Results tagged “maherarar”

MUSIC: The Art of Time Ensemble continues its tenth-anniversary season with a two-night performance at Harbourfront (tonight and tomorrow). "Source and Inspiration III" celebrates the music of Erich Korngold with a performance of his Suite for 2 Violins, Cello and Piano Left Hand, Op. 23 by the Art of Time Ensemble. The ensemble is joined by Danny Michel, Martin Tielli, and John Southworth, who have all written new pieces inspired by Korngold's opus. Cameras are only permitted for the first twenty minutes of tonight's performance. Enwave Theatre, Harbourfront Centre (231 Queens Quay West), 8 p.m., $39.

Ontario's conservation officer suggests the unbanning of clotheslines. Did anybody even know that clotheslines were banned in certain parts of Ontario? Why would anybody ban a clothesline anyway? Clothes flapping in the wind are aesthetically pleasing!

Microsoft has agreed to buy 1.6% of Facebook for $240,000,000, giving the social networking site a valuation of around $15 billion. The deal is good for both parties, with Bill Gates finally hanging out with the cool kids, and 23-year-old Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg getting to throw an awesome kegger.

David Miller has enlisted the aid of a team of hired guns to find savings in the municipal budget. Their recommendations should arrive in time to incorporate into the 2008 budget, but too late for Tuesday's vote on controversial new taxes. City Council is optimistic that the group, whose members include Col. John "Hannibal" Smith, Templeton "Faceman" Peck, "Howling Mad" Murdock, and B.A. Baracus, will be able to solve all our problems.

Brampton's mayor and police chief are looking to dispel a local urban myth that the municipality is paying Toronto gang members between $5,000 and $10,000 to move to Brampton. Officials deny the payouts, but admit they may have distributed a pamphlet suggesting that in Brampton "the streets are paved with 9 mm shells and the malt liquor flows like water."

Farmer finds life ring believed to be from the Edmund Fitzgerald. In response, the Tragically Hip grumble about having to rewrite one of their songs.

Ottawa reaches $10 million settlement with Maher Arar. Meanwhile, Arar is still on the American no-fly list, so the next time some American asks you why us Canadians are so smug and self-superior as regards them, just point them to this and laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh.

George W. Bush made his State of the Union address last night. Among his policy initiatives introduced in the speech were a request to Americans to reduce their gasoline consumption by twenty percent in ten years (while simultaneously claiming American needed to increase domestic gasoline production), and a proposal to tax employer-based health plans to pay for HSAs (which don't actually solve the problems facing American healthcare). An annotated and rather niftily clickable rebuttal of the SOTU speech can be found here. However, they cannot rebut the fact that George Bush's chosen example of the ideal American immigrant is Apparently the plaque on the Statue of Liberty is being changed to read "Give us your tall, your agile, those capable of dunking and rebounding with equal facility."

Condoleezza Rice promises to "look into" why Maher Arar is still on an American terrorist watchlist. Remember when you were at work and someone at work kept stealing your yoghurt and you were pissed so you went to your supervisor and complained and he said he'd "look into" it? This is kind of like that, except Maher Arar is probably a lot less important to Condoleezza Rice than yoghurt is.

Amazingly, Maher Arar is

Twenty machine workers win $22 million dollars. I include this bit of news just to remind you that you, yes you reading this, do not have $22 million dollars. (Probably.) SUCK ON THAT, TORONTO!

Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, extraordinary renditions, security certificates, Maher Arar, enemy combatants, torture, all of them erosions of democracy and symptoms of a larger problem. Government abuse of power isn't anything new, and as the sole holder of power and force in most societies, our elected "representatives" can often do so with impunity.