statism watch

CBC News
December 3, 2008

‘There is a risk that it gets worse before it gets better,’ says Blanchette

While an expected surge in the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan next year will be welcomed by NATO forces there, their arrival could herald an increase in violence, says a senior spokesman for those forces.

U.S. president-elect Barack Obama could send up to 12,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan in the spring. They would join 50,700 NATO-led International Security Assistance Force soldiers, of which 2,500 are Canadian.

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What do you do when the law is immoral and serves a government-sponsored monopoly?

The Canadian Press
December 3, 2008

NEWMARKET, ONT. — Ontario raw milk producer Michael Schmidt has been fined a total of $55,000 by a judge after being found guilty in October of contempt of court charges.

The judge fined Mr. Schmidt $5,000 on the charges and told him he had to pay $50,000 in court costs incurred by York Region in prosecuting him.

It was $3,000 less than the prosecution had been seeking.

The decision was faxed to the Owen Sound-area farmer on Tuesday.

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CBC News
December 3, 2008

A U.S. war resister who has been in Toronto for two years says the federal government has ordered him to leave the country.

Dean Walcott says Immigration officials have said he must leave Canada by Jan. 6 or face deportation.

He had applied to remain in the country on humanitarian and compassionate grounds but was denied.

Officials ruled he would not face undue risk by going back to the U.S.

Walcott, a former U.S. marine, arrived in Canada in 2006. He had been deployed to Iraq twice. Between the two deployments, he spent time stationed at a U.S military hospital in Germany.

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Why oh why do we need to harmonize our security apparatchik – apparatus, rather – with the rest of the Western world when these countries are simultaneously adopting the police state methods of China and similar regimes? Australia is implementing an Internet filter! UK cops will be stopping and asking people for ID! Yorkshiremen can’t wear their caps in pubs – it interferes with the CAMERAS! Riot cops with SUBMACHINE GUNS ‘keep you safe’ on the New York subway! Military satellites are now turning their surveillance capacities on the continental USA! Don’t be lazy and say it’s not true, LOOK IT UP. These methods are NOT compatible with the liberty we’ve come to enjoy in Canada. You will not be immune. Choose now – Freedom or Fascism. Time is running out.

CBC News
December 3, 2008

A B.C. civil liberties group says a proposal to deploy drug-sniffing dogs on Metro Vancouver’s SkyTrain system is heavy-handed and possibly unconstitutional.

On Tuesday, Translink announced measures to fight the public perception that some transit stations are unsafe.

Doug Kelsey, CEO of the B.C. Rapid Transit Company, which operates the SkyTrain for the regional transit authority, said one of the proposed measures is the use of drug-sniffing police dogs on the rapid transit system.

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James Slack, The Daily Mail
December 3, 2008

State officials are to be given powers previously reserved for times of war to demand a person’s proof of identity at any time.

Anybody who refuses the Big Brother demand could face arrest and a possible prison sentence.

The new rules come in legislation unveiled in today’s Queen’s Speech.

They are presented as a crackdown on illegal immigration, but lawyers say they could be applied to anybody who has ever been outside the UK, even on holiday.

The civil rights group Liberty, which analysed clauses from the new Immigration and Citizenship Bill, called them an attempt to introduce compulsory ID cards by the back door.

The move would effectively take Britain back to the Second World War, when people were stopped and asked to ’show their papers’.

Liberty said: ‘Powers to examine identity documents, previously thought to apply only at ports of entry, will be extended to criminalise anyone in Britain who has ever left the country and fails to produce identity papers upon demand.

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Deborah Summers, The Guardian
December 3, 2008

The row over the arrest of Damian Green took a sensational new turn today when Commons Speaker, Michael Martin, revealed that police did not have a warrant when they searched the Tory MP’s parliamentary office.

In a stunning intervention, Martin insisted he did not authorise the raid, nor was he aware that officers did not have a warrant.

The surprise revelation went some way to placate MPs outraged at the heavy-handed treatment of an elected member of parliament over what some regard as a relatively trivial matter – a string of Home Office leaks that embarrassed the government.

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BBC News
December 3, 2008

Nigerian medical authorities are flying in 100 doses of an antidote to try and stem the deaths of babies poisoned by a contaminated teething syrup.

The number of children who have died from kidney failure after being given the tainted paracetamol-based remedy called “My Pikin” has risen to 34.

Authorities say the number of sick children may rise, as not all parents have access to medical services.

So far 425 syrup bottles have been seized from shops since 21 November.

Nigeria’s National Agency for Food, Drug Administration and Control said it had first received reports of possible contamination on 19 November and had begun to confiscate the syrup two days later.

All paracetamol-based drugs prescribed in Nigeria are being tested after the deaths, officials say.

The children died after drinking the baby-teething mixture contaminated with diethylene glycol, a toxic substance normally used in engine coolant.

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Bank runs… hyper-inflation… we had better figure out how to prepare for it. (Pro tip: Printing money to throw at central banks doesn’t work.)

Chris McGreal, The Guardian
December 3, 2008

The Zimbabwe government is set to greatly increase the amount of money people can withdraw from banks from tomorrow in an attempt to quell growing unrest, including riots and looting by soldiers this week, over a drastic cash shortage caused by hyperinflation.

The central bank has raised the withdrawal limit from the equivalent of just 18p a day to about £33 a week following the protests in which scores of troops apparently angry at waiting in long bank queues targeted shops in Harare that will only accept payment in US dollars and blackmarket money changers openly dealing on the streets.

The growing anger among soldiers and other Zimbabweans is due in part to the increasing difficulty of using the national currency to buy anything but a few locally produced vegetables and bread after the US dollar was made legal tender.

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CBC News
December 3, 2008

Thousands of anti-government protesters ended their week-long siege of two Thailand airports after a Thai court dissolved the three largest parties in the country’s ruling coalition.

A Thai Airways flight was the first commercial airliner to arrive at Suvarnabhumi international airport in a week when it touched down at 7:15 GMT from the resort island of Phuket.

Although it was still unclear when full operations of the airport would resume, Thai Airways said its flights will take off from Suvarnabhumi airport for Sydney, New Delhi, Tokyo, Frankfurt, Seoul and Copenhagen later Wednesday

Vudhibhandhu Vichairatana, the chairman of the Airports of Thailand, hugged and shook hands with leaders of the People’s Alliance for Democracy, the group that had staged the siege, in a makeshift handover ceremony.

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Literally, nickel and diming us. While taking reusable bags – voluntarily – to the store is a good idea, and that should be promoted through education, all this is going to do is create a windfall. People still need to put their garbage in something – these bags get repurposed for a lot of tasks as it is. It’s not as if they’re blowing around choking ducks somewhere.

CBC News
December 3, 2008

Toronto has approved a controversial decision that will force consumers to pay for plastic shopping bags.

The five-cent-a-bag charge will take effect on June 1.

Doug Holyday, one of the councillors who voted against the move, said it should be seen for what it is — another tax imposed by City Hall.

“We’ve done nothing but increase costs around here. It’s been mentioned about all the water increases, the tax increases and the new taxes. We’ve got to quit doing that. We’ve got to come up with some concrete solutions here that don’t raise taxes, that make us more efficient.”

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