New Media

With Palestinian terrorists sitting on a huge stockpile of weapons and planning imminent attacks, the army’s patience has run out. Armored vehicles cordon off chokepoints and the camps are besieged by waves of infantry.

The thunder of artillery announces the start of the attack. Artillery shells slam into buildings, causing the fragile structures to cave in on the army’s militant targets as well as innocent bystanders. A United Nations relief convoy is attacked as a tenuous cease-fire ends mere minutes after it begins.

Arab countries condemn the violence and send weapons and support to… the army?

Yup. But it isn’t the Israeli army. Lebanese forces are fighting Palestinian militants who have turned a refugee camp into Fatah Islam’s terrorist base. Tellingly, the Lebanese are doing so with the support of Arab governments and even have the backing of uber-Islamic militant group Hezbollah (for the simple reason that Hezbollah are Shia and Fatah Islam are Sunni. Can’t all the nutjobs just get along?)

Meanwhile, Israelis are fighting Palestinian terrorists in Gaza that have launched about 150 rockets at Israeli civilian centers just this week.

Arab television network managers must be having an awful time trying to maintain their usual balanced perspective to current events in the Middle East.

At this rate, Palestinians hoping to win their state through violent resistance can count on achieving their goal sometime in the fifth millenium.

Conservatives just can’t seem to leverage their early successes and lacklustre opposition into political gains.

That’s one way of looking at it. Another is that Canadians pretty much like what they’ve seen so far from our current political balance and see no reason to change it up. As soon as Conservatives started edging up in the polls, voters smack them back down.

It doesn’t even matter that Conservatives have tried to take over the center by developing an environmental plan far more detailed and visionary than their supposedly green competitors. The media and righteous pundits hoping to score some easy points are having a field day bashing the Tories with their own plan. Clearly, Canadians don’t want to change things up.

That doesn’t mean the opposition parties can start feeling entitled. None of the other parties are getting much love from the voters either. It just means we don’t want an election right when we’re getting ready for summer barbecue season.

Canadians must agree on shared border and security measures with the United States to ensure we still have pull with our southern neighbor, according to the right-aligned think tank, the Fraser Institute.

Apparently, the Fraser Institute’s consultants have all had their head stuck in the sand for the past year and a half. We have a Conservative government in power that shares at least some values with its Republican counterparts – at least as much as Canadians will stomach. Our soldiers are supporting in a significant way the American-led UN mission in Afghanistan. We also have NORAD. The only gaping hole in our border security is a lack of firepower for American badasses on their way north. Meanwhile, the American border guards, plus their helicopters and satellite surveillance, already have their side covered.

If we don’t have pull with the White House now with regard to lumber, beef or any other of our exports that American corporate interests would like to shut out, the Fraser Institute can hardly blame Canadians for that. Old fashioned economic nationalism – on America’s part – is hurting us.

The above video shows NORAD in action, by the way.

The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission says it will progressively remove restrictions on advertising-time limits for broadcasters, with the ultimate goal of removing all such restrictions by September 1, 2009.

In short, we get more TV commercials for the same price we’re already paying.

The reasoning behind this genius move that will undoubtedly delight citizens who are already pleased as punch to have to spend four hours on the couch to finish one two-hour televised Hollywood film?

“The commission considers it essential that broadcasters have the flexibility to maximize advertising revenues to respond to the negative impact of audience fragmentation.”

Right. It isn’t enough to clog up the Internet with endless pop-ups and spam. Now I get to see more of my favorite Jack in the Box ads.

Thank you, CRTC.

“Of note is that Canada’s largest companies by value, and largest employers, tend to be foreign owned in a way that is more typical of a developing country than a G-8 member.”
–Wikipedia entry, Foreign ownership in Canada

A Toronto Star business section article takes issue with foreign ownership of Canadian industry. This is an old subject that is unlikely to ever go away, barring a Fidel Castro-style nationalization of our industries.

Canada is a vast storehouse of resources with not enough people or capital to exploit it. Tied to the issue of foreign investment and ownership is the supposed deindustrialization of Canada. Whether that is a real threat to our sovereignty remains to be seen.

But the current situation is no surprise: as one commentator in the article says, “As Canadian companies mature to the point where they are world class, they are getting world-class attention, and, typically, the most appropriate suitor will be a foreign buyer.”

Basically, we’re getting attention from the world because we’re seen as a safe, profitable place to invest. That’s not necessarily a bad thing.