations.

"I used to be someone who's very fit," he said. "And I used to like walking and hiking and stuff like that. Now I can't go for one block till I need to sit down and rest."

Nureddin, a Toronto geologist, was detained by Syrian officials in December 2003 as he crossed the border from Iraq, where he was visiting family. He was held for 34 days in Syria in late 2003 and early 2004.

Nureddin is now afraid to travel and wonders if he will ever again see his ill mother in Iraq.

Almalki, an Ottawa electronics engineer, was detained in Syria in 2002 and held for 22 months.

In their revised claims, El Maati and Nureddin allege that the government, knowing they could not be legally held or successfully prosecuted in Canada, facilitated their "arbitrary detention, torture, false imprisonment and assault and battery" overseas.

The claims against the government and various officials have not been tested in court.

After release of Iacobucci's report last fall, then-public safety minister Stockwell Day declined to comment on the prospect of compensation or apologies, noting civil suits were before the courts.

El Maati and several family members are suing the federal government for $100 million, while Nureddin and his family claim damages of $90 million.

The Commons public safety and national security committee plans hearings next month into the government response to the commission of inquiry into the cases of El Maati, Nureddin and Almalki.

MPs will also examine how the government handled recommendations of a 2006 inquiry report on the case of Maher Arar, another Arab-Canadian jailed and tortured in Syria.

The government apologized to Arar two years ago and paid him $10.5 million in compensation after he initially sued for $400 million, a figure later revised to $37 million.

bbbbaaaaahhhhhh....nothing else to really say!

it seems to me that they are just softening us for more military intervention in our society.....and what a grand way to spend my tax dollars!

Olympic security estimated to cost $900M

Last Updated: Thursday, February 19, 2009 | 4:09 PM PT Comments68Recommend23

CBC News

The Canadian Armed Forces will play a major role in security at the 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver and Whistler. (CBC)

The federal and provincial governments have revealed their revised estimates for 2010 Olympic Games security, now pegged at $900 million, or almost five times the amount initially estimated.

Under the new agreement, B.C.'s total contribution will be $252.5 million, which includes $165 million in new money that was announced Thursday.

The province's new funding will be go toward infrastructure and will involve capital spending spread over three years.

"This allows us to take what was going to be a pressure on our operating budget and cap it, so that we didn't have to divert dollars away from other programs in the province, such as health care and education, to live up to our Olympic security obligations," Colin Hansen, Minister Responsible for the Olympics, said Thursday.

The federal government announced in a news release that its total contribution will now be $647.5 million and also, that it will pay for any unforeseen costs that may arise.

"It would be nice if we could do it for less, but our approach has not been to set a budget and then deliver security for that budget," said Peter van Loan, the federal minister in charge of Olympic security.

The province initially estimated its contribution for providing security for the Games would be $87.5 million. As recently as last July, Hansen announced the entire security budget would be $175 million.

Subsequent estimates, including one from the federal government, suggested the entire cost of providing security for the Games could cost as much as $1 billion.

what'thefuck'ever!!!!!!!!!!

US/Canada Border Increasingly Militarized

Unmanned drone prowls over the lonely prairie

by Patrick White

WINNIPEG - Famed for prowling the battlefields of Afghanistan and Iraq, a remote-control Predator aircraft took flight over the wheat fields of South Dakota yesterday, the first in a network of surveillance drones that could soon patrol the American border with Canada from Maine to Washington state.

The remote-control Predator aircraft will be confined to a 370-kilometre stretch along the Manitoba border for now. (Gerald Nino/U.S. Customs and Border Protection)

While security-conscious politicians applauded the start of Predator flight operations along the largely unmonitored northern border, some border experts regard it as a mere public-relations exercise.

"I think this has far more to do with the theatre of security than with dealing seriously about issues surrounding the northern border," said border security expert Ben Muller, a political science professor at Simon Fraser University.

For now, the South Dakota drone will be confined to a 370-kilometre stretch along the Manitoba border to test how it holds up to Prairie winters. By 2010, however, U.S. border officials hope to see the $10.5-million unmanned aircraft monitoring both sides of the B.C. border during the Winter Olympics.

"If the RCMP or Canadian government believes they can make use of the aircraft for support during the Olympics, we will be more than willing to provide it," said Juan Munoz-Torres, spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

Already the agency has established five bases to act as launch sites for the drones in Bellingham, Wash., Great Falls, Mont., Grand Forks, N.D., Detroit and Plattsburgh, N.Y.

The plan, called the Northern Border Air Wing, is a holdover from the 9/11 Commission Report, which recommended that the United States shore up security along borders with Mexico and Canada.

"It seems a palliative measure," said Michael Kergin, chairman of the Canadian International Council working group on border issues and a former ambassador to the United States, "but it does provide them with some assurances."

Five Predator drones currently patrol the Mexican border, and border officials give the aircraft partial credit for stopping more than 4,000 illegal immigrants and 8,000 kilograms of marijuana from crossing the southern boundary.

With a range of 5,900 kilometres and a maximum speed of more than 450 km/h, a single Predator will be capable of scouring a vast portion of the 9,000-km Canada-U.S. border. Sensors fastened to the plane's belly will take both infrared and HD video of anything within a 40-km radius.

Flight restrictions prevent the drone from flying any closer than 16 km to the Canadian border. That still leaves a roughly 24-km swath of Canadian borderland open to U.S. government eyes.

"There is no reason for Canadians to be concerned about this," Mr. Munoz-Torres said. "This is a military weapon adopted for civilian purposes."

But that relationship to bomb-ready military hardware is too close for some, who say the Predator challenges the border's distinction as the longest undefended border in the world.

"Post-9/11, there has been a significant militarization of the border," Dr. Muller said. "This certainly fits in with that."

More than a public-safety measure, the drone buzzing 20,000 feet over the prairies represents the clout of certain American political constituencies, Dr. Muller says.

"There has been a lot political pressure suggesting that these technological solutions will fix the security problem," he said. "They have this idea that if it's watched, we're all safer, but I'm very skeptical. They are the same people rolling out over and over again these examples that supposedly prove Canada is a terrorist hotbed."

Senators Kent Conrad and Byron Dorgan of North Dakota have applied much of that political pressure.

Both have been instrumental in attracting federal funding for the Northern Border Air Wing by highlighting drug-trafficking and terrorism problems along the northern border.

"It is vital to America's security that we protect our borders, particularly the northern border," said Mr. Conrad upon the drone's arrival in Grand Forks. "The Grand Forks Air Branch plays an essential role in helping shut the door on terrorists who want to sneak across remote border points to strike on U.S. soil."

Their efforts to draw political attention to northern border security issues may eventually result in 20 unmanned air vehicles, or UAVs, being housed at the Grand Forks base.

And plans are under way to create an unmanned aircraft program at the University of North Dakota.

For the most part, the RCMP is on board with the U.S plan to secure the border using drones. Some officers even attended a ribbon-cutting ceremony in Grand Forks on Sunday.

The plan fits a larger North American strategy to scrutinize the border without bogging down crossing times.

"It's a technology that's not intrusive and is relatively user-friendly," Mr. Kergin said. "I would argue that it's a useful tool."

all right you goddamn sneaky manitobans, we're onto ya!

U.S. set to launch unmanned aerial drones to monitor Manitoba border

Last Updated: Monday, February 16, 2009 | 9:40 AM CT Comments51Recommend26

CBC News

Unmanned aerial vehicles will start patrolling the border between Manitoba and its southern American neighbours, North Dakota and Minnesota, on Monday. (Gerald L. Nino/U.S. Customs and Border Protection)

The first unmanned surveillance airplanes will start patrolling the Manitoba portion of Canada's border with the U.S. after a ceremonial launch Monday, officials say.

Based at a military facility in Grand Forks, N.D., the $10-million Predator drone aircraft are equipped with sensors capable of detecting a moving person from 10 kilometres away.

They will gather information as they fly along the 400-kilometre border and then transmit it back to operators who will in turn contact border agents. The drones will not carry weapons, such as missiles or laser-guided bombs, and will need permission to fly in Canadian airspace.

Manitoba has 12 official border crossings — only two are open 24 hours a day. Much of the land in between the crossings is either swampland, lakes or farmers' fields.

RCMP Staff Sgt. Ron Obodzinski said the new surveillance planes will be a big help in the fight against the smuggling of drugs, alcohol and people.

"The program is going to enhance our relationship between our American partners and the Canadian agencies," he said.

U.S. border protection official Michael Kostelnik said that in these "dangerous times," it's more important than ever for both countries to know who and what is crossing the border.

"There are vast parts of the border where, on any given day, we're not sure what's going on so part of this is to try to deal with the unknown and not be surprised," Kostelnik said.

Monday's drone launch comes a day before Janet Napolitano, the new secretary of U.S. Homeland Security, is to get a review of the security efforts along the Canadian-American border, and just three days before U.S. President Barack Obama's first visit to Canada.