statism watch

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Mark Metherell, Amy Corderoy, The Age
May 1, 2010

After a week of analysis, medical authorities are still at a loss to explain why 57 children have had convulsions after receiving influenza vaccine.

The Commonwealth’s chief medical officer, Jim Bishop, yesterday announced that a national ban on administering the mixed seasonal and swine flu vaccine to children aged five and under would continue.

Professor Bishop said no evidence had been found of a suspect batch of the CSL vaccine going to Western Australia, where there have been 57 cases of convulsions in children aged five or under.

Although dramatically disproportionate to the rest of Australia’s 20 cases of convulsions, the WA numbers may be partly explained by its higher vaccination rates because the vaccine is available free to infants. Typically the rate of fever with convulsions after vaccination was between one in a 1000 and one in 10,000.

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It will be interesting to find out who’s responsible for this when it comes out in due course. The press in the US is of course all a-twitter with the possibility of a mid-east terror connection on the strength of one post on a forum somewhere claiming responsibility. And the group spreading this news? One of the usual suspects, SITE.

Tom Hays, Deepti Hajela, The Associated Press
May 1, 2010

Police seek man who says he may have recorded a bombing suspect in a nearby alley

There was no evidence of a Taliban link to a failed bomb found in a smoking SUV parked in Times Square, and police were on their way to Pennsylvania to talk to a man who said he may have recorded a bombing suspect in a nearby alley, the police commissioner said Sunday.

The video apparently shows a white man in his 40s taking off his shirt in the alley and putting it in a bag, Commissioner Ray Kelly said.

Police found the SUV parked on one of the prime blocks for Broadway shows such as “The Lion King” after being alerted by two street vendors on Saturday night. Thousands of tourists were cleared from the streets for 10 hours, and the bomb was dismantled. No one was injured.

The SUV contained three propane tanks, fireworks, two filled 5-gallon gasoline containers and two clocks with batteries, electrical wire and other components, police said. Timers were connected to a 16-ounce can filled with fireworks that were apparently intended to set the gas cans afire, then ignite the three barbecue-grill-sized propane tanks.

Kelly said it was “the intent of whoever did this to cause mayhem, create casualties.”

Mayor Michael Bloomberg called the explosive device “amateurish” but potentially deadly, noting: “We are very lucky.”

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Related: Omar Khadr turned down plea deal | Khadr pretrial hearings begin | Ottawa reluctantly asks U.S. for assurances Khadr trial will not use evidence CSIS obtained in violation of rights | Omar Khadr’s rights were violated: Ruling sees top court clash with Tories | Omar Khadr to face Military Commission trial in US | Omar Khadr ‘innocent’ in death of U.S. soldier | Kuebler dropped as Omar Khadr’s lawyer | Supreme Court to hear government’s appeal of Khadr case | Ottawa to appeal Khadr ruling to top court | Harper hints at appeal of Khadr ruling | CSIS ignored Khadr’s human rights: Parliamentary report | Ottawa appeals court order to repatriate Omar Khadr | PM must press U.S. for Khadr’s return from Guantanamo, court rules | Khadr’s military lawyer reinstated | Pentagon fires Omar Khadr’s lawyer | Arar in Canada when ’seen’ by Khadr, hearing told | Khadr, interred in rubble, couldn’t have thrown grenade in firefight: Evidence | Stop ignoring Omar Khadr case: Opposition MPs to PM | Bid to dismiss Omar Khadr’s charges fails | CSIS faces review in Khadr case | Low Level Driver Convicted Of Terror Charges While Bin Laden’s Senior Body Guard Was Let Go | Protesters push for Omar Khadr’s release | ‘You don’t care about me,’ Omar Khadr sobs in interview tapes | Canada’s top court orders partial access to Khadr transcripts | Canada losing moral standing over treatment of Omar Khadr: Dallaire | Khadr Defence chips away at military prosecution

Michelle Shepherd, The Toronto Star
May 1. 2010

GUANTANAMO BAY, CUBA–A U.S. Special Forces commander testified Saturday that he altered a post-battle report about the firefight where Canadian Omar Khadr was captured to correct his “historical” record, not because he had been pressured to do so.

Khadr’s previous defence lawyer had accused the military of doctoring the report to fit their case — calling it “manufactured evidence.”

Khadr, now 23, was shot and captured in Afghanistan at the age of 15 and faces a murder charge for allegedly throwing a grenade that fatally wounded U.S. Delta Force soldier Christopher Speer.

The prosecution claims Khadr was the only one alive in a compound after the grenade was thrown at the end of a lengthy firefight. The bodies of three other fighters were later recovered.

But doubt was raised about the government’s case in March 2008 when it was revealed that there were two versions of the battle report written by the U.S. Special Forces commander, who can only be identified as Lt.-Col. W. due to a military judge’s order.

An early version of Lt.-Col. W.’s report stated the person who had thrown the grenade had been killed, which would rule out Khadr as the suspect. But in a near-identical report, the commander changed a single line to read that the grenade thrower did not die.

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Also a place that did its part to ensure the cycle of intimidation and predation would continue as its wounded young charges moved out and into society.

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Hubert Bauch, Montreal Gazette
May 1, 2010

Former Bishop’s College students — plaintiffs in a class action lawsuit — describe the elite private school in the 1950s and ’60s as a house of horrors and dirty secrets, where a culture of abuse reigned unchecked

MONTREAL — Students and alumni of Bishop’s College School are generally regarded as members of a privileged class. For some, however, the privilege of a BCS education came at a terrible price. Not in fees, but in shocking, soul-eroding, life-wrecking abuse visited on them there. Long buried, their memories of Bishop’s school days of yore have lately risen to haunt the esteemed institution.

It has long been one of Canada’s elite private schools, founded in 1836, a year before Queen Victoria ascended the throne and three decades before Confederation. It sits in splendid baronial style on 350 bucolic Eastern Townships acres at Lennoxville. Its accoutrements include the country’s oldest continuous cadet corps, affiliated with the Black Watch.

It has been the prep school for the scions of some of Montreal’s finest old families. It has produced graduates distinguished in an array of fields. They include early last-century magnate Sir Montagu Allan and later last-century newspaper tycoon Conrad Black; author Michael Ondaatje and moviemaker Paul Almond; two senators, the late Hartland Molson and current Colin Kenny; celebrated radio raconteur Stuart McLean; inventor Reginald Fessenden, who pioneered radio transmission, and Scott Abbott, who invented Trivial Pursuit.

For others, their BCS “education” put them on a downward life path, to alcoholism, drug abuse, psychological disorder, failed relationships and career instability. Their lately rendered accounts of sexual abuse at the hands of an ordained faculty member and rampant corporal punishment — routine floggings on bared backsides with canes, steel-edged rulers and hockey sticks — echo recent tales of abuse in Catholic parishes and Indian Residential Schools, as well as other upper-crust schools, including Montreal’s Selwyn House and Toronto’s Upper Canada College.

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