Savage suit against CAIR

Keeping in mind that CAIR-Canada has a long history of questionable activity ...

Michael Savage (of "The Savage Nation") is suing CAIR for copyright infringement - a suit in which Savage’s attorney alleges and connects a whole bunch of very interesting dots, including:

[my bold]
• COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT AS A TOOL TO ATTACK FREE SPEECH, PROMOTE A TERRORIST AGENDA ...

... Defendants are part of a deliberately complex and deliberately confusing array of related organizations which in general operate under the name "Council on American Islamic Relations" aka "CAIR". In fact, these names are often modifications of the true name of the
corporate entities.
[...]
This organizational structure is part of the scheme to hide the illegal activities of the group, funding, the transfer of funds and to complicate investigation of the organization. ...

• CAIR TARGETS THE 1st AMENDMENT

... CAIR has used extortion, threats, abused the court system, obtained money via interstate commerce under false and fraudulent circumstances. ...

• ABUSIVE LAWSUITS AND ECONOMIC BLACKMAIL BY CAIR

• CAIR AND IT'S TERROR CONNECTIONS

The allegations in the Second Cause of Action contain more detail regarding CAIR's involvement in the 9/11 terror attacks and other terrorist activities.
[...]
In 2005, CAIR's Washington branch received a donation of $1,366,466 from a Saudi Arabian named Adnan Bogary.
[...]
CAIR was tied to terror from the day it was formed. The group was incorporated on or about 1994 by Omar Ahmad ("Ahmad") and Nihad Awad ("Awad"). Both men were officers of an terror organization known as the "Islamic Association for Palestine".
[...]
The Washington based CAIR 990 return lists Omar Ahmad as their Chairman Emeritus". Omar Ahmad is also listed on the CAIR website as being the founder of CAIR...

And much, much more under the headings:

• CALIFORNIA CAIR GROUP'S EXTREMIST TIES

• CAIR LEADERSHIP'S RELATIONS WITH TERRORISTS AND THEIR SUPPORT NETWORK

And the Canadian connection:

The unique role played by CAIR and CAIR-Canada is to manipulate the legal systems of the United States and Canada in a manner that allows them to silence critics, analysts, commentators, media organizations, and government officials by leveling false charges of discrimination, libel, slander and defamation.

In addition, both organizations have actively sought to hamper governmental anti-terrorism efforts by direct propaganda activities aimed at police, first responders, and intelligence agencies through so-called sensitivity training. Their goal is to create as much self-doubt, hesitation, fear of name-calling, and litigation within police departments and intelligence agencies as possible so as to render such authorities ineffective in pursuing international and domestic terrorist
entities.

The role of CAIR and CAIR-Canada is to wage PSYOPS (psychological warfare) and disinformation activities on behalf of Whabbi-based islamic terrorists throughout North America. They are the intellectual "shock troops" of Islamic terrorism.

Should we be surprised?

[h/t Five Foot Fury]

Canadian healthcare - lessons for Britain

In its study of health reform in Britain, the UK’s Institute for the Study of Civil Society (CIVITAS) has researched a number of European and North American medical systems.

The CIVITAS report on Canada makes some very interesting observations:

Lessons for Britain

Like the NHS to Britons, medicare is a quasi-religion to Canadians. Both systems are regularly subject to the claim that they are the best in the world.
[...]
Comparison with the US is ... understandable, but unfortunate. Firstly because opinion of US health care is largely based on myth (many Americans believe these myths too)...
[...]
Both the NHS and medicare have founding and guiding principles which they systematically fail to meet or abide by. Hence the charge in Canada that everything is free but nothing is accessible".
[...]
... three problems within the Canadian single-payer (government) healthcare model. First, accountability is poor and aggravated by the Federal structure. Second, decision-making is politicised. Third, single-payer government control eads to a lack of innovation. These three lead to a lack of responsiveness to patient needs or wants.
[...]
Canadian health care is inefficient in that financing (lack of direct payment) does ot encourage users and providers of health care to be accountable ...
[...]
Single-payer tax financed healthcare lends itself to rationing.
[...]
... poor availability in Canada of advanced medical technology, ...

[...]
... On most objective measures the Canadian system at best disappoints, and at worst is simply unacceptable in a wealthy, modern nation, particularly when expenditure is considered.
[...]
On an ideological level some might consider the Canadian system attractive, however, the reality is that the Canadian tax-funded single-payer model restricts expenditure to such an extent that healthcare supply far from matches demand.

Not that we didn’t already know most of this - but it’s worthwhile having an outside opinion.

The bottom line lesson for Britain: avoid the Canadian model like the plague! It suffers from many of the same problems as the British NHS. Which leads one to wonder whether Canada’s system has been thoroughly infiltrated by socialist Brits.

There are many lessons Canadian policy makers can draw from other counties. It’s a pity that all we seem to get are ridiculous references and comparisons to "American-style" healthcare. Other CIVITAS country reports are worth a look, particularly the first three listed here: France, Germany, Switzerland, Denmark, Hungary, Holland, and the USA.

Benazir Bhutto assassinated - the West will miss her

Mark Steyn reminisces:

... she was my next-door neighbor for a while - which affects a kind of intimacy, though in fact I knew her only for sidewalk pleasantries. She was beautiful and charming and sophisticated and smart and modern, and everything we in the west would like a Muslim leader to be - though in practice, as Pakistan's Prime Minister, she was just another grubby wardheeler from one of the world's most corrupt political classes.
[...]
... to an ever more radicalized generation of young Muslim men Miss Bhutto was entirely unacceptable as the leader of their nation. "Everyone’s an expert on Pakistan, a faraway country of which we know everything," I wrote last month.
[...]
Earlier this year, I had an argument with an old (infidel) boyfriend of Benazir's, who swatted my concerns aside with the sweeping claim that "the whole of the western world" was behind her. On the streets of Islamabad, that and a dime'll get you a cup of coffee.
As I said, she was everything we in the west would like a Muslim leader to be. We should be modest enough to acknowledge when reality conflicts with our illusions. Rest in peace, Benazir.

Christmas

Merry Christmas to all!

Success in Iraq

Queen’s professor of political studies, Bruce Gilley, writes a thoughtful piece on Iraq. His take is refreshingly far from what one expects from the typical Canadian academic. Though he does express a seemingly obligatory "I’m no fan of Bush" and "... administration’s mendacity on WMD", the rest optimistically supports the war’s aims and progress:

...my own view is more positive: Iraqi democracy is on the right track. As it continues to develop in the decades to come, George W. Bush's war will be vindicated.

The only semi-democratic states in the Arab world are Jordan and Kuwait. Iraq is rapidly surpassing them in terms of its electoral, civil and media freedoms.

We usually give our politicians at least a four-to five-year term in order to engineer even minor changes in public policy. Why would we expect Iraq to build a functioning democracy in terrible conditions in a shorter time? Talk about double standards.

...developments described above are vindicating, not undermining, the original case for war.

Fatwas and jackbooted liberals

Today the ‘Post’ started a series on “faith”. George Jonas’ contribution turned to the subject of free speech:

As for relations between the faithful and the faithless, don't push it. An exchange of fatwas isn't a dialogue.

Talking of fatwas, I've been suggesting for years that super-liberalism is likely to have sub-liberal consequences. What's super-liberalism? It's a condition, common in Canada, whose main symptom is bending over backwards to be straighter than vertical.

What do fatwas have to do with liberalism? Well, super-liberalism's fatwas are routinely issued by Human Rights Commissions, federal and provincial; and their sub-liberal consequences include a denial of constitutional guarantees of fundamental freedoms.

A journal is free to print what it considers right as long as it also prints what it may consider wrong, according to sub-liberals. They wouldn't have complained to the Human Rights Commission about Mark Steyn writing in Maclean's ... had Maclean's agreed to publish a rejoinder "from a mutually acceptable source."
[...]
it's a novel approach: the Human Rights Commission as a literary agent. Ingenious. Maclean's is a hard market to crack and Steyn is tough to compete with, but perhaps if I get my agent a pair of jackboots and turn her into a Human Rights commissar ...

Debunking the AGW “consensus”

This U.S. Senate blog provides a comprehensive summary of a Senate Report released today. The Report details the objections of prominent scientists who recently disputed anthropogenic global warming claims:

Over 400 prominent scientists from more than two dozen countries recently voiced significant objections to major aspects of the so-called "consensus" on man-made global warming. These scientists, many of whom are current and former participants in the UN IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), criticized the climate claims made by the UN IPCC and former Vice President Al Gore.

The new report issued by the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee’s office of the GOP Ranking Member details the views of the scientists, the overwhelming majority of whom spoke out in 2007.

[...]

Paleoclimatologist Dr. Tim Patterson, professor in the department of Earth Sciences at Carleton University in Ottawa, recently converted from a believer in man-made climate change to a skeptic. Patterson noted that the notion of a "consensus" of scientists aligned with the UN IPCC or former Vice President Al Gore is false. "I was at the Geological Society of America meeting in Philadelphia in the fall and I would say that people with my opinion were probably in the majority."

[...]

Many of the scientists featured in this report consistently stated that numerous colleagues shared their views, but they will not speak out publicly for fear of retribution.

Great stuff. This has to be the biggest blow yet to climate alarmists’ claims of "consensus".

So, we should see some solid media coverage for a week or so, right? Headlines proclaiming "Global crisis cancelled!"; videos of polar bears happily scampering on the Arctic ice; thrilling animations of stable sea levels; footage of the snows returning to Kilimanjaro.

[Via CBL]