Joni & Willie - Cool Water

Carter's Arab Money

Earlier today, I called Jimmy Carter a dangerous fool. Then I received this in my email from a friend:


JIMMY CARTER---Alan M. Dershowitz


Ex-President For Sale by Alan M. Dershowitz

Carter is making more money selling integrity than peanuts.
I have known Jimmy Carter for more than 30 years. I first met
him in the spring of 1976 when, as a relatively unknown candidate for president,he sent me a handwritten letter asking for my help in his campaign on issues of crime and justice. I had just published an article in The New York Times Magazine on sentencing reform, and he expressed interest in my ideas and asked me to come up with additional ones for his campaign.
Shortly thereafter, my former student Stuart Eisenstadt, brought Carter to Harvard to meet with some faculty members, me among them. I immediately liked Jimmy Carter and saw him as a man of integrity and principle. I signed on to his campaign and worked very hard for his election. When Newsweek magazine asked his campaign for the names of people on whom Carter relied for advice, my name was among those given out. I continued to work for Carter over the years, most recently I met him in Jerusalem a year ago, and we briefly discussed the Mid-East.
Though I disagreed with some of his points, I continued to believe that he was making them out of a deep commitment to principle and to human rights.
Recent disclosures of Carter's extensive financial connections
to Arab oil money, particularly from Saudi Arabia, had deeply shaken my belief in his integrity. When I was first told that he received a monetary reward in the name of Shiekh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahayan, and kept the money, even after Harvard returned money from the same source because of its anti-Semitic history, I simply did not believe it. How could a man of such apparent integrity enrich himself with dirty money from so dirty a source?
And let there be no mistake about how dirty the Zayed Foundation is. I know because I was involved, in a small way, in helping to persuade Harvard University to return more than $2 million that the financially strapped Divinity School received from this source. Initially I was reluctant to put pressure on Harvard to turn back money for the Divinity School, but then a student at the Divinity School -- Rachael Lea Fish -- showed me the facts.
They were staggering. I was amazed that in the 21st century
there were still foundations that espoused these views. The Zayed Centre for Coordination and Follow-up - a think-tank funded by the Shiekh and run by his son - hosted speakers who called Jews "the enemies of all nations," attributed the assassination of John Kennedy to Israel and the Mossad and the 9/11 attacks to the United States'own military, and stated that the Holocaust was a "fable." (They also hosted a speech by Jimmy Carter.) To its credit, Harvard turned the money back. To his discredit, Carter did not.
Jimmy Carter was, of course, aware of Harvard's decision, since
it was highly publicized. Yet he kept the money. Indeed, this is what he said in accepting the funds: "This award has special significance for me because it is named for my personal friend, Sheik Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahyan." Carter's personal friend, it turns out, was an unredeemable anti-Semite and all-around bigot. In reading Carter's statements, I was reminded of the bad old Harvard of the 1930s, which continued to honor Nazi academics after the anti-Semitic policies of Hitler's government became clear. Harvard of the 1930s was complicit in evil. I have sadly concluded that Jimmy Carter of the 21st century has become complicit in evil. The extent of Carter's financial support from, and even dependence on, dirty money is still not fully known. What we do know is deeply troubling. Carter and his Center have accepted millions of dollars from suspect sources, beginning with the bail-out of the Carter family peanut business in the late 1970s by BCCI, a now-defunct and virulently anti-Israeli bank indirectly controlled by the Saudi Royal family, and among whose principal investors is Carter's friend, Sheikh Zayed. Agha Hasan Abedi, the founder of the bank, gave Carter "$500,000 to help the former president establish his center...[and] more than $10 million to Mr. Carter's different projects." Carter gladly accepted the money, though Abedi had called his bank-ostensibly the source of his funding-"the best way to fight the evil influence of the Zionists." BCCI isn't the only source: Saudi King Fahd contributed
millions to the Carter Center- "in 1993 alone...$7.6 million" as have other members of the Saudi Royal Family. Carter also received a million dollar pledge from the Saudi-based bin Laden family, as well as a personal $500,000 environmental award named for Sheikh Zayed, and paid for by the Prime Minister of the United Arab Emirates. It's worth noting that, despite the influx of Saudi money funding the Carter Center, and despite the Saudi Arabian government's myriad human rights abuses, the Carter Center's Human Rights program has no activity whatever in Saudi Arabia. The Saudis have apparently bought his silence for a steep price. The bought quality of the Center's activities becomes even more clear, however, when reviewing the Center's human rights activities in other countries: essentially no human rights activities in China or in North Korea, or in Iran, Iraq, the Sudan, or Syria, but extensive activity regarding Israel and its alleged abuses, according to the Center's website.
The Carter Center's mission statement claims that "The Center is nonpartisan and acts as a neutral party in dispute resolution
activities." How can that be, given that its coffers are full of Arab money, and that its focus is away from significant Arab abuses and on Israel's far less serious ones?
No reasonable person can dispute therefore that Jimmy Carter has been and remains dependent on Arab oil money, particularly from Saudi Arabia.
Does this mean that Carter has necessarily been influenced in his thinking about the Middle East by receipt of such enormous amounts of money? Ask Carter. The entire premise of his criticism of Jewish influence on American foreign policy is that money talks. It is Carter, not me, who has made the point that if politicians receive money from Jewish sources, then they are not free to decide issues regarding the Middle East for themselves. It is Carter, not me, who has argued that distinguished reporters cannot honestly report on the Middle East because they are being paid by Jewish money. So, by Carter's own standards, it would be almost economically "suicidal" for Carter "to espouse a balanced position between Israel and Palestine."

By Carter's own standards, therefore, his views on the Middle
East must be discounted. It is certainly possible that he now believes them. Money, particularly large amounts of money, has a way of persuading people to a particular position. It would not surprise me if Carter, having received so much Arab money, is now honestly committed to their cause. But his failure to disclose the extent of his financial dependence on Arab money, and the absence of any self reflection on whether the receipt of this money has unduly influenced his views, is a form of deception bordering on corruption.
I have met cigarette lobbyists, who are supported by the
cigarette industry, and who have come to believe honestly that cigarettes are merely a safe form of adult recreation, that cigarettes are not addicting and that the cigarette industry is really trying to persuade children not to smoke. These people are fooling themselves (or fooling us into believing that they are fooling themselves) just as Jimmy Carter is fooling himself (or persuading us to believe that he is fooling himself).
If money determines political and public views-as Carter insists
"Jewish money" does-then Carter's views on the Middle East must be deemed to have been influenced by the vast sums of Arab money he has received. If he who pays the piper calls the tune, then Carter's off-key tunes have been called by his Saudi Arabian paymasters. It pains me to say this, but I now believe that there is no person in American public life today who has a lower ratio of real [integrity] to apparent integrity than Jimmy Carter. The public perception of his integrity is extraordinarily high. His real integrity, it now turns out, is extraordinarily low. He is no better than so many former American politicians who, after leaving public life, sell themselves to the highest bidder and become lobbyists for despicable causes.
That is now Jimmy Carter's sad legacy.

Author Biography:
Alan M. Dershowitz is the Felix Frankfurter professor of law at
Harvard Law School and author of The Case for Israel.

Don't Tell Your Doctor that you're Sick

It's not often that I can be genuinely shocked by something in the news.

But I confess that this story about local doctors refusing to take patients with cancer and other serious illnesses has done just that.

"I was told my mother's pain was not the doctor's problem." Then the receptionist tried to book her for a botox appointment.

I suppose in a world that watches the excrescence known as "Nip 'n Tuck," anything is possible.

But aren't doctors supposed to...like, you know...help the sick?

Read this frightening story here.

Protect me from the Parole Board

Ironies abound.

Your Federal Government -spending your tax dollars - has bought a half page ad in today's Sun, and no doubt every other paper in the nation.

The catchy headline is "Your Family's Safety - Our Government's Priority."

HAHAHAHAHA...

Too bad nobody at Head Office told either the National Parole Board or Corrections Canada who are very busy on the front page blaming each other for sending yet another lunatic dangerous offender into our midst.

Explain if you can - and believe me, you can't - how a guy is released on day parole, kidnaps and rapes two young women, and 10 years later, he is given another day parole, on which he kidnaps and rapes another young woman.

This is the monster who walked away from the Fernwood Tonight facility the other day.

While these two paragons of risk management - Parole and Corrections - are occupied calling each other's kettle black, the quote of the a story belongs to the fabulously enlightened Liberal MLA for Mission, the previously obscure Randy Hawes.

Mr Hawes says of all this carry-on that maybe Mr. Macdougal was put in minimum security before he was "ready."

HAHAHAHA...

We have a flash for this 4Her: MR. MACD WAS NEVER READY, WILL NEVER BE READY.

Here's the principle, kids.

Dope fiends shoot dope, baby fuckers fuck babies, drunks drink.

GUYS WHO KIDNAP AND RAPE WOMEN...wait for it...KIDNAP AND RAPE WOMEN.

Will the families of these women sue the National Parole Board or Corrections Canada? They should. These agencies must be held accountable for their terrible, mistaken, unknowing bad decisions that endanger the community.

Amazing Backgrounder on Movie Process

Go Back to The Peanut Farm, Jimmy

Before I forget (I meant to post this thought yesterday, but I've got a mind like a, like a...yeah, like a sieve, thank you), Jimmy Carter is an idiot, if not downright dangerous.

The former President is channeling the ghost of Neville Chamberlain.

Coming out of the tent and telling the world that Hamas is ready for peace with Israel is akin to the embrace of Hitler by Chamberlain, King Edward (whom the British government couldn't get out of England fast enough - if you want to believe all that Wallace Simpson romance hooey, you just go ahead, dears) and Joe Kennedy.

If I see the smiling foolish face of this busybody again, it will be much too soon.
.

The Lighter Side of Susan

The exchange between Churchill & Lady Astor:
She said, "If you were my husband I'd give you poison," and he said, ”If you were my wife, I'd drink it."

A member of Parliament to Disraeli:
"Sir, you will either die on the gallows or of some unspeakable disease."
"That depends, Sir," said Disraeli, "on whether I embrace your policies or your mistress."

"He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire." - Winston Churchill

"I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure." Clarence Darrow

"He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary."
- William Faulkner (about Ernest Hemingway).

"Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words?"
- Ernest Hemingway (about William Faulkner)

"Thank you for sending me a copy of your book; I'll waste no time reading it."
-Moses Hadas

"I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it."
- Mark Twain

"He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends."
- Oscar Wilde

"I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play; bring a friend.... if you have one." - -George Bernard Shaw to Winston Churchill

"Cannot possibly attend first night, will attend second... if there is one."
- Winston Churchill, in response.

"I feel so miserable without you; it's almost like having you here."
-Stephen Bishop

"He is a self-made man and worships his creator."
- John Bright

"I've just learned about his illness. Let's hope it's nothing trivial."
- Irvin S. Cobb

"He is not only dull himself, he is the cause of dullness in others."

- Samuel Johnson

"He is simply a shiver looking for a spine to run up."
- Paul Keating

"There's nothing wrong with you that reincarnation won't cure."
-Jack E. Leonard

"He has the attention span of a lightning bolt."
- Robert Redford

"He loves nature in spite of what it did to him."
- Forrest Tucker

"Why do you sit there looking like an envelope without any address on it?"
- Mark Twain

"His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork."
- Mae West

"Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they
go."
- Oscar Wilde

"He has Van Gogh's ear for music."
- Billy Wilder

"I've had a perfectly wonderful evening but this wasn't it."
- Groucho Marx

Let's All Take Ritalin

Now, at long last, some doctors are recommending that children be examined for potential heart problems, before they are prescribed Ritalin.

The over-prescription of this poison for (mostly boy) children constitutes abuse.

Like so many medicines, this massive over-use of a pharmaceutical for a questionable "disease" (ADHD) is entirely the result of extremely subtle and pervasive marketing campaigns.

Someday, we will learn to look back on these dark days with suitable horror.

Corrections Canada, the gang that corrects nothing, is Silent as Usual about his Dreadful Miscues

Oh, look.

People in the media are asking Corrections Canada why a lunatic was put in a minimum security prison.

Oh, look.

Corrections Canada isn't talking.

Didn't I just write about this yesterday?

Corrections Canada is a secret cabal, albeit one paid for with our tax dollars. But, like many obscure government agencies, they believe it is their right to never say a discouraging word.

More Charter Woes

On Thursday, April 17th, in a posting called "Charter This," I called for an end to or a major revision of Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms, as I believe it is now doing more harm than good.

Two stories in this morning's news, reinforce that idea.

A couple, whose main purpose in life appears to be growing pot in their house, are successfully challenging the police and the courts because their "rights were violated" when the police entered their little den of happiness.

Of course, we don't want police charging willy-nilly into the privacy of our homes without provocation or authorization.

But apparently, running a hydro bill that is enough to light up Keremeos for a month is not enough of an indicator that something askance might be going on.

IN another case, a North Van couple had been convicted of importing opium concealed in picture frames.

But, Lordy, the foolish Crown, made the mistake of asking certain questions during the trail that might suggest that these good folk had done exactly this deed in the past. Thus, new trail.

We are going out of our muddle-headed way to aid the crooks, and all in the name of democratic ideals.

Of course, the one good thing about both these stories is that it shows that couples who share a common purpose have a grater chance of staying together over the long haul.

LIZ ON TRANSIT & THINGS...

21 April 2008

Hi, David:

Before you leave for some of my old stamping grounds --

Malcolm Johnston raised an issue I don't think I've 'discussed' with you - the matter of the $1.2 Billion-plus budget overrun on the Canada Line. (Sometimes I get fed up with 'playing the same old vinyl' over and over again.)

During the NDP decade, particularly the Glen-Clark-as-premier days, the media quite rightly made a daily-nightly feast out of the fast-ferry project. As you know, the project ended up as a $456-million project for three ships we could not use in BC waters - albeit the union-built ships were extremely well-built.

So - can you tell me why it is that not one journalist in the mainstream media has raised the subject of today's $1.2-billion+ budget overrun on the Canada Line - an overrun 2.75 times the size of the fast-ferries budget? The Convention Centre mess and the mouldy skating oval roof takes the total to over $2 billion - and that's just the things we actually know about.

Plus - The Canada Line overrun that does not include a single penny to reimburse the small-business owners that CLCo has bankrupted on Cambie Street?

Plus - The Canada Line overrun was required, despite the fact that the 'scope' of the main project has been reduced, because City of Vancouver taxpayers are on the hook for one of the stations, on top of the original budget.

Plus - We still do not know what will be the costs for Ken Dobell's "smart" but not yet working turnstiles.

Great we can "offload all the risk to the Private Partners" isn't it? Oh, and that reminds me - why is the media not curious enough to ask whether Partnerships BC director, Colin Dobell is related to Ken Dobell?

Auditor-General John Doyle sure has enough to keep his office going full-tilt for a decade!

But, in the meantime, I repeat - where is Canwest? Where is Corus?

I'll give you a hint - at least part of the answer can be found in Issue #73 of Adbuster's magazine, The Death of Canadian Journalism, http://adbusters.org/the_magazine/73/The_Death_of_Canadian_Journalism.html

A different Take on Our Daily News

Here is a thorough and astonishing take on the state of journalism in Vanocouver.

No need for me to summarize; just read it here and now.

Arm-Chairing the Universe

Well, thank goodness.

At last, Roger Federer has come to his sense and listened to my advice.

All year I've been muttering that he should get a coach so that he can win more Grand Slams.

And, now he's gone me one better.

Not only did he get a coach, but he got Jose Higueras, a clay court specialist, and immediately, it payed off.

Federer won the Estoril Open on clay in Portugal this weekend, and heads now to Monte Carlo, Rome and Hamburg before tackling Roland Garros where Rafael Nadal has won the final..is it 3 or 4 years straight? - now.

Now if only Tiger will listen to me about his swing....

Get out

A Billion Dollars for the Canadian military in Afghanistan?

Get out.

Last Wednesday night, Langara College had a debate on this very subject at the Main Library Downtown.

The room was packed and many were from Aghanistan.

They all said the same thing.

Get out.

Corrections Canada - A Truly Scary Criminal

Corrections Canada has much to answer for.

But it will never be held accountable for its consistently dreadful managment of its repsonsibilities.

A dangerous offender, killer and rapist has now escaped and is on the lam.

He walked away from Ferndale MINIMUM SECURITY prison.

HELLO!!!

What was this man doing in a MINIMUM SECURITY prison?

Did someone with their wooly-headed social worker vest on decide that Blane was now a nice guy?

Now, Corrections Canada is preparing for No Smoking in prisons, even outdoors. Good luck.

I have a suggestion.

Just let all the smokers in the prisons stand outside the main gates. I'm sure that'll be ok....

Farm Workers Have Long Been Abandoned

Farm workers can get in line behind children, the elderly, addicts and the homeless when it comes to attention and cocern in this province.

This is a Power Province and our Premier has his own addiction - power. he is interested in powerful men, men who make the earth move with ther money. Builders and buyers.

Immigrant, elderly, women farm workers, up at 4, at work at 6, 17 to a rickety van with no seat belts, this is supposed to be os some interest to Mr. Raise-a-Reader, Mr. Children's Hospital Foundation?

Where is the foto-op?

In the Vaisakhi Parade, he can play Mr. Dress Up.

But for the farm workers, he would actually have to enact legislation that protects these poor souls and then spend public money on inspectors that police the laws.

Remember that 3 days after the highway "accident" (waiting to happen) last year, the same farm was sheparding the same workers in the same dangerous way into crowded vans.

Nothing changes when nobody cares.

And nobody cares when political advantage is the sole motivator.

I must Listen to this CD about once a Week - MIles

Evergreen for some...

To the Editor

Northwest Route for Evergreen Line - Province April 20/08

Dismissing the destruction of Small Businesses is short-sighted.

Before another penny of our tax money goes towards any other transportationmega-projects, or obscene pay raises, the small businesses that have beendemolished by the Canada Line Big Dig must be fully compensated for theirobvious losses.

There is a seemingly endless supply of tax dollars for projects that aredriven by this Provincial government, especially for anything that can belinked to the Olympics in 2010 - with no meaningful consultaion from thepublic, and controlled by a transportation board with no publicaccountability.

The Small Businesses all alnog the Canada Line route were the collateraldamage of the massive development plans for the Cambie Corridor. The'temporary disruption' to our livelihoods has been continuing for two yearsnow, and counting. We have suffered unprecedented hardship both personallyand financially while every level of government and all the project partnershave turned a blind eye, even now in the face of scores of bancruptcies.There is nothing temporary about losing your life's work.

What has happened to this community along the Canada Line is shocking. Thisabuse of power must be made right with immediate full financial relief. Ifpublic projects such as this cannot factor in adequate compensation, andtake care of citizens who are impacted; the projects should not proceed.

Susan HeyesHazel&Co3190 Cambie Street604 687-0721

Arms-Length Crown Corps are good for th Government

The ICBC stink gets better.

Managers drive in to have their cars painted for free.

And what else?

These daily revelations about the rot at the top are obviously the tips of the iceberg.

And will anyone ever expose the identical behaviours at Richmond City Hall and Richmond Wroks Yard?

Important New Law - Very Old-Fashioned Law-Maker

The good news is that Kathleen Walker, a lawyer and former prosecutor, will try to create a groundswell of public support for tougher, more wide-spread restraining orders when it comes to protecting kids.

The bad news is that to turn this excellent idea into law, she will have to meet with Wally Opaque, the Attorney-General, who has turned inaction into an art form.

In the new opera based on Wally's leadership style, the entire cast stands at the lip of the stage burping out every second note. It's a gas.