News roundup, 27 Nov 2025

- Two members of the West Virginia National Guard who were stationed in DC, ostensibly to address Donald Trump's concerns about the city's crime rate, found out the hard way that occupying forces are frequently not welcomed. The suspect, who was also wounded, is in custody; the suspect is an Afghan national who was admitted to the country under the Biden administration. Trump plans to milk this for all it's worth; he has suspended all processing of immigration requests from Afghanistan and will be reviewing the immigration status of everyone who was brought in during the withdrawal from the country. He is also sending an additional 500 National Guard troops to the city.

- The death toll in the Hong Kong highrise fire has jumped to 55 after numerous bodies were found in the ruins of the complex, with many others still unaccounted for. Three people, including two directors of a company as well as an engineering consultant, have been charged with manslaughter.

- A snowplow operator with one of Toronto's main plowing contractors drove a plow through a crowd of pro-Palestinian demonstrators last week. Nobody was injured; video of the incident may be found here. Police investigated and rather quickly declared that they saw no sign of criminal intent; others are questioning this, however, especially given that the driver's social media accounts were full of Islamophobic content. Her Facebook profile is here, for the curious. Her employer says that she was issued a one day suspension for the incident.

- The Rural Municipality of Alexander in eastern Manitoba is concerned about the safety of its staff after multiple incidents, the most serious of which involves a grader that was hit with a high power rifle bullet in a residential area where no hunting is allowed. Other incidents include a crosshair spraypainted on a municipal employee's personal vehicle and a resident being removed from a council meeting after harassing staff.

- A rubber duck museum in the town of Point Roberts, Washington, which is not directly connected to the US mainland, is moving to Delta, BC in order to survive as the trade war slashes visits to the town.

- A 65 year old woman in Thailand woke up in a coffin after being mistakenly declared dead. Fortunately people heard her knocking on the inside as she was being taken for cremation.

News roundup, 25 July 2025

- Five former members of Canada's World Junior Hockey Championship team have been acquitted of sexual assault following a lengthy trial. 

- Dennis Modry, the former CEO of the Alberta Prosperity Project, is claiming to have had discussions with Trump officials about the possibility of getting a loan from the US to assist with the costs of secession from Canada. 

- An Afghan man who served as an interpreter for the US military in the early years of the post-9/11 war was detained by ICE following a seemingly routine appointment related to his application for a green card. The DHS claims that he is "under investigation for a serious criminal allegation" but provided no details about said allegation. One thing is clear - if sent back to Afghanistan he would not be a good risk from a life insurance company's point of view.

- Starlink's entire network went down worldwide on Thursday. 

- Carmen Prefontaine has officially entered the race in the byelection to replace deceased Winnipeg city councillor Jason Schreyer. She has been endorsed by the Winnipeg Labour Council. Besides her labour credentials (she is a CUPE vice-president) she has worked for the city's 311 service in the past, which should give her a reasonably broad-based understanding of how the city bureaucracy actually works. On the other hand, the other viable candidate, Emma Durand-Wood, has excellent urbanist credentials. If I lived in the ward I would doubtless vote for one of the two, but I'm not at all sure which one. I do have to admire the youthful enthusiasm of the third candidate, Zekaria Selahadin, though.

- Some residents of Winnipeg's North Kildonan ward are angry at the fact that their neighbourhoods are now more accessible by Transit with the recent changes, blaming it for increased criminal activity. The long-term solution, of course, would be to improve social conditions to reduce crime, but of course that is a long-term goal (and one that North Kildonan residents probably wouldn't want to pay the taxes needed in order for to it work). Failing that, Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1505, which represents Transit employees, is calling for more enforcement of fare evasion, hoping that this will discourage the more desperate and less lawful elements from making the trip.

- Three people, including the suspect, are dead following what police are calling a "neighbourhood dispute" in Maple Ridge, BC. A couple in their sixties were shot to death in their home, and several vehicles torched, before the suspect died of a self-inflicted wound during a standoff with police. According to someone in this Reddit thread he had been threatening the victims for years over such petty matters as on-street parking and property lines.

- Several large pickups and SUVs in Elmira, Ontario had their tires deflated on Monday morning. The tires were not actually slashed; the valves were just partially opened and left to deflate overnight. A statement was emailed to the CBC claiming responsibility on behalf of an organization called Tyre Extinguishers, saying they wanted to "bring attention to the immense danger these gas guzzlers present to the environment, pedestrians, cyclists and other motorists".

- Two "street preachers" with a history of harassing women have been arrested on hate-motivated mischief charges after attempting to interfere with services at two Surrey churches and spewing misogynist and anti-LGBT* bile.

Europe doubts Afghan war winnable: Wikileaks

It seems that one of those leaked diplomatic communications suggests that European Union officials suspect what many of us have believed for years -- namely, that there's little hope of success in Afghanistan:

Leaked diplomatic memos said that European Union President Herman Van Rompuy told America's ambassador that the EU no longer believes in success in Afghanistan, and that European troops are still there “out of deference to the United States.”

U.S. Ambassador to Belgium Howard Gutman, in the memo released by WikiLeaks, quotes Mr. Van Rompuy as saying in December 2009 that the EU will wait until the end of 2010 to see progress.

Mr. Van Rompuy, the former Belgian prime minister who at the time was EU president-designate, reportedly said that “if it doesn't work, that will be it, because it is the last chance.”

From the Globe. Will this hasten the end of the war? I don't know, but possibly. After all, with this going public, a lot of European governments will face hard questions from their citizens about why they're still throwing money and lives at a cause that they know is probably hopeless.

Throw good lives after bad - families

Sorry if that sounds callous, but that's more or less what the families of some deceased soldiers are asking us to do:

Frederick McKay, whose son Private Kevin McKay was killed earlier this year, said it’s wrong to think victory is impossible in Afghanistan.

He said Canadian troops are winning small battles, such as allowing children to go to school, and those victories will likely come to an end if the troop withdrawal goes ahead as planned next summer.

“Over the course of the years to come, all these small victories will make the sacrifices that our guys are making here in Afghanistan worthwhile,” McKay said.

“You can’t do that if we bring them home.”

From the Hamilton Spectator. Guess what? Those small victories are almost certainly temporary. This war was lost a long time ago, and wasting more lives isn't going to make the losses that have already occurred any less futile.

Even David Petraeus is scared of the American far right

Can't blame him, either:

KABUL—The top U.S. commander in Afghanistan said the planned burning of Qurans on Sept. 11 by a small Florida church could put the lives of American troops in danger and damage the war effort.

Gen. David Petraeus said the Taliban would exploit the demonstration for propaganda purposes, drumming up anger toward the U.S. and making it harder for allied troops to carry out their mission of protecting Afghan civilians.

"It could endanger troops and it could endanger the overall effort," Gen. Petraeus said in an interview. "It is precisely the kind of action the Taliban uses and could cause significant problems. Not just here, but everywhere in the world we are engaged with the Islamic community."

Hundreds of Afghans attended a demonstration in Kabul on Monday to protest the plans of Florida pastor Terry Jones, who has said he will burn copies of Islam's holy book to mark the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Afghan protesters chanted "death to America," and speakers called on the U.S. to withdraw its troops. Some protesters threw rocks at a passing military convoy.

From the Wall Street Journal (h/t jblaque on Twitter).

Interestingly, my dad recalls hearing a French journalist interviewed (perhaps on BBC news, though I'm not 100% sure of that). This guy had actually learned the language and got to know actual Taliban people. What was interesting was that among the numerous countries they were fighting against, the only country that they actually seemed to hate was the US. (Canada was apparently not mentioned in the interview, so I don't know if they see us as distinct from Americans or not). If anyone recognizes the interview, let me know in a comment; I'd like to find a link if one is available.

Has Harper passed the point of no return?

I'd have been the last one to predict that the census would be the issue that destroys Harper's career as Prime Minister. But it's become a contender for the role. Look at what Jeffery Simpson has to say about the issue:

It’s been a fine summer for Canadian democracy.

No, not parliamentary democracy, since Parliament was not in session and the who’s up/who’s down of parliamentary punditry/polling is of even less relevance and interest in summer than the rest of the year. No, it’s been a fine summer because civic society overwhelmingly rose up against the assault on reason and the ephemeral triumph of ideology over fact reflected in the Harper government’s destruction of Statistics Canada’s long-form census.

The Harper government – that is, the Prime Minister and his entourage – tried to slip a fast one past Canadians. It announced the end of the long form in the dead of summer, on a Friday to boot, as a sop to their far-right core constituency.

They must have figured no one would be paying attention, so they could take out their dislike of Statistics Canada when no one was looking – a dislike grounded in their blinkered belief that the agency collects facts that are then used by pressure groups, often of the social activist variety, that want more and bigger government.

Canadian civic society immediately smelled a rat. At last count – the figures are provided by the redoubtable retired professor William Stanbury – more than 200 groups and institutions publicly oppose the Harper policy, while three support it.

The three are fringe, right-wing institutions: the Fraser Institute, the Canadian Taxpayers Federation and the National Citizens Coalition, the little organization for which Stephen Harper himself once toiled in a Calgary office of two people (himself and a secretary). There’ve been a few supportive, far-right media shills, of course. But that’s been it.

Notably absent from that list, as noted in a previous post, are organizations like the C.D. Howe Institute (hardly a paragon of radical leftist thought, and a pretty significant opinion maker). And what about the fundamentalist churches? The new immigrants that Harper is so keen to court? Recovering from this might not be so easy. And that isn't even considering the other issues the Cons face. The polls are already turning against them, despite the fact that it's summer and people aren't as quick to follow politics right now:

Neck and neck. Stephen Harper’s Conservatives and Michael Ignateiff’s Liberals are in a virtual dead heat in a new national opinion poll, confirming the narrowing lead and substantive drop of the Tories first revealed last week.

This is now provoking a debate between pollsters as to the timing of the next election. One says it’s not going to happen; the other says it could be coming soon.

First, the latest poll by Ipsos Reid for Postmedia News and Global Television has the Conservatives with 34 per cent support compared to 31 per cent for the Liberals – within the margin of error. The NDP are polling at 15 per cent; the Green Party and the Bloc Quebecois are both at 9 per cent.

Last week, EKOS pollster Frank Graves found the Tories had dropped 10 points in less than a month, narrowing the gap between themselves and the opposition Liberals – 29.7 per cent for the Tories compared to 28.5 per cent for the Grits.

While Mr. Graves suggested the controversy over the government’s decision to scrap the compulsory long-form census was the reason for the Tory slide, Ipsos pollster John Wright sees it differently.

He attributes the narrowing of the gap to the brouhaha over the G20 summit in Toronto. His numbers show that in Ontario, the Liberals and Conservatives are in a statistical tie – 35 per cent and 36 per cent respectively. The Liberals have also gained ground nationally, suggesting Mr. Ignatieff’s bus tour is helping.

From here. And that's not even mentioning the war:

Most Canadians don’t believe there will be victory in the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan, according to a new online survey.

The Angus Reid Public Opinion poll also shows that a majority of Canadians – 53 per cent – do not support the war and 43 per cent believe that Canada made a mistake sending in troops.

While the finding bolsters Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s resolve to end the mission in July 2011, there is still uncertainty as to Canada’s future role. The Owen Sound Sun Times reports that Defence Minister Peter MacKay is “strongly suggesting” his government is open to extending the mission beyond the date passed by the House of Commons.

Mr. MacKay is quoted as saying that it’s “all very interesting” that Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff and his foreign affairs critic Bob Rae have both made “comments recently about training and extending the mission.” However, later in the article, Mr. MacKay says his government will respect the parliamentary motion.

Yeah, I'd say the Cons are in deep trouble. Regardless of when the next election happens, it's unlikely to go well for them.

Colin Kenny sees the writing on the wall

The Senate's Standing Committee on National Security recently issued a report (summarized in this op-ed piece in the Globe) saying how much good we're supposedly doing there. Well, Colin Kenny disagrees vehemently. And he's not afraid to say what he thinks:

The Taliban know what is going on here, and whether NATO leaves in 2011 or 2014, they are going to continue to pursue a murderous civil war.

So what are we accomplishing in Afghanistan, at the cost of so much money that could be spent wisely around the world and at home, at the cost of so many young Canadian lives?

From the Ottawa Citizen (h/t pogge). I'd feel a bit better if he said "at the cost of so many young Canadian and Afghan lives", but I fully agree with his overall conclusion, namely that we should just get the hell out of there.

As an aside, I wonder if Kenny plays chess? After all, a chess player knows that when defeat is inevitable, the reasonable thing to do is to resign. To continue with a futile struggle right down to the mate is an insult to your opponent, as well as a waste of time and effort for both sides. With war, all of the above also applies, but we're also wasting lives -- theirs as well as ours. Why continue?

WikiLeaks and the Harper government

Buried in James Travers' latest column in the Star is this fascinating tidbit (h/t skdadl in a comment to this post at pogge):

More subtle is the potential impact on the prisoner abuse controversy Stephen Harper has fought long and hard to contain. Exposed to closer scrutiny are the targeted assassinations that military and other informed observers believe are among the ugly truths this government is determined to hide.

Flowing from the leaks are reports that U.S. elite army and navy units use capture-or-kill lists neutralizing or eliminating enemy leaders. Canada’s elite JTF2 special forces work seamlessly with U.S. counterparts in Afghanistan, reporting through a unique chain of command directly to the Chief of Defence Staff, the country’s top soldier.

Special forces operations are so secret that even defence ministers are excluded from the information loop. But earlier this year a source familiar with JTF2 told the Star the unit works side-by-side with American counterparts to “pick up or pick off” high-value Taliban and Al Qaeda targets.

So perhaps the truth about this will see the light of day after all.

Wikileaks sheds more light on Afghan war

This one looks big:

A huge cache of secret US military files today provides a devastating portrait of the failing war in Afghanistan, revealing how coalition forces have killed hundreds of civilians in unreported incidents, Taliban attacks have soared and Nato commanders fear neighbouring Pakistan and Iran are fuelling the insurgency.

The disclosures come from more than 90,000 records of incidents and intelligence reports about the conflict obtained by the whistleblowers' website Wikileaks in one of the biggest leaks in US military history. The files, which were made available to the Guardian, the New York Times and the German weekly Der Spiegel, give a blow-by-blow account of the fighting over the last six years, which has so far cost the lives of more than 320 British and more than 1,000 US troops.

From the Guardian. Of course the Americans aren't happy:

The White House also criticised the publication of the files by Wikileaks: "We strongly condemn the disclosure of classified information by individuals and organisations, which puts the lives of the US and partner service members at risk and threatens our national security. Wikileaks made no effort to contact the US government about these documents, which may contain information that endanger the lives of Americans, our partners, and local populations who co-operate with us."

Jay Rosen at New York University's journalism school has this to say about the official reaction:

• This leak will harm national security. (As if those words still had some kind of magical power, after all the abuse they have been party to.)
• There's nothing new here. (Then how could the release harm national security?)
• Wikileaks is irresponsible; they didn't even try to contact us! (Hold on: you're hunting the guy down and you're outraged that he didn't contact you?)
• Wikileaks is against the war in Afghanistan; they're not an objective news source. (So does that mean the documents they published are fake?)
• "The period of time covered in these documents … is before the president announced his new strategy. Some of the disconcerting things reported are exactly why the president ordered a three month policy review and a change in strategy." (Okay, so now that we too know the basis for the President's decision, that's a bad thing?)

Originally from here (that server seems to be down at the moment, but the comments are mirrored here).

US bans journalists for reporting publicly available information

Seriously:

What appears to have happened is that DOD has banned Miami Herald’s Carol Rosenberg, Toronto Star’s Michelle Shepherd, Globe and Mail’s Paul Koring, and Canwest’s Steven Edwards from future trials because they used the name of Joshua Klaus–Omar Khadr’s first interrogator–in their reports this week.

Yet, as skdadl explained today, Klaus’ name is widely known in Canada.

Interrogator #1’s name is well known in Canada, and in fact it’s in Wikipedia.

[snip]

Joshua Claus is the guy. Omar apparently calls him “the skinny blond.” Interesting, given that one of the other interrogators we’ve heard from, a great hulking guy who has “Monster” tattooed on his chest (or somewhere — need to look that up), turns out to be a sensitive fellow (now has PTSD) whose testimony should work to help Omar. (I do have sources for all this stuff, but I’m a bit cross-eyed at the moment.)

Basically, the government is banning journalists for using a name they’ve used in reports in the past, a name that is publicly known.

Is this an attempt to prevent the public from making the connection between two Afghans who died in 2002–Dilawar and Habibullah–and Khadr’s treatment? And/or just an attempt to intimidate the press so the people who know the most about the Gitmo show trials (and particularly Khadr) don’t bring that knowledge to bear on their reporting?

From here, via skdadl at pogge.

U.S. troops overwhelmingly support clean energy legislation

The heads must be exploding at Fox News:

Recently, a persuasive new poll conducted by VoteVets.org, shows that 73% of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans support clean energy and climate change legislation.

In addition, 70% believe that ending our dependence on foreign oil is critical to our national security.

“This poll confirms what we always knew was true. Veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan know first-hand, the destructive effect our dependence on oil has on our national security, and on the battlefield,” said Jon Soltz, Iraq War Veteran and Chairman of VoteVets.org.

Source. Makes sense to me...

What we're protecting in Afghanistan

Hamid Karzai, whose illegitimate election last year should have been the last straw for NATO, has thrown a major hissy fit over the very modest pressures that we've been putting on him to behave himself:

Afghan President Hamid Karzai threatened over the weekend to quit the political process and join the Taliban if he continued to come under outside pressure to reform, several members of parliament said Monday.

Mr. Karzai made the unusual statement at a closed-door meeting on Saturday with selected lawmakers – just days after kicking up a diplomatic controversy with remarks alleging foreigners were behind fraud in last year's disputed elections.

From the Globe. So let's get this straight. We're propping up an illegitimate leader, risking our own troops' lives, killing civilians, and turning over prisoners to authorities who torture them, and now this arsehole threatens to join the Taliban?? And we're doing this for what exactly? To uphold democracy? See Karzai's election above. To protect the rights of women? A laudable goal, but maybe we should be working on this at home first. The pipeline? Probably a major reason. To save face? Probably another major reason. But even if we accept these last two goals as legitimate, we can only save face, or build the pipeline, if we can win the war. My opinion? We can't. The USSR was a huge country, with a lot fewer supply line problems than NATO (thanks to being right next door to them), and yet they lost. We will too, mark my words.

ETA: The coup in Kyrgyzstan (h/t Blaque) may help to speed things along, by depriving NATO of the use of a crucial air base.

Detainee scandal update

While we're waiting for a retired judge hired by the Tories to determine if the documents that a majority of Parliament has demanded can be safely released, the Cons have released 2600 highly redacted pages of material. A few interesting things have emerged:

The newly disclosed reports include an incident in 2006 in which an Afghan soldier strikes a bound prisoner in the back of the head with a rocket launcher; a nudge-and-wink admission by one Canadian soldier that Afghan counterparts “don’t necessarily follow our policies on detainee handling if you know what I mean”; and allegations by one soldier being treated for post-traumatic stress that detainees handed over to Afghan authorities were taken behind a building and executed.

All of the incidents are deemed unfounded by military investigators, but the documents also show a disturbing trend of front-line soldiers and senior military officials keeping their own police investigators in the dark and even threatening them at a time when sensitivity to how Canadians treat and handle their Afghan detainees was at its highest.

In January 2008, for example, the Canadian Forces Provost Marshall reports that a military policewoman was grabbed by two unknown assailants at Kandahar Airfield as she was leaving the shower one night. They “grabbed her arms, pushed her against the shower wall and told her: ‘MPs mind your own business.’“

Even after the troubled Canadian detainee transfer system was first exposed in mid-2007, there was a “preference to keep MP (military police) from advising and investigating rather than adopting a transparent and proactive approach,” according to a Feb. 27, 2008 report by Provost Marshall Capt. Steve Moore.

From the Star. Nothing to see here, move along. Equally interesting is this:

An apparent slipup in the federal government’s censoring of Afghan detainee documents shows Ottawa is using its black marker to hide potentially embarrassing information, a military and information law expert says.

Under pressure from opposition parties, the Harper government made public 2,600 pages of heavily censored records on the detainee controversy this week. It insisted that civil servants, not Conservative staff, decided what to keep secret – only withholding information judged to be injurious to national security.

But in one instance, a description of rebellious activity by detainees is apparently blacked out in one portion of the 2,600 documents but inadvertently disclosed in another section. It’s presumably the result of diverging censorship decisions by separate officials.

The sentences in question describe how detainees began testing and challenging their Canadian captors in early 2008. Prisoners are held in a short-term Forces detention facility before being transferred to Afghan authorities.

Oopsie. What's interesting about this is that it's pretty hard to see why this should have been redacted; it's not going to help your average Taliban dude. In other words, to nobody's surprise, stuff is being redacted that doesn't relate directly to matters of security (except perhaps Stephen Harper's job security).

Looks like the Cons knew trouble was coming...

... unfortunately, they did not respond by stopping the detainee transfers but by planning how to spin the issue:

Prime Minister Stephen Harper downplayed revelations of a "contingency plan" to deal with accusations that prisoners handed over to Afghan authorities were tortured.

As first reported by CBC News on Monday, Canadian officials started drafting a plan on how to deal with accusations that prisoners in Afghan custody were being tortured as early as March 2007 — months before allegations of prisoner abuse at the hands of Afghan authorities first appeared in the media.

Source. The more we see, the more it looks like a lot of top officials (military officers, senior civil servants, cabinet ministers, and maybe the PM himself) ought to be facing war crimes trials. Whether they will, of course, is another question.

The detainee scandal just got worse

What, you might ask, could be worse than Canadian officials handing prisoners over to people who are likely to torture them? How about handing prisoners over with the expectation that they will be tortured and provide them with information they want?

Until now, the controversy has centred on whether the government turned a blind eye to abuse of Afghan detainees.

However, Attaran said the full versions of the documents show that Canada went even further in intentionally handing over prisoners to torturers.

"And it wasn't accidental; it was done for a reason," he said. "It was done so that they could be interrogated using harsher methods."

Source. If this is true, it's no wonder the government is so desperate to avoid having to turn the documents over to Parliament...

Western troops accused of executing 10 Afghan civilians, including children

It just doesn't end:

American-led troops were accused yesterday of dragging innocent children from their beds and shooting them during a night raid that left ten people dead.

Afghan government investigators said that eight schoolchildren were killed, all but one of them from the same family. Locals said that some victims were handcuffed before being killed.

Western military sources said that the dead were all part of an Afghan terrorist cell responsible for manufacturing improvised explosive devices (IEDs), which have claimed the lives of countless soldiers and civilians.

“This was a joint operation that was conducted against an IED cell that Afghan and US officials had been developing information against for some time,” said a senior Nato insider. But he admitted that “the facts about what actually went down are in dispute”.

From the Times of London (UK); h/t No A, B, C, or D. Gotta love that bit of hedging about the facts being in dispute.

Note too that while the troops are described as "American-led", it doesn't say who else was represented among the alleged butchers. Were Canadians involved? I have no idea; I hope not. But in any case does anyone still think we have any business whatsoever participating in this "mission"?

NATO in Afghanistan -- winning the battles but losing the war

An American study confirms what many of us have suspected for some time:

International forces in Afghanistan might have won most of the clashes they fought with insurgents, but they nevertheless have still lost much of the country, a new analysis concludes.

In a grim assessment of the war, the non-partisan Center for Strategic and International Studies finds the U.S. and allied effort wanting.

"The U.S. failed to focus on the needs and security of the Afghan people," the report out this week concludes.

"It also failed to properly resource the war and to provide effective leadership."

The analysis, based largely on Pentagon and NATO data, finds the Afghan government and outside aid efforts have failed to meet even the basic needs of Afghans.

Afghan forces were simply treated as "adjuncts" rather than as true partners of the International Security Assistance Force, the analysis by the Washington-based think-tank concludes.

"The end result was that the U.S. and its allies won largely meaningless tactical clashes while steadily losing the country and the people," says Anthony Cordesman’s report.

From the Chronicle-Herald.

Harper wants to shut down Parliament again

The guy has no shame:

The Conservative government plans to shut down Parliament for two months, until after the Vancouver Winter Olympics, the Prime Minister's Office announced Wednesday.

The announcement triggered immediate condemnation from opposition MPs who labelled the Conservative government's move an "almost despotic" attempt to muzzle parliamentarians amid controversy over the Afghan detainees affair.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper's spokesman, Dimitri Soudas, said the government sought the suspension to consult with Canadians, stakeholders and businesses as it moves into the "next phase" of its economic action plan amid signs of economic recovery.

"This is quite routine but it is also important to give Canadians an overview of where we will be taking the country over the next little while," Soudas told CBC News from Ottawa.

From the CBC. I wonder what his motivation could be? Oh yeah...

Opposition parties have already warned that prorogation would disrupt the inquiry of a parliamentary committee looking into accusations that the government ignored warnings about the torture of Afghan detainees. Strategically, prorogation also prevents question period criticisms from the opposition parties during the Olympics.

Seriously, how much of this crap can he be allowed to get away with?

US spy drone videos 'hacked'

Pretty clever if it's true:

Fighters in Iraq and Afghanistan have been able to use low cost software downloaded from the internet to hack into live video feeds from unmanned US surveillance aircraft, a military official has said.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, a senior US defence official told the Associated Press the fighters could view feeds from Predator drones - the US military's eyes in the sky for intelligence gathering - but could not take control of the aircraft or jam its electronic signals.

The fighters reportedly used software that costs less than $30 to hack into the video feed from the drones.

From Al Jazeera.

Cheryl Gallant loses it again

Well, actually I don't think she ever had it, but check out her latest (from Hansard; scroll down to find the quote):

Mrs. Cheryl Gallant (Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, CPC):

Mr. Speaker, on the weekend I had an opportunity to speak to a soldier from Canadian Forces Base Petawawa who had served several rotations in Afghanistan. He urged me not to go forth with an inquiry on this issue. He said that every time the Afghan deployment is debated in Parliament, it puts the lives of our soldiers in theatre at greater risk. He recounted that when the motion to withdraw from Afghanistan or to end the combat mission in 2011 was before Parliament, they were in a operation where they heard the insurgents on the radio saying to each other that they should kill as many Canadian soldiers as possible because we were debating this in the House of Commons and that when Canadians saw the caskets of soldiers coming off the plane it increased public pressure. They wanted the MPs to vote to get out of Afghanistan as quickly as possible.

I asked him if they listened to Al Jazeera while they were fighting at the front, so to speak, and he said, “No, ma'am. We heard this chatter on our coms”. So they had heard Taliban talking to one another, urging each other to kill as many Canadian soldiers as possible. He credits the leader of the NDP directly for the death of his best friend as a consequence of that.

Hat tips to thwap and Creekside.