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A vermin-infested Illinois State Capitol that was shut down by health authorities earlier this week was to reopen by 8.00 a.m Monday morning.

Workers at the State Capitol in Springfield Illinois have spent the past few days cleaning after State Health inspectors - acting on a customer's tip - closed the the Senate upon finding an infestation of rodents, including droppings in Bill preparation areas.

But the State isn't taking anything for granted, said Senator Matt Murphy, a Republican from suburban Chicago.

Workers have taken immediate measures to prevent the rodents discovered in the building from ever returning again.

Federal prosecutors are also drawing up charges following their own oversight of the matter.

The Senate passed its first post-inspection test today, when US President Barak Obama pledged full co-operation with health officials, saying in a statement "Today ends a painful episode for Illinois. For months, the state has been crippled by a crisis of rodent infestation. Now that cloud has lifted."

 Former State Governor Rod Blagojevich said today that the Senate worked hard to overcome the infestation. Yesterday he went to the Senate and delivered a 47 minute speech commending that work.

More than 30 legislators rose one by one on the Senate floor to denounce the infestation, saying it was "cynical," "crass," and "hypocritical."

Obama, fresh from his presidential election victory, issued a report concluding that no one in his inner circle had done anything to cause the infestation.

Remember the three capitalized letters, WMD? They used to stand for the words Weapons of Mass Destruction. Nobody uses the term anymore, but those three letters were all over the news when the George Bush presidency was trying to capitalize on the fear of Americans still reeling from the September 11 attacks.

That fear gave the Bush regime a moral mandate to launch the second American war against Iraq in 2003, thus cementing modern disaster in Mesopotamia and setting the stage for a historic comeuppance against Republican ideals in America.

Even as early as 2005, former US Secretary of State Colin Powell, the man tasked with characterizing the WMD threat for the world, was already admitting publicly that this period of his career stood as a blot on his record. Mr Powell's then admission marked a stunning retreat from the Bush regime's assertion that Iraq not only possessed weapons of mass destruction, but maintained a state of readiness to use them within a 45 minute timeframe. 

As it turned out, the invading American led forces found no WMD program in Iraq. In the recriminations that followed, it became clear that the evidence touted as the reason for invading Iraq had been entirely fabricated by elements of the US administration, up to and including the then Commander in Chief, George W Bush.

And so, some would say by the will of Allah, victory for freedom Iraq became the mother of all American military quagmires as thousands of well motivated insurgents made it their duty to send all the Americans home, one body bag at a time.

By September of 2008, the voting public in the United States had also decided that the reign of error in American politics had to come to an end. They pinned their hopes on the most unlikely seeming candate possible, a black man with a Muslim sounding name. The WMD debacle became the straw that broke the proverbial camel's back.
 
 Barak Hussein Obama's election can therefore be read as a repudiation of decades of mean spirited public policy in the United States. These policies have consistently punished the weak and increased suffering in the United States and abroad. The recent epoch in American life has seen the country reviled as a rogue nation, it's leadership openly ridiculed by even friendly governments, its people singled out for terroristic attack at every turn.

In this atmosphere, a black man has become America's golden child.

But this alone will not be enough to lead the United States out of its dark ages. There's already plenty of well publicized evidence to suggest that any informed observer should have been able to comfortably predict that Saddam Hussein's regime did not possess the means to attack far away countries with WMDs.

And the President of the United States is nothing if not an informed observer.

And so if there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, then the people of Iraq are being made to suffer for some other reason. What could this other reason be?

The task of finding the answer to this question may well fall under many jurisdictions both within the United States and without. These include the FBI, US Congressional review, and the World Court.

The point of any legal post mortem of the Bush legacy would be to assure the world that America recognizes its uniqe place in the world. It  has become a nation so powerful that it cannot be sanctioned by other nations. And therefore its people and leaders must maintain strong institutions for policing themselves on the world stage.

Barak Obama's presidency must not squander the opportunity to reaffirm the values of the American Constitution. The leaders of all nations must be held accountable for the actions they initiate. America can be no different. And where those actions abridge freedom and cause egregious harm, then special care must be taken to ensure that the guilty are found out and punished.

It's the American way.

i hearby swear this to be a true account, so help me god.

on tuesday 20 january 2009, i was assigned to observe the suspect. i relieved captain pussy who was the night undercover operative on this assignment.

at approx. 09:00hrs the suspect exited the house on blair and entered a black automobile in company of an unknown black female.

several males driving black sport utility vehicles formed up with the suspect vechicle and the entire convoy proceded down blair to a place of worship.

suspect loitered in the vicicinty of the church for approx. 30 minutes before proceding down penn ave. to 1600. suspect met with an older white male with a military stature and guilty disposition in this operators's opinion.

10:00 hrs suspect presents himself at the us capitol where he joins a public gathering of some kind. suspect encounters several white males on dias and appears to signal his peaceful intentions with a raised hand.

background checks will have to be made on other subjects present at this meeting. despite the public location the suspect and his associates quite brazenly gathered in plain view of thousands of citizens evidently waiting for some public event.

11:30 hrs suspect again meets with several males, some of whom appear to be religious clerics of some type. the suspect is clearly undergoing some sort of initiation into his gang culture. it's shocking to see these men of the cloth here consorting with this man and his nefarious associates.

the black female is close by his side. she must be considered to be party to whatever conspiracies and acts are conducted by this evident criminal enterprise.

14:30 hrs suspect parades down penn ave to a large residence at 1600 that has obviously been just bequeathed to him. with all due respect to his race, no honest black male could ever acquire enough wealth in america to acquire a home like that. likewise with the vehicle the suspect has been driving today.

all signs point to some kind of gangland takeover in washington. judging from the white male associates, this operator would have to say that a new jamaican gang has been ceded control of the irish washington underworld's assets, including vehicles, residences, enormous amounts or crystal, furniture and presumably hip hop mp3s.

more to come.

Councillor Adam Vaughan and the City of Toronto Planning Division invite you to a Community Consultation Meeting
 
The King/Spadina area, east of Spadina Avenue has recently received two applications for zoning amendments that exceed the area height permissions.  Two additional proposed developments have recently been revised from the originally presented concepts.   
 
In order to give community members the opportunity to voice their views, a Community Consultation meeting has been scheduled in consultation with Councillor Adam Vaughan to:
 
- provide information regarding the two new proposed developments; and
- review recently revised applications.  
 
Upcoming Meeting Date, Location and Time:  
 
January 20, 2009
Metro Hall, 55 John Street
Room 310
6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.     
 
Purpose of the Meeting:
 
The meeting will provide an opportunity for the community to have input on the proposed developments listed below, view the plans and ask questions.  
 
Proposed developments:
 
- 21-23 Widmer Street
Proposal:  44 storey mixed-use building with 445 dwelling units & 4 levels of underground parking, a portion of which would be used as commercial parking garage.
 
- 181, 199, 203 Richmond St. W., 10 Nelson Street and a portion of a public lane
Proposal:  47-storey mixed use building comprised of two point towers, having 791 residential dwelling units with non-residential floor area at grade.
 
- 352 Front Street West
Proposal: 24 storey mixed use building, comprised of 396 dwelling units and retail uses at grade.
 
- 56 Blue Jays Way
Proposal: 41 storey building (the recently approved By-law 1067-2007 permits an 18 storey building on the lands), comprised of 264 residential dwelling units, 127 hotel suites and restaurant and café uses at grade.
 
If you cannot attend these meetings, you can still make your views known by sending a fax to (416) 392-1330 - or by writing to Raymond David, Director, Community Planning, Toronto and East York District, City Planning Division, 100 Queen St W Floor 18 E Toronto On, M5H  2N.
 
If you would like further information about these proposals, please contact Philip Carvalino, Senior Planner, at 416-392-7574.
 
You may also contact Councillor Adam Vaughan, Ward 20, at (416) 392-4044 or Councillor_Vaughan@toronto.ca.
 
Attendant Care Services can be made available with some advance notice.
 
 
Councillor Adam Vaughan
Ward 20, Trinity-Spadina
416-392-4044
www.adamvaughan.ca <http://www.adamvaughan.ca/>

canada is won of the best countries in the world to live. but it is hard to get good educashion there, so maybe thats why sichuation change now.

a gud educashun shud be a rite for all citizens of the world. without educashun it is hard for a country to becom better or for kids to grow up to better themself.

look at india and china that uses to be most poor nation with so many youth and old peeple sick and unable to find food.

if you do not make good edukashun system then your country will go down. peeple running skuls and politishans shud under stand this but do nothing.

without food and medisin is bad enuf but when rich companys take over educashun the wors is yet to come.

india and tchinese guvernment changed the system and now is on the way to first world country. peeple get jobs in komputers and send monie home to villege to help out. even they have aero space program and rockets to shoot the moon, all becawse of educasion.

yet canada suppose to be first world country and cannot find places for peeple to go to skool and make them pay. is no akcident so many kids in canada suppose to not find food now, and eet from food banc? specially grad students hav to go eet from cans that kind peeple donate frum gudness of their hart.

car companys moves down to mexico or go out of bisnes and peeple scared because they can not find work. now that economy change and educashun diffikult what they suppos to do?

if you do not learn differentiation and chain rule in grade 11 how can you kompete with countries that try to make good educashun? look at the poor peeple who live in the north part of canada. so cold and peeple came steel their land and poisen their wales and leave them to live with what ever they can find. now even that they take away after killing the polear bares.

if they had educasion up there it might help out i don't know, maybe more help than sending them xpensive fuud and cheep tellevision.

why uneevirsety head cannot undurstand this is beyond me. they suppos to be smart and all that. they get docktor degre and cannot make sense with policy to keep country strong. they know more than me so is clear they don't kare.

if i have to pay for skul what point? maybe i don't even finish becawse too hungry and didn't get math in high skul becawse math is hard and no teacher give extra help or nything.

maybe won day uneversity head be xposed for what they are, wich is head of greedy corporation living off the fat of land in fancy house, snotty nose luking down on everybody.

mean while all thees smart peeple come out of skul and try to fix society and cannot find cure for nothing like aids or cancer or common cold that reely bother peeple. is the system brokan?

you deecide but deecide fast becawse is all ready too late for sum.

One day came the improbable news that some practically barefoot freedom fighters in a far away country had finally won a noble war against a vicious invading army, which had been routed.

Things seemed to get a little hazy after that, but soon there was more news and it was bad. The practically barefoot freedom fighters had split into two factions and they had started a new war, against each other. They battled using the discarded tanks and artilliary of their previously shared enemy, and neither side seemed to be able to win outright. 

Eventually a new third faction entered the fray. They were said to be students from some sort of Muslim school network in Pakistan, they were called Talib, and they seemed to have something against fun and laughter.

The significance of this didn't become clear until later, but meanwhile the struggle continued and the Talibs continued to make gains.

News of what was happening was scarce, but what news was available grew increasingly ominous. Nearly all civil liberties were being restricted in the Taliban pacified zones, and women were being singled out for special mistreatment. Shockingly, it seemed the country's complement of women had become prisoners in their own homes, restricted from moving about freely or otherwise living full lives, and no rescue seemed imminent.

The situation eventually fell out of the view of the Western media, and people who had heard of and cared about conditions in Afghanistan didn't have to wonder why, because the reason was obvious.

The obvious reason nobody tried to help the people of Afghanistan was that the barefoot freedom fighters had been a proxy army in Ronald Reagan's fight against the Soviet Union, and they had been given enormous amounts of cash by the CIA, and now they had reinvented themselves as a murderous public relations nightmare, and there was no profit in doing anything to change the situation.

Thus the situation was kept out of the public debate in the free world, and people who knew what was happening could only wait and hope and condemn the guilty in their minds.

But not everybody was content to simply sit back and condemn the guilty in their minds.

The non-Muslim world learned a new word, jihad, and this new word meant that enraged Muslims from all the corners of the world were going to Afghanistan to fight, not for the women, but for the Taliban, for Allah, for Islam.

Eventually the notorious Captain Pussy and I wrote a song about the thing, and we called it Starving in Afghanistan. Click on the play button to hear it.

The essential message of the song is that modern suffering is a media commodity, and thus the people doing the suffering are dehumanized for profit.

The names of the places where the victims suffer are interchangeable, the mechanisms that cause the suffering are interchangeable, and the reaction to the suffering varies widely but predictably.

If your country suffers and there is a profit motive for ending your suffering, then a big army will roll in and demolish whatever needs to be demolished, and kill whoever needs to be killed.

After that the media arrives and interviews the survivors and videotapes the destruction for posterity. Everyone else has to settle for just being unfortunate victims, and they get seconds of your time over dinner and the news.

Eventually a change did come to Afghanistan.

On September 9 2001, a Talib posing as a news cameraman detonated a bomb during an interview with one Ahmad Massoud. Massoud was the commander of something called the Northern Alliance, and as such he was the Taliban's main enemy and a Talib suicide bomber had martyred him, effectively wnning the civil war in Afghanistan for the Taliban.

But in the Taliban's greatest hour of triumph came their biggest blunder. The Talib had been sheltering a jihadi comrade named bin Laden, and two days after cementing their victory in Afghanistan, this comrade ensured their eventual demise by engineering the spectacular destruction of the World Trade Center.

After that the story advanced quickly. The plight of the Afghan people immediately became an American taxpayer concern, and boots were put on the ground and planes in the air and people were marked for death and seriously killed the survivors imprisoned in secret torture chambers.

But soon the Americans had to move on, and the Canadian military was duly roped in to do its part to secure freedom for the people of Afghanistan.

And that's where the still respected Canadian army still is to this day, battling the Taliban in a seemingly endless war that no side seems to be able to win outright.

Now comes the sad news that some of the Canadian military ranks think that those Canadians who drive their big SUVs and eat their fancy donuts and live their little lives don't care about what goes on in Afghanistan.

The war in Afghanistan is tainted by the hypocrisy of the American response there, and there in Iraq and elsewhere. And so some in the Canadian military fear that nobody knows what they're sacrificing their lives for, and that the plight of Afghan women and their children is something Canadians don't care about.

Let's hope that they're wrong.

Al Jazeera reports scores killed as Gaza school hit by tank fire

In a move carefully calculated to finally bring lasting peace between Israel and its armed critics still alive, the Israeli Defense Force has attacked its neighbours to the west in Gaza with overwhelming force at sea, on land and in the air.peace envoys from Gaza have welcomed the IDF's latest moves with sustained bursts of AK-47 and opportunistic RPG fire. 

This latest attempt by the IDF to win over their detractors follows a period of rapprochement between the elected government of the territory of Gaza and the government of the state of Israel.

This period of calm was characterized by periodic homemade rocket fire originating from within Gaza and a subsequent blockade of the area, which furthered the inevitability of current conditions.

In other news, exiled Gaza government officials known to be hiding somewhere in Syria have issued appeals for a rational stand-down and resumption of talks aimed at discovering a comprehensive solution the last few remaining obstacles to peace and stability in Palestine.

Hopefully everyone involved remembers to keep to the convention of not shooting the messenger.

Tags: israel, gaza strip, Palestinehamas

 

Urban sprawl is a euphemism commonly used to describe the paving of the earth.

It is characterized by a situation whereby a muncipality's jurisdiction perpetually expands outward from the civic core, in a seemingly unbound fashion.

In the Greater Toronto Area, the direction of urban sprawl is largely dictated by a local geography that forces growth north from Lake Ontario towards Lake Huron, and east and west towards Peterborough and Hamilton respectively.

Because urban sprawl is associated with increased automobile use, it is seen as one of the main causes of air pollution and fossil fuel dependency. Consequently, there is a growing public debate and awareness of the problem.

By 2004, Toronto Public Health was already producing estimates to show that poor air quality was affecting the health of thousands of people in the GTA, some to the point of premature death.

But urban sprawl does not only affect human health.

To the north of Toronto lies a sprawling watershed known as the Oak Ridges Moraine. This health and preservation of the ecosystem surrounding the Oak Ridges Moraine has become one of the most contentious environmental issues in southern Ontario civic life at the dawn of the 21st century.

Urban development on the watershed has pitted a diverse group of stakeholders against each other, as Non Governmental Organizations, governmental and citizen's groups battle for control of the agenda with respect to the moraine.

In recognition of the public concern over the Oak Ridges Moraine, the Government of Ontario has acted to limit development in the area, and there is a lively public debate about the best way to manage the health of this sprawling ecosystem.

Because urban sprawl and commuter transportation are tightly linked, new funds have been allocated to public transit as a way to mitigate automobile use in the Greater Toronto Area, and the Official Plan has been drafted to mandate that new development will be linked to the expanded transit system.

Although the nearby Oak Ridges Moraine dominates the environmentalist debate in the GTA, there are other areas of concern.

Because urban areas consume enormous quantities of electricity, sustainable power generation policies are also prominent in the public consciousness. The GTA derives it's electricity needs from coal, gas and nuclear power generation. 

Through a mix of conservation initiatives and propaganda, residents of the GTA are encouraged by local government to take an active role in reducing electrical consumption. But until sustainable energy production is deployed on a wide scale, unfortunately this issue remains mired in interim solution seeking, and maintenance of the status quo.

globeandmail.com: Ottawa changes seal hunt rules

I love all the creatures of the world, great and small. And so I welcome any efforts by the Government of Canada to treat at least some of them in a humane fashion.

Now comes the news that the seal hunt is once again under the microscope. There are many who oppose this hunt. Among the rich and famous, it has long since become fashionable to eschew wearing the skins of cute animals in favor of items that part at the thighs. These photograph better when exiting limousines, and are less liable to attract protesters throwing paint on expensive wardrobe, good money after bad if you will.

The seal hunt is a miserable exercise for all involved. For the seals, they must face hordes of humans swarming the ice, smelling of the blood of their relatives and bearing clubs from which escape seems to occur not often enough. For the humans, there's the negative press and the cold weather work in dangerous conditions at sea. It's a bad situation all round.

Now Her Majesty's Government in Canada has decreed that clubbing the seals is not such a good idea after all. Viewed from Ottawa, the problem is that a clubbed seal might not be a dead seal once the knives come out, and the people start to remove the skins from those cute public relations nightmares.

I had not realized until now that the clubbing was quickly followed by a serious knifing, but apparently this is the case.

I can see why the public service might be beyond concerned. Who wants to have the screams of poorly clubbed seals on their consciences. What's worse, some Birkenstock wearing tree hugger reeking of patchouli might decide to bring a recording device out to the killing grounds, and before you know it there could be screaming seals all over the evening news.

There's also the risk that one of these tree huggers might be musically inclined and named say, Bono or McCartney. They have the wherewithal and the budget to take the terrifying step of putting these screams to music, and releasing the material with a group of their do gooding friends in one of those do gooder clusterfucks that happen every so often. Starving African babies on side A, screaming seals on side B.

The horror.

To seal the fate of any such campaigns and to appease the old country Europeans, those crazy Canucks have decided to take a bold step and protect the seals once and for all.

The Marine Mammal Regulations have been amended to prescribe that from now on seals will be shot instead of clubbed.

Further, the seals skulls will have to be crushed, and the blood of the animals will have to flow for a full minute before any knives can slip under their skins.

This will be backed up with high tech helicopter surveillance to ensure that thy Queen's will be done on earth and at sea so help thee God.

I see a problem with all this.

There appears to be no stipulation on what sort of guns may be brought out to the ice and used to kill the seals. What's to say that people won't bring old muskets and .22 calibre pop guns out to a situation that probably calls for more firepower? If there's a way to abuse a law, that way will be found. Even some do gooder seal hunters might decide to bring small calibre weapons out to further protect the seals from pain, and thus have to shoot these poor animals numerous times before welcome death arrives.

I now call up on Her Majesty's Government in Canada to correct the deficiencies in this ordinance before it is too late. There is only one way to guarantee these poor seals are dead before they are deprived of their skins. And that way is to use machine guns. Machine guns offer the benefit of a high rate of fire, combined with sufficient projectile girth to ensure death. That is why they were invented in the first place.

Join me now in calling upon the Government of Canada to finish the job of protecting the seals. Write to Fisheries and Oceans Canada, and demand that sealers be mandated to use the right tools for the job. Allow sealers to use automatic weapons in the hunt, and let's all do our part to save those seals.

Read all about it here and then do what you know you got to do.

Tags: sealhunt, Government of Canada, Marine Mammal Regulations, machine guns, automatic weapons, Fisheries and Oceans Canada