Monthly Archives: April 2004

Women Banned For Life From the British Columbia Legislature

BC Politics

ASSAULT-BY-TRESPASS

Five women activists who were arrested and hauled away in handcuffs when they refused to leave the B.C. legislature building after a March 12th meeting with Ida Chong, the minister responsible for women’s and seniors’ issues in the Liberal government of Premier Gordon Campbell, have been banned for life from B.C.’s legislature. The five were protesting a complete funding cut to the province’s 37 women’s centres. Trespassing charges were later dropped.
The ban stands.
“This is nothing short of mean and vindictive,” says George Heyman, B.C. Government and Service Employees’ Union (BCGEU/NUPGE) president.
“There is absolutely no reason why these women should be banned from the legislature. They are not a threat to anyone. All charges against them have been dropped. They did nothing wrong, and should have access to the legislature the same as any other British Columbian.”

Tech Week in Review: The Internet Is Vulnerable To Collapse?
— Or Not — Depending On Whom You Believe

Web & Tech

SECURITY

Front page stories in newspapers across the globe this past week warned that a flaw in the most popular communications protocol for sending data on the Internet could allow hackers to shut down the Net.
However, as the week progressed, Paul Watson, a security specialist working in Vancouver, British Columbia, stated that reports about the flaw were overblown. He referred to the media reaction as an “inordinate level of attention in respect to the amount of risk.”
Malicious code has been unearthed that can exploit the flaw, but experts say the risk of real-world problems remains fairly low.

Continue reading Tech Week in Review: The Internet Is Vulnerable To Collapse?
— Or Not — Depending On Whom You Believe →

Most Americans Believe Saddam Terror Link to Al-Qa’ida

Politics

BUSH-N0-WMD

According to a story in today’s The Independent on Sunday, a poll conducted by the University of Maryland showed most American respondents surveyed were unaware of the testimony of David Kay, the administration’s chief weapons inspector, that he had found no weapons, or that of Richard Clarke, the former counter-terrorism czar whose book Against All Enemies has been the talk of Washington for the past month.
A staggering 82 per cent of respondents believed most experts supported the notion that Iraq was providing “substantial support” to al-Qa’ida — a contention that President Bush has been forced to disavow. Almost 60 per cent were unaware that world opinion was against the war in Iraq, with 21 per cent saying the world was behind the U.S.-led invasion and 38 per cent saying views were “evenly divided”.
The poll also showed a correlation between Americans’ ignorance and their political affiliation. Among those who believed WMD had been found in Iraq, 72 per cent said they would vote to re-elect President Bush in November, while 23 per cent said they supported his Democratic challenger, John Kerry. Among those who knew that no WMD had been found, 74 per cent supported Mr. Kerry and 23 per cent backed the President.
Steven Kull, director of the U.S.-based Program on International Policy Attitudes, comments: “For some Americans, their desire to support the war may be leading them to screen out information that weapons of mass destruction have not been found. Given the intensive news coverage and high levels of public attention to the topic, this level of misinformation suggests that some Americans may be avoiding having an experience of cognitive dissonance.”

Liberals’ Progress To Date Looks Like A March To Folly

BC Politics

Three outstanding attitudes — obliviousness to the growing disaffection of constituents, primacy of self-aggrandizement, [and the] illusion of invulnerable status — are persistent aspects of folly. — Barbara W. Tuchman, The March of Folly


MARCHTOFOLLY

Gordon Campbell lies to even more people

So begins Vancouver Sun columnist Stephen Hume’s April 24th column in The Observer section of the paper.
In his surprisingly hard-hitting column (this is the generally toadying Vancouver Sun, after all), Hume takes the Liberals to task for “millions wasted on a treaty referendum that accomplished nothing, millions more frittered away reorganizing social services ministries that have subsided into dysfunction and chaos, yet more millions blown to claw back a few paltry disability payments from welfare recipients, scores of millions squandered to buy back the same real estate the government unloaded in a fit of ideological pique with the previous government two years earlier.”
And, as Hume states, “that’s just for starters.” As The Vancouver Sun online is available only by subscription, VanRamblings has made Stephen Hume’s column available here, or by clicking on the link below.

Continue reading Liberals’ Progress To Date Looks Like A March To Folly →