Prime Minister Stephen Harper has led a major change in Canadian foreign policy by fully supporting Israel in its conflict with Hezbollah, diplomats and observers say. After 13 years of Liberal Party rule in Canada, a minority Conservative Government led by Mr Harper took office in January and closely aligned itself with the US, especially concerning Middle East policy. The alignment is in sharp contrast to the lead-up to the Iraq war, when then prime minister Jean Chretien fell out with George W.Bush over his strident opposition to the war.
Mr Harper's Government "is voicing for the first time in many many years a clear-cut position toward the Middle East and toward fighting terrorism", said Ofir Gendelman, a spokesman for the Israeli embassy in Ottawa. "That is definitely welcome by Israel."
Mr Harper has said Israel's military response to the abduction of two of its soldiers and repeated rocket attacks into Israel was "measured", while Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay has described Hezbollah as a "cancer". Canada supports the idea of an immediate ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel, as long as the Lebanese Shia militia first return two kidnapped Israeli soldiers unharmed and stop rocket attacks on Israel.
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The Left's Inability to Confront Evil
"There's no such thing as right and wrong" after all
On July 28, 2006, a Muslim entered the building of the Seattle Jewish Federation and shot every Jew he saw, murdering one woman and wounding five others. On the same day, Mel Gibson was arrested on DUI charges and while intoxicated let loose with anti-Semitic invective at the Jewish police officer who arrested him. Question: Which story has most troubled the Left? The answer is known to any American who can hear or read.
So, the real question is: Why? Why has the shooting and murder of Jews elicited less angst from the Left than the anti-Semitic statements made by Mel Gibson when drunk? The answers are very troubling. As Time magazine said about global warming (but never about Islamic terror), "Be worried, very worried." We should be worried about this: The liberal world fears -- and much of it loathes -- fundamentalist Christians considerably more than it does fundamentalist Muslims. This is as true of most Jewish liberals -- even though conservative Christians are Israel's and the Jews' most loyal supporters and even though Nazi-like anti-Semitism permeates much of the Muslim world -- as it is of most other liberals, certainly including the mainstream media....
This is one more example of the greatest flaw of contemporary liberalism -- its inability to recognize and confront the greatest evils. Since the 1960s, when liberalism became indistinguishable from the Left -- e.g., when New York Times positions became indistinguishable from those of The Nation -- liberals tended to attack opponents of evil far more than those who actually committed evil. The Left (around the world) was far more antagonistic to Ronald Reagan than to Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev, and far more disturbed by anti-Communism than by Communism....
The antipathy toward Christian fundamentalists and conservatives is why Mel Gibson's anti-Semitic statements trouble the Left more than Naveed Haq and the genocidal anti-Semitism permeating the Muslim world. And what is it about those Christians that most disturbs the Left? That they talk in terms of good and evil and believe the former must fight the latter, precisely the area of the Left's greatest weakness.
More here
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ELSEWHERE
A different Hispanic problem: "Spain is battling a new influx of immigrants from Africa, igniting a political firestorm in a country unused to large-scale immigration. More than 300 African immigrants washed ashore in the Canary islands over the weekend, adding to the 13,000 that have so far arrived on this route this year. Tourists on the beach in Tenerife rushed to give them water, clothes and food, before they were taken in by police. Many were taken to hospital, suffering from dehydration and hypothermia after eight days at sea. The routes to mainland Europe have become longer and more dangerous since Spain and Morocco bolstered efforts to stop migrants from crossing the narrow Straits of Gibraltar. Untold numbers have died trying to make the journey. Boats are sometimes caught up in unpredictable currents, and have turned up as far afield as Barbados, their passengers long-since dead. This weekend, police found the corpse of an African man washed ashore in Lanzarote. Immigrant numbers have been boosted by Spain’s thriving economy over the past decade, and the fact that many use it as a gateway to the rest of Europe. Including legal immigration, a recent analysis of regional registers showed that nearly 9 per cent of Spain’s population is foreign, with Ecuadorians, Romanians and British topping the list of new arrivals. The opposition conservative party has estimated that there are 1.6 million illegal immigrants living in Spain, a country of less than 45 million people. Polls show that Spaniards are becoming increasingly concerned about the level of immigration
Dancer's suit puts corrupt lawyers on their toes: "What would you do if a lawyer threatened, 'Give me a million dollars or my client and I will publicly brand you as a rapist and destroy your life?' On July 27, the California Supreme Court expanded the range of choices possible to one man who was presented with that threat. The dance phenomenon Michael Flatley of Riverdance fame can proceed not only with a lawsuit for defamation against his accuser but also with one for extortion against her lawyer. The very fact that the attorney faces possible civil liability may impact how aggressively attorneys proceed in lawsuits that allege sexual misconduct."
FAA clearing the way for mini jets: "A new light, cheap and fast jet is expected to be certified for flight Thursday. Eclipse Aviation's E500 will be the first 'very light jet,' or VLJ, to receive a provisional certification by the Federal Aviation Administration. Thousands more are expected to take wing over the next decade. The announcement, at the annual AirVenture air show in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, is one of the biggest things to happen to general aviation in years."
For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here and here).
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"All the worth which the human being possesses, all spiritual reality, he possesses only through the State." -- 19th century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Hegel is the most influential philosopher of the Left -- inspiring Karl Marx, the American "Progressives" of the early 20th century and university socialists to this day.
The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch)
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