John Sainsbury: Rewriting history for political gain | Full Comment | National Post

by John Sainsbury - from the National Post

In a televised town hall-style infomercial, paid for by the Liberal party and aired on Sunday, Michael Ignatieff assures us that he is not “a standard-issue academic.” In sharp contrast to that tedious breed, he portrays himself as an interesting man who has led an interesting life. He’s been “out where it’s mucky and dirty and violent and scary,” dodging bullets as a war correspondent.

In 1993 he related one of his tales of derring-do in the introduction to his book Blood and Belonging. The setting is the war-torn Balkans, in the conflict zone between Serbian and Croatian territory. Our intrepid correspondent describes what happens when he and his film crew try to cross a UN checkpoint into Serb-held territory. Two Canadian infantrymen, whom Ignatieff dismissively refers to as “anxious adolescents,” man the checkpoint.

The Canadians wave Ignatieff’s party through, but their van is immediately surrounded by 15 Serbian paramilitaries, drunk from a wedding in a neighbouring village. They accuse the crew of being Croatian spies. The drunkest one (“with dead eyes and glassy, sweat-beaded skin”) seizes the van’s steering wheel and starts to drive off.

One of the Canadian soldiers, “breathing heavily,” attempts to stop him. “We’ll do this my way,” he says, pulling and cajoling the drunken Serb out of the driver’s seat. But the Canadian soldier is in turn pushed aside by a young Serb in combat gear, who seizes control of the van, arrests Ignatieff and his crew and takes them to a Serbian police station. There they wait anxiously, until an order for their release arrives, apparently from “a local Serb warlord.”

The anecdote captures Ignatieff’s thesis in Blood and Belonging, a thesis he summarizes as follows: “The key narrative of the new world order is the disintegration of nation-states into ethnic civil war; the key architects of that order are warlords; and the key language for our age is ethnic nationalism.” International agencies such as the United Nations are powerless to intervene and Ignatieff is contemptuous of their attempts to do so. Read more...

John Sainsbury: Rewriting history for political gain | Full Comment | National Post

New Poll in Prince Edward - Hastings

In a poll of the residents of my home, the results indicate the Conservatives have 100% support.  Kathy and I both said we would vote Tory.  Sammie the cat refused to make a choice, but indicated her main issue was pure self-interest.  Since the Bloc Quebecois isn't running anyone in her riding, she couldn't relate to any candidate.


Holly the pup's response was "Play?!".

China’s train wreck - The Washington Post

By Associated Press - from the Washington Post

For the past eight years, Liu Zhijun was one of the most influential people in China. As minister of railways, Liu ran China’s $300 billion high-speed rail project. U.S., European and Japanese contractors jostled for a piece of the business while foreign journalists gushed over China’s latest high-tech marvel.

Today, Liu Zhijun is ruined, and his high-speed rail project is in trouble. On Feb. 25, he was fired for “severe violations of discipline” — code for embezzling tens of millions of dollars. Seems his ministry has run up $271 billion in debt — roughly five times the level that bankrupted General Motors. But ticket sales can’t cover debt service that will total $27.7 billion in 2011 alone. Safety concerns also are cropping up.

Faced with a financial and public relations disaster, China put the brakes on Liu’s program. On April 13, the government cut bullet-train speeds 30 mph to improve safety, energy efficiency and affordability. The Railway Ministry’s tangled finances are being audited. Construction plans, too, are being reviewed.

Liu’s legacy, in short, is a system that could drain China’s economic resources for years. So much for the grand project that Thomas Friedman of the New York Times likened to a “moon shot” and that President Obama held up as a model for the United States.

Rather than demonstrating the advantages of centrally planned long-term investment, as its foreign admirers sometimes suggested, China’s bullet-train experience shows what can go wrong when an unelected elite, influenced by corrupt opportunists, gives orders that all must follow — without the robust public discussion we would have in the states. Read more

China’s train wreck - The Washington Post

Flying the Flag, Fleeing the State - NYTimes.com

By Rose George - from the New York Times

FOUR American yachters killed; a Danish family of five and two crew members kidnapped: these events in the space of a week early this year may finally fuel a consensus that something needs to be done about piracy in the Indian Ocean and Gulf of Aden. And something should be done: in addition to the yachters, nearly 700 sailors, mostly Filipino, Bangladeshi and Russian, are being held hostage. Often forced to operate their captured ships at gunpoint, with little food or water, some of them have been prisoners for months.

But maritime lawlessness isn’t confined to pirates. Thanks to a system of ship registration called “flags of convenience,” it is all too easy for unscrupulous ship owners to get away with criminal behavior. They have evaded prosecution for environmental damage like oil spills, as well as poor labor conditions, forcing crews to work like slaves without adequate pay or rest. But unlike piracy, which seems intractable, the appalling conditions on some merchant ships could be stopped.

Ships used to fly the flags of their nation. They were floating pieces of their home country on ungovernable seas, with all the advantages and disadvantages of government oversight: if things went wrong, seafarers were protected by their governments. If they did wrong, they could be punished.

But in the early 20th century, this began to change. Panama, seeking to attract American ships avoiding Prohibition laws, allowed non-Panamanians to fly its flag, for a fee. Liberia and other countries followed suit. Today these “open registries” are used by over 60 percent of shippers, up from 4 percent in the 1950s.

Under the flags of convenience system, registries have been divorced from government oversight. North Korea has a thriving registry, as does landlocked Mongolia. Liberia’s registry, the second-largest in the world, flourished even during a dozen years of civil war. Some registries allow ship owners to change the flags they’re registered under within 48 hours; some require little more than a signature or an online form from an owner. Many don’t require owners to disclose their identities at all.

Such easy anonymity is dangerous. Read more

Flying the Flag, Fleeing the State - NYTimes.com

Tory majority could hinge on where votes bleed to NDP in final week - The Globe and Mail

By Eric Grenier - from the Globe and Mail

There is only a week left in this unexpectedly surprising election campaign and the final outcome is still unpredictable. But when the votes are counted May 2, where the surging New Democrats make their gains and whether the Liberals can hold on to their own seats could mean the difference between minority and majority government for the Conservatives.

According to ThreeHundredEight.com’s updated seat and vote projections for The Globe and Mail, the Tories are still on track to fall short of a majority, with 150 seats and 38.6 per cent of the national vote. The Liberals are likely to place second with 27.4 per cent and 76 seats (a loss of one since last week), while the New Democrats follow with 19 per cent and 36 seats (a gain of two). And the Bloc Québécois has dropped two seats to 45 in Quebec.

But the final week of the election campaign will almost certainly see these vote and seat numbers change significantly. Read more

Tory majority could hinge on where votes bleed to NDP in final week - The Globe and Mail

Matt Gurney: Liberals love democracy, except when it’s ‘unprincipled’ | Full Comment | National Post

by Matt Gurney - from the National Post

For a party that’s running in large part on the fact the the Tories hate democracy and don’t respect Parliament, the Liberals sure have a weird way of staying on message. Rattled by the surge of the NDP in the polls, which has made it possible (if unlikely) that the NDP will form the official opposition atop a decimated Liberal caucus, the Liberals have shifted their attack ads to focus on Jack Layton’s NDP. This will of course take some of the pressure off of the Tories, leaving them to stay focused in a final week of campaigning while the parties on the left savage each other. But if the Liberals want to hold onto their remaining influence and legacy, they need to strike back — hard — at the party that’s threatening to become the left-wing alternative for Canadian voters.

Hence their new attack ad, “Not so fast, Jack.” The Liberals use the 30-second clip to attack the NDP on a variety of issues: Inexperience, nonsensical economic policies and, intriguingly, not being principled on the long-gun registry vote. So, apparently, the Liberal Party of Canada, God’s gift to democracy, consider allowing free votes in Parliament to be … unprincipled. Good thing they’re here to make Parliament work and counter the Tories’ disrespect for our democracy. Read more

Matt Gurney: Liberals love democracy, except when it’s ‘unprincipled’ | Full Comment | National Post

Harper promotes religious freedom - Belleville Intelligencer - Ontario, CA

By Bryn Weese, Parliamentary Bureau, QMI AGENCY

MISSISSAUGA, ONT. - Conservative Leader Stephen Harper is kicking off the final leg of the election campaign Easter weekend by promoting his party's promise to create an Office of Religious Freedom.

Later Saturday, Harper is to travel to B.C. where the party hopes to quell the rising NDP surge there.
Before a very ethnically diverse crowd at a Coptic Christian centre in this west-end Toronto suburb, Harper said a re-elected Conservative government would make defending religious freedoms a "priority" for Canadian foreign policy.
The new Office of Religious Freedom, which would be part of the foreign affairs department, would cost about $5 million a year.
Harper said in a statement Saturday that just because Canadians enjoy freedom at home, "we must not let our comfort be an excuse to shirk our commitment to the cause of freedom."
Invoking the memory of slain Pakistani Minister of Minorities Shahbaz Bhatti, Harper said, "(he) had asked us in Canada to shine a light on the persecution of religious minorities in Pakistan and around the world."
Bhatti, a Catholic, was gunned down in March of this year for his defence of Christians in Pakistan. Read more

Harper promotes religious freedom - Belleville Intelligencer - Ontario, CA