April Reign

Speak your mind even if your voice shakes

terrorism

Scared yet?..now?…how about now?

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Now we don’t know who, when or where.. we do know

“The technical capability required to construct and use a simple RDD is practically trivial, compared to that of a nuclear explosive device or even most chemical or biological weapons,” the CSIS study says.

A homemade radiological weapon could consist of a conventional explosive laced with radioactive material commonly found at universities, medical and research laboratories or industrial sites.

But we don’t know what they are waiting for

“Indeed, it is quite surprising that the world has not yet witnessed such an attack,” the study says, adding “it appears that we are positively overdue for one.”

Oh yes and apparently they have figured out what really matters to the leaders in the west

The intelligence service points to the notion terrorist thinking has shifted from the desire to inflict mass casualties to “one of inflicting severe economic damage.”

And so it ends..

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notebook

I had a bad feeling about this year, and I was unfortunately right about that.

Personally I lost a mom, a cat, two jobs, and had two serious health scares.

Politically saw the election of Harper and crew, a renewed and emboldened attack on women’s rights and freedoms, the realization that though the wheel was invented, many still want to put corners on it and have a nuanced discussion over who should be using it, continued death and destruction by the powerful who stand to gain more.. upon the many who have nothing left to lose, and the death of a puppet who had turned on his masters. [Read more…] about And so it ends..

Guilty till we can prove you..ah..guilty

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Remember when they at least pretended there was a presumption of innocence?

Remember when having gone through trial and proved not guilty you were in fact considered not guilty?

Did you ever think that two world governments would conspire against one man? And then compound all the wrong that had transpired by folding their arms stomping their feet and refusing to admit either their own guilt or any satisfaction with the declaration of innocence.

For Maher Arar, it never ends.

It wasn’t enough that the Canadian computer engineer was deported by the U.S. to Syria to be tortured.

Nor was it enough that, even after he got home, unknown Canadian government officials deliberately leaked false and damaging information to the media in an attempt to smear him.

Now, after a painstaking 34-month judicial inquiry finally cleared his name, the U.S. government has decided that it is its turn to smear Arar.

The smear was delivered by David Wilkins, U.S. ambassador to Canada. In a statement released yesterday, he said that Arar will stay on a U.S. watch list that denies him entry to that country “based on information from a variety of sources.”

Right wing governments are correct when they say they do not believe in big government. Big government being a code word for government responsible to and for the people.

Totalitarian government, however, seems to be something they can get behind.

totalitarianism

Form of government that subordinates all aspects of its citizens’ lives to the authority of the state, with a single charismatic leader as the ultimate authority. The term was coined in the early 1920s by Benito Mussolini, but totalitarianism has existed throughout history throughout the world (e.g., Qin dynasty China). It is distinguished from dictatorship and authoritarianism by its supplanting of all political institutions and all old legal and social traditions with new ones to meet the state’s needs, which are usually highly focused. Large-scale, organized violence may be legitimized. The police operate without the constraint of laws and regulations. Where pursuit of the state’s goal is the only ideological foundation for such a government, achievement of the goal can never be acknowledged.

Day 4 (Dec. 6th Action)

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I don’t know what to write today to introduce you to this video.

It covers many subjects and it is of course up to the viewer to make their own interpretation.

If you think the voices sound familiar, it is Judy Collins and Joan Baez.

*some images are graphic*

For some reason the embedded player was cutting out half way through, it is fine on the youtube site.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqewiVEemww

…did I do that?

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I suppose you can’t expect much from people who think the internet is a series of tubes

Still you would hope that a government which regularly uses THE WAR ON TERROR as their go to for every right killing bill they pass would have some sense that posting how-to manuals on chemical weapons and atomic bombs on the internet just might possibly be a bad idea.

(is it an oxymoron to use sense and republican in the same sentence? I think it might be.)

But in recent weeks, the site has posted some documents that weapons experts say are a danger themselves: detailed accounts of Iraq’s secret nuclear research before the 1991 Persian Gulf war. The documents, the experts say, constitute a basic guide to building an atom bomb.

Last night, the government shut down the Web site after The New York Times asked about complaints from weapons experts and arms-control officials. A spokesman for the director of national intelligence said access to the site had been suspended “pending a review to ensure its content is appropriate for public viewing.”

Officials of the International Atomic Energy Agency, fearing that the information could help states like Iran develop nuclear arms, had privately protested last week to the American ambassador to the agency, according to European diplomats who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the issue’s sensitivity. One diplomat said the agency’s technical experts “were shocked” at the public disclosures.

A primer on Hezbollah

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After seeing this quote pasted into a story about Canadian citizens being brought home from Lebanon

His appearance came on the same day that the White House warned it had evidence that Syria, Iran and Hezbollah are trying to destabilize and overthrow Lebanon’s government.

Echoing the U.S. warning, the minister said Lebanon could again erupt into violence.

“Hezbollah are a terrorist organization armed to the teeth. They are like the Taliban on steroids,” he said. “They are a very dangerous organization.”

I decided to educate myself a little more on the Hezbollah.

The Dominion has a very informative article

Interestingly, both Jean Chretien and Bill Graham, then Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs respectively, resisted placing Hezbollah on the terrorist list. Chretien met with Hassan Nasrallah, the secretary general of Hezbollah, in Beirut in October 2002. On November 28, a new set of groups was banned–and Hezbollah was still not among them. Irwin Cotler denounced the omission as “inexplicable and, given their [Hezbollah’s] murderous ideology, unconscionable.”

B’nai Brith responded the next day, on November 29, with a press conference in which they announced a lawsuit against the government, brought on the grounds that the government was failing to protect Canadians by refusing to ban Hezbollah.

The following day, November 30, the National Post picked up a story from the Washington Times claiming that, at a Beirut rally, Nasrallah had condoned and encouraged suicide bombing. Nasrallah was alleged to have said: “Suicide bombings should be exported outside Palestine”; and “I encourage Palestinians to take suicide bombings worldwide, don’t be shy about it.”

Two weeks later, after going to Beirut to investigate, CBC journalist Neil MacDonald exposed the story as a fabrication.

snip

MacDonald reported on CBC on December 11 that, “Ottawa now knows that the Nasrallah quotes in the Washington Times about exporting suicide attacks were almost certainly never uttered.”

However, the alleged comments by Nasrallah had already received enough attention to force the government’s hand; a special Cabinet committee meeting was held the evening of December 10, 2002, in which it was decided to designate Hezbollah as a terrorist organization. The Canada Gazette, official newspaper of the government, reported, “The change has been made on the basis of the close connection between the organization as a whole and the Hezbollah External Security Organization, and the recent statement by Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, the secretary general of Hezbollah, encouraging suicide bombings.”