Another UN scandal?.....................via EyeontheUN

Vote On New Taxes Deferred Until October

Mayor David Miller's controversial new tax plan wasn't voted down Monday, but it still took a sizeable hit. After a day of furious debate and deliberation, Toronto councillors have put off a vote on the controversial tax hike until the fall.

Despite pleas from the mayor, a backlash from constituents had many of local representatives insisting the right move was to wait until the next municipal election. Whether that can sit that long, only time will tell.


Of course they could have brought this up prior to the last Municipal election if the situation was so dire.They didn't put it on the front burner in the fall and decided to wait until a more convenient time-after an election. It's a good thing the Real Estate Board, Board of Trade, Canadian Taxpayers Federation, the CAA and taxpayers challenged this.Now perhaps they will clean up their house before they go looking for more money-there's only one taxpayer paying the full freight.Perhaps those entities can provide some helpful hints on ways to save money without reducing services since members of Council haven't been using a sharp enough pencil.

Well that didn't take long- Hamas rejects Bush's speech today

"Hamas rejected US President George W. Bush's call for an international peace conference in the fall on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which "aims to serve the interests of the Zionist enemy" according to Hamas spokesperson Ismail Radwan."

Rush Limbaugh- Dems fear Progress in Iraq

Border Patrol- To Protect.........and Serve time

"The above shirt can be ordered from Glenn Beck by clicking here. All proceeds support the legal defense of former Agents Ramos and Compean, who were both politically persecuted for shooting and wounding a career dope smuggler. Compean and Ramos are currently serving 11 and 12 years in solitary confinement. They have been treated like animals for trying to protect this country's borders. Ramos has already been seriously assaulted and injured by illegal alien inmates after Bureau of Prisons managers failed to properly protect him. Johnny "House of Death" Sutton is still attempting to justify his vicious prosecution of these agents, in which he "stacked" charges to get the ultimate penalty. Please support these agents. "

Congressman compares Bush to Hitler.......................LGF

NYPD counterterrorism- intelligence is key

Terrorism Awareness- what really happened....................video

How Doctors Think.................Jerome Groopman ............................City Journal

"

. In her early twenties, Dodge had developed nausea, stomach pain, and vomiting after meals. Initially, her primary-care physician prescribed antacids. When the condition persisted, he sent her to a psychiatrist, who diagnosed her with anorexia. Over the next 15 years, 30 physicians treated Dodge, eventually concluding that she suffered from irritable bowel syndrome. Her doctors recommended that she consume massive amounts of cereals and pastas, but instead of getting better, she steadily lost weight and developed severe osteoporosis.



At her boyfriend’s insistence, Dodge sought out gastroenterologist Myron Falchuk. Falchuk inherited Dodge’s copious medical history, which attributed her illness to her fragile mental state. Falchuk, Groopman writes, “heard in [Dodge’s] doctor’s recitation of the case the implicit message that his role was to examine Anne’s abdomen . . . and to reassure her that irritable bowel syndrome . . . should be treated as the internist had recommended, with an appropriate diet and tranquilizers.” Instead, Falchuk did an extraordinary thing: he pushed her stack of medical records aside and asked her to tell her story from the beginning. After conducting a long interview and physical exam, Falchuk ordered several tests that confirmed his diagnosis: celiac disease—an allergic reaction to gluten, a substance found in many grains. In other words, Dodge’s carbohydrate-rich diet was killing her."

Converting cellulose to fuel..............

Congress Should Support the Troops by Censuring Murtha- Clarice Feldman..........American Thinker

In other words, the Investigating Officer found what many of us in the blogopshere noticed over a year ago, at the very time Time and Murtha were slandering the Marines and adding to their pain and the pain of the families, friends and the Marine Corps itself: the story was an utter hoax.


Laughably, when his office was contacted for comment, his spokesman said the Congressman had none because the investigation was "ongoing". Interestingly, he didn't feel this way when the defendants were first charged and the public and the investigating officer hadn't an opportunity to view their evidence. He poisoned the well when they couldn't easily respond, and now that he's proven wrong he's hiding from the consequences of his unspeakable behavior.


If Congressman Murtha does not personally apologize to the Hilo Company Marines for his intemperate, false and unsupported charges for his own partisan advantage before Congress recesses, upon its return every single member of Congress should be demanding his censure. And anyone who doesn't demand his censure clearly does not seriously support the troops.

Crime beat- Border- via Primetimecrime.com

"In a ruling that cuts to the heart of how Canadian border guards do their jobs, a Provincial Court judge has ruled that the rights of a man charged with smuggling 50 kilograms of cocaine into the country were violated when he was searched at the border."

A GOP comeback strategy

A Surge in Ignorance and Defeatism-...Jeff Emanuel.....American Spectator

"Despite being corrected ad nauseam, the majority of people seem to have the same misconceptions about the relation between this new strategy and the so-called "surge" now that they did when it was first proposed. The "surge" -- an increase in boots on the ground in Iraq -- was never the strategy itself. The increase in troop levels, requested by General Petraeus, was one of many components (or "strategic shifts," as national security advisor Stephen Hadley called them in a January 29 Washington Post op-ed, in which he even then was attempting to clear up the misconception that the "Surge" was the strategy in its entirety) necessary to implement the sweeping new strategy, which radically altered our country's course in Iraq and sought to solve the problems and shore up the weaknesses which four years of fighting had created and exposed.


THE STRATEGY ITSELF WAS and is far more intricate and multi-pronged than a simple "surge" in troops. The main focus of the new strategy has been the Baghdad Security Plan -- a strategy focused on the capital city of Iraq, which seeks (with increased Iraqi and American forces) to permanently rid neighborhoods of terrorists and extremists and keep them that way, and to secure the population. The new strategy in Baghdad was to be met with new rules of engagement, set to ensure that Iraqi and U.S. forces could pursue lawbreakers and terrorists regardless of their community or sect, and to be followed by economic assistance and reconstruction aid -- including billions of dollars in Iraqi funds -- which would combine to offer employment and the prospect of better lives for average citizens. While this operation has been ongoing since Gen. Petraeus's appointment in January, troop levels in Iraq have just recently reached the amount necessary to fully implement the BSP and to undertake the other aspects of the new strategy."

Comments about Chertoff's Comments about AQ-......................Newsmax

Toronto City Council webcast on Taxes today- less service , more taxes

http://communities.canada.com/nationalpost/blogs/toronto/archive/2007/07/16/tax-debate-off-to-a-rowdy-start.aspx

Toronto council chambers is more packed this morning than I've seen it in the three months I've been at City Hall. Security is tight. Guards are rifling through women's purses as they enter the elevator for the ride up to chambers. We've even heard rumours at least one person has already been booted from the Clamshell. The reason for all this excitement? A vote on a new land transfer and vehicle registration tax that is proving to be the biggest test so far of Mayor David Miller's stewardship of the city. "

Councillors contact info at Tax protest on left side of site
http://www.thetorontoparty.com./

Where's the $300 million in savings from amalgamation?

The $240 million for Metro Hall?

The $40 million to renovate the Toronto City Hall when the Boroughs were amalgamated and moved back to City Hall?

MFP - about $100 million

$16 million to refurbish Nathan Phillips Square?

Yet they want to "invest".

Some bean counters better keep an eye on the public treasury.

Melanie Phillips- Britain / U.S.

"British foreign policy now appears to face two ways at once. In the last few days, we have heard the International Development Secretary Douglas Alexander deliver a strong, coded attack on America, by saying pointedly in Washington that it was time for a new era of ‘soft power’ and that a country’s strength should be measured ‘not by what it could destroy but by what it could build’.

Then the junior Foreign Office minister Mark Malloch Brown suggested that Britain would no longer be ‘joined at the hip’ to the US. Both were widely interpreted as a deliberate distancing of the UK from the US. But on BBC TV’s Sunday AM programme, the Foreign Secretary himself robustly declared that there would be absolutely no change in Britain’s relationship with America or with President Bush, that Britain would stay in Iraq to see the job through and that Britain’s relationship with America was critical to this country. He also made it quite clear that the anti-Bush Malloch Brown would be put back in his box marked ‘UN Africa and Asia’ and the lid slammed shut. Clearly, Malloch Brown’s astonishing interview (reported here) has already soured relations with the Prime Minister who only a few days ago was— to widespread bafflement and the reported dismay of the White House — so desperate to bring him into government.

So it’s clear as mud..........."

Mark Steyn - global warming

"If a tree falls in the forest and nobody hears it, is it because Al Gore and a bunch of elderly rockers organized an all-star stadium gala on its behalf? The colossal flopperoo of Live Earth is a heartening reminder that there are some things too ridiculous even for global pop culture, and one of them is the Reverend Almer Gortry speaking truth to power ballads.

Why did so few people feel the urge to rock against climate change? Touchingly enough, the organizers put it down to the weather. Dismal TV ratings? "The BBC blamed the poor figures on Saturday's good weather." Sluggish ticket sales for the live events? "Organisers of Live Earth Johannesburg are convinced climate change is to blame for the paltry turn-out at the Coca Cola Dome today. Promoter John Langford claims it snowed last week for the first time in a quarter of a century, and the freezing conditions are keeping people away." Too hot to stay in and watch it on TV, too freezing to go out and watch it in person: clearly, climate change is rampaging out of control".

Toronto taxes

"A land-transfer tax won't only push closing costs up -- it will push buyers up to the City Above Toronto and other communities in York Region, a real estate lobbyist says.

"People will start looking at York; Vaughan and places outside the city because they're trying to avoid the land-transfer tax," said Von Palmer, director of government relations at the Toronto Real Estate Board.

Palmer said the tax -- about $4,475 on a $400,000 home and $12,000 on a $1-million home -- will mostly hurt young people looking to get into the market, seniors looking to downsize their homes and homeowners looking to sell."

Peter Worthington- Taliban Jack-

The politics of Iraq....................

"One major reason, of course, is that they cannot stand President Bush nor bear the prospect of history vindicating his stubborn determination. They have staked the last four years on discrediting him on Iraq and know history cannot vindicate him without repudiating them.

Their repudiation would decrease their chances of electoral victory in 2008. Can you imagine all the capital they will have wasted on their efforts to destroy Mr. Bush and undermine our mission in Iraq?"..........

Iran

"The regime's agents broke up a sit-in marking last week's anniversary of the mass student protest that started on July 9, 1999. Loyal to the Iranian tradition, the police responded to the demonstrations by breaking into a university dormitory and storming the offices of a pro-democracy student group, killing one person and injuring 20. A day earlier, Iran's judiciary confirmed that a man convicted of adultery has been stoned to death in the province of Qazvin. Jafar Kiani, a man in his late 40s, was stoned to death following his adultery conviction. Mr. Kiani spent the last decade in jail and the sentence was carried out despite a moratorium on stoning that was declared by Ayatollah Mahmud Hashemi, the head of Iran's judiciary, in 2002.

The hardline administration of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad faces rising pressure for failing to deliver on promises of greater prosperity from soaring oil revenue. Iran's current economy is so stressed that although Iran is the world's second-largest oil exporter, last week it began rationing gasoline. At the same time, the nuclear standoff with the West threatens to bring new economic sanctions. Hence Tehran is using American support for a change in government and the possibility of military attack as a pretext to further liquidate its opposition"

Crime beat- MJ in National Parks

Robert Novak- Sham earmark reform