Fight of the Century

My Mom sent this to me, which only proves what a bad influence I am on my family:



On a related note, I've been spending a lot of time reading Matt Taibbi's take on the financial crisis in Rolling Stone. Worth trawling through their archives if you've got the time, but maybe start here and go from there.

Those goddamn Liberal media biases

Not so much. H/t to Smyke.

Look, I'm not saying the media isn't biased. It just isn't a Liberal/Conservative split. Think more status quo and meth-fueled daily news cycles.

Also, Jay Rosen.

Afterthoughts: I think one large reason for why the media can be so hard on parties like the CPC is that it just happens to be the party in power, and it's hard not to compare to a previous years-long Liberal administration. I don't think I qualify as a journalist - I'm barely qualified to be a commentator - but speaking personally I like to think I would be as hard on any other administration as I am on this one. The reason why I don't rag on the NDP all the time, say, is that they haven't done anything except function as an opposition party. And that's great if you want to write about opposition.

But when it comes to stimulus spending, or unnecessary regulations, or regulations that are necessary but which aren't in place, or any number of stupid moves and scandals, the governing administration is, by default, going to be the one that gets in the most trouble. And so, if you want to write about stimulus spending, unnecessary regulations, regulations that are necessary but which aren't in place, or any number of stupid moves and scandals, criticizing the government is what you're going to be doing. That is, unless you want to spend your time as an apologist for the administration.

I'm already on record as not wanting to vote for the Conservative Party of Canada. I wish that wasn't the case. I wish I could give them my vote - Hell, I'm helping them campaign on the ground in my riding because I'm friends with the local team. But as a barely-qualified commentator, I'm still going to rag on the Conservatives. I'm going to do that for as long as they're in power. And if the Conservatives aren't in power, I'll rag on the next guys, and the guys after them. And I have a sneaking suspicion that a lot of other commentators - unless they're apologists or outright party hacks ( and that applies to any party ) - think along the same lines.

It's nothing personal. We just hate everyone's guts.

Credible Holocaust denial?

According to some.

Can I get a medic?

Heh. Via Boing Boing.

Ujjal Dosanjh, the Great Divider

Conservative candidate Wai Young is in serious trouble in the Vancouver South riding for her alleged ties to acquitted Air India terrorist and Sikh extremist Ripudaman Singh Malik. Rod Mickleburgh reports for the Globe and Mail:

Four days before she was publicly endorsed by Ripudaman Singh Malik, who was acquitted of mass murder in the Air India bombing, Conservative candidate Wai Young attended a private fundraising meeting also attended by Mr. Malik and about a dozen other potential supporters, according to a campaign worker who was there.

“I saw him [Mr. Malik] sitting in the corner in the living room,” said the volunteer, who did not want his name used. “There was a guy there with a [tax] receipt book.”

Ms. Young has said she did not know Mr. Malik’s background when she accepted an invitation to an April 6 parents’ night gathering at the Khalsa School, where he announced his backing.

I suspect that this scandal will be the end of Wai Young's campaign. Between this and her family troubles, Liberal incumbent Ujjal Dosanjh has more than enough ammunition to bury her campaign. Expect to see Young's campaign spiral out of control from here - particularly since her own campaign people seem willing enough to rat her out ( don't take this as a condemnation of anonymous informers - although they've been known to be suspect before - but one of the marks of a good campaign is having your people keep their lips sealed in public ).

What I found particularly interesting, however, was Malik's seeming desire to paint Ujjal Dosanjh as some sort of Sikh traitor to the cause. As also reported by Mickleburgh in the Globe:

In a brief interview with a reporter at Sher-E-Punjab Radio, Mr. Malik said Ms. Young is better for the Sikh community than Mr. Dosjanh.

“Ujjal Dosanjh is always causing division in our community, ... Wai Young has promised to truthfully represent the Sikh community and that’s why we should support her. That is my request,” Mr. Malik told reporter Gurvinder Singh Dhaliwal.

The interview was conducted in Punjabi, but the radio station provided an English translation of Mr. Malik’s remarks.

Court documents disclosed during the Air India trial showed that Mr. Malik had provided financial support in the past to the family of Inderjit Singh Reyat, who was convicted of manslaughter in the terrorist bombing of Air India flight 182.

In the radio interview, Mr. Malik also offered his support to Liberal candidates Sukh Dhaliwal (Newton-North Delta) and Shinder Purewal (Surrey North).

Jonathan Ross, a spokesman for Mr. Dhaliwal, said he knew nothing about the endorsement. “It was spoken on the radio, not at a public meeting. We have no connection with him [Mr. Malik] at all.”

Malik is damaged goods, and every campaign he endorses is back-peddling as fast as they can from his support. This is as it should be. Say what you will about Ujjal Dosanjh - I know a few provincial New Democrats who probably aren't too thrilled with him, say - but his record in standing against Sikh extremism is well worth applauding. As Crawford Kilian elaborates in The Tyee:

As a young lawyer, Dosanjh said, he had begun speaking out in late 1984 against the more extreme voices in the Sikh community. In February 1985, he was attacked and beaten with a metal rod, and very nearly killed. It took 80 stitches to close the wounds in his head.

[...]

The extremists have long memories. Dosanjh mentioned an incident last year when some people had said publicly that he would not be welcome or safe at the 2010 Vaisakhi parade. Dosanjh (who hadn't been planning to attend) condemned that attitude; he then saw the appearance of two Facebook pages dedicated to discussing and funding his assassination.

Last week, the news broke that Wai Young had attended a meeting at Khalsa School, Vancouver which had also been attended by Ripudaman Singh Malik, acquitted in the Air India case but an acknowledged founder of the terrorist Babbar Khalsa movement and a financial supporter of the family of Inderjit Singh Reyat, the only person to be convicted in the case. Malik was now also a supporter of Wai Young's election campaign.

Malik is a scary guy, and his version of Sikhism is apparently quite a dangerous one. His attempts to make Ujjal Dosanjh as some sort of turncoat or traitor of the Sikh religion and culture is not only a pretty naked attempt at ethnic scaremongering, it's downright reprehensible considering the risks that Dosanjh has taken over the years speaking out against the extremist branch of Sikhism that folks like Malik represent.

The politics of drug prosecutions

Jacob Sullum at Reason's Hit & Run notes the rather odd phrasing of DEA administrator Karen Tandy in 2005 when speaking about pot activist Marc Emery's prosecution:

As Emery notes, quoting the comments of then-DEA Administrator Karen Tandy at the time of his arrest in 2005, it seems his offense was deemed serious not because he made millions of dollars by selling cannabis seeds but because he used much of the money to agitate for changes in the drug laws. Tandy bragged that Emery's arrest was "a significant blow" to "the marijuana legalization movement," since "drug legalization lobbyists now have one less pot of money to rely on."

Marc Emery was just denied an application to serve the rest of his sentence in Canada. One wonders if this whole farce - and it really is a farce when a man is sent to jail for profiting from selling seeds - is political in nature. But then, one doesn't want to venture into the realm of conspiracy theories. After all, the war on drugs certainly isn't political in nature.

Good for Terry David Mulligan

Courtesy of the Times Colonist:

A Prohibition-era law restricting wine importation across provincial boundaries is under fire as a well-known B.C. broadcaster is planning to partake in civil disobedience to get it struck down.

Terry David Mulligan has announced that on May 13 he will challenge the law by taking B.C. wine to Alberta. "The liquor people are just bullies," Mulligan said Tuesday.

Say what you will about him, this guy's got balls. I hope I'm not alone in saying that I wish him success in challenging this stupid, outdated law.

Bylaw officers can't beat homeless men with impunity. Who knew?

Remember these assholes? Well, at least one of them is going to end up in court:

A City of Victoria bylaw officer charged with assaulting a homeless man will appear in Victoria provincial court June 21.

Andrew Dolan was scheduled to appear in court Tuesday. Lawyer Dennis Murray appeared on his behalf and adjourned the proceedings.

On Oct. 20, Dolan and bylaw supervisor Steve Simmonds were asking a homeless man about carts and personal effects strewn around a small green space on Caledonia Avenue.

It is alleged Dolan straddled the man and repeatedly punched him. At the time, police said the alleged victim, in his 30s, suffered shoulder and head injuries.

Oh, but don't worry. Dolan will keep collecting a pay-check in the meantime:

An investigation by city staff ruled out disciplinary action against Dolan and he continues in his job.

Good to know the City of Victoria believes in job security.

Past board member for the Canadian Islamic Congress supports only anti-blasphemy candidates

Yep:

The following voting advice appears in the latest issue of the Canadian Islamic Congress' Friday Magazine.

The author Ayub Hamid "is a past member of the CIC Board of Directors and currently President of the Canadian Institute of Political Studies."

5. We should support only those non-Muslim candidates who are willing to present and support a Private Members’ Bill making it a hate-crime to publicly associate Islam to terrorism, whether in written, spoken, printed, broadcast or electronic media. At the same time, we must take a balanced approach instead of being carried away by a single issue. Huh? h/t Sanwin

Yoiks.

Cop pulls you over, takes data from your cellphone

This actually happens on a regular basis in Michigan.

H/t to Xanthippa.

We hate the fuzz here, it seems, but not really

I'll let Tracy Sherlock give the news, via the Times Colonist:

British Columbia and Yukon residents were much more likely than other Canadians to express skepticism about the integrity and professionalism of the RCMP, according to a 2010 survey conducted for the national police force.

Just 56 per cent of British Columbians and 54 per cent of Yukon residents agreed with the statement that the RCMP is "an accountable organization," while only 69 per cent of B.C. respondents and 63 per cent of Yukon respondents agreed with the statement that Mounties are honest.

Gee, I wonder why that is.

The mounties still get some respect, though:

Despite low numbers of trust and concerns about accountability, communication and complaint investigation, British Columbians are still mostly satisfied with the work of the Mounties.

Fully 82 per cent of B.C. respondents reported satisfaction with the RCMP's contributions to public safety, just two points shy of the national level.

Cops behaving badly - final director's cut edition

The final instalment in our series. First, continuing our coverage of botched raids.

1) In March, police in Amherst, Massachusetts executed a drug raid on the wrong house - the house they were supposed to raid was right next door. At least they apologized about it afterward.

2) In March, Louisville, Kentucky police discovered about $36,000 in pot plants accidentally, when they got the wrong house while responding to a domestic dispute call. Naturally, no one was home.

3) Also in March, FBI agents busted into a Pittsburgh family's home while executing an arrest warrant for someone who wasn't even living at that house anymore. After pointing their guns at the family children, refusing to hand over a search warrant ( which they didn't have ) when asked, and hauling them all out onto their front porch, the agents apologize when they realized the person they came to arrest wasn't there. Nice folks that they are they even offered to pay for the family's front door, which they had broken down.

4) Finally, just a day or two ago police in Buffalo, New York, raided a man's home, held him on his floor and verbally abused him. His crime? Well, according to them he had downloaded "thousands of images" of child pornography the night before. Apparently it didn't occur to them that his wireless router - which he hadn't password protected - had been used by someone else to download those images. The police had gotten the wrong guy.

Meanwhile, it seems that police in New Orleans are so ill-behaved and corrupt that they have now been placed under the direct supervision of a federal judge.

And with that, we conclude our series of cops behaving badly...for now. I have some reading to do before I comment any further on this issue, so if you don't see me for a little while that's what I'm up to.

Police can't do everything

BC's children and youth watchdog is apparently planning an inquiry into how group homes in British Columbia operate in the wake of an eleven year old boy being tasered by police after a volatile situation erupted in, you guessed it, a group home.

Ms. Turpel-Lafond said police, trained in use of force, should not be the first line of response to deal with children in government care who are misbehaving. “If police are engaged by caregivers to use force on a child in early development stages – 10, 11, 12 years old – it can have a harmful impact on the child.”

She said she does not yet have precise figures for the frequency of such calls, but noted that she raised the issue of policing and care homes three years ago. “I have seen numerous incidents of … [a group home] placing a phone call to police to attend to the residence to address behavioural or other issues, not criminal issues.”

I suspect that this, as with other issues, isn't so much the fault of the police ( although tasering a child is, and will always be, incredibly stupid ). The issue is more a matter of continuously escalating situations to the point where police action - which almost by definition is going to be violent - is needed.

In a lot of ways this is something that we see in the United States, where SWAT teams are used on a routine basis to execute search warrants and arrest warrants in drug-related cases that don't warrant a full-on storming by police. A lot of innocent people have been killed or hurt in these raids, and it isn't so much the fault of the police involved as it is the fault of whoever thought escalating things to the point where violence was going to be the default situation.

Police aren't the solution to everything, nor are full-on assault teams in - relatively - minor cases.

Cops behaving badly - botched raid edition

Thanks in large part to Radley Balko's efforts for Reason magazine, we're able to document a few of the people who have been killed or brutalized accidentally by police during raids - mostly drug raids.

Ready? OK, here goes.

1) A 68-year-old grandfather of twelve, Eurie Stamps, was gunned down by police during a drug raid this January in Framingham, Massachusetts. He was not the target of the raid, and was unarmed, and his death was caused by an officer accidentally discharging his weapon after losing his balance. Radley Balko discusses Stamps' death here.

2) In Spring Valley, New York this January, police conducted a drug raid - part of a wide sweep - on the wrong house, allegedly pointed a gun at a thirteen-year-old girl ( who was taken to the hospital after having an asthma attack and fainting ), and allegedly even threatening to shoot the family's dogs because they were barking. At the time, the officers involved apparently did not explain what had happened after they realized their mistake. The DEA later issued an apology to the family involved...not directly, but through a press release.

3) In January, the parents of Sal Culosi - a 38-year-old optometrist who was killed during a SWAT raid on his house for gambling charges after being baited by a police officer to raise the stakes of his gambling - reached a settlement with the officer who killed their son.

4) In late January, 76-year-old Jose Colon was accidentally shot in the stomach ( non-fatally ) during a drug raid that successfully recovered a small amount of heroin in the possession of Colon's son, Alberto.

5) Also in late January, police in Ogden, Utah, shot 45-year-old Todd Blair to death during a raid on his house targeting his room-mate - Blair was apparently wielding a golf club because people were breaking into his house, and police shot him without warning.

6) In February, two Rutgers University students sued the New Brunswick, New Jersey police department after allegedly being beaten and roughly detained - but not charged with anything - during a drug raid on the place where they were staying at the time.

More to come...

A certain someone

An old friend of ours has been busy keeping up his favorite hobby, it seems.

One down, one more to go

Remember the Four Loko ban? Well, thanks to Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley, Colt .45's "Blast" brand of flavored malt liquor ( um, ew ) is next.

Why I'm writing so much about cops

I guess I should add a side-note about my 'Cops behaving badly' segment lately.

I had originally planned a lot of the material going into these posts to be a part of something I was hoping to write about police drug raids, particularly in the States. That something never materialized - although I'm still planning something on a smaller scale - and I figure it'd be a shame to waste the links I had noted down earlier. I'm throwing in some other items I run across in my daily reading, too plus anything that people might want to send my way.

So this won't be a regular feature. It'll just last until I run out of links from my notes.

Cops behaving badly

Continuing with our series...

1) Apparently, a police officer in Las Vegas beat a man for filming police business, and in turn got caught on the man's camera doing so. H/t to The Grey Lady.

2) The Supreme Court of Massachusetts has ruled that the smell of pot is not enough reason for a police officer to order someone out their car - since possession of up to an once of pot is only a citable offense, it's not enough of a crime to merit making someone exit their vehicle. More here on a similar case that went before the US Supreme Court this January.

3) Some thoughts on the inefficiencies of drug-sniffing dogs.

4) Radley Balko earlier this year on the slow handling of a cop-beating case in Pittsburgh.

5) Finally, an interview with Stewart Rhodes, founder of Oath Keepers, with more on Oath Keepers here.

The Candy Shop

The Candy Shop is an allegorical film targeting child sex trafficking in Atlanta.

The Candy Shop from Whitestone Motion Pictures on Vimeo.

H/t to Boing Boing. Background on the film here. Some notable criticism here and here.

Thoughts?

About those grow-ops stealing $100 million worth of electricity

Since BC Hydro seems content to keep making the claim that grow-ops in BC are by-passing electricity meters and stealing a whopping $100 million worth of electricity, seems content to sue because of this, and is seemingly hoping to spend about $1 billion installing smart meters in every home in British Columbia in part to counter this green menace, I thought it would be worthwhile to bring this up, courtesy of Michael Smyth:

"Over $100 million a year," Hydro official Bob Herriman told the Vancouver Sun last week, adding that amount has been increasing over the last few years.

I'll say. It wasn't that long ago that Hydro said much less power was being stolen to power grow-ops.

"We know that grow-ops are a problem in British Columbia — our estimate is in the $12-million range," Hydro official Bev Van Ruyven told the B.C. Utilities Commission in 2004.

OK, that was seven years ago. But, as late as last August, Hydro was saying the amount of electricity theft was $30 million a year.

And, in February, a Hydro official told the B.C. Utilities Commission that annual electricity losses had been "relatively constant for many years," not rising dramatically.

But, now that Hydro wants to install smart meters, those nasty marijuana growers are suddenly stealing more than $100 million worth of power a year.

I'm not saying that grow-ops aren't stealing electricity. I'm not saying that BC Hydro isn't taking a loss because of it. I'm not even saying that we shouldn't install smart meters. But I am saying that BC Hydro's numbers are bullshit, and that we shouldn't believe a word that they say.

That is all.

Cops behaving badly

Continuing with our series...

1) Privacy issues have been raised in Seattle due to police license plate cameras. According to the Seattle City Attorney's office, "There should be no expectation of privacy on the part of somebody with a driver's license." Hunh. H/t to The Grey Lady.

2) Golden Gate University law professor and former San Francisco police commissioner explains why police lie in court to justify drug searches, in the wake of this scandal involving falsified police reports and illegal drug raids by San Francisco police.

3) Radley Balko describes how the use of flashbangs by police can "cause serious, sometimes permanent injury to people who have yet to even be charged—much less convicted—of nonviolent, consensual crimes."

4) Earlier this year, the US Department of Justice released a report that found the New Orleans Police Department "has been largely indifferent to widespread violations of law and policy by its officers."

5) Finally, Steve Silverman of Flex Your Rights explains why "Asserting your Constitutional rights is not a trick in any way," when dealing with police.

As always, it's important to remember that the vast majority of police are fine, upstanding people. But it's also important to recognize departures from this fine, upstanding behavior - otherwise being fine and upstanding becomes somewhat irrelevant in our police forces, doesn't it?

Federal government appeals Ontario Superior Court decision that could legalize pot in Ontario in three months

I talked a little bit earlier about Ontario Superior Court judge Donald Taliano's finding that Ontario's medical marijuana program is unconstitutional, and his decision that, in about three months, could pretty much legalize the production, possession, and consumption of pot in Ontario.

Naturally, the federal government simply can't stand for this, and are appealing Taliano's decision to the Ontario Court of Appeal. As reported by CTV:

The Public Prosecution Office of Canada announced Tuesday that it has filed a notice of appeal with Ontario's top court in respect to Justice Donald Taliano's April 11 ruling.

The appeal states that Taliano made critical errors in law by declaring the federal medical marijuana program unconstitutional.

Taliano ordered that Ottawa fix the program by July or face the prospect of effectively legalizing marijuana.

The judge's decision came in a criminal case involving Matthew Mernagh, 37, of St. Catharines, who was unable to obtain a medical marijuana licence.

A lot of people seem to feel that an unelected judge cannot be allowed to make decisions like Taliano's, and that decisions about things like marijuana legalization should be left up to our elected representatives.

Fair enough. The only problem is, our elected representatives aren't going to do one goddamned thing about marijuana legalization any time soon. Taliano's decision would do in three months what years of political stalling have failed - or outright refused - to do. On this, I tend to be an ends-justify-means kind of guy: if we have to go the route of the courts to restore a basic liberty - our ability to eat, drink, or smoke whatever the hell we feel like - then so be it.

Update: Cross-posted to the Libertas Post blog.

Cops behaving badly

A new ongoing series...

1) A Medal of Freedom is being given to cops involved in "questionable" shootings. Meanwhile, an officer who was shot twice while chasing a suspect in a robbery gets...no medal. Hunh.

2) An off-duty cop has allegedly stolen $400 ticket from the River Rock Casino in Richmond, and is under both a criminal investigation and an internal investigation.

3) A police constable in New Westminster has been put on unpaid leave after being convicted for assaulting a newspaper carrier in Vancouver two years ago.

4) The ACLU is trying to get Michigan cops to stop searching information on peoples' phones during routine traffic stops.

5) Finally, up to 400 NYPD officers are under investigation for allegedly fixing tickets.

Locked in a Vegas hotel room with a high-speed/high-def video camera

Sweet.

The latest in bylaws

As Vancouver first tolerates, then removes, then selectively re-tolerates the erecting of protest structures in its streets - because those goddamned Falun Gong are mucking up the joint - a bylaw officer in Victoria severely beats a member of the public:

A City of Victoria bylaw officer has been charged with assault after it was alleged he straddled a man and repeatedly punched his head.

Andrew Dolan was charged nearly six months after the incident in Kings Park on Oct. 20.

North Park resident Jennifer Stubbs said at the time that she looked out her kitchen window and saw a bylaw officer strike a homeless man on the head while he was face down on the ground.

A second officer stood by and watched, Stubbs said.

Dolan and a bylaw supervisor, Steve Simmonds, both in plainclothes, were asking a homeless man about shopping carts and personal effects strewn around the small green space on Caledonia Avenue.

An internal report by the city said Simmonds was looking through the shopping carts when the man became aggressive and charged at him, and Dolan used force in self defence.

The alleged victim, a man in his 30s, had injuries to his shoulder and head, police said at the time.

This entire altercation was about things lying on the grass, and two men poking around in a homeless man's effects, then holding him down on the ground and punching him in the head repeatedly when he got upset about it. I've said it before, repeatedly, and I'll say it again: stuff like that is why people don't like police - or bylaw - officers very much.

The world is going to end

From Reason:



Yes. Libertarians hate the earth.

Alex Tsakumis FTW

Alex writes on the BC NDP's leadership convention this past Sunday:

2:11pm. After valeting 525 horses of magnificently non-green power, I immediately get hit with scorn from a quite comely young woman, wearing a ‘Gregor Robertson ’08′ button and holding a small placard of detailed acronym “For Universal Common Kare”. How quaint. No clue what “Kare” she was talking about and profoundly disinterested. Of course, she MUST comment on the chariot, “Hey, did you know we are killing the earth?” I pretend like I’m deaf. I hop upstairs to the mezzanine level of the Pan Pacific to meet an old friend from grad school before braving the BCNDP convention floor. Drat! She’s going to be an hour late. Oh well, I’ll put on my flak jacket and shoot the rapids of socialist nirvana. Dear gawd…as I walk through the main entrance downstairs, the waft of someone having a quick toke from somewhere outside the double glazed doors hits me. Couldn’t be Dana Larsen, I just saw him in the foyer of the hotel chatting up someone who I was convinced was a vagrant (forgive me, this was a popular outfit yesterday, I’m not sure if it was a theme, and I apologize for not knowing this in advance, I’m still trying to get over Farnworth’s outstanding suit and tie, as contrast. Too good, Mike!). The folk music by electric guitar with a native twist was a nice touch, if I was contemplating suicide; which, judging by the looks I got from some of the pretend media (read: Premier Snooki’s cheerleaders) would be a cause for celebration.

Snort.

Priorities

Porn and poker. Hunh. Isn't there a budget crisis going on or something?

Update: Also, this.

Everyone's on drugs

A few links:

-Ethan Nadelmann of the Drug Policy Alliance on drug legalization and its future.

-Marc Emery - the prince of pot - has been denied a prison transfer and looks likely to serve the rest of his sentence in an American prison.

-On the same day that Marc Emery found out his application for a transfer had been denied, a medical marijuana dispensary opened its doors in Burnaby.

-The politics of marijuana.

-Finally, Vancouver's Insite program has gotten a recent scientific endorsement in The Lancet.

Update: Insite explained: Drug addicts can’t recover if they’re already dead.

Meanwhile, happy 420!

An anti-war right?

Reason magazine's Brian Doherty:

Privacy, Facebook, politics and kids

Cory Doctorow speaks.

China gets trolled by bloggers

Cory Doctorow writes:

Anonymous international bloggers have been writing in Chinese about a "Jasmine revolution" in China, calling on Chinese people to show their discontent for local corruption by going to places that are normally crowded and walking around, not doing anything special. The Chinese authorities freaked out and blocked these sites, and most people in China have never heard of them -- but because people keep turning up and walking around in the normally crowded places, the politburo is convinced that the Jasmine Revolution is in full swing.

Hunh.

An open letter to Canada

H/t to Smyke for this video:

The price of Mexico's proxy war on drugs: a thousand dead children

Earlier this month the Washington Post reported that:

According to U.S. and Mexican experts, competing criminal groups appear to be killing children to terrorize the population or prove to rivals that their savagery is boundless, as they fight over local drug markets and billion-dollar trafficking routes to voracious consumers in the United States.

The death toll from this escalation in the war on drugs? Again, according to the Post:

“It worries us very much, this growth in the attacks on little children. They use them as a vehicle to send a message,” said Juan Martin Perez, director of the Child Rights Network in Mexico. “Decapitations and hanging bodies from bridges send a message. Killing children is an extension of this trend.”

The children’s rights group estimates that 994 people younger than 18 were killed in drug-related violence between late 2006 and late 2010, based on media accounts, which are incomplete because newspapers are often too intimidated to report drug-related crimes.

But wait! It gets worse:

Government figures include all homicides of people younger than 17, capturing victims whose murders might not have been related to drugs or organized crime. In 2009, the last year for which there is data, 1,180 children were killed, half in shootings.

As I noted back in March, both Canada and the United States can play a vital role in deescalating the violence ratcheting up in Mexico. Simply put, we could legalize - or at the least, decriminalize - drugs. The prohibition on drugs in both Canada and the U.S. has not resolved the issue of drugs. It hasn't stopped the production or distribution of drugs, or the consumption of drugs. It has, in fact, accomplished very little.

And all the while, Mexico has been paying a price for having a massive market for black-market drugs North of its border. Mexico pays this price for our moral high-ground in blood - and now, increasingly, in childrens' blood. I wrote back in March that if this violence is "considered a fitting price by some, fine, but it's a price that should always be factored into our considerations." Now more than ever I stand by that analysis.

And yet, incredibly, a thousand dead children is seen by the head of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency as a good sign. From the Washington Post report:

U.S. and Mexican officials say the grotesque violence is a symptom the cartels have been wounded by police and soldiers. “It may seem contradictory, but the unfortunate level of violence is a sign of success in the fight against drugs,” said Michele Leonhart, head of the Drug Enforcement Administration. The cartels “are like caged animals, attacking one another,” she added.

I agree with Alex Pareene at Salon magazine's War Room blog, who writes in response to this boneheaded comment: "If this is a sign of success, maybe we should reconsider waging this war."

And yet, the war on drugs will continue. More people will die. And the black market drug trade will continue as it has before, only more brutal and blood-soaked than ever. Still, it's nice to know how little the life of a child means to the DEA. As Alex Pareene goes on to note: "This is the sort of quote -- dead children are a sign that we're winning! -- that should lead to a resignation. But it probably won't."

No, it won't. And that is probably the starkest symbol of North America's continued war on drugs imaginable. Continue on, regardless of the toll. The more lives lost, the better things are going.

Dating a Jinn can be a real pain in the ass, sometimes

Just ask this guy.

Some drug dealers are good

Illegal cigarettes? The New York Times is down with that.

Illegal heroin? Presumably not so much. As Jacob Sullum notes: "Unlike tobacco, of course, those drugs are addictive and dangerous."

Meanwhile, "I would decriminalize drugs in a heartbeat."

“That is not the path we’re walking down at all."

Remember this post about the Conservatives' proposal to lump all their crime bills into one piece of omnibus legislation and ram it through parliament if they get a majority? Remember how I was worried that this omnibus bill would include "lawful access" legislation which would essentially force Internet Service Providers to turn over information on their clients to police without need for a search warrant, and which would allow for Internet surveillance?

Well, Jesse Brown over at Macleans.ca is a little worried too, and notes that the Conservative Party of Canada used to be against this sort of thing - that is, before they decided they were for this sort of thing. I know, I find it hard to keep track of too sometimes.

Brown writes:

“That is not the path we’re walking down at all, ” said Day.

Two years later, the Conservatives walked down that path.

After a cabinet shuffle, the public safety minister in June 2009 was Peter Van Loan, and he sang a very different tune to me about the need for expanded police powers.

Van Loan tabled a ‘lawful access’ bill that would give police exactly the powers Stockwell Day told me they wouldn’t need. The new minister saw this as no big deal—Canadians, he told me, had “no reasonable expectation of privacy” when it came to this information. In other words, when you leave a comment on this website under a pseudonym, it is unreasonable for you to expect that the police will not be able to trace it to your name, cell number, home address, email address, and other web activity, by linking it to your I.P. address. Such information, he told me, is just like a listing in the phone book.

I still intend to look for more confirmation that "lawful access" legislation will be included in the Conservatives' omnibus justice legislation, but for now mark me down as: "still worried."

Oh, and just to confirm: As long as the Tories seemingly insist on pushing "lawful access" through parliament, I remain committed to not voting for them, and would advise others to do the same.

In three months, pot could be legal in Ontario

How awesome is this news?

An Ontario Superior Court judge has ruled that the federal medical marijuana program is unconstitutional, giving the government three months to fix the problem before pot is effectively legalized.

In an April 11 ruling, Justice Donald Taliano found that doctors across the country have “massively boycotted” the medical marijuana program and largely refuse to sign off on forms giving sick people access to necessary medication.

As a result, legitimately sick people cannot access medical marijuana through appropriate means and must resort to illegal actions.

Doctors’ “overwhelming refusal to participate in the medicinal marijuana program completely undermines the effectiveness of the program,” the judge wrote in his ruling.

“The effect of this blind delegation is that seriously ill people who need marijuana to treat their symptoms are branded criminals simply because they are unable to overcome the barriers to legal access put in place by the legislative scheme.”

Taliano declared the program to be invalid, as well as the criminal laws prohibiting possession and production of cannabis. He suspended his ruling for three months, giving Ottawa until mid-July to fix the program or face the prospect of effectively legalizing possession and production of cannabis.

It's hard to describe how happy this makes me feel - perhaps relief is closer to describing it. Finally, someone gets it. Of course, our federal government continues to miss the point, and will undoubtedly try to appeal. Let's hope that is a wasted effort.

Binks links

Click here. Go read.

Online security in France won't be so secure anymore

Better change your passwords.

Everyone's on drugs

H/t to Reason's Hit and Run blog for this article by Nick King in The American Conservative on Meth myths: Middle-American Methamphetamine.

An excerpt:

I did meth for the first time when I was 15, and by the time I was 17, I was using it once or twice a week. I can safely say that although many fine writers, Reding included, have attempted to tackle drug use in small town America—and have exposed the uncomfortable truth that drugs are more prevalent in rural than urban areas—none of them really understand the subject.

These outsiders routinely accept a sensationalized version of meth’s power: it is a uniquely addictive drug that ruins everyone it touches. But most people who take meth and other illicit drugs are otherwise normal—they just like to get lifted every once in a while. This is not to minimize the possibly dire consequences of drug abuse. I have a number of friends who died well before their times due to rampant substance-abuse problems—none of them directly meth-related, however. One of my best friends died after shooting up coke hours before his court date. Few have more familiarity with these tragedies than I do, but they are by far the exception rather than the rule.

Well worth reading.

"The circumstances, as I understand them at this point, are distressing,"

From the Times Colonist:

B.C.'s Representative for Children and Youth, Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond, is launching her own investigation into why Prince George RCMP used a Taser on an 11-year-old boy who was the suspect in a stabbing at a group home.

For the record, this is why a lot of people don't like police officers.

Underage drinking

It's gonna happen.

My latest for the Prince Arthur Herald

This was from a few days ago, but I neglected to mention it. Now I'm making up for that neglect.

Anyways, here's my latest article for the Prince Arthur Herald, on BC's litany of Recall campaign failures:

For their part, Fight HST seems content to put to rest their failed recall efforts so far, with lead organizer Chris Delaney saying that the organization will be focusing its efforts on the upcoming referendum after the Terry Lake and Marc Dalton recall campaigns are completed. “Everyone’s talking about the June 24 referendum and being able to have their say there, so I think that seems to be, for most people, a way to satisfy their frustration,” Delaney said in one interview. “The [other recall organizers] have told us, “We’re going to wait to see what happens with the referendum.”

Before Fight HST’s rampage began, there had been 20 recall initiatives in BC since 1995. None of them were successful. So far, it seems that Fight HST’s efforts will be no exception to this rule.

Check it out, eh?

Is the National Post in the business of not crediting its sources?

Before CanWest became Postmedia, and before the National Post came under the ownership of one of its ex-presidents, I was a small part of the Canwest media empire.

Didn't turn out well.

Now I hear that the National Post isn't giving credit for one of its stories to a pair of bloggers - Blazing Cat Fur and Sassywire - who broke the story in question a full six days before the Post got on it.

Can't say as I'm surprised. Way to class up the biz, fellas.

Also, Steyn.

BC can set its own tax rates...in a year

Most readers from BC - even those who aren't from BC - may have heard we have a Harmonized Sales Tax ( PST+GST ) here. Some people hate it, some people don't think it's so bad, and most people just don't like Gordon Campbell.

At any rate, today I heard someone talking about how BC, by agreeing to the federal government's offer on the Harmonized Sales Tax, has given up its autonomy and ability to tax independently of the federal government.

That's partially true, but not entirely. You see, as per the deal signed by both the province and the feds in July of 2009, under the section entitled "Provincial Tax Policy Flexibility:"

The Canada-British Columbia [ Comprehensive Integrated Tax Co-Ordination Agreement ] will confirm British Columbia's flexibility, subject to reasonable notice provisions, to;

Increase or decrease the [ BC Value Added Tax ] after two years from the date of BCVAT implementation.

Furthermore, under the section of the agreement titled "Constitutional Jurisdiction Not Waived," the agreement reads:

Neither Canada nor British Columbia shall be deemed to have surrendered or abandoned any of its powers, rights, privileges, or authorities under the Constitution Acts, 1867-1982, and any amendments thereto, or otherwise, or to have impaired any such powers, rights, privileges, or authorities.

That's pretty explicit. After two years, BC can do whatever the hell it wants with its tax rates, and considering BC implemented the HST in July 2010, we're locked in for just a little more than a year. Hardly a loss of autonomy for any period of time worth getting excited about; just a temporary loss of independence during the transition period.

Just thought I'd put that out there.

Update: Back in the days before the 2009 provincial election when Carole Taylor was the BC Liberal finance minister, she opposed a prior HST deal with the feds precisely because of the province's loss of autonomy in the matter of provincial taxation. If I remember correctly - and I can't seem to find a link to back up my assertion so I'm just relying on memory here; feel free to correct me if I'm wrong - one of the reasons why Taylor's replacement in the finance portfolio, Colin Hansen, agreed to the HST deal was because the feds backed off and allowed the province more autonomy to set tax rates after the fact.

Just sayin'

Porn, porn, porn

That title should guarantee me some interesting Google traffic.

At any rate, enjoy the following debate:

The Conservative Party of Canada wants to monitor your online activity

The Conservatives have promised to bundle their crime bills into one piece of omnibus legislation and ram it through parliament within one hundred days - that is, if they get a majority.

One of the components of this new omnibus legislation will be a three-pronged piece of lawful access legislation - i.e. Internet surveillance and information disclosure without court oversight - which the Tories tried to pass in Parliament earlier but managed to effectively kill with their own prorogue.

Michael Geist has far more intelligent reasons than I can give for why this is not a good thing. H/t to Boing Boing.

Update: My friend Xanthippa asks a very important question - the question, really - in the comments: "So, what do we do?"

To which Smyke, yet another friend, gives a very brief answer: "Don't vote Conservative."

He's right. Don't vote Tory. Kill the majority, and you kill the omnibus bill. Kill the omnibus bill, and you kill this legislation.

I'd been dithering somewhat about who I was going to vote for ( or not ). No longer.

'Burning half a million Korans'

Point well made, I'd say.

Stephen Harper as Obama

Glenn Greenwald writes about the Democratic Party's base in the US under the Obama administration:

But whatever else is true, one thing is for certain: dedicated partisans who pledge their unbreakable, eternally loyal support for any Party or politician are going to be steadfastly ignored (or worse) by that Party or politician, and rightfully so. If you spend two years vehemently objecting that certain acts so profoundly offend your principles but then pledge unequivocal support no matter what almost two years in advance to the politicians who engage in them, why would you expect your objections to be heeded? Any rational person would ignore them, and stomp on

Take note, fellow Conservative Party supporters. This is us unless we're honestly willing to take our ball and go home. If you can truly support the Conservative Party in this election, great. If you can't, don't.

Follow the breadcrumbs

Berndt Walter was appointed the acting chair of the BC Human Rights Tribunal last summer. ( My thoughts on Berndt Walter's appointment to the BC Human Rights Tribunal here. )

He also happens to serve as the chair of BC's Expropriation Compensation Board, and as the chairperson for the BC Review Board.

The BC Review Board has recently been the source of some controversy because of this story.

Therefore, the BC Human Rights Tribunal supports child murder. Six degrees of separation, y'all.

It's only logical.

Update: Welcome, Lynch Mob readers!

Anatomy of a scandal

Read this. Then read this. Then read this.

Why am I reminded of Animal House? Weird.

The Canadian Taxpayers Federation wants your questions

From the ol' inbox:

CTV, Global TV, and CBC are hosting the federal leaders' debate scheduled for Tuesday, April 12th and are inviting questions from the public. It’s important they hear from taxpayers. Can you take a minute right now and send in a question or two? Here are some suggested topics:

1. Taxpayers pay $84.4-million a day on federal debt interest. Do you think this is a good use of tax dollars, and if not, why is there not more urgency around balancing the budget and paying down debt?

2. Will you commit to no tax increases during your term as prime minister?

3. Will you commit to not increasing your MP compensation in the next term or at least until the budget is balanced?

4. Will you commit to making the auditor general’s audit public on how Parliament spends half-a-billion tax dollars when it comes out later this year?

5. The federal government hands out billions in direct subsidies and loans to business in Canada. Instead of high business taxes, why not lower them for everybody and end subsides for select businesses and industries?

6. Employment in the civil service has grown by 3,700 bureaucrats since 2005, a 13% increase. Do you think this is responsible or sustainable given the deficit?

7. What plan do you have to address the costs associated with an aging population whereby fewer taxpayers support higher costs associated with social security and health care?

8. The tax-funded compensation of all elected officials in Canada is subject to public disclosure except elected officials on native reserves. Will you support a law requiring the compensation of reserve politicians be posted online?

9. MP Pensions are wildly out-of-line with public expectations. For every $1 contributed by an MP, taxpayers contribute $4. Is that reasonable? Don’t you think it’s time to reform pensions to a dollar-for-dollar arrangement as many provincial legislatures have done?

10. Senator Raymond Lavigne recently quit his job in order to hold onto his pension after being convicted of fraud and breach of trust. If elected, would you put in place the necessary reforms so that convicted fraudsters such as Lavigne would not get access to the taxpayer-funded portion of their pension?

Questions posed in your own words will have a better chance of being considered. Submission deadline is this Thursday, April 7th. Please e-mail questions to question@electiondebtate2011.ca, and be sure to include your name, address, and daytime telephone number.

The Beer Party of Canada

Compare and contrast.

A recent elections ad from the Conservative Party of Canada:



A recent(ish) ad from Molson Canadian:



Think about it.

Update: Calgary Grit: "It is, without a doubt, the most cliche-filled ad to ever grace the airwaves, but that doesn't mean it won't work."

Moan, bitch, moan

I'm tired, and I think I'm fighting off a mild cold. See y'all when the energy fairy pays me a visit.

Update: Thanks, energy fairy!

Say what you will about this woman...

...she's got balls.

Update: The David Duke style of multiculturalism.

Update II: "The next time someone blames the violence in Afghanistan of this last week on a Florida pastor who burned a Koran, punch them in the stomach."

Update III: Greenwald, with a fair point: "Nuke 'em. Invade 'em. Torture 'em. Occupy 'em. Murder their scientists and religious leaders. Put 'em in cages for life without due process. Reduce 'em to rubble. Why? Because Muslims are so prone to violence and barbarism! That's a fairly succinct summary of America's political culture for the last decade at least."

Update IV: Lauryn Oates: "This despicable, hate-filled behaviour on the part of protesters is heartbreaking to me not only because of the terrible loss of life that has resulted, but also because I think of all the secular, progressive, liberal-minded Afghans I know and how the outside world’s perception of their country has just plunged further into a conviction that Afghanistan is a dangerous, violent, incorrigible place."

My interview with Online Party of Canada leader Michael Nicula in SpeakALBERTA

I'm proud to say that my interview a while back with Online Party of Canada leader Michael Nicula has been re-published at SpeakALBERTA.com:

Q. Was there an event that galvanized you into forming your own political party?

I've heard for decades now, from people all over the world, how unhappy everyone is with the political leadership. Politicians are known as incompetent and corrupt. Politics has a really bad reputation, being perceived as the art of deceiving people and getting away with it.

The way the political system is built is causing a disconnect between voters and elected officials. There are two components missing from the system:
• Competence – There is no way to ensure that the people we entrust with managing multi-billion dollar budgets have the skills and experience to handle the job.
• Accountability – There's no way to hold elected officials accountable. They can basically lie all the way and make decisions contrary to what voters want. Their only worry is to get re-elected, which is relatively easy for an incumbent given the lack of interest and general disgust of the electors (thinking if we don't re-elect this person, there will be another crook).

So I put some thinking into building a system where the basic principles of democracy, competence and accountability are enshrined as governing principles.

Some people say you don't want ‘stupid’ voters to decide on complex issues because they don't understand the intricacies ... I am a believer in the wisdom of the voters. Politicians have been proven wrong too many times. I don't buy the argument that they're smarter than the voters who elected them.

Check it out, eh?

The latest at the Victoria Politics Examiner - April 4th

Check it out:

• The endorsements game: Dix, Horgan, and Farnworth.
• "We need a real plan to address the growing issue of homelessness".
• John Cummins running uncontested for BC Conservative leadership?
• John Horgan meet and greet, April 8th in Burnaby.
• Christy Clark shows respect, saves taxpayers pocket change.
• The BC Conservative revolution.

Glenn Greenwald, FTW

At Salon.com:

There are several points worth highlighting about all of this. First, it demonstrates how many people purport to believe in free speech but don't. The whole point of the First Amendment is that one is free to express the most marginalized, repellent, provocative and offensive ideas. Those are the views that are always targeted for suppression. Mainstream orthodoxies, harmless ideas, and inoffensive platitudes require no protection as they are not, by definition, vulnerable to censorship. But as has been repeatedly seen in history, ideas that are despised and marginalized are often proven right, while ideas that enjoy the status of orthodoxy prove to be deeply erroneous or even evil. That's why no rational person trusts the state -- or even themselves -- to create lists of Prohibited Ideas. And those who endorse the notion that ideas they hate should be forcibly suppressed inevitably -- and deservedly -- will have their own ideas eventually targeted by the same repressive instruments.

If you're someone who wants to vest the state with the power to punish the expression of certain views on the grounds that the view is so wrong and/or hurtful that its expression should not be permitted -- as European countries and Canada routinely do -- then you're someone who does not believe in free speech, by definition; what you believe is that one is free to express only those viewpoints which the majority of citizens (and the State) allow to be expressed. Many of the most important views throughout history have been, at some point, hurtful, dangerous and even violence-engendering. The whole reason for free speech protections is to safeguard such ideas -- despised by the majority -- from suppression. Burning the Koran is despicable, but it's every bit as much core political speech as burning the American flag or an effigy of a hated political leader, or tearing up a picture of -- or publishing cartoons unfavorably depicting -- a religious leader.

Meanwhile, Mark Steyn.

The Harper strategy

Paul Wells writes:

I started out, on Friday, believing Harper’s constant, inelegant obsession with the opposition showed a lack of discipline. Now I suspect it’s strategy.

About half of Canadians like Harper. More than half believe him when he says the opposition is plotting. When that’s the question, about half of Canadians say it makes them want to support the Conservatives. The other half, who think this is all bollocks, has no one party and no coherent project to rally around. There’s a chunk of the electorate who like the Conservatives more than other parties but who have been nervous at the thought of a Conservative majority. Rather than take that fear away, Harper is touring the country giving them a bigger fear that trumps it.

This guy’s going to be hard to stop.

Hunh.

Update: counterpoint, Selley:

The ads are one thing. But hearing Mr. Harper parrot the “inevitable coalition” line out loud is toe-curlingly undignified. If he believes it’s that black and white, he doesn’t sound like he believes it. Thankfully, he hasn’t been saying the C-word as much of late — but probably only because it’s been deemed less effective than his campaign team hoped it would be.

That’s the right decision, but for the wrong reason: He should say it less because it’s dumb, because it’s making Mr. Ignatieff look more dignified and because it undermines the perfectly good “stay the course” message he’s got going. You can’t be terrified of a coalition and comfortably in control in at the same time.

Hunh, round two.

My latest

Check out my latest for...

...The Agora:

• Violence and Drugs in Mexico.

...the Victoria Politics Examiner:

• John Horgan: `the whole package`.
• BC NDP members get to speak with Adrian Dix tonight.
• Mike Farnworth: `how do we win the next election?`.
• And now, a message from Dana Larsen.
• Adrian Dix: remember unregistered voters.

Plus, at both my Agora blog and for the Libertas Post blog:

• Ignatieff as outsider.

My thoughts on Windows 7

F*ck Windows 7.

That is all.

Ignatieff as outsider

As always, Colby Cosh provides insightful, thought-provoking analysis:

The Conservative attacks actually leap beyond the real problem with Ignatieff’s history: it’s not the manner of his coming back, it’s the quarter-century of Canadian history he sat out. Liberals don’t like it mentioned that Ignatieff had virtually no experience of post-Charter Canada until he was dragged back over the border; when it is mentioned, their reaction is a childlike feigned shock. It’s as if it has never occurred to them that Ignatieff’s long wanderings might be regarded as a problem. And if this is so, surely we non-Liberals must take part of the blame.

Cosh is right, of course. You can't miss the day-in, day-out grind, the little nuances of the public reaction to government action and public policy, for, literally, decades, and not be a little out of sorts. This is not to question Michael Ignatieff's will, his desire to be a Canadian citizen and leader. His motivations can be questioned no more than any other leader's, really. Instead, this is to question his ability to be a Canadian leader when, for a person of his age, he has missed many of the defining moments in the lives of those other Canadians his age that he hopes to govern.

This can be overcome. Michael Ignatieff seems to have been performing quite well so far in the first week of election campaigning - I expect, better than most had expected. Despite a rocky, coalition-plagued start, the Liberals themselves have run a better campaign than the Conservative team so far - I guess that's what you get when you put the people who have presided for years over the sheer degradation of the Prime Minister's Office in charge of the Prime Minister's campaign room.

I can't help but wonder, though, if Michael Ignatieff even should attempt to overcome this lack of Canadian experience. Perhaps being slightly out of touch with the day-to-day populism of the past quarter-century could drive him toward a slightly more policy-led approach, which would be welcome. How awesome would it be to actually have some good policy in Canadian politics, as opposed to hollow, stupid, pandering political maneuvering? I, for one, would welcome our new Coalition overlords if they were at least willing to step away from the process in favor of policy for a little while.

Disrupting the public interest

Jay Currie on an old friend:

Lucie is very clear that he decided to use the tactic of “maximum disruption” to silence people whom he found annoying. He took that tactic to the CHRC and, when he left the CHRC and became its cat’s paw, he continued his campaign. In the process he turned s. 13 from a shield to a sword. He was happy to create alias to provoke so called hate speech. And he was willing to mislead tribunals on occasion in order to further his campaign.

Critically, that campaign amounted to nothing less than the abridgment of our Charter rights.

Exposing that campaign, exposing Warman’s and the CHRC’s willingness to deny individuals their Rights under the Charter, not to mention the corruption of the system itself, is very clearly in the public interest.

Mark Steyn nods in agreement, and adds:

I don't think I've seen it put quite like that before. But it's true. Most litigious types (the late Robert Maxwell, for example) are circumspect about their methods, but Warman has boasted in public about using a campaign of "maximum disruption" by legal harrassment to advance a particular ideological agenda. Therefore, almost by definition, his legal harrassment is a matter of public interest and it's legitimate to discuss the methods he uses.

The very fact that I am undoubtedly risking ( another ) lawsuit by linking to a "far right hate site" like SteynOnline in a discussion about journalism and the public interest is a sad statement on that very same public interest under the back-door regulation of Canadian libel law.

"[G]ive the Liberals credit for being first out of the gate on the digital economy"

Michael Geist.

Why can't it be both?

From the Times Colonist:

Stephen Harper says scrapping taxpayer subsidies for political parties could help break Canada's cycle of holding federal elections every few years, but his political foes say it's an attempt to financially cripple the other parties.

Accomplishing two things at once: talk about conservative.

Update: Patrick Brethour in the Globe and Mail: Fears about scrapping per-vote subsidies wildly off target. H/t to Smyke for the link.

Update II: Martin Patriquin.

The garden permit

Yep.

Barack Obama, prohibitionist

Yep:

Comments can get out of hand, sometimes

Just ask this guy.

Update: Plus, rah rah Syria.

Update: And since we're talking about Syria...