The Droz Report #4 - Weasel words, weasel's truth

[ed_rex]

Harper's self-serving 'apology' exposes the cowardly venality lurking beneath his unbutoned shirt

"... if anybody is kept out of any of our events that's there to hear our message we obviously apologize to them. Our interest is in having as many people out to hear our message as we can. We're having huge meetings, we had another huge one last night and we want people to hear our message." — Stephen Harper 'apologizes' after being asked if he would take responsibility for a teenager's eviction from a rally because her Facebook page included a photo of herself with Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff.

Incrimidating evidence: Awish Aslam's Facebook profile phto.

On April 3rd, two young women, students at the University of Western Ontario, attended a Conservative Party rally and were taught a valuable lesson about Conservative values and ethics.

About a half-hour after being admitted, both Awish Aslam and an un-named friend were hustled out of the meeting, publicly berated and had physically stripped of the stickers pinned to their shirts — all because they had both had the naive temerity to post a photo of themselves taken while meeting Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff on their Facebook profiles.

The London Free Press broke the story on April 5th.

"A week ago, Aslam, readying to vote federally for the first time, attended a Liberal rally in London where she and a friend snagged a photo with Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff. Both made it their Facebook profile pictures.

"A few days later, the pair attended Harper’s rally, for which they signed up in advance online.

"But about 30 minutes after arriving, Aslam says, they were ordered out by a man who accused them of having "ties to the Liberal party through Facebook."

"He ripped Conservative stickers off their shirts, tore them up and ordered them out, Aslam says."

Note that no one accused Aslam or her friend of being disruptive in any way. They weren't demonstrating, or passing out leaflets or even asking questions — they were just, y'know, watching.

Further note that the Conservatives consider it an efficient use of their time to stalk the Facebook pages of attendees at their rallies, that they consider public humiliation of teenagers appropriate behaviour (Ms Aslam was reduced to tears) and that, as we'll see, Stephen Harper himself sees nothing wrong with any of this.

The Globe and Mail ran the story and followed up with the Prime Minister Who Would Be President himself.

Harper ducked the issue. "The staff runs our campaigns," he said, "and I can't comment on individual matters like that," typically passing the buck of blame to those below him.

See An apology means never having to say you're sorry for more.

Cote D' Ivoire: "Bye Gbagbo!" and "who is going to go to trial for war crimes"?

[the_future_modernes]

Gbagbo captured by rival's forces
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Here's how it went down:

Gbagbo being held by Ouattara forces

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This after French and UN forces had been pounding Gbagbo's forces over the past couple of days:


UN and French forces pound Gbagbo loyalist camps in Ivory Coast

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Not a whole lot of people were pleased with French troops running around rampant during all of this April 7th


and questions like this have been bubbling up since April 5th. Côte d'Ivoire: Is Foreign Intervention Legal?


Al Jazeera's Listening Post talks about the media war between Gbagbo and Ouattarra that began after the election and ramped up as the war heated up, and the relatively low international media response to the whole conflict (with the exception of France) in this interesting April 9th episode

In the meantime: Have a quick look at Gbagbo's chequered political career
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WARNING, however. Ouatarra's hands are not clean: Manufacturing Cote d'Ivoire's 'good guy'


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Japan: tsunami and nuclear crisis

[the_future_modernes]

I, for one, have been thoroughly confused about what to report about the ongoing nuclear crisis and dealing-with-other-aftereffects-of-the-tsumani-and-earthquake in Japan. I have seen lots of articles arguing across the spectrum that Western news articles have been very sensationalistic over the nuclear disaster and have ignored the tsunami victims and that Japanese news articles have been playing it down. So I had adopted a hands-off approach to the whole thing until some confusion cleared.


This is what I've seen so far:

TSUNAMI AND EARTHQUAKE SURVIVORS

Al Jazeera People & Power - Aftermath of a disaster

People & Power looks at Miyako's citizens that survived Japan's devastating earthquake.

and Search for Japan tsunami victims continues: Thousands of troops conduct searches, with less than half those killed in disaster thought to have been found


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Meantime Death toll reaches 13,116 from great quake, tsunami in Japan

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NHK adds up the dead and missing and adds the prefectures that have confirmed their dead so far: 26,848 dead or missing in March 11th disaster

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While sharp aftershocks that are pretty much mini-earthquakes in their own right keep killing people: Death toll from Japan aftershock rises to 3

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And another that seems to have happened on Monday, April 11, left this result:Strong aftershock kills 4

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Tsunami survivors move into temporary homes

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NUCLEAR CRISIS


Radiation from Fukushima 10 pct that of Chernobyl-Japan official

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Because 7 is the highest number on the map, and its apparently based on Chernobyl's clusterfuck, raising the situation to 7 elides the situation. There is one hell of a difference between Chernobyl and TEPCO's (the company who runs the plants) disaster, yet a pile of Western journalists are behaving as if they are the same thing. NO Forbes, it's NOT as bad as Chernobyl!!

That being said, the situation is really serious: (via: ontd_political) Japan raises nuke accident severity level to highest 7 from 5

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April 11 TEPCO president apologizes, one month later

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Here's an article focusing on the people who are on the frontlines trying to stop the leaks and clean up the mess.Heroes and realists found among the brave 'Fukushima 700'

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from ontd_political Embattled TEPCO now facing a harsh public backlash Note the expressions of remorse. Some of that from the US lords of the universe and BP would be nice don'cha think? also: TEPCO and the Japanese gov't: BFFs no more



ECONOMY

Disaster devastates Japan farmland:Tsunami leaves behind toxic chemicals, making huge swathes of arable land unusable.

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via ontd_political japan tag

Japan's 1st quake reconstruction budget, plus tourism is down lots and lots

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