Baird says Iran could build nuclear bomb within months screams the CBC headline over Evan Solomon interviewing John Baird under a giant picture of visiting Israel PM Shimon Peres.

Fans of the Iran got nukes! cry-wolf sweepstakes will recall both Peres and Netanyahu predicted in 1992 that Iran would have nuclear warheads by 1999, 1992 also being the year a former Mossad official advised “Iran has to be identified as Enemy No.1.”

“Remember,” said former IDF Chief of Strategic Planning Shlomo Brom in 2004 (page 167):

“the Iranians are always five to seven years from the bomb. Time passes but they’re always five to seven years from the bomb.”

Juan Cole lists his top four Iran got nukes! predictions in the 90′s from a longer list at Christian Science Monitor, which notes that the alarums predate the 1979 Islamic revolution to a time when the US, Germany, and France were selling 20 nuclear reactors to Iran.

Wide Asleep in America has a more extensive list beginning in 1984.

Boris : “Baird also won’t talk about why Iran might want to develop a threshold capacity for nuclear weapons for regional strategic reasons.”

Let’s go to the map, shall we?

You know what Canada lacks? The American Dream. We don’t even have some lesser Canadian version of the American Dream (like how we have whatever our version of American Idol is called, or whatever our version of America’s Got Talent is called). And it’s our lack of the American Dream that has caused all this controversy to rise up around Harps spending $45,000 of taxpayer’s money on going to a baseball game.

I’m sure most of you are confused, because you all lack the American Dream too. But I don’t, so let me explain.

In somewhere like America — a place that does have the American Dream — their citizens would observe that their Prime Minister, or in this case their President, spent $45,000 of their taxpayers’ money, or in this case $45,934.16 of their taxpayers’ money, on going to a baseball game, or in their case a basketball game, and they wouldn’t be upset, they’d be super excited!

Still confused? I’ll explain some more.

You see, if you possess the American Dream, when you hear about someone doing something outrageous with their money, or more so, the money they made by screwing those who have less money than them, or money they took from hardworking taxpayers, you get super excited for the day that you’ll be able to do that!

Still confused? You guys really need to pay more attention to what I’m saying, or stop interrupting me while I’m trying to explain it to you.

Those of us who are American Dreamers are always looking at the bright side of things. So, when we hear that our Prime Minister, or in their case  [Editor’s Note: We get it Natty . . . they have a President and their money is worth more than ours] our thoughts instantly go to the time when we ourselves will be Prime Minister and get to use taxpayers’ money to go see baseball games.

See, that’s the way the American Dream works. We American Dreamers don’t think about the now – in which we are getting screwed by our Prime Minister, and he’s using our tax dollars to go see literally the most boring sport you could go see – we’re thinking about the then.

And the then is obviously so much better than the now; I mean have you seen the now? It sucks. Our Prime Minister keeps spending our money on stupid things. But the then – the then is going to be amazing. Once I’m Prime Minister I’m going to every baseball game I can go to. I’m even going to use your taxpayer dollars to go watch golf games. Why? Not because I like golf, that’s for sure.

Think this seems a little far-fetched – that there’s no way people would work this way? Well, take Obama’s proposed “Buffett Tax” down in the US. You know why no one likes that tax idea? It’s because, sure, they’re super poor right now and keep getting screwed by the super rich, but it’s only a matter of time before they become super rich investment bankers, at which point they won’t want to be taxed.

So, just take a breath, everyone. Stop worrying about the now, when your Prime Minister is spending your tax dollars to take his family and personal photographer on vacation, and start thinking about the then, when you’ll be Prime Minister and get to take your personal photographer to a $45,000 baseball game.

- Nathaniel Moher is a television writer living in Vancouver. This column first appeared in The Flying Shingle.

By Mark Evans

South of the border, the party is raging. You can almost hear Prince’s “1999″ playing in the background as startups find themselves being courted by investors and snapped up for eye-popping amounts.

The current case in point is Facebook’s $1-billion purchase of Instagram, which is staggering any way you want to slice it. To me, it feels frothy and eerily similar to the dot-com boom of 1999/2000. Meanwhile, Jason Freedman, founder of 42Floors, writes about how investors at a Y Combinator demo day were “frenzied almost, excited to invest in entrepreneurs.”

But while there seem to be signs the market is becoming increasingly over-heated, you also have wonder whether it matters. If the party is happening and everyone is having a great time, does it make sense to be a party-pooper? Maybe it is just better to jump into the fray and enjoy the ride.

It’s a strange world. While the startup scene in the U.S. is flourishing, the Canadian startup ecosystem is far from robust. There still isn’t enough capital, many institutional investors are still not participating, and many startups find getting financing difficult, if not impossible, to attract.

This despite the fact the startup ecosystem is as vibrant and strong as it’s ever been, and that dozens of startups were acquired last year. In other words, there’s a lot to be excited about, but while Canada is hosting a small tea party, a wild rave is underway in the U.S.

When you compare the two “parties,” the key question is: Are Canadian startups missing the boat? Is our conservatism and aversion to risk damaging the development of the startup sector and hurting Canada’s ability to drive innovation and economic growth? When the federal government has to commit $50o-million to support venture capital activities, it’s an admission that something is not right.

Some more key questions: Is Canada’s startup scene simply not robust enough, or are things getting out of control in the U.S.? Are we right, and they’re wrong? Or are we missing out on a good party?

What do you think?

More: Anyone interested in the Canadian startup landscape should read Jevon MacDonald’s post on StartupNorth.

First published on markevanstech.com

The Cons’ somewhat belated talking points about their use of the US voter contact firm Front Porch Strategies in the last election have been all about only using them for townhalls :

U.S. phone firm was just for town halls, say MPs 

“Jim Ross [Front Porch's Canadian liaison and Con MP Rick Dykstra's former campaign manager] said telephone town halls were about the only service the company provided in Canada. As for other calls, “Rick got all his live calling from Canada just like all the other (Tory) candidates.”  

and  “Del Mastro stressed that the U.S. company wasn’t hired to do any telemarketing or solicit votes. Front Porch Strategies was hired to host an April 7 telephone town hall on its server, he said, and was booked through its Canadian affiliate and paid in Canadian dollars.” 

Yet here is Front Porch Strategies President Matthew Parker sitting in the campaign offices of Con MP Julian Fantino with a phone to his ear, a pencil in his hand, and a paper with the header “Election Day is Monday May 2nd – You Can Vote Now” in front of him.

 

Photo caption from FPS: “Matt lending a hand for MP Fantino here in the greater Toronto area (GTA)”

What?

Okay, maybe Matt Parker and his business partner PJ Wenzel flew up from Ohio just that one time to do a little campaigning for Fantino, now the Assistant Minister of Defence, on their day off. Let’s go to twitter:

So how did all this front lines taking over business get started?

Sorry – wrong one. That’s one of their other causes – overturning Roe vs Wade in the US for the fetus fetishi.

Is this it?

Nope, not that one either.

Okay, here we go :

You mean effective communications like this?

Perhaps the Cons require another presentation from their Republican friends because their current credibility on RoboCon communications is in the fucking toilet.

Why Nobody Believes the Conservative Talking Points on the RoboCon Scandal.

Meanwhile in other RoboCon news:

Dawg : “The Speaker of the House of Commons is now ruling opposition questions about Roboscam out of order. … And what should be front-page news barely gets a mention in the corporate media — it’s as though the Parliamentary Press Gallery is on an extended sleepover with Rob Anders.”

Pogge does a round-up including a link to a great editorial on the above CBC story, and also notes that although the Elections Canada investigation into harassment phone calls in Eglinton (Volpe’s riding) was closed last May, now that over 2700 ballots of last minute unregistered voters with no or bogus addresses have turned up in the same riding, perhaps someone could take a mo to look into that please.

Dave unravels the stuffing of ballot boxes, plus the strategic targeting of voters over 60 for phone calls telling them to go the wrong or non-existent polling station: “Every single person I’ve contacted has been (born) between 1947 and 1949,” said one unidentified Elections Canada employee.”

Just one day in the media half-life of RoboCon.

…

Arghhh Update: Or, had I known, I could have skipped doing the first part of this post and just linked to this more complete version: The View From the Front Porch Looking North

By Alison@Creekside

So remember how the Cons withdrew their just-tabled internet surveillance bill, the Lawful Access Act, on Feb 14 and replaced it an hour and 15 minutes later with the identical but renamed Protecting Children from Internet Predators Act , a bill which mentions neither children nor predators?

Coincidentally, the US Protecting Children from Internet Pornographers Act of 2011 - sponsored by Texas teabaggin’ Rep Lamar Smith who also sponsored the Stop Online Piracy Act, another internet spying bill – has 39 co-sponsors and is heading off to the US House of Representatives for debate.

Good thing ours has that one-word difference in the title, the better to provide for Canadian independence and sovereignty.

Theirs :

House Panel Votes to Require ISPs to Keep Customer Records

“The Protecting Children From Internet Pornographers Act would require ISPs to retain all customer IP addresses [for 12 months, amended down from 18] so that law enforcement agents can use the information to investigate online child pornography. Law enforcement agents would gain access to the IP information with subpoenas they issue, not court-ordered warrants.”

Hey, ours does that too!

Michael Geist yesterday :

Toews has not talked about a provision in Bill C-30 that creates a voluntary warrantless system that would allow police to ask for the content of emails or web surfing habits and allow ISPs to comply with the request without fear of liability.

Hey, Section 6 of the theirs does that too! As does SOPA.

So who else is looking to spy on us online?

National Northern Border Counternarcotics Strategy, January 2012, pages 33-34:

“It is imperative that Canada and the United States work together to expedite the sharing of information from electronic communication service providers; and share information necessary to lay the foundation for intercepting internet and voice communications under their respective laws in a timely manner.”

Meanwhile, across the pond, the UK isn’t hiding their internet spying bill behind any malarkey about protecting children. Same basic mo though :

UK government to demand access to all phone and internet user data

“The British government is in the process of developing a scheme whereby all phone companies and broadband internet providers will be required to store customer transaction data for a year and hand it over to security services upon request.”

In opposing the US pornography bill, Rep. John Conyers said : 

In this week’s episode, Steve lays a cunning trap for Barry. In exchange for agreeing to pass travel and “informal” info about Canadians on to Homeland Security, Steve gets Barry to promise to maybe match $1-billion in Canadian taxpayer dollars to fund some pilot projects sometime in the future that will principally benefit the 40% of Canada-US corporations that rely on a cross-border supply chain. Will Barry take the bait?

Well you can clearly see the advantage to Canada here. If US security dudes are openly operating in Canada, never again will the RCMP suffer the humiliation of delivering a Canadian citizen to the US border so he can be tried and jailed in the US for acts committed and not considered criminal in Canada.  So there’s that.

And “informal information exchange” –  ie, unsubstantiated spook-thinks about brown Canadians with funny names like Abdelrazik and Arar — has clearly worked out really well in previous informal information exchanges.

From the Canadian Perimeter Security and Economic Competitiveness Action Plan:

Canada and the United States have a long history of working together to defend the freedoms and rights of our citizens and to deal with threats to our collective way of life. Cross-border cooperation and information sharing are crucial to these efforts.

See how that works?

None of that old “Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety” nonsense. It’s all the same thing now — it’s “collective.” And if we have to pitch a few more hippies/troublemakers/brown peoples into the gaping maw of US security paranoia, well that’s just a price we’re willing to pay to keep those trucks rolling back and forth over the border.

Most of the TV and print media commentary in favour of this latest episode of Beyond the Border has come from Canada-US Project luminaries Derek Burney, Colin Robertson, and Fen Osler Hampson, whose Blueprint for Canada-US Engagement appears to be the blueprint for Steve and Barry’s deal. They say it will be very good for Canada and is in no way a threat to our sovereignty, a defence which would be rather more reassuring had Hampson not made a pitch to the Foreign Affairs committee in 2009 in favour of dropping the national border altogether.

While in Washington oildrumming up K-XL support with US senators on tuesday, Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver plumped for the Keystone XL pipeline in his keynote address to the 4th Annual United States Energy Association (USEA) Energy Supply Forum.

Here is the quote chosen by Natural Resources Canada “for broadcast use”:

“The future of North America’s economy and our national security is inextricably tied to energy,” said Minister Oliver. “Clearly, it is in both of our interests to ensure that our future oil supply remains stable, secure and developed in an environmentally responsible way.”

Our future oil supply? Really, Joe?

We’re still going with the tarsands = North American security model?

For starters, Canada imports half of its oil for domestic use — over a million barrels per day — from various “conflict oil” states, while exporting 65% of its “ethical oil” tarsands crude to the US.

Dear Joe: How does the K-XL proposal to export tarsands — owned in part by the Chinese state — to Texas to be refined by Saudi’s Aramco refinery in a Foreign Trade Zone [read: no import/export duties or taxes] so that it can then be shipped off to Europe and Latin America have anything to do with “our national security”?

Exporting Energy Security: Keystone XL Exposed

Interesting report. It contends that there is currently a glut of domestic oil in the US due to increasing vehicle efficiency and slow economic growth, so the real purpose of the K-XL is to make tarsands crude available to the FTZ refineries in Texas which are specifically set up to turn it into diesel for export.

Nothing to do with national security, nothing to do with energy independence, nothing to do with gasoline prices at the pump.

So who is it all you guys are working for again?

The Guardian: Koch company declared ‘substantial interest’ in Keystone XL pipeline

“In recent months Koch Industries Inc., the business conglomerate run by billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch, has repeatedly told a U.S. Congressional committee and the news media that the proposed Keystone XL oil sands pipeline has ‘nothing to do with any of our businesses.’

But the company has told Canadian energy regulators a different story.

In 2009, Flint Hills Resources Canada LP, an Alberta-based subsidiary of Koch Industries, applied for — and won — ‘intervenor status’ in the National Energy Board hearings that led to Canada’s 2010 approval of its 327-mile portion of the pipeline.

In the form it submitted to the Energy Board, Flint Hills wrote that it ‘is among Canada’s largest crude oil purchasers, shippers and exporters. Consequently, Flint Hills has a direct and substantial interest in the application’ for the pipeline under consideration.

The Koch brothers own nearly all of Wichita, Kan.-based Koch Industries, the second-largest private company in the United States. The energy and manufacturing conglomerate earns an estimated $100 billion in annual revenue from its network of subsidiaries — a mix of oil, gas, pipeline, chemical, fertilizer and paper and pulp companies. In addition to its Canadian operation, Koch’s Flint Hills subsidiary operates oil refineries in Alaska, Texas and Minnesota as well as a dozen fuel terminals in the Midwest and Texas.

The Koch brothers have donated millions to Republican candidates and conservative movements, bankrolling groups involved in Tea Party causes and in campaigns to deny climate change science and the need for cleaner energy.”

By Alison@Creekside

A leaked 2004 CSIS report from LaPresse on Thursday purports to be a summary of a conversation between Abousfian Abdelrazik and Adil Charkaoui  in 2000 in which they plotted to blow up an airplane enroute between Montreal and France. It has already been enthusiastically repeated across our national press:

CBC: CSIS file reveals plot to bomb plane: La Presse

Gosh, CBC, your previous nice pix of Abdelrazik and Charkaoui are now replaced by scary ones.

G&M: Abdelrazik and Charkaoui plotted plane bomb: report

AFP:  Two Canada terror suspects plotted France attack: report

etc. … etc. …

Never mind that this “news” was already reported nearly two years ago after a federal court judge annulled Charkaoui’s security certificate because government lawyers refused the judge’s order to reveal their wiretap evidence, citing “security concerns.”

About now you are probably wondering what kinds of ”security concerns” trump giving evidence about someone you allege was plotting to blow up a plane.

Immigration Minister Jason Kenney:

“I read the protected confidential dossiers on such individuals, and I can tell you that, without commenting on any one individual, some of this intelligence makes the hair stand up on the back of your neck,” he said. “I just think people should be patient and thoughtful and give the government and its agencies the benefit of the doubt.”

The re-leak has nonetheless been greeted with skepticism by Boris, Dr. Dawg, Pogge, Sixth Estate and no doubt many others because we all remember previous security leaks from government officials who are more than happy to anonymously rejig conveniently-timed select bits of complete bullshit to a cooperative media.

Let’s review just the anonymous bullshit security leaks about Maher Arar for instance, for which no public officials were ever called to account and who are presumably still happily at it.

In 2002, while Arar was being tortured in Syria, an anonymous official source linked Arar to “a suspected member of Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda terrorist network.” That suspected member was Abdullah Almalki — later cleared by the Iacobucci inquiry.

Commission of Inquiry into the Actions of Canadian Officials in Relation to Maher Arar:

CanWest bureau chief Robert Fife, July 24, 2003: “Terror threats in Ottawa: Two kinds of fear: Report says

Syrian intelligence helped U.S. to foil al-Qaeda plot on target in Ottawa : One official would only tell CanWest News Service that Mr. Arar, a 36-year-old Ottawa engineer, is a “very bad guy” who apparently received military training at an Al-Qaeda base. “

As noted by Justice O’Connor in the report: “The apparent purpose behind this leak is not attractive: to attempt to influence public opinion against Mr. Arar at a time when his release from imprisonment in Syria was being sought by the government of Canada.”

Coincidentally the sudden re-issuing of this “new” leak about blowing up planes happens to coincide with Abdelrazik’s attempt to get his name off the UN 1267 terror list this month.

To continue:

G&M, Oct 10, 2003: Unnamed Canadian government sources said that Mr. Arar had been “roughed up,” but not tortured, while in detention in Syria

CTV, Oct. 23, 2003: “Senior government officials in various departments” said that Mr. Arar had provided information to the Syrians about al-Qaeda, the Muslim Brotherhood, and cells operating in Canada.

Juliet O’Neill, Ottawa Citizen, Nov. 2003 : “Canada’s dossier on Maher Arar: The existence of a group of Ottawa men with alleged ties to al-Qaeda is at the root of why the government opposes an inquiry into the case.”

Fife: Dec. 30, 2003 : “US, Canada ’100% sure’ Arar trained with al-Qaeda”: “A senior Canadian intelligence source said the United States had an extensive dossier on Mr. Arar and that ‘if the Americans were ever to declassify the stuff, there would be some hair standing on end.’”

Toronto Star: Learning from media mistakes in Arar case, May 2009:

“Unnamed officials also told Craig Oliver at CTV News that Arar was only released because he had given information to the Syrians about Al Qaeda and about other Canadians suspected of terrorism activities. Oliver later explained that he felt the story was credible because his sources were senior officials in two different government departments. Nonetheless, years after the Arar inquiry’s report, he apologized to Arar in person for running the story. He also told him of an offer he had turned down – a photograph of Arar training in a camp in Afghanistan. As he describes: ‘The source wanted me to use the information without showing me the photograph. That was a very solid source . . . This experience has made me more skeptical . . . I knew these people very well.’”

So you’ll have to forgive the rest of us if we also share Craig Oliver’s reluctance to be conned into accepting any more conveniently-timed leaks and smears from anonymous security officials who, for all we know, are the same ones who previously set out to turn public opinion against Arar even as they destroyed his life for reasons they have yet to account for.

We’ve been getting a lot of stories from our media lately (here, here, and here), assuring us that an equivalent to the Rupert Murdoch scandal couldn’t possibly happen in Canada.

Really? No cozy incestuous relationships? No dirty tricks?

On March 30, 2009, Stephen Harper, PMO staffer Kory Teneycke, Rupert Murdoch, owner of Fox News, and Roger Ailes, president of Murdoch-owned Fox News and former communications adviser to Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and George Bush Sr., all sat down to lunch.

We know this because it showed up in the mandatory disclosures made by media consultant and former White House flack Ari Fleischer to the U.S. Justice Department. Ari, you will recall, had a personal contract with Steve to grease US media wheels for him. Teneycke had a dream of a Canadian Fox news channel.

Four months later, Teneycke had left the PMO — barely a year into his job as Harper’s chief spokesman — only to pick up a contract with Quebecor to explore a project that Ottawa insiders almost immediately described as a fledgling “Fox News North.”

Three more PMO staffers followed Teneycke to SunMedia: an issues management adviser, an advertising manager, and an issues management researcher, described as “a guy who could dig up any dirt on the opposition in a jiffy.”

Teneycke himself had to take a brief three-and-a-half month leave from heading his new project, when conflict-of-interest embarrassments ramped up following his Sun op-ed and public admission to prior knowledge of the hacking of an Avaaz petition, hostile to his setting up Fox News North.

Teneycke was back in the Sun saddle during Steve’s re-election campaign in April this year when a fifth PMO ex, Harper’s former deputy chief of staff Patrick Muttart, sent him a photo of an Ignatieff look-alike posing in full combat gear in Kuwait in 2002.

“Ignatieff linked to Iraq war planning” ran the SunMedia headline and story, sans photo, before Teneycke apparently tumbled to the ruse.

Patrick Muttart was working for the Con election war room at the time, while simultaneously heading the “Canada/US practice” at the US PR firm Mercury Public Affairs, where he works under Terry Nelson. Nelson, former political director of the 2004 Bush-Cheney campaign, and McCain-Palin campaign manager, now a Senior Advisor to teabagger and 2012 presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty, is famous for the race-baiting campaign ads and phonejamming dirty tricks done under his GOP watch, and for employing the media advisor on the original Swiftboat Veterans For Truth ads, which used lies and doctored photos to smear John Kerry’s war record during his run for US president.

Amusingly, the CTV piece, Harper immune from Murdoch-style scandal, makes extensive use of analysis from Muttart to assure us a similar scandal could not happen here. We just don’t have the same “intense, quasi-incestuous” clique of political and media elites, Muttart says, without irony.

Besides, as another former Harper Chief of Staff, Ian Brodie, explains about Canadian papers: ”So few people actually read most of them.”

Yet somehow the rightwing National Post muddles on for 13 years losing $9-million a year, no one seems to know who owns CanWest/PostMedia now (besides it being some US hedge fund  — and so much for the rule limiting foreign ownership to a third), and 99% of the papers who endorsed a candidate in the last election all endorsed Steve.

We could have a Murdoch-style scandal here and it would be out of the news cycle again the same week, no damage done.

Update: More from David Climenhaga at Rabble.

There’s just so much wrong with this news story about the Canada Border Services Agency arresting and jailing a 66-year old woman for 12 days, for trafficking, possessing, and importing heroin, because their swab-test of a jar of motor oil in her vehicle incorrectly identified it as heroin. Why wasn’t Janet Goodin allowed a phone call? Why did it take 12 days to get a lab report?

But the explanation from CBSA spokesy Lisa White is the weirdest:

“CBSA officers are trained to look for clues or multiple indicators before referring someone for secondary inspection. CBSA officers consider many factors, including previous infractions, countries visited, nervousness, etc., in assessing who or what might be a risk. When CBSA officers suspect a possible presence of narcotics, a field test will be conducted. These may include narcotic identification tests, spray tests and detector dogs.”

OK, but as subsequent testing revealed no trace of heroin at all, what ”clues” tipped you guys off?

That she had no prior record? That she was a retired Girl Scouts administrator on her way to a regular bingo game?

Reading the many comments below the Winnipeg Free Press article desperately attempting to absolve the CBSA  – that it was Goodin’s own fault for having an unmarked jar of motor oil in her vehicle, that heroin does look like motor oil after all, that maybe she was a mule doing a test run, that the CBSA are just doing their job, that perhaps her son-in-law had heroin on his hands when he gave her the jar of motor oil that subsequently tested for no heroin — you realize the extent to which the terr’rists really did win. We are one paranoid country now.

And also: that this is how we wound up with Steve.