Fallout after the French EU constitutional vote

"Taking a break from his Italian holiday, he said: “The question that is being debated by the people of Europe is how do you, in this era of globalisation, make our economies strong and competitive?” The political vacuum has prompted a battle for the “heart of the Union”, with Mr Blair keen to push more liberal economic policies, rather than French-style social protection with a large welfare state."

Citizen journalism

"What does it take to be a citizen editor? Everyone I spoke to for this column suggested that being young helps. "I bet some younger journalists will find this to be really interesting, because they've grown up with the Web," says Dan Gillmor, a well-known blogger and technology columnist who wrote the book "We the Media" and recently left traditional journalism to found a citizens-media start-up, Grassroots Media Inc. A younger mindset might find it easier to accept the concept that the conversations generated by citizen media can be as interesting as anything else that a news organization does"......

Testimony at Gomery today

Chretien drops bid to remove Gomery

Bruce Thornton- modern version of what Bat Ye'or calls dhimmitude

"In fact, all our good deeds, all our attempts to show how much we esteem Islam are considered signs of spiritual weakness, and so are merely invitations to more aggression. Nowhere is this more obvious than in Israel, for half a century the front line of the modern jihad against the West. Time after time Israeli concessions, most obviously those following the Oslo agreements, have been met with more murder of Israelis. The withdrawal from Lebanon led to a propaganda coup for Hizbollah and a terrorist army independent of any state authority sitting on Israel's northern border; the withdrawal from Gaza may achieve the same thing to the southwest. Meanwhile Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas — a published Holocaust denier who is said to have sent the '72 Munich terrorists off to their work with kisses on their cheeks — is invited to the White House and promised millions in aid, even as the Israeli army continues to intercept homicide bombers trying to cross the border to blow up more Jews. The jihadist long-term goal to destroy Israel is still on track, pursued for the present by tactical moves designed to placate and dupe blinkered Westerners.

This behavior smacks of the modern version of what Bat Ye'or calls dhimmitude, a psychological submission to Islam that accepts one's own cultural inferiority. If we do not start recognizing the current conflict for what it is, another episode in the 14-century-long jihad against the West, we will end up like Europe, in a state of full-blown psychological dhimmitude characterized by abject submission to hypocritical double-standards that validate Islam's superiority and the West's inferiority. What else explains the Italian judge who indicted journalist Oriana Fallaci for “defaming Islam” in her book The Force of Reason? The quintessential Western political and intellectual good of free inquiry and speech is subordinated to Islamic sensibilities, an action that to the jihadist proves their beliefs are right and ours are wrong."

A wartime milestone- Steyn

"A week and a half after the VE Day anniversary, here’s a date that will get a lot less attention: May 19th 2005. On that day, the war on terror will have outlasted America’s participation in the Second World War. In other words, the period since 9/11 will be longer than the period of time between Pearl Harbor in December 1941 and the Japanese surrender in August 1945........

.....But the real battleground is the west itself, the heart of Europe, where bombs in Spain, murders in the Netherland, honor killings in Germany prompt only shrugs or pre-emptive capitulation from the political class. Perhaps in the end the comparison isn’t World War Two or the Cold War, but the one that created the modern Middle East in the first place – the First World War, which began with one specific act of violence and unraveled all the great European empires before it was done. Nearly four years after 9/11, a war that started with a bang seems to have fizzled to a whimper – whiney Dems, bureaucratic Homeland Security, nothing much on the horizon. Not so. There’s plenty ahead."
National Review, May 12th 2005

Town Hall meeting May 31 for small investors

The Ontario Securities Commission Investor Town Hall Meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, May 31st at 6:30pm at the Canadian Broadcasting Centre, 250 Front Street, Toronto. This FREE event is open to the public. You may pre-register on the OSC website, or register at the door. Doors open at 6:00 p.m.

This will be an opportunity for investors to ask questions to a panel of the top regulators in Ontario including the Ontario Securities commission (OSC), Investment Dealers Association (IDA), the Mutual Fund Dealers Association, and the Ombudsman for Banking Services and Investments (OBSI)


To listen to audiocast

Click on first known video clip of Zarqawi in Iraq - Al Jazeera interview

Reporter: "Perhaps no man has experienced the paradox of living in the dark while all the world's spotlights are focused on him as much as the mysterious Jordanian, Abu Mus'ab Al-Zarqawi.

"This makes him somewhat similar to Osama Bin Laden and the rest of the Al-Qaeda leaders. He differs from them in that he has refrained from sending televised messages, especially in the past two years, in which his star shone as the most brutal leader of the armed militants fighting the Americans in Iraq.

"Before that, only a few people had heard the name Al-Zarqawi or knew what he looked like. But when he began to be pursued as America's most wanted man in Iraq, this myth gave rise to attempts to describe him as a symbol of the struggle by some, and a horrifying nightmare by others, while questions regarding his personality and goals still arouse much controversy."

Voice of Al-Zarqawi: "With Allah's help, we raid them as they raid us, and attack them as they attack us."

First stage of Lebanese election

Welcome INSTAPUNDIT readers!



"Lebanon's anti-Syrian alliance has swept the board in the first round of general elections, officials say.

Amidst a low turnout, the coalition headed by the son of murdered former Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri took all 19 seats in the capital Beirut.

Pro-Syrian Shia groups are tipped to fare better in next Sunday's second round of voting in the south.

But the country-wide result is expected to see a big parliamentary majority for Syria's opponents. "

Memorial Day

The GettysburgAddress

".......It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

So the next election won't be held in January?

Accuracy in Media

Ottawa- where the buck never stops