Letter to National Post -internet edition - UN HRC

Let's see. The UN Human rights Council is made up mostly of human rights abusers. They appoint Judge Gladstone who is known to be anti-Israel to be the chief investigator into the Gaza war. Instead of a fact finding mission, he draws conclusions against Israel and a limited amount against Gaza. His conclusions are based on unverified evidence given by Palestinians who have previously lied in relation to incidents in Jenin and Lebanon, and in the Al Dura case. The UN Human Rights Council ignores the accusations against Gaza and accuses Israel of war crimes. Does this sound fair or am I being paranoid?

Letter to National Post - Online -Oct 16th

Wkipedia defines war crimes as follows
War crimes are "violations of the laws or customs of war"; including "murder, the ill-treatment or deportation of civilian residents of an occupied territory to slave labor camps", "the murder or ill-treatment of prisoners of war", the killing of hostages, "the wanton destruction of cities, towns and villages, and any devastation not justified by military, or civilian necessity"
Nurenberg principle – planing, preparing, initiating or aging a war of aggression.
It also refers to the definitions in the Geneva and Hague Conventions There are obviously many definitions. Israel does not fit into any of them except perhaps the ill-treatment of civilians but the definition doesn't deal with the case of a war where civilians are being used as shields and participants by their own combatants.
However under the Nurenberg prnciples the leaders of Hamas, Fatah, and people like Ahmadinejad are clearly guilty of war crimes for "preparing and planning" war. These are the important war crimes criminals. They are the ones that should be tried at the Hague.
Lastly there must be a distinction between those that are defending themselves from a war started by others and those that commenced the war. The bar on what is a war crime should be much lower for the defender of a nation than for the aggressive attacking nation.

National Post - Oct 14th - response to Coren

Yes, my opinion is that Catholicism is flawed. That doesn't mean, as Coren suggests, that I am anti-Catholic. It means that I believe that one of its rituals is harmful to its priests, parishoners and untimately therefore to society. Furthermore there is nothing wrong with honest criticism of a religion by outsiders - as Coren does to Protestanism in his defence of Catholicism. Political correctness has gone too far. If a religion is valuable it should be able to withstand honest criticism of its practices and procedures as well as its doctrines. At least in the western world, criticism leads to improvements, and not to hatred and violence.

Letter to Globe - Oct 13th - re editorial

Pretty Michaelle Jean

Let's not criticize pretty Michaelle Jean. Her position is mostly ceremonial. She was appointed because she belongs to a racial minority, and is charming and clever and liberal. She never professed to know political procedures, nor apparently was it a job requirement when she was hired. Constitutional errors will occur when the GG is hired on the basis of excellence in charm and her ability to promote a certain image of Canada. Live with it.

National Post - Oct 12th - two brief comments

Today's editorial states that the French Cultural Minister says that if the cultural world does not support Polanski there would be no French culture. He confuses culture and immorality. Unfortunatley it seems that French values have so disintegrated that they are the same. Immorality is not a Canadian value.
On another value note there is now a coalition (A8) objecting to insurance companies refusing life and long term disability insurance without medical testing to someone who has Huntington's disease in the family. More moral confusion. The insurance companies are there to make money, not to provide a health service. Insuring those with certain diseases at regular rates will raise costs for the rest of us and potentially bankrupt the insurance company.Although I am sorry for people with hereditary diseases, the options are to save more or change government policy - not try to make insurance companies look after their unfortunate but extraordinary needs. Refusing coverage at standard rates is not discrimination as claimed, but only reasonable business practice.

Letter to National Post - Oct 11/09 - Conrad Black

Jew or Christian

From a Jewish viewpoint, I don’t think that Conrad Black is correct when he says that a person can be a Jew and a Christian at the same time. A Christian believes that Jesus was physically as well as spiritually the son of God. This is impossible for a Jew to do. For a Jew, Jesus or Christ could be an extremely spiritual person, or a prophet, or the son of God, the way all of us are the children of God, or currently be a ghost or an angel, but not literally the son of God. Jesus therefore would have been Jewish if he did not believe he was the son of God, but Christian if he believed he was the son of God. Specific differences between the two religions in culture, moral values and rituals are insignificant. They say that when the Messiah comes, we will either be all Jews or all Christians depending on whether his opening remarks are “It’s good to see you” or “It’s good to see you again.”. Until that final time, we should tolerate each other’s guesses.

Peace Prize

I think Harper should get the peace prize for objecting to Durban 2, refusing to listen to Ahmadinejad in the UN , refusing to pass unfair resolutions against Israel, objecting to China's human rights violations, protecting our northern borders by negotiations and reasonable actions, having troops in Afghanistan, and quietly acting against terrorism in Canada