Free Republic

The one with the small ears.

Is that Rachel Maddow ???

OJO Videophone
Much, much better than Skype
Comparing a Volkswagon (Skype) to a Cadillac (OJO)

Even better...
IRIS 5000 Videophone from ACN

She is, and always will be, a lightweight when it comes to Canadian politics,

Daddy couldn't buy her the leadership of the Conservatives.

McKay couldn't satisfy her in bed or in the Commons.

So, she's taking her ball and bat and going home.

Just like the FAGGY Scott Brison.

Democrats in the making....

A prominent liberal will defect (someone with a lot more class...or an NDPer), so it's a 0 net-sum game.

Nobody wins....nobody loses

Except on Thursday, with a defeat of the budget and the extra $23 BILLION made in promises by this CORRUPT regime since the start of April.

$23 BILLION...my hard earned tax money spent on frivolous vote buying

Makes the Clintons look like pikers

On the political front, Dean frankly conceded that Democrats were beaten in the 2004 voter turnout race, which for a time believed they would dominate. "It is not enough, as we discovered in the last election, to bring 14,000 people IN FROM ANOTHER STATE to knock on doors," Dean said, referring to the massive turnout efforts led by the Democratic 527 group America Coming Together. Republicans, Dean told the crowd, did a better job because they did not rely on PAID OUT OF-STATERS to get out the vote. "They had people from their neighborhoods knocking on their neighbors' doors," Dean said, making it clear that Democrats would try to imitate that strategy in 2008.

Strong advocates ratification of the Kyoto treaty to stop the impending crisis. Negotiated by the Clinton Administration in December 1997, the treaty requires the U.S. to cut carbon dioxide emissions by 30 to 40 per cent by 2010. But according to the U.S. Energy Information Agency, that could cost the economy $400 billion per year, raise electric utility rates by 86 per cent, hike the cost of heating oil by 76 per cent, and impose a permanent "Kyoto gasoline tax" of 66 cents per gallon. In total, each U.S. household would have to spend an extra $1,740 per year on energy. WEFA, an economic information and consulting firm, reports that 2.4 million jobs would be lost and manufacturing wages cut by 2.1 per cent.

This gives Strong no pause. Indeed, he seems to want to inflict economic damage on Western industrial democracies. When it comes to environmental policy, Strong says, "Economic growth is not the cure, it is the disease."

Martin, however, is loath to broach the subject and becomes sensitive when it's suggested he might find it difficult to relate to average Canadians.

He started his business career toting the bags of the president of the influential Montreal-based Power Corp. But in less than 20 years, Paul Martin owned his own worldwide shipping empire.

By the time Martin arrived at Power Corp. in 1965, he was ready to learn the ropes from some of the country's business elite.

Maurice Strong was the president of Power and asked Martin to be his executive assistant. It was an impressive-sounding title to outsiders but Strong made it clear Martin was going to learn from the bottom up.

RAPID RISE

"I said, 'Paul if you're willing to carry my bags and put in some hard work (it's your job),' " he recalled in an interview with Sun Media.

He warned his protege: "I'm very difficult to work for."

Martin would begin a rapid rise up the corporate ladder, but not before a few hard knocks from Strong, who remembered taking Martin to a meeting of top insurance company executives in New York.

"He frankly talked a lot," Strong said. "He was a little bit more forthcoming than perhaps he should have been."

When the meeting broke up and the two were walking down Park Ave., Strong let Martin have it.

"I said, 'Paul, you're not going to make it.' I said, 'Here you are, the youngest, most inexperienced person in a room full of the top insurance people in the world, and most of those people are quite predisposed to bright young people. But not to brash young people.' "

Strong admitted he had been tough but said the young Martin learned a lesson.

Indeed, almost four decades later, businessmen who sat on corporate boards with Martin say one of his qualities is that he listens and encourages input on important matters.

Matthew Gassenbeek, the founder and chairman of Northern Crown Capital in Toronto, sat on two boards with Martin.

The self-described Red Tory said of Martin: "He doesn't lose his temper. He's interested; he's willing to look at all sides of the question.

"I think he can listen, which is a real advantage."

Before Maurice Strong left Power Corp. in 1966 to head the Canadian International Development Agency in Ottawa -- a job offered to him by Martin's politician father -- he struck a deal for Power Corp. to buy Canada Steamship Lines.

"We put Paul on that file," Strong said. "He kept in touch with the company and prepared the briefs for me. That's how he really got to know CSL."

When Strong departed, William Turner and Martin teamed up as president and vice-president respectively at Power Corp. The two later moved to run a merged Consolidated Bathurst, a major pulp and paper operation, after Paul Desmarais took over the reins of Power Corp.

Turner says the move was a financial bonanza for Martin. The company's stock soared over four years.

In 1974, Martin was appointed president of Power Corp's CSL. He liked it so much, he bought the company from Desmarais in 1981 with partner Laurence Pathy for $189 million.

Martin bought out Pathy in 1988, the same year he won a seat for the opposition Liberals in the House of Commons.

* * *

A day before he transferred control of Canada Steamship Lines to his sons last month, Martin told Sun Media in an interview at his riding office that he had no idea what he was worth.

"No. I guess when the kids take over, not very much," he said.

The Mapleleaf Web site, which has been keeping track of Martin's international shipping empire of 37 bulk cargo vessels, claims CSL controls assets of almost $700 million and in March 2001 had annual revenues of $280 million.

Asked how a man who owns a sprawling farm in Iron Hill, Que., a home in Montreal and a condo in Ottawa connects with people who have a hard time paying the rent, Martin became testy.

"Let me tell you. You know, my father didn't have any money. The fact is my father's family, my mother's family -- they don't come from money. My mother's family were farming people."

"To put it another way, if I didn't understand that what life is all about was, in fact, exactly the people who live around the corner from here and who look at you to make life better for them -- if it wasn't for that, then I wouldn't be in public life."

Martin's holdings have been the source of controversy since 1988, even though he tried to protect himself from this through public disclosure. The scrutiny intensified when Martin became finance minister in 1993 and placed his holdings in a blind trust.

There were questions about CSL ships being flagged in offshore tax havens and the use of low-paid foreign workers. And there have been questions about how blind his blind trust really was. Allegations of conflict of interest have been dismissed by the government's ethics counsellor every single time.

The fallout from all of this hasn't put a political dent in Martin. His success since taking over CSL from Power Corp. 22 years ago is widely admired among business and union leaders.

Maurice Strong

Maurice Strong is a senior advisor to United Nations' Secretary General Kofi Annan. Annan has appointed Strong to lead U.N. reforms, positioning him to be the next U.N. Secretary General. But placing Strong in charge of U.N. reform could pose a significant threat to the American way of life as Strong has used his position to centralize power in the U.N. at the expense of national sovereignty.

Strong, a native of Canada, grew up during the Great Depression and lived in poverty. He was able to escape poverty and became a successful businessman. During the 1950s and 1960s, Strong was involved in the oil and utility industries and was quite successful. By the time he was 35 Strong was president of a major holding company, the Power Corporation of Canada. As successful as he was, Strong nonetheless felt the need to embellish his achievements. According to National Review, Strong claimed to have had a $200,000 salary when he left the Power Corporation of Canada. But the magazine was informed by an official with the Power Corporation of Canada that Strong's salary was in fact $35,000 upon his departure.

In the early 1970s, U.N. Secretary General U Thant tapped Strong to organize and direct the Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment. The conference came to be known as the first Earth Summit. In the following year, Strong became the first director of the U.N. Environment Program. These two U.N. positions marked the beginning of Strong's methodical march toward global governance.

Strong's most significant role at the U.N. to-date has been his position as Secretary General of the 1992 U.N. Conference on the Environment and Development, the Rio Earth Summit. In the opening session of the Rio Earth Summit, Strong commented: "The concept of national sovereignty has been an immutable, indeed sacred, principle of international relations. It is a principle which will yield only slowly and reluctantly to the new imperatives of global environmental cooperation. It is simply not feasible for sovereignty to be exercised unilaterally by individual nation states, however powerful. The global community must be assured of environmental security." Interestingly, Strong had initially been blocked from participating in the conference by the U.S. Department of State. When Strong learned of this, however, he persuaded then-President George Bush to overrule the State Department.

Strong is also involved in the U.N. Education Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). Through his work in UNESCO, Strong promotes Gaia, the Earth God, among the world's youth. Strong is also the director of The Temple of Understanding in New York. He uses The Temple to encourage Americans concerned about the environment to replace Christianity with the worship of "mother earth."

Strong also directs the U.N.'s Business Council on Sustainable Development. Under his leadership, the council tries to affect peoples' lives through U.N. policies that attempt to reduce the availability of meat products; limit the use of home and workplace air conditioners; discourage private ownership of motor vehicles; encroach on private property rights; and work to reduce the number of single family homes.

Don't forget that Mr. Martin bought the company (Canada Steamship Lines) at wholesale prices from from Maurice Strong, the man behind the Rio Summit and Kyoto Accord.

I think it was sold to Martin for around $190 million when it had a book value of over $350 million. A real nice business deal. Especially for Martin.

It is also interesting to note that Mr. Strong's now heads a company which has a major ownership (at least 90%) in China's coal and gas fields, who are not hamstrung by the Kyoto Accord with regards to CO2 emissions, unlike all the developed nations who foolishly signed into this agreement.

All Time worst should be.....


NICKELBACK

Absolute Rubbish!

We'll let you borrow the cup for a year or two....if you don't blow it. It's real home is here in 'Hockeytown'...Detroit. There was no victory lap in Detroit for the conference championship either. That is not the ultimate prize...

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Interesting...

Any reason given?

When did they take the original course if this is a refresher?

Was it under the command of William Jefferson Clinton?

Connect the dots...and see the picture.

Army paratroopers accused of beating, taunting and humiliating jounralists detained in Iraq have been given a refresher course on proper handling of detainees, even though an investigation cleared them of abuse, a spokesman said Thursday.

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When did they take the original course if this is a refresher?

was it under the command of William Jefferson Clinton?

Conect tyhe dots...and see the picture.

BY WHOM?

Walrus-boy Teddy is going through

"Tuberty"

As long as the half that doesn't surrender extends west from Thunder Bay, my vacation plans are safe

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That is MY half sir

And we will never surrender!

CANADA

Half French
Half English

And like John Kerry....

We Half Surrender

I don't want to trivialize the atrocities, but....

Where's the panties?

They don't like panties..

We humilate them more by putting women's panties on their heads

Or leading them around like dogs

That kind of treatment is much, much worse....according to CNN and it's fellow broadcasters

What do think would happen if your congressman got to see some Real torture photos?

Are you tired of some voices on Free Republic that are very negative and are pushing a hidden anti Bush agenda? I am very much disgusted with them. I understand that we need to have our diferences on issues but some of the people on this great site are becoming worse than Democratic underground people. As true conservatives we can critcize the President on some issues but attacking him constantly in this crucial election year is simply unacceptable. Reading people like this who are constantly and savagely attacking the President and everyone of his policies should not be accetpable for the majority of us. They can post their hatred to the President in many other site that will welcome them in open arms.


They usually don't last around that long
because someone usually tells them the REAL truth....and they move on