Invasive police demands for DNA need a judge’s okay - The Globe and Mail

Globe Editorial - from the Globe and Mail

While a DNA sweep of a community may be justified in exceptional circumstances, police should seek a judge’s permission before beginning. No such permission has been sought in an Ontario case in which the provincial police, seeking the killer of the Orangeville nurse Sonia Varaschin, appear to feel no need to communicate with the public about how many people they will attempt to swab for DNA, or what possible connection these people might have to the crime. The OPP's approach is so opaque it is impossible for the public to know whether this search is justified. Trust us, they say, while we step around, or on, the civil liberties of an unknown number of people.

In some cases, a DNA sweep has helped find a dangerous killer. The Holly Jones case in Toronto in 2003 was one such case. Holly was a 10-year-old who disappeared on a short walk near her home. Stumped after 10 days, the police canvassed 300 homes for DNA. The killer was one of just a handful who refused the police request. (When police came to his door, they alertly noticed mats that could have produced fibres found on Holly's body.)

That search was precisely targeted, because it occurred in a neighbourhood cut off on three sides by railway tracks. Holly could not have disappeared anywhere else. And the DNA canvass met a threshold of necessity – a deadly crime, a child-killer on the loose, little apparent progress in the investigation.

But there have been other sweeps in Canada, the United States and Europe, that have taken in thousands of people and have failed. A smaller sweep was done last fall by the RCMP of 100 taxi drivers in Prince George, B.C., in an investigation of murders of women along the so-called highway of tears. The drivers were reportedly blindsided during interviews when the DNA request was sprung on them. They were apparently told they would be deemed suspects if they refused to comply. This makes a mockery of the supposed voluntariness or of informed consent. All complied. No arrests have followed.

The OPP, in the Varaschin case, have prepared a “consent” form for people to sign, but Constable Peter Leon says it is an “internal document” and he would not show it to The Globe. Nor would the OPP say how many people will be canvassed for their DNA, or where these people will be found, only that they knew Ms. Varaschin “directly or indirectly,” whatever that means. Refusing the police request, Const. Leon said, “is their right; however, that will form part of the investigative process to determine why the individual did refuse.” The voluntariness in this approach is a sham, as the Canadian Civil Liberties Association has justifiably complained.

The coercion may be legitimate – a killer is loose somewhere, and some DNA sweeps have been useful. But police should be obliged to seek court permission before conducting such invasive searches.

Invasive police demands for DNA need a judge’s okay - The Globe and Mail

Joseph "Joe" MacPhee, C.D. - An "Ordinary, Canadian" Life

When someone the world sees as important passes away, there is much attention payed, the news covers who they were, what they did, telling us over and over again why they were important and why we'll remember them.

When someone the world doesn't judge as worthy of that attention passes... Well, the only news coverage is often an obituary. But every time someone passes they leave behind those who held them to be important – every bit as significant as a pope, prime minister, pop star or pro athlete.

Joseph “Joe” MacPhee was not someone whom the world saw as important. Born in Prince Edward Island, adopted by neighbours after his mother died, he, like so many other Canadians from the Maritimes, found his future in the Canadian military – in his case, the Army. When he was twenty, a friend asked him to come along for the ride when he went to the recruiting centre. Joe did, and filled out the application for something to do. The recruiter came to him and said, “your friend is an idiot, but you have potential”. After training in Borden, he was posted to Gagetown, Halifax, and Ottawa.

He then spent time in Egypt as part of UNEF 1 – the original United Nations peacekeeping force in Egypt, sent to the Sinai and Suez as a result of Lester Pearson's Nobel-winning idea. While there, he at one point had a machine gun pointed at him by an Egyptian soldier who mistook a friend's camera for a weapon. He told his son years later that this was the one time he really feared for his life.

During his travels, Joe was fortunate enough to spend time at CFB Trenton, and went to a spaghetti supper hosted by the Young Christian Workers. There he met a young woman from Belleville, Joan Haines, who became his wife. Together they were to be posted to military bases at Petawawa, Montreal and Kingston. Along the way, they had two children, Kevin, born in 1971, and Colleen, who came along in 1973. Colleen was the normal one. Kevin, who would come to be my closest friend, while his mother was giving birth to his younger sister, celebrated her birth by turning over a bowl of soup on his head. According to reports, his father from this point may have realized his son was a little different.

Joe enjoyed spending time with his children and wife. Kevin rarely remembers his parents leaving he and Colleen with babysitters. Joe enjoyed gardening and looking after his yard, doing crosswords, and after they came back to Belleville, eating out at the Cosy Grill. After Mass on Sunday afternoons was when the family would go for drives around the area.

Joe was pushed into retirement by the military when they gave him the option of either a pension or Alert for six months, with his family spending the duration in Yellowknife. With twenty-five years service in the military, he had a full pension, and decided to move his family back to Belleville. Here, he went to work at the S&R department store downtown when it opened as head of maintenance. When the Williams family was opening the Best Western, they brought Joe in to run their maintenance and housekeeping for the new facility. This was a challenge, as the project began late but opened on time, with the result being many repairs during the first couple of years.

Joe began to display some of the early signs of dementia even around the time he retired in 1999 – small memory errors, mainly. The symptoms became unmistakeable by 2002-2003. Sometimes the signs resulted in humourous situations, such as when he asked Joan where the flashlight was as he couldn't see downstairs. She suggested that he instead turn on the lights.

But as time passed his symptoms became more and more severe. He confused Kevin, Colleen and Joan with people from his childhood in P.E.I. In 2005, he was definitively diagnosed with dementia. In 2008, he went to stay at Hastings Manor, his care having become to much for his wife and children to look after at home.

On May 22^nd, 2011, Joe MacPhee passed away, with his family by his side for the last two days of his life.

He is survived by Joan, Kevin, Colleen (Perry Reid) and two grandchildren, Jesse and Sophie. On Thursday, May 26^th, Funeral Mass was celebrated at St. Joseph's Roman Catholic Church in Belleville.

Joe was 76. He will be missed by his family, and by all those of us who had the privilege of knowing him.

Huffington Blows into Canada

Remember the outcry over Sun News Network – the supposed “Fox News North” was accused by the hysterical left of being everything from a waste of space on your tv dial to the harbinger of Armageddon itself.

So imagine how surprised I was to see that the Huffington Post has a new Canadian version. The oddly popular apparent love child of the National Enquirer and Earl Browder, contributing relatively little to intelligent discourse south of the border, has spawned a clone now in the Great White North. In taking a look at it, I found the original HuffPo with a smattering of unsurprisingly left-wing Canadian commentary. Oh – and they stuck a Maple Leaf on the title. I'm shivering.

But where then is the outcry over the American intrusion into the Canadian media sphere that there was with the idea of an actual Canadian version of Fox News, let alone the outrage cultivated by American Avaaz.org over the creation of Sun News Network?

I mean, surely those voices decrying the idea of the Americanization of Canadian media coverage when they jumped on Sun would just as vigorously denounce this intrusion from the opposite end of the political spectrum? They wouldn't have been opposing only because they wanted to restrict the ability of those who hold to a different political ideology to have the same media access as the left currently has through the CBC?

I should say I have absolutely no problem with the Huff n' Blow coming to Canada. I am a firm believer in freedom of expression, and a free marketplace of ideas. If they can jump over the border and find a solid readership amongst the soft of logic amongst us, then more power to them.

I just still hold to the absurd hope that the left might own up to their own hypocrisy.

Obituary - Joseph "Joe" MacPhee C.D.

Joseph C.D. Macphee

MacPHEE, Joseph C.D. - Passed away at the Hastings Manor on Sunday, May 22, 2011 in his 76th year. Beloved husband of Joan MacPhee. Loving father of Kevin MacPhee and Colleen MacPhee (Perry Reid). Loved by his 2 grandchildren Jesse and Sophie MacPhee-Reid. Survived by his sisters Mae MacCormack (Mike) and Bea Gallant (Ed) of Montague, P.E.I. and Elaine Kane (Bud) of Mt. Uniacke, N.S., and his foster sisters Mary MacDonald (the late Emmett) of Charlottetown, P.E.I. and Bernadette McLeod (the late Basil) of London, Ont. Predeceased by his parents Hugh and Sadie McPhee, his foster parents Aeneas and Margaret MacDonald, his brothers Alfred, Paul and Allan (survived by Chris) McPhee, his foster brothers Gussie, John and Rev. A. Charles MacDonald of P.E.I. and his foster sisters Frances Trainor (the late Lou) and Rita McCarthy (the late Tom). Friends may pay respects at the BURKE FUNERAL HOME 150 Church Street (613-968-6968) Wednesday from 2 to 4 and 7 to 9 p.m. Funeral Mass Thursday to St. Joseph's Roman Catholic Church at 1 p.m. In Memoriam donations to the Victorian Order of Nurses or the Alzheimer Society of Belleville appreciated.

After Altercation, Philadelphia Police Say They Won't Look the Other Way on Open-Carry Gun Owners - FoxNews.com

By Stephen Clark - from foxnews.com

With a shocking altercation between Philadelphia police and a 25-year-old IT worker putting the spotlight back on open-carry gun laws, local authorities are warning gun owners that they will be "inconvenienced" if they carry unconcealed handguns in the city.

Lt. Raymond Evers, a spokesman for the city police, told FoxNews.com that gun owners who open carry, which is legal in the city, may be asked to lay on the ground until officers feel safe while they check permits.

"Philadelphia, in certain areas, is very dangerous," he said. "There's a lot of gun violence." Several officers have been killed in the line of duty in the past three years, local authorities say.

The warning comes after Mark Fiorino, a suburban Philadelphia IT worker, posted an audiotape to YouTube of his tense, 45-minute encounter with police in February over his exposed handgun. The video went viral and captured national attention.

After Fiorino released the audiotape, he was charged with disorderly conduct and reckless endangerment. He now faces up to two years in prison.

"The police department and assistant district attorney are coming after me, in my opinion, to make an example of me because I stood up to them and exposed them for their lack of knowledge," Fiorino said, who called the trial "absolutely inappropriate and a waste of taxpayer money."

Fiorino said he did nothing reckless, nor did he endanger anyone's life.


"I had a gun pointed at my chest," he said.

Only seven states ban the practice of openly carrying guns, and Pennsylvania isn't one of them, according to OpenCarry.org, which advocates gun rights. In Philadelphia, a permit is required to carry handguns openly. But on Feb. 13 a police sergeant who was unaware of the law -- which dates back to at least 1996 when the state Supreme Court referenced it in an unrelated ruling -- stopped Fiorino, who was walking to an auto parts shop in Northeast Philadelphia with a gun on his hip.

Sgt. Michael Dougherty can be heard yelling out to Fiorino as "Junior," and asking him to show his hands as Fiorino protests having a gun pointed at his chest, prompting Dougherty to call for backup.

Dougherty grows increasingly agitated as Fiorino offers to show his permit when he is ordered to get on his knees, causing Dougherty to threaten to shoot if he makes a move. Dougherty then unleashed a string of profanities as the two argued over the legality of open carry.

"Do you know you can't openly carry here in Philadelphia?" Dougherty yells.

"Yes, you can, if you have a license to carry firearms," Fiorino responds."It's Directive 137. It's your own internal directive."

When several other officers arrive, Fiorino is forced to the ground as he tries to explain that he's not breaking the law.

"Shut the f---- up!" Dougherty yells.

Police found the recorder while searching Fiorino's pockets. Officers eventually released him after speaking to the department's lawyer and being told that he was within his legal rights.

Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey took issue with Dougherty's language and his lack of knowledge about the law during the altercation, Evers said, but not with the stop itself.

Evers, who has been an officer for nearly 20 years, said "very rarely do people open carry in Philadelphia." But he added he wasn't making excuses.

"We weren't as up on that crime code as we should have been," he said, adding that officers are being re-educated on open carry in response to the incident.

Dougherty is facing disciplinary action pending the outcome of an internal affairs investigation, Evers said.

Fiorino's trial is scheduled to begin in July and the district attorney's office emphasizes that Fiorino's response to the police, not his gun rights, are at issue.

"This office respects and upholds the rights of a citizen to lawfully carry a firearm," Tasha Jamerson, a spokeswoman for the district attorney's office, said in a statement emailed to FoxNews.com. "The permit to carry a concealed weapon, however, does not mean that a permitholder can abuse that right by refusing to cooperate with police."

Jamerson said Fiorino "allegedly became belligerent and hostile" when police officers "were legally attempting to investigate a potential crime."

But Fiorino's attorney, Joseph Valvo, said the case is larger than Fiorino.

"It's my position that this entire prosecution is an effort by Philadelphia authorities to send a message to legitimate gun owners that open carry as a practice is not welcome in Philadelphia despite the fact that it's constitutionally protected behavior and that's offensive to me as a citizen and as a lawyer," Valvo said.

Read more...

After Altercation, Philadelphia Police Say They Won't Look the Other Way on Open-Carry Gun Owners - FoxNews.com

National Post editorial board: Ottawa isn’t the oil sands’ enemy, Edmonton is | Full Comment | National Post

by the National Post Editorial Board - from the National Post

There’s an old adage in Alberta politics that when all else fails, bash Ottawa. Well, Alberta’s Tory government must feel itself at risk of failure, because it has begun making far-fetched claims about how its federal cousins ­­— Stephen Harper’s new Tory majority — have suddenly turned into anti-oil sands hypocrites bent on hobbling the project’s development with new environmental regulations just to win favour with central Canadian voters.

“The federal government has sat on the sidelines for years and years and years. Now they see their little golden goose is under attack and they want to be the voice for Canada on the world stage and we respect that,” Alberta Finance Minister Lloyd Snelgrove told Postmedia News this week. “We have tried to be team players on this. They’re saying Alberta should have been all over the world defending the oil sands, but only as long as they are holding the leash.”

These claims are overwrought. The Canadian government has rightly defended the oil patch on the world stage. And to the extent that excessive regulation might hobble the oil sands, it is Ed Stelmach’s government in Alberta that poses the greatest risk.

In the past, it is true that Alberta has had every right to be wary of federal intervention. Pierre Trudeau famously imposed his National Energy Program (NEP) on the resource-rich province, and in just over six years drained more than $70-billion out of its economy and sent the province into an economic tailspin that took 10 years to pull out of. At present, Alberta still annually contributes over $5,000 more toward Confederation than its residents receive in return for every man, woman and child in the province.

Even former Tory prime minister Brian Mulroney became unpopular in Alberta for failing to end the NEP for 2½ years after assuming office, for foisting the GST on a province that had previously had no sales tax, and for attempting to amend the Constitution in such a way that would have appeased many of Quebec’s concerns, while also giving Quebec a veto over future change requested by other provinces.

But the current Alberta government has nothing similar to gripe about. It’s true that after being reappointed federal Environment Minister last week, Toronto MP Peter Kent announced Ottawa would soon introduce environmental regulations that would reduce the oil sands’ carbon footprint. But it is unlikely these regulations will devastate Alberta’s economy. This is the same federal government that in its first term proposed ignoring the UN’s Kyoto accords in favour of more sensible quotas that tied growth in carbon dioxide emission to growth in the economy. Moreover, the same week as he let it be known that oil sands regulations are pending, Mr. Kent also announced that a cap-and-trade scheme to cut carbon emissions was “off the table,” a very pro-oil sands move.

Indeed, in the past five years, the Alberta government under Premier Stelmach has done more to discourage oil sands development than anything done or proposed by the Harper Tories.

Read more...

National Post editorial board: Ottawa isn’t the oil sands’ enemy, Edmonton is | Full Comment | National Post

Barbara Kay: A child’s biology is not a matter of choice | Full Comment | National Post

By Barbara Kay - from the National Post

In 1978, a children’s book was published called X: A Fabulous Child’s Story, about a child with no gender. X liked both football and basket-weaving, ignored schoolyard teasing and ended up as the happiest, most well-adjusted child ever examined by “an impartial team of experts.”

What are the odds of two utopians, married to each other and both blinkered enough to find this unrealistic story so “compelling” they would use it as a template for raising their own child?

Meet one-in-a-trillion Toronto couple Kathy Witterick, 38, and David Stocker, 39, parents of Jazz, 5, and Kio, 2 — both acknowledged to be boys — and their four-month-old baby Storm, knowledge of whose sex the parents are withholding because, after reading Lois Gould’s story, “How could we not?”

Their birth announcement to family and friends explains: “We’ve decided not to share Storm’s sex for now — a tribute to freedom and choice in place of limitation, a stand up to what the world could become in Storm’s lifetime (a more progressive place?).” To their annoyance, they are spending a lot of time defending their decision.

Close observers reportedly are uncomfortable. They are especially troubled that Storm’s two brothers have been co-opted into collusion with the scheme and, well-rehearsed, assiduously self-monitor their own discourse about “Z,” the neutral replacement for “he” or “she.”

Friends are right to feel troubled. The obvious message these children are tasked with transmitting is that it is shameful to identify, let alone take pride in, one’s own sex.

Jazz and Kio will doubtless “out” their baby brother/sister by accident, but perhaps not too soon, because they live in something of a bubble. They are “unschooled,” a variant of home schooling, but without the structured pedagogy. In unschooling, children learn on demand. Reading, math, baking cupcakes, jumping in mudpuddles in whatever time proportions the child decides: It’s all good.

But what seems like complete freedom to express themselves is illusory. Deny it as they will, Witterick and Stocker are ideologically programming their children. It is no accident that Jazz and Kio are “almost exclusively assumed to be girls” by Witterick’s own admission, or that Jazz (wearing hair braids and pink clothes) refuses to answer a reporter’s question as to why the thought of attending school with other children upsets him (there have already been a few teasing incidents with peers), or happens to love a book called 10,000 Dresses, the story of a boy who enjoys dressing up in girls’ clothes. (Has he even been exposed to Bob the Builder?)

Witterick and Stocker are what I call “Ouija board” parents. Ouija board users believe that the planchette is moving of its own accord under their fingers to “answer” their questions. Witterick and Stocker insist that their children’s lives are unfolding spontaneously. But these animated planchettes are merely responding to parental guiding hands virtually pushing them into what some of us might recognize as heterophobia. This is a “progressive” ideology that would happily sacrifice a child’s identity on the altar of bogus social engineering.

Read more...

Barbara Kay: A child’s biology is not a matter of choice | Full Comment | National Post

Ontario's Premier Doesn't Get It.

It would seem the McGuinty Liberal government at Queens Park is completely incapable of acting in the best interest of anyone besides public sector unions. Considering this government was ostensibly elected to represent the interests of ALL Ontarians, their willingness to throw around tax money to OPSEU, to the OPP, and now to Ontario's prison guards is appalling.

With Ontario's deficits stuck well into double digit billions, it should be clear to anyone with half a clue that the government has to stop increasing spending, and start reducing it.

Bob Rae realized this about halfway through his single term as Premier, and the result was Rae Days. For all that, though, he was incapable of reducing government spending significantly, and as a result was soundly thrashed in the 1995 provincial election which elected the Progressive Conservatives under Mike Harris. This government kept it's promises, and massively reduced government expenditures during the following years, while simultaneously cutting taxes. The result was a span of strong economic growth in Ontario.

But a departure from the decisive government of the late 1990s by the PCs in the early 2000s led to an increase in government expenditures, and a picture of a government that had lost touch with it's raison d'etre. The result was a Liberal victory in the 2003 election, highlighted by Liberal promises of a balanced budget, no new taxes or tax increases, and labour peace between the government and public sector unions.

What did Ontario get? Labour peace, but only because the Liberals gave away the farm to public sector unions. As a result, even with the Liberals early on breaking their promise not to increase or add taxes with the health care tax, health care in Ontario is a disaster, literally threatening the lives of Ontarians. Other tax increases followed, but Ontario is now a fiscal basket case, a “have not” province with a standard of living underneath the national average for the first time since Confederation.

Consider: are you any better off today than you were in 2003? Do you feel any more confident about the future than you did then? Do you think our healthcare system will be there for your children like it is for you? I doubt most Ontarians will answer any of these in the affirmative.

As we move closer to the fall election, the question Ontarians need to begin considering is this: can Ontario afford another four years under Dalton McGuinty and the Liberals?

Our army needs soldiers and guns-not more bureaucrats

By Matt Gurney - from the National Post

Peter MacKay remaining in the National Defence portfolio wasn't a surprise. MacKay is a high profile minister, and the Tories like to tell anyone who'll listen that they Support The Troops. Sticking one of the big guns of the party in that cabinet post is one way of showing that commitment. Besides, MacKay has done a decent job of it, and by all accounts likes the role and enjoys working with the men and women of the Canadian Forces.

But what was a bit unexpected was the appointment of Julian Fantino, former chief of the Toronto Police Service and the Ontario Provincial Police, to be Associate Minister of National Defence, essentially MacKay's deputy.

Fantino was only elected last fall -hardly an experienced parliamentarian. There have been association ministers of defence before, but the position has often been left vacant. Fantino is the first to fill it under Prime Minister Harper.

There are political reasons to give Fantino something with a big profile: He's a well-known Toronto-area MP. And Defence isn't the worst place to put his years of work in public security to use, either. But those political reasons aside, it must be asked why Defence needed an extra minister. If anything, it needs more soldiers and equipment.

Earlier this year, it was announced that National Defence had purchased a large complex of modern office buildings in the Ottawa area. This was good news, as the existing National Defence headquarters was old and overcrowded. But when the announcement of the purchase was made, it was noted that the size of the civilian staff at Defence had grown by 31% between 2006 and 2009. Indeed, the civilian staff at Defence had grown so large, so rapidly, that it was actually exceeding its authorized strength. Defence is allotted 25,000 civilians to run the ministry. Somehow, that had ballooned to 28,500. No wonder they were out of room.

This didn't look particularly good on the Harper Tories, who have been rightly criticized for abandoning their small-government agenda. But what made them look even worse was the fact that even while the size of Defence's bureaucracy surged by 31%, the size of the Armed Forces -so publicly loved by the Tories -was able to increase only by 5% over the same period.

The military has received extra funding and equipment, starting under prime minister Paul Martin and continuing under Stephen Harper. But the Canadian Forces still have urgent equipment shortfalls, and are simply not large enough to do all the jobs expected of them.

Consider the last few weeks. Almost 3,000 Canadian military personnel are fighting in Afghanistan. Hundreds of others have joined the NATO campaign against Libya (indeed, a Canadian general is commanding the entire international ef-fort). Meanwhile, at home, we've had three major natural disasters strike all at once: major flooding in Manitoba and Quebec, and a devastating wildfire in Alberta that has nearly destroyed the town of Slave Lake, turning thousands of Canadian citizens into displaced persons. And, of course, at all times, the military must also have the reserve strength necessary to handle additional crises.

Canada's air force needs new fighter jets, and more than just the 65 F-35s the government has said it intends to purchase (a smaller number of F-35s, and a large order of less-advanced but still modern jets, would strike the right balance between size and sophistication). The air force also urgently requires more helicopters, both to carry supplies at home and abroad, and to (if necessary) transport troops into battle. The navy is rapidly rusting out, with virtually every type of ship in the fleet needing either upgrades or outright replacement. The army has benefit-ted the most from the Afghan-era urgent purchases, but still should be expanded, to reflect its duties both at home and abroad. And this is far from a complete list.

Read more...

Our army needs soldiers and guns-not more bureaucrats

Message from His Excellency the Right Honourable David Johnston, Governor General of Canada, on the Occasion of Victoria Day

Victoria Day

May 22, 2011

Message from His Excellency the Right Honourable David Johnston, Governor General of Canada, on the Occasion of Victoria Day

OTTAWA— Victoria Day is always cause for celebration in Canada, and perhaps this year more than most.

Once again, we have the opportunity to express our affection for Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, as we mark her official birthday in Canada. While Her Majesty’s actual date of birth is in April, Canadians have long celebrated her birthday on the May long weekend in honour of her great-great-grandmother, Queen Victoria, who was born on May 24, 1819.

This occasion also allows us to honour the continuity of our links to the Royal Family, so recently renewed with the wedding of Their Royal Highnesses The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. We are looking forward to their visit to Canada this summer, and to another joyous occasion to come—Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II’s Diamond Jubilee, in 2012.

During her reign of six decades as Queen of Canada, Her Majesty has served our country with great dignity and dedication. In homage to Her Majesty’s achievement and as a symbol of our appreciation, the new Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal will honour deserving Canadians who have contributed so much to this nation, and who have helped to define our ideal of service. The Queen has dedicated her life to encouraging excellence among Canadians, and this medal is an opportunity to recognize outstanding service to Canada and to see how we are brought together through action.

As we celebrate the return of spring on this May long weekend, let us take a moment to wish Her Majesty a very a happy birthday, and to reflect on the pride and joy we feel to live in this blessed land.

David Johnston

The Governor General of Canada; Victoria Day

Tornado kills at least 89 in Joplin, Missouri | Top News | Reuters

By Kevin Murphy - from Reuters

JOPLIN, Missouri (Reuters) - At least 89 people have died in a monster tornado that left a path of destruction nearly a mile wide through the heart of Joplin, Missouri, and directly hit the small Midwestern city's main hospital, local officials said on Monday.

U.S. weather officials said the tornado that hit at dinnertime on Sunday it may have been the single deadliest in the country since 1953.

Rescue crews from throughout the region worked all night and into Monday morning in the town of about 50,000 people, searching for anyone still alive in the rubble.

An unknown number of people were injured and officials said they expected to find more bodies as they dig through collapsed homes and businesses.

The tornado blew the roof off St. John's hospital where about 180 patients cowered, and some 2,000 homes and other buildings were destroyed. It flattened whole neighborhoods, splintered trees, flipped cars and trucks upside down and into each other.

A number of bodies were found along the city's "restaurant row," and a local nursing home took a direct hit, Newton County Coroner Mark Bridges said.

"It is a significant tragedy," said Missouri Governor Jay Nixon. "We're working on all cylinders. We've got to get an active and complete search ... to make sure if there is anyone still alive in the rubble that we get them out."

The city's residents were given about 20 minutes notice when 25 warning sirens sounded throughout the southwest Missouri town around 6 p.m. CDT, said Jasper County Emergency Management Director Keith Stammers.

But the governor said many people likely were unable to get to shelter in time. "The bottom line was the storm was so loud you probably couldn't hear the sirens going off." He declared a state of emergency and called out the Missouri National Guard to help.

"The loss of life is incredible," said Joplin Mayor Mike Woolston. "We're still trying to find people. The outlook is pretty bleak."

Two refrigerated trucks were brought in to serve as a make-shift morgue at a local university and more were being brought in to handle the additional bodies expected, the coroner said.

Joplin City Councilwoman Melodee Colbert-Kean, who serves as vice mayor, said the town was in a state of "chaos."

"It is just utter devastation anywhere you look to the south and the east -- businesses, apartment complexes, houses, cars, trees, schools, you name it, it is leveled, leveled," she said.

President Barack Obama called the governor Sunday evening to "extend his condolences" to the families of Joplin. White House spokesman Nicholas Shapiro said Federal Emergency Management Agency head Craig Fugate was on his way to Joplin to help with recovery.

The tornado in Joplin was the latest in a string of powerful twisters that has wreaked death and devastation in recent weeks.

Twisters killed more than 300 people and did more than $2 billion in damages to the U.S. South last month, killing more than 200 in Alabama alone.

On Saturday night, a tornado ripped through Reading, Kansas, killing one and damaging 200 homes and businesses. Another person was killed in a tornado in Minneapolis on Sunday.

HUDDLED IN RESTAURANT COOLER

The path of the tornado through Joplin was estimated at six miles long and about 1/2 mile to 3/4 mile wide.

Sharon Hurtt 60, and Bill Dearing, 59, had no basement to flee to when the tornado descended on their single-story home, so they huddled in a closet between two bedrooms. Within minutes, the roof was gone and powerful winds ripped the door off the closet.

"We were holding on to keep from blowing away," said Hurtt.

A mattress blown off the bed somehow became wedged in the doorway.

"It probably saved us," said Hurtt.

When the couple emerged, the daycare center next door was gone and mangled cars and other debris littered their yard.

Carla Tabares said she, her husband and several families with children squeezed into the kitchen cooler of an Outback Steakhouse restaurant when the twister neared, huddling in the chilly darkness until the howling of the storm passed.

"It was really awful, really scary," she said. The restaurant was largely unscathed, but other buildings were badly damaged. "I'm just thankful we got out alive, and I really feel sorry for the people who didn't."

Joplin-area resident Denise Bayless, 57, said she and her husband were at church when their adult son called to say the tornado was hitting his house. The couple got in their car to race to his aid.

"We just had to weave in and out of debris. Power lines were down everywhere, and you could smell gas," she said.

After stopping to assist a woman they heard screaming, trapped inside her home, Bayless said she ran five blocks to her son's house, where she found every home on the street -- some 20 dwellings including his -- were gone.

"I just lost all my bearings. There was nothing that looked familiar," said Bayless, whose son was unhurt.

Beth Peacock, manager of a concert hall in town said several hundred people converged on the facility seeking shelter and medical treatment after the storm struck.

(Additional reporting by Carey Gillam, David Bailey, Colleen Jenkins and Chris Michaud; Writing by Steve Gorman; Editing by Philip Barbara and Jackie Frank)

© Thomson Reuters 2011 All rights reserved.

Tornado kills at least 89 in Joplin, Missouri | Top News | Reuters

Denying reality in Greece | Economy | Financial Post

By Tim Shufelt - from the National Post

To fix Greece, a modern country built on the ruins of past civilizations, is to impose a modern financial blueprint on the ruins of its failed economy.

Greece is insolvent. That’s due, in part, to ingrained deficiencies that have long kept the country deeply uncompetitive.

Prevailing over those forces will prove an historic challenge, but one that should, in theory, not differ essentially from that facing any failed enterprise, including other countries that have fought back from default.

Yet after billions in bailout money and more than one year into its crisis, Greece has made roughly no progress. In fact, its problems have worsened. The debt burden has increased, the country’s relationship with the rest of Europe is being poisoned by every bailout dollar thrown down the well, and the government has lost all credibility with the Greek people, making austerity and shared sacrifice politically impossible.

Greece has become a casualty of an economic and currency union that lacks political unity. The reduction in principal the country requires is a non-starter for European officials, who seem primarily concerned with protecting Greece’s major creditors. Meanwhile, the Greeks themselves seem unable or unwilling to face up to their own fiscal realities.

A glance at Greece’s books is enough to convince any objective observer that a restructuring of its debt is crucial to the country’s recovery, said Alex Jurshevski, founder of Toronto-based Recovery Partners and an expert in sovereign restructurings.

The Greek debt load sits at about €330-billion ($450-billion), or almost 150% of its GDP.

“If Greece has to refinance its entire debt at today’s coupons, it would be immediately bankrupt,” Mr. Jurshevski said. “It couldn’t pay those coupons, it would crowd out all other government expenditure, the government would fall, there would be riots on the streets, and their paper would be worthless.”

But what must be done and what has been done are worlds apart, he said. Europe’s political powers instead advocate “bailouts” to fund short-term debt payments and austerity to improve fiscal conditions.

“The whole game from the get go has been to preserve the bank’s capital in this whole equation. There hasn’t been a bailout of the countries under financial pressure, it’s been to preserve the banks’ financial solvency that have lent to these places. Nothing more,” he said.

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Denying reality in Greece | Economy | Financial Post

Sun News : NDP takes blame for another MP’s false resume

JEAN-FRANÇOIS LAROSE IN OTTAWA, MAY 19, 2011.  (Credits: ANDRE FORGET/QMI AGENCY)

By Kristy Kirkup - From the Sun News Network

OTTAWA - The NDP is taking the fall again for another MP's erroneous resume posted on the party's website.

"It was a mistake made by the party," said NDP spokesman Steven Moran.

The New Democrats say an "inadvertent change" was made to Jean-François Larose's resume on the official party website, which featured biographies from all candidates during the election.

The false credentials were also posted about Larose on the La Presse newspaper website when he ran for in the Montreal municipal election in 2009.

QMI Agency has learned the new Quebec MP does not have a degree from the University of Montreal, despite that his official biography stated he had three certificates from the institution.

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Sun News : NDP takes blame for another MP’s false resume

Sun News : Autisic child banned from school

AUTISTIC GIRL EMILY BUCZEK PLAYS IN HER HOME IN TORONTO TUESDAY MAY 10TH, 2011. (Credits: Toronto Sun/QMI Agency)

By Moira MacDonald - from the Toronto Sun

TORONTO - You would think severely disabled children and their families have enough to handle, without getting kicked out of school, too.

But that is the case for 14-year-old Emily Buczek, who is autistic, diagnosed as developmentally-delayed and cannot speak. Emily has been at her Etobicoke home colouring and surfing the web since April 7.

She's been banned from her special needs high school, Drewry Secondary, under a "refusal to admit" letter, done under the authority of the Education Act.

The letter says Emily's presence "is detrimental to the physical and mental well-being of students in the School" because she has been "physically aggressive towards staff, herself and other students."

The Toronto District School Board would not disclose details about Emily's case to me, citing confidentiality, but the board's senior superintendent for special education, Karen Forbes, said such a move is done as "a last resort and it is not to be permanent in any way, shape, or form."

Emily's mother, Christina, plans to appeal the ban. She says a Drewry staff member ended up with bruises to the arms after Christina's five-foot-tall, 100-pound daughter - who has two educational aides assigned to help her - pinched the person in an outburst her mom says is often related to anxiety and stress.

"She's high needs, she can be physical," admits Christina, a former chair of the TDSB's special education committee.

But Christina says this is the latest episode in a situation that has gone up and down for Emily since last September when she moved on to high school from elementary. That situation could have been avoided had Emily - who has two educational aides, partly paid for under a $27,000 grant her disabilities generate - got the right people assigned to her and the right programs.

Portrait of a madman | Wellington Times

By Rick Conroy - from the Wellington Times

Just how far will he go?

Since Dalton McGuinty stared into a television camera in a leaders’ debate in 2003 and promised he would rid the province of coalfired electricity generation by 2007, there has been no barrier, no regulation, no safeguard strong enough or important enough to slow Dalton McGuinty from his futile obsession with wind and solar powered generation. Never mind that eight years later Ontario is still generating electricity from coal, and despite lavishing developers, conglomerates and others with billions of taxpayer’s dollars—he is no closer to his goal than he was in 2003.

So he has become more desperate. Now he appears willing to throw entire species under the bus for the sake of a piddly and unreliable trickle of electricity that might from time to time be emitted from an array of massive turbines on Crown land on Prince Edward County’s south shore.

A quick recap of the madness that has twisted Ontario’s energy supply so far under Dalton McGuinty’s guidance:

- billions of dollars spent and committed to developers to erect an intermittent power supply that cannot be harnessed by our grid operator or consumers;

- billions more committed to Korea’s Samsung in a deal negotiated in secret and of which Ontarians remain in the dark;

- legislation that removes local government input and authority over wind and solar factories in their jurisdictions;

- the replacement of environmental, archeological, social and economic impact scrutiny applicable to every other power or infrastructure development by a check-thebox process for wind and solar factory developers. Did you consult with the community? Yes? Check. Did you consult with the municipality? Yes? Check. It matters not that any of the folks consulted had critical objections, only that they were consulted;

- Crown land, set aside by our ancestors to preserve natural features and beauty, sacrificed and handed over to developers— whose interest in the land extends not one second past the 20 year life of the guaranteed power purchase contract it holds;

- residents forced from their homes and made ill due to vibration and noise from neighbouring wind turbines; and

- not as well understood are provisions in the Green Energy Act that compel the Ontario Energy Board and grid operators to take intermittent electricity from wind and solar electricity generators. These utilities have no use for electricity they can’t dispatch (turn on or turn off) so, under orders, they take the wind and solar-powered electricity and fork over to other markets or risk putting the system out of balance. Those markets like Michigan and Ohio are happy to take it off our hands—for a hefty fee.We are being held ransom daily in the electricity market by one man’s misguided obsession. In the United Kingdom the government has begun paying intermittent electricity generators to disconnect from the grid for the same reason.

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Portrait of a madman | Wellington Times

Two peoples, two standards - thestar.com

By Asher Susser - from the Toronto Star

Much of the analysis on the recent Fatah-Hamas reconciliation is a good example of this faulty paradigm. After years of mutual hostility, Hamas and Fatah have essentially papered over their differences to pave the way for the creation of a unity government that will make it easier for the international community to recognize Palestinian independence. This is a move directed at the UN General Assembly and is not even intended for Israel. No one on the Palestinian side, neither in Fatah nor in Hamas, would seriously regard the inclusion of Hamas in a Palestinian government as a gesture of goodwill toward Israel, or to the U.S. for that matter.

The agreement is a reflection of Fatah’s increasing weakness after the demise of its greatest Arab ally, President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt. The new post-Mubarak Egypt is one in which the Muslim Brotherhood, the parent movement of Hamas, is widely expected to be a dominant player. This is wind in the sails of Hamas as much as it is the deflation of Fatah. It is also reason for Israeli concern about the future of the peace treaty with Egypt, to which the Muslim Brotherhood were and are firmly opposed.

Since the agreement with Fatah, spokesmen for Hamas have given no indication of any change in their position toward Israel. They still say they will continue the fight against Israel after the creation of a Palestinian state, and they do not have any intention of recognizing the Jewish state. They are willing to accept a two-state solution subject to a referendum, they say. But this referendum is to be held not only among all the Palestinian people in the West Bank and Gaza but in the diaspora, too. This is intended to place the issue of large-scale Palestinian refugee return to Israel at the top of the agenda.

No one in Hamas really expects the Palestinian diaspora to endorse a two-state solution without such refugee return. This was and is a non-starter for Israel and is a Hamas ploy to base the “solution” on what is no more than a euphemism for dismantling Israel as the state of the Jewish people. This is not even intended as the basis for an agreement, but only as a design for endless conflict. It is precisely the refugee issue, more than any other, that has made Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking so elusive. The recent violent incidents of “Nakba Day” on Israel’s borders, focusing on the rejection of Israel’s very creation in 1948, rather than on its withdrawal from the territories occupied in 1967, is as clear an indication as any of where the real obstacles lie.

Israel has offered statehood to the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, with the Palestinian capital in Arab Jerusalem and a corridor linking the territory of the West Bank with Gaza. But Israel’s offer was rebuffed twice, in 2000 and again in 2008, even though the Israelis had increased their proposed withdrawal from some 95 per cent of the West Bank to 100 per cent (with land swaps). Israel’s initial proposal was met with an onslaught of suicide bombers sent by Hamas and Fatah too, not to mention the rocketry from Gaza even after Israel’s complete withdrawal from the territory in 2005. In their 2006 parliamentary elections the Palestinians gave Hamas a whopping majority. Henceforth, Fatah could not deliver without Hamas. The problem is, however, that Fatah cannot deliver with Hamas, either.

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Two peoples, two standards - thestar.com

Charles Krauthammer: Making sense of Obama’s Middle East speech | Full Comment | National Post

By Charles Krauthammer - from the National Post

Herewith President Obama’s May 19 Middle East speech, annotated:

“It will be the policy of the United States to promote reform across the region, and to support transitions to democracy.”

With this Barack Obama openly, unreservedly and without a trace of irony or self-reflection adopts the Bush Doctrine, which made the spread of democracy the key U.S. objective in the Middle East.

“Too many leaders in the region tried to direct their people’s grievances elsewhere. The West was blamed as the source of all ills.”

Note how even Obama’s rationale matches Bush’s. Bush argued that because the roots of 9/11 were to be found in the deflected anger of repressed Middle Eastern peoples, our response would require a democratic transformation of the region.

“We have a stake not just in the stability of nations, but in the self-determination of individuals.”

A fine critique of exactly the kind of “realism” the Obama administration prided itself for having practiced in its first two years.

How far did this concession to Bush go? Note Obama’s example of the democratization America is aiming for. He actually said:

“In Iraq, we see the promise of a multi-ethnic, multisectarian democracy. There, the Iraqi people have rejected the perils of political violence for a democratic process … Iraq is poised to play a key role in the region.”

Hail the Bush-Obama doctrine.

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Charles Krauthammer: Making sense of Obama’s Middle East speech | Full Comment | National Post

Rex Murphy: Cornel West’s deep personal grudge against President Obama | Full Comment | National Post

By Rex Murphy - from the National Post

Princeton University professor Cornel West is as much a celebrity as scholar. He also happens to be African-American, and claims to be a friend of Barack Obama.

But if what West has taken to saying about Obama is coming from a friend, as the proverb hints, he doesn’t need enemies. West, for all his liberal atmospherics, has a very ugly mouth. In interviews and TV appearances lately, he’s been beating up on his “friend” with a kind of invective that would shame the darkest Republican.

Particularly, in a recent interview with Chris Hedges, he refers to Obama as a “black mascot” of Wall Street, then offers a variation that he is a “black puppet” of “corporate plutocrats.” Note the stress on “black” in both slurs. Racial designations are very important to how West views America.

For the professor, it’s not enough for Obama to be merely a mascot or a puppet of this or that: It’s the skin colour that carries all the sting.

West allows himself such judgments because he sees himself as a gatekeeper of what is black and what is not. In doing so, he plasters his comments with faux-friendly reference to “brother Barack Obama.” Such gestures are hollow. He clearly has a deep, personal grudge against the President. As his statements to Hedges show, it stems from the purest vanity: Having worked for Obama’s election, he finds his phone calls to the President unanswered. He didn’t get extra tickets for Obama’s inauguration. And when he learned that a bellhop at the Washington hotel he was staying at for the event had tickets, the great progressive was mortified.

Imagine: lower class black bellhop has tickets; Princetonian brainiac’s family entourage does not. The pettiness behind West’s diatribe is, nonetheless, the very least of the man’s offences.

Obama, deep Dr. West tells us, “has a certain fear of free black men.” Also, this: “[Obama] feels most comfortable with upper middle-class white and Jewish men who consider themselves very smart, very savvy and very effective in getting what they want.”

What’s “Jewish” doing there?

The emphasis on white is just the mirror of West’s race fixation on black. But why the need to expand to “white and Jewish?” Because “Jewish” is the final brush stroke of what West perceives as his indictment of Obama’s sellout. And because anyone who looks to race as the deep answer to anything is always going to brush up against, or slyly invoke, the “Jewish” stereotype along the way. It is, for such minds, ineluctable.

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Rex Murphy: Cornel West’s deep personal grudge against President Obama | Full Comment | National Post

The Most Basic Human Right

When discussing the area of human rights, there is a logical hierarchy,as there are in needs. For example, a person will worry about having food and shelter before worrying about whether a job brings a high level of personal fulfillment. In the area of rights, certain rights are built on the presumption of other rights. A person's right to freedom of expression, for example, cannot exist without freedom of belief. Indeed, this hierarchy of rights can be imagined as an inverted triangle, with every level of rights resting on a smaller group of necessary rights – all the way down to the single fundamental right which underpins them all. This is the right to life.

In Canada, unfortunately, this right is one which is seriously neglected. Certain categories of person are denied it by law, or by an unthinking public. If you are a person who has yet to pass from your mother's womb, this right is not legally upheld. If you are seriously disabled, while so far your right to life is legally upheld – if somewhat weakly – public opinion is seriously mixed as to whether you hold this or not.

Therapeutic abortion is the euphemistic term used to describe the denial of the fundamental right to life of a child by a medical act. In Canada, this can legally take place right up to the moment of birth, as there is no law governing it. The same child which can be delivered by Caesarean at 5-6 months in what has become an almost routine procedure can be aborted at 9 months so long as they are still in the womb. This would be the logical equivalent to suggesting that an area in Canada could be designated an open killing zone, where any person who happened to be there could be killed at will. “Welcome to Haliburton County – hope you live!”

Those who support legalized abortions support their stance by two means. The first of these is the idea that the child isn't a person until birth, but rather a simple extension of the mother's body, much the same as a toe or finger. This argument falls apart as soon as you examine one simple fact – the genetic makeup of the child versus that of the mother. They are completely different – as different as that of a mother and her child. Any transplant surgeon can tell you that the difference is such that there is no guarantee that a transplanted organ from one to the other will not be rejected. Thus, the child in the womb can only be thought of as a mere appendage by a fool.

The other justifying idea is that there is a difference in the rights accorded to the mother versus those accorded the child. This, though, is either silly or evil. It is silly, if you haven't considered the idea that there is no basis in Canadian law for seeing different groups of people as having different rights merely by their inclusion in some subgroup.

iPOLITICS WITH DON NEWMAN: Why Mark Carney should head the IMF | iPolitics

By Don Newman - from iPOLITICS.ca

The man who should be the next managing director of the IMF observed last week in a speech to the Canadian Club of Ottawa that the world is at a hinge point just as it was a hundred years ago.

The emergence of China and India is influencing wealth, work, and trade in the same way the emergence of the United States changed Great Britain and the major powers of Europe during the early part of the 20th century.

Economically, at least, we now live in a multi-polar world. Will security and strategic power follow the money? He didn’t say it wouldn’t.

The speaker was Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney. In the policy deficit world in which Canadians now live, his remarks didn’t receive the attention they deserve. One can only hope people in the political and financial capitals of the world were paying attention.

To find someone running a central bank of a G-8 country who can articulate the stated facts clearly and positively is important when now is certainly the time to notice. Why? The International Monetary Fund needs a managing director.

The problems Dominique Strauss-Kahn brought upon himself last weekend in a New York hotel suite mean his tenure is over no matter how the sexual assault charges are disposed.

The job of secretary general of the IMF ebbs and flows in importance. It has never been more influential than right now as the international economy struggles to get back on its feet, and the G-20 emerges as the steering group of advanced and developing nations.

So the jockeying is on. Since its founding as the world’s economic policeman, the managing director has been a European by consensus. The quid pro quo is that the president of the World Bank is always an American.

So the Europeans are lobbying frantically for the IMF’s top job.

However, the rising power of the emerging economies has changed the governing and financial structure of the IMF, and a number of those countries are saying it’s time to put an end to the cosy deal on the fund’s top jobs.

The problem is there is no clear-cut emerging economy. Even if there were, it is not clear rivalries among those countries allow agreement on who that person should be.

Enter Mark Carney and Canada.