By Jim Elve

As the world slips into a food crisis of epic proportions, analysts, politicians, purveyors, producers, investors, pundits, scientists and economists are weighing in with opinions on causes. Faced with the morbid spectacle of millions upon millions of deaths by starvation, many special interest sectors are eager to point the finger of blame. Those fingers are generally not pointed back at themselves.

Who are the blameholders? It depends on who is doing the blaming.

George Bush threw an additional $770 million at the problem just last week. In doing so, he pointed the finger of blame squarely at India’s rising middle class and their newfound ability to add a bit of meat to their still largely vegetarian diet. As one might expect, Bush’s finger-pointing isn’t going down too well in India.

By Koby

As Guidy Mamann of the immigration law firm Mamann & Associates notes, despite what immigration minister Diane Finely might say she is not required by law to process applications as they come in.

By Jim Elve

Toronto Centre GPC candidate has republished (with permission) an email from Elizabeth May.
http://www.christindal.ca/2008/01/18/dangerous-governance/

Since Ms. May allowed Chris' republication, I'm taking the liberty of quoting her email, in its entirety.

Here's Elizabeth's email to Chris:

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We have taken very clear positions on this issue. First, you need to know we have done our homework. Here's a crash course in the fiasco.

1) The NRU reactor at Chalk River is over 50 years old. It is operated by Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd, a Crown Corporation. Closing for even routine maintenance should not have occurred without a contingency plan, alerting the other manufacturers of medical radio-isotopes that they should be prepared to boost production.

By Arjun Singh

Hello friends! For the past year or more (two years? three?), I have looked at my name on the members list of this blog with a great deal of good Sikh guilt. 1:02 am, Denman St Blenz, Vancouver BC - waiting for a Greyhound back to my community and my constituents. I have been on Kamloops City Council for two years, and here is why it so much better than any provincial and federal legislature.

By Russil Wvong

Former diplomat Robert Fowler reviews The Unexpected War: Canada in Kandahar, by Janice Gross Stein and Eugene Lang.

The few people who are entertained by the way Ottawa makes decisions will find The Unexpected War: Canada in Kandahar worthy of close study. It is timely and a page turner in its compelling historical detail. It is also generally well researched and presented. The final chapter provides a stark examination of where things actually stand in Afghanistan—an account not available from any government source—and offers a realistic assessment of the array of bad options available to current decision makers.

Stein and Lang quote Sarah Chayes, a journalist who testified before a parliamentary committee in May:

It’s really important that you understand [that] what is happening in southern Afghanistan is not so much an insurgency—that is, an indigenous uprising by the locals—but rather ... a kind of invasion by proxy of Afghanistan by Pakistan, using Afghans. Fundamentally, this so-called insurgency is being orchestrated, organized, financed, trained, and equipped across the border in Pakistan.

Fowler's assessment is pessimistic:

I do not believe we can win in the conditions that inform NATO’s mission in Afghanistan. I do not believe that those conditions are likely to change substantially. And I do not believe that the Karzai government is worthy of our support. Afghanistan—as others have learned at such cost—is simply too far away, too complex and too difficult for poorly motivated, uncoordinated and insufficiently committed western governments to fix. We have neither the stamina nor the will to prevail in such circumstances.

By Russil Wvong

Report calls for sweeping changes to RCMP. Full report (PDF).

"What emerged was a picture of an honourable and revered Canadian institution with rank and file members struggling to do their best under a tremendous burden of an inefficient and inappropriately structured organization," said David Brown, the Toronto lawyer at the helm of the task force.

He told reporters at a press conference in Ottawa that creating the RCMP as a separate entity from the government would give the organization the ability to make decisions about human resources and finances, decisions that are currently made by the federal treasury board.

"[The RCMP currently] doesn't have the authority to make simple expenditures or hire a new person without hours of paper work," Brown said.

"They are required to go up a hierarchy of government and back down again. It slows things down, it makes it much more difficult for them to effectively plan."

By Russil Wvong

CBC:

A shortage of volunteers to help Edmonton seniors clear snow from their sidewalks is leading some of them to risk injury to do it themselves, says one agency.

About 700 seniors have called the Seniors Association of Greater Edmonton (SAGE) looking for help but with a total of only 42 workers and volunteers, the agency is stretched thin.