Roblin Boulevard 8 - New Development

The old Charleswood Small Car Service building. It has been bulldozed already.



The original Charleswood Veterinary Clinic building.



The new Charleswood Veterinary Clinic building which uses the land vacated by the mechanic building.

In the community meeting of November 16, approval was given to the expansion of the Charleswood Veterinary Clinic. It expands their property onto the now demolished Charleswood Small Car Service.

Charleswood Vet has a reputation as a compassionate operation. My in-laws had nothing but good things to say about them and the care of their dog. Congratulations on their expansion.

As for the small car service center that is now gone, it is a reminder of the kind of business that occupied the downtown Charleswood neighbourhood for so many years.

Great Canadian Talk Show - Podcast 2

The Great Canadian Talk Show had its second podcast on Saturday. Wanted to mention it earlier but with the byelection going on, I waited till now to post this.

Once again a great show and if you didn't know that this wasn't done in studio, you would be hard pressed to tell the difference. The only thing I miss is the interactive part where someone would call in or text and have a point that was immediately placed on the show. The promos of the show on Kick FM were absolutely correct. It was the only call in show in the province between 4 and 6.

For those that miss the open public aspect, the show will have an audience participation podcast shortly. The event takes place December 7, Tuesday. I will put up some more information shortly on that. It looks like they might film it as well and I assume they might out it up at their facebook page.

Also on their facebook page is continued interest in forming a public affairs radio station on the FM band. I will follow up more on this in the days ahead.

The Irresistible Asin In Saree

Byelection Results

The NDP must be counting their lucky stars that there are not a lot more like Kevin Lamoureux around to steal their safe seats. And Michael Ignatieff is probably hoping he had a hundred or more people like Kevin Lamoureux with as strong a electoral machine.

Looking at the comment sections of some media groups and some NDP supporters just can't seem to believe it. Some were confidently predicting Lamoureux would go down in defeat. Now, I don't know who they will blame. Surely not the media since this was a low key event.

However, they are not the only ones to get it so wrong. Here is the Winnipeg Sun today:

Three federal byelections -- one in Ontario, two in Manitoba -- will be fought Monday in the fog of Grey Cup aftermath, hangovers, missed flights and lost bets.

So we might as well predict our winners now.

In the Ontario riding of Vaughan, perched above Liberal-drenched Toronto: Conservative candidate Julian Fantino.

In the Manitoba riding of Winnipeg North: Conservative candidate Julie Javier.

And, in the Manitoba riding of Dauphin-Swan River: Conservative candidate Robert Sopuck.

Yes, we can hear the Liberals already -- as in what else would you expect from Sun Media, a right-leaning newspaper chain more prone to boot-licking the Harper government than booting it in the slats?

But that's always the left's default position.

The reason three Conservatives will win is because they are the best candidates, arriving at a time when the Liberals are spinning their wheels, and getting no traction from Michael Ignatieff, a truly hapless leader.

I wonder if the Winnipeg Sun really believes that the Conservative candidate was the best person for the party could choose. They really undermine whatever credibility they might have by bloviating on that type of grand scale.

Who are they going to blame for their candidate's poor showing? The media? The ethnic vote and big money?

The NDP made a mistake in saying this:

Just two days ago, NDP executive director Brad Lavigne was telling reporters that the trio of byelections Monday could be seen as referendums on each party's leader.

"If a leader loses momentum [Monday], they'll have a hard time gaining it back before the budget gets tabled in February," Lavigne told reporters.

And yet, it was NDP Leader Jack Layton who not only lost a seat, but saw his party lose thousands of votes in Vaughan.

In the Manitoba riding of Dauphin-Swan River-Marquette, the Conservatives easily held the riding, and the NDP vote total improved over the results of the 2008 general election.

If there is one thing a byelection proves it is that anything can happen if the the focus is on the local candidates and not on the national front.

I have no idea if the Liberals will lose their seat in Vaughn. It certainly looks like that even at this late hour. However, if they do, they can point to the fact that local candidates do matter in these type of elections.

And despite what the NDP said two days ago, I don't this reflects on the leaders save for the fact that they are the ones who help attract good candidates.

Still, I think the NDP in Manitoba are likely to be quite upset. They have been increasingly angry and frustrated as of late. They really can't understand when a vote like Winnipeg North goes against them like this. They will have to be careful how they react in the days ahead. If they lash out more and more, it could reflect poorly on them in the upcoming provincial election.

Byelection Day

Today is the federal byelection day. Two of the three seats open are in Manitoba.

The campaign has been very low key. Conservative candidates have dodged debates and reporters. It remains to be seen whether the electorate will have issue with that.

The northern riding of Dauphin-Swan River-Marquette will be a difficult riding to dislodge from the Conservatives. Whatever the merits of the other candidates, the voters there tend to support the right of center and Conservative candidate. There has been no indication that the Liberals or NDP have found an issue or a candidate that could change the dynamics of what is considered a safe seat for the Conservatives.

The Winnipeg North riding in Winnipeg is a different story. In general, this has been a seat that the NDP can count on. It was only in the 1980s when the NDP and Progressive Conservatives were deeply unpopular both on the federal or provincial fronts. It was the Liberals who took advantage of this dynamic and landed a seat in the riding and it took some time for the NDP to gain it back.

What makes this election different is who the NDP is facing this byelection. Kevin Lamoureux has carved out a level of support in the heart of NDP territory. A good chunk of the federal riding contains his provincial seat. While Kevin Chief is a good candidate for the NDP, the party has rarely faced someone who can organize at Lamoureux's level.

Still, byelections are difficult to predict. The NDP has the advantage for sure and the better oiled election machinery. Voter turn-out will be key. Whichever candidate gets his vote out will win this election.

Whatever your voter intentions, get out and vote. As mentioned, byelections are unpredictable. A confident party can be stung by their own supporters who stay at home believing the result is in the bag.

Aarthi Agarwal hot in saree pictures

Adrenaline Adventures To Open In Headingley

Above pictures are examples of cable wakeboarding from Europe and elsewhere.




Camsur Watersports Complex in the Philippines, the world-class wakeboarding park

Manitoba is one of the provinces that has been known for some great wakeboardering over the years. It is one of the advantages of having so many lakes and rivers. However, it has not been as great a place for training or opening up the sport to ever greater numbers of people due to the costs of boating.

However, now it has been reported in a variety of places that construction has begun on a wakeboarding cable park just outside city limits at Roblin Blvd and the Perimeter Highway.



Cable parks in wakeboarding have been limited to Quebec which not surprisingly trained some of Canada's best in wakeboarding.

The gold standard in cable wakeboarding in the world is the Camsur Watersports Complex in the Philippines. Apparently, the Winnipeg facility is the match or better of that park which has hosted quite a few international competitions.



Future look at the cable park just outside the city.

The park is not limited to summer sports. At $5 million of all private money, success depends on getting people there in winter as well. As such, winter snow tubing is expected to open just before Christmas. Using cables to pull tubes up a man-made hill, the snow slide will be the closest facility of this kind to the city.



The multi-year building program anticipates a skating rink on the huge man-made lake looking onward to 2011-2012.

In the summer, the 20 hectare site is to be transformed into the cable wakeboard park and a rope climbing course. A beach is also part of the plans.



The young family with a background in construction developments is enthusiastic and has a can-do attitude. Heck, even though the site is just outside of Winnipeg, you can imagine what they might do with the $7 million for an indoor waterpark that Sam Katz has had sitting in city coffers doing nothing the last few years.

No government moment has been used for this project which seems to have a sound business plan and a product not offered anywhere else.

It could be that in 2012, Adrenaline Adventures hosts North America's first wakeboarding world cup.

All I can say is well done. This family will be one to watch in the years to come.

Scarlett Johansson - The Babe of the Year

Scarlett Johansson was named the 'Babe of the Year' by the GQ magazine. She will be seen on the cover page of Men of the Year issue.

Crime and ERs

Good story from the Free Press on the increase in ER visits the last two years.

The Winnipeg Regional Health Authority says they are not alarmed. Really? They had one ER nearly shut down under the strain in the last years and was only able to keep their ERs staffed by piling money in to the point where the doctors there are paid higher than specialists.

Meanwhile, violent crimes keeping feeding the numbers at ERs and new citizens to the city can't find a non-ER doctors when they need them.

The NDP has been in power for ten years and have not solved these problems yet. Greg Selinger has made some big promises in the last months. However, his government have shown worse numbers in crime and in the ability of people to find a doctor.

It is a little hard to believe they have found solutions to those problems now.

The Christmas Tree Bomber and sacred warriors

Mohamed Osman Mohamud, whom I will call the Christmas Tree Bomber, has just done more to hurt Somali refugees, asylees and naturalized Americans than any other Somali ever has, if in fact he is guilty of the crime with which he's charged. The 19-year-old Oregon State University student was arrested for allegedly attempting to blow up a van full of explosives at the tree lighting ceremony in Pioneer Square, the living room of my town, Portland, Oregon.

Assume with me for a minute that these charges are true--after all, Somalis charged with explosives by the FBI in Portland have a poor track record of adhering to the truth. Sheik Mohamed Abdirahman Kariye was imprisoned under completely bogus charges in 2002 in Portland. He was the imam of the Islamic Center and was clearly targeted first and an effort to establish terrorist connections came second. He was arrested in a grand media event at the Portland airport with four of his children and headlines that the security dogs had identified explosives in his luggage. That was completely false. In the end, Kariye was convicted on a plea bargain of committing some violation of Social Security laws regarding his card, completely unrelated to terrorism, to Islam, to his naturalized citizen status or anything to do with the FBI's spectacularly failed fishing expedition. So the default setting when the FBI charges an Oregonian Somali with terrorism is heavy skepticism. Or at least that should be the response. But let's entertain the possibility that this young Somali American has intended to really slaughter innocent civilians at a nonmilitary target in a town with a relatively low military presence and one that has voted for peace again and again--we elect some of the most peace-oriented people to represent us. If this young guy really planned and attempted to kill us, what does he want?

If he did this, did this young man think through the effects this will have upon other Somalis? Does he think life will be better for Somali children in the US now? Did he contemplate how his act of truly lowlife bloodthirstiness will affect the attitudes of Portlanders, of Oregonians, and of US citizens in general? Does he feel that future generations of Somalis will gain from this? Does he believe that Islam will be a vindicated and respected religion because it was used to justify slaughtering people from a fairly secular city who just got together to watch a Christmas tree being lighted? Was he thinking that killing children--and the FBI claims he specifically said he was aware that he would kill many children and was eager to do this act--was he believing that this would be some act of a good Muslim, a defensive act to help rebuff American attacks on Muslims in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq? Did he suppose he would honor Allah or his faith? Is his thinking like other Somalis, many of whom were set into motion toward jihad when Clinton sent in troops with the UN in 1993? Was he affected by the mass death of Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan by US bombs (civilian victims of US bombs in each of those countries outnumbered the civilians murdered on 9.11.01 in the US)?

What does he see in our culture that causes him to hate so mercilessly, if in fact he has done this? Could it be the ubiquitous fawning in our culture over the troops who are in Afghanistan, Iraq or other places, troops who are killing civilians in several Muslim countries even as I write this? Gauzy images of uniformed US military are all over the media, in the theaters, on many television commericials, on the lips of the president and many other officials (well, the lips of the president are a bit under attack themselves at this moment, but you get my drift). We don't merely valorize the US troops, we sacralize them and their activities by the images of square-jawed, ramrod-straight, devoted-to-duty warriors against a rippling American flag backdrop. Someone who was born Muslim in a poor country can be forgiven, I think, for being hurt at the idea that these US troops, with the largest military budget the world has ever seen, with the most devastating technology employed to kill in their hands--or flying overhead as armed drone aircraft and then shot by gunners thousands of miles away--that these troops are viewed as our saviors. These troops who are charged every now and then with raping young Muslim girls, killing old Muslim men, and mostly getting off, these troops are all lumped together as untouchable sacred defenders. Pictured are two UN peacekeepers on camera, swinging a Somali girl over a fire. How can this image be so viral in the Muslim world and so unknown to the average US citizen?

Now put a young Somali into two maytags of influence.

One, outraged Muslims who point to the dead children of dead Taliban, murdered by a missile from far above, guilty of being a child of a person who believes he is fighting invaders from yet another empire. The US has now been in Afghanistan longer than the Soviets were. We are occupying a Muslim country long after deposing the leadership who offended us by harboring bin Laden. We are now creating a culture of resistance in Afghanistan as the memory of sheltering bin Laden gives way to the more recent memory of US troops coming in hot and heavy to villages. This Somali man might well be reinforced constantly by this influence toward jihad.

Two, the uncritical and sacralizing relationship between the US military and our civilian culture. When the anti-Islamic media machine goes into gear (as it is right now in the aftermath of this event), they will be claiming that there are few good Muslims because those who claim to be moderate don't condemn the jihadis. That is false--I've read literally hundreds of such condemnations--but to the average American it seems true. They consume Fox News and they are told this lie incessantly, they then fail to check other sources and that lie stands uncorrected by reality. Put that shoe on the other foot. Where are the moderate members of the US military, condemning drone attacks that kill children, condemning the killing of civilians in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and soon in Yeman and Somalia? Mohamed Osman Mohamud must surely wonder how much the lives of Muslims are worth when so many civilians can get killed by US troops and there is no mass outrage trying to end the occupations.

Does this justify the alleged crimes of Mohamed Osman Mohamud? Not to me, not to more than 99.9 percent of Americans, I'll wager. But do the crimes of bin Laden justify killing children--"collateral damage"--in Muslim countries? I'll also wager that many reasonable Muslims wonder when US citizens, US civilians, are going to condemn and stop paying for and voting for such violence. Von Clausewitz called it total war, in which civilians are seen as a part of the warmaking effort of the enemy and are thus legitimately targeted. International law has repudiated that doctrine, but we see it creeping back on all sides.

Do I want Mohamed Osman Mohamud locked up? Yes. Possibly for life, depending on how he can be rehabilitated. But then I want George Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld locked up with the same conditions. They actually achieved their mass murder. Mohamed Osman Mohamud only thought he was going to, if in fact he did what the FBI accuses him of doing.

It is time to stop war and to stop worshipping warriors of all stripes, colors, religions, identities, ideologies and national origins. Mohamed Osman Mohamud might have thought he was acting to revenge his ancestors but what he was doing, if he did it, was to hurt Somali and Muslim children, just as our US troops are not making us more secure by continuing these wars, which instead are going to come home more and more the longer we allow it to continue, as we see right now, today. Liberating and securitizing our societies will either be done with nonviolence and in common or it will fail and fail and fail.

Speed Trap on Corydon Avenue

The speed trap that exists between Tuxedo Avenue and Kelvin Blvd was maintained at the November 16, community committee meeting.

The three councillors from the committee dismissed a report from the civil service that stated that raising the limit from from 50 km/h to 60 km/h would not have severe implications for safety. The 50 km/h would be maintained from Tuxedo Avenue to Cambridge Street since there are numerous businesses and schools located in that stretch.

However, there was a recommendation that Tuxedo to Kelvin Blvd be raised to 60 km/h at a cost of $400. It was that recommendation that was dismissed with no explanation.



So next time you receive a speeding ticket at Park Blvd where the police set up nearly every day to catch people where the civil service says there is no danger, be sure to thank your councillors:



The Winnipeg Police have a trap almost every day on the right side by the park.

And those councillors are:

Councillor Fielding
Councillor Havixbeck
Councillor Nordman

You might ask them why they felt that this speed trap continues to exist when the civil service sees no need for it.

Delhi is unsafe for women: Gul Panag

It is a very important comment to be passed on for any place. Delhi remains unsafe for women, is what the actress and fitness freak Gul Panag feels. She was in Delhi to attend the Airtel Delhi Half Marathon 2010 some days back. But this year’s Half Marathon will be in the memory of Gul Panag for the wrong reasons and she would make concrete efforts to forget them as soon as possible. During her

Yana Gupta’s wardrobe malfunction to get endorsements?

We may have heard cases of wardrobe malfunctions from Paris Hilton to a lesser known model walking the ramp. But, Yana Gupta went a step further and found out a new way to avoid such embarrassing happenings. What was her way out? Relinquish inner wears to stop yourself being felt stupid after a wardrobe malfunction.The news that Yana Gupta was not wearing any inner wear during an event held by an

Darth Vader Recording

Conservatives Don't Debate in Byelections

There was another debate in Winnipeg North tonight and all candidates showed up except Julie Javier from the Conservatives.

Kevin Lamoureux from the Liberals, Kevin Chief from the NDP and the Greens and the rest of the candidates were present but no Javier.

I can find no evidence that any debate has happened in Dauphin-Swan River and Marquette at all. It seems Conservatives candidate Robert Sopock believes he is coasting to a win and I can't find any attempt to organize anything akin to a debate.

Likewise, in Ontario's federal riding of Vaughan, the Conservative candidate Julian Fantino refuses media interviews and debates.

I can't be the only one that finds this disturbing. And yet the Tories are expected to win Dauphin-Swan River-Marquette and are considered front runner in Vaughan.

Is a Tory refusal to debate nationally the next step? Is this the new strategy? Are federal candidates being advised by head office to refuse debates?

On the local city front there is a bit of a kerfuffle about Kevin Chief and a possible endorsement from Lloyd Axworthy. Apparently, it isn't an endorsement.

At one point in his life, NDP candidate Kevin Chief donated money to Liberals in Winnipeg Center.



The NDP response has been that he was supporting his friend and colleague at the University of Winnipeg Dan Hurley in paying off his debt from the election as Liberal candidate. Since the contribution came after the election, I have no reason to doubt him at his word. Perhaps Hurley or the Liberal party can clear up as to who or what the donation was made to. At the moment, it just looks like it was out to the local Liberal association.

One thing is clear: Lloyd Axworthy has indicated as president of the university he wasn't going to endorse candidates since he is expected to work with various levels of government for the betterment of the school. He may still be a card carrying Liberal but expectations that he is going to endorse people should be dismissed immediately.

'Housefull 2' to roll shortly

'Housefull' might have been moderately houseful. But what we hear the latest is that, they are coming up with a sequel to the film. The sequel will be titled 'Housefull 2'. The leading stars of 'Housefull' were Deepika Padukone, Lara Dutta, Akshay Kumar, Ritiesh Deshmukh and Jiah Khan along with Arjun Rampal.Now the two Sajids, producer Sajid Nadiawala and Sajid Khan are coming back to tickle

Criminal Charges for Chief Two Years After Taman Inquiry

It is two years later and there are now charges against East St. Paul Chief Harry Bakema.

The criminal charges are:

perjury
criminal breach of trust
obstruction of justice

All of the charges pertain to the death of Crystal Taman in 2005 in East St Paul by a police officer from the Winnipeg Police Service.

At end of the Taman Inquiry, I wrote this:

Bakema had such faulty memory that he couldn't even remember calls he made to a auto dealership at the scene. The lack of notes sure looks bad. The rules of the East Saint Paul Police clearly state that notes are needed at any crime scene.

The RCMP has concluded after lengthy investigation that Bakema acted criminally in the case.

Crystal Taman, killed on February 25, 2005 by Constable Derek Harvey-Zenk at the corner of Lagimodiere and the Perimeter Highway was spared any jail time save for dangerous driving. The sentence was under two years to be served at home.

Imagine how things would have been different had a good investigation been done.

Black and White Police Car Models - After Crown Victoria

Dodge Charger police car



Chevy Caprice police car



Ford Taurus police car.



The old blue and white police colours on the Crown Victoria car in Winnipeg



The new black and white police colours on the Crown Victoria car in Winnipeg

The Winnipeg Police Service will have to look for a new police car model for next year. The favoured car for Winnipeg's finest is being retired in 2011. The Ford Crown Victoria is the choice of police car for nearly 70% of the fleets out there in North America now.

The rear-wheel vehicles have been able to stand an incredible amount of abuse and are tank-like in size and demeanour. Unfortunately for Ford, the vehicles are not big sellers in the non-fleet world. Consumer shy away from the large vehicles with unlovable lines. Once tax drivers started switching their vehicles around North America to cars like Toyota Prius, the writing was on the wall for the old Vics.

There are three possible sedan choices for the Winnipeg Police to switch to. Ford is trying to convince departments like Winnipeg to consider the front and all-wheel drive Ford Taurus plus a Ford sport utility vehicle available in 2012.



It is tough to convince the police purchasing departments though. The old Vics were rear-wheel drive and the officers would have to be re-trained at considerable expense. The rear wheel drive cars are thought to handle better for police use. Also, the old Vics were body on frame construction which meant that damaged panels were easier and cheaper to replace.

The Ford Taurus will have a powerful V6 but will be fuel efficient.

For rear wheel drive hungry police leaning to even more powerful V8 engines, GM has the Chevy Caprice. It has rather graceless lines but more interior space which is important when you consider all the equipment that has to be carried inside including weapons, on-board computer, communication system and rear passenger shields.

It is reported that the seats are better for police equipment and weapons belts as well.

The old Chevy Caprice cars were retired back in 1996 and were a favourite for police departments. This new version is built in Australia under the Holden brand.

My guess is that the Winnipeg Police would jump on this car in a hurry. However, the problem is that GM has not yet decided if the car will be available in Canada. It seems a good bet that it might but so far nothing has been reported.

The last possible car for the Winnipeg police to choose is Chrysler's offering which is the Dodge Charger. In the last couple of years, Chrysler has been placing this car with any TV series willing to take them. Watch an NCIS episode and they are always present. See if you can count all the series you might have seen them in.

It is that important for Chrysler to get their name out. In the last 20 years most police departments have usually only had Fords or Chevys in their fleets.

The Dodge Chargers have V6 or V8 rear wheel drive vehicles. They have more graceful, muscular lines as well.

A year awaits before we know which cars are truly available and what the criteria Winnipeg Police will use to base their purchase on.

It remains to be seen whether the police will even brief the public on all this. The decision to change the colours of the police cars was an internal one. We were never given a reason why or who chose the colours and no public input was asked for.

Our city council seems uninterested in any of this or about asking about what the police are doing in general according to what has transpired at one community meeting in the last month.

It is highly probable that one day we'll just see the new cars on the road and we'll never know why it was those cars were chosen over other cars.

Nonviolent Shimmer

Back in the day, Saturday Night Live did a darn funny skit on Shimmer, the floor wax and dessert topping. Gilda Radner and Dan Ackroyd fought over a spray can that Dan claimed was a dessert topping and Gilda swore was a floor wax. Chevy Chase was the spokesman who then appeared to authoritatively explain that Shimmer is a dessert topping and a floor wax.

Some say nonviolence is strategic. Some say it is philosophical. I say it's Shimmer, a strategic philosophy of action. That is how Gandhi seemed to regard it; he certainly was strategic, devising actions that put the British into impossible dilemmas again and again. He was clearly philosophical about nonviolence, calling it the first article of his faith and the last article of his creed.

Yes, there are many nonviolent actions that are undertaken with no hope for the goal that would be the fantasy of the actor. Dorothy Day did not realistically believe she would cause the United States to disarm its nuclear weapons when she and other sat on park benches to protest the fatuous civil defense drills of the 1950s. Indeed, Dorothy often spoke and wrote about the inadvisability of being wed to the outcome of our actions, but rather to act on faith and with belief in taking a nonviolent stand.

That is strategic.

Dorothy sat down in Eisenhower's 1950s America with a couple of other women and within a few years had inspired and helped lead a movement of thousands (she is on the far right on a bench in this 20 July 1956 photo) , changing the views of Americans on the efficacy of civil defense and helping to galvanize the antinuclear movement. Just because she acted on pure faith with utter nonviolence didn't mean she didn't give a try to organizing around the question. And her organizing paid off, discrediting the notion of going underground to ride out a nuclear war that would instantly incinerate everyone in those shelters in cities and leave a shattered poisoned world for those in rural areas who had escaped immediate death from such a disaster. Her original three women on a park bench was powerfully strategic.

This is not a claim that she knew her strategy at that moment. But offering nonviolent resistance in faith, or with a nonviolent philosophy of abjuring harm insofar as we can, is a powerful act, often gaining an inverse power to the vulnerability of the actionist, thus turning the notions of strategy and philosophy around. Rosa Parks had some strategy in mind on that December 1st day when she sat down on the Montgomery bus 55 years ago in 1955, but mostly she just did what she regarded as the just, nonviolent thing. She enabled and inspired others to make strategic use of her act and they were able to do so much more effectively--much more strategically--because she was a hardworking, unoffending, prim and proper woman. Had she been loud and yelling about her rights, cursing the police, the movement would have lacked a strategic advantage of the public sympathy. She was bold but not offensive. That was her faith, her philosophy, and her approach to life. It was strategic. She set in motion the ten years of advancement for black people in the southern US.

Strategic nonviolence is also an act of faith. The more that the oppressor is convinced that you will not in fact crush him when he relinquishes power, the more likely it is that he will do so, and your credible claims of nonviolence, demonstrable by your repeated actions, give him that assurance. Your own commitment to nonviolence becomes a faith, a philosophy, as you realize the strategic advantage of not holding a secret card of violence in case all else fails. Certainly the bargaining that the apartheid government finally did with Nelson Mandela was first delayed because of that fear--Mandela refused to renounce violence--but then was made possible after a younger generation of South Africans committed to nonviolence gathered recruits and external sympathy and support, finally setting in motion the four years of secret negotiations with Mandela and others that culminated in DeKlerk's stunning announcement that Mandela was to be released and the African National Congress was no longer banned. It is very likely that this could have happened much earlier with nothing but nonviolence, but when it finally did it was related to the increasing faith by the white minority that there would be life after apartheid because the committed nonviolent leadership, including Desmond Tutu, had convinced them of that.

This dialectical relationship between strategic nonviolence and faith-based nonviolence is probably not perfect and is certainly not well understood in many cases. It needs much better historical exegesis, but it is for the most part a false dichotomy that can be much more reconciled than not.

Nonviolence shimmers. It is tasteful and puts a good glow on your movement and your arguments.

Menards Coming To Winnipeg - Sort Of

I noticed a Menards ad insert in the paper a little while back. I don't think it is the first time either. Manitobans are frequent shoppers at this large scale hardware store in Grand Forks and Fargo. In fact, I would hazard a guess that the store may have been the first experience of a big box format that many a person from the province had.

On CBC tonight, the news indicated that the our friends to the south are expecting a huge onslaught with the U.S. Thanksgiving Black Friday sales. One of the places expected to do well is Menards.

Menards has announced that they will be opening a service center in Winnipeg to received shipped goods from their Grand Forks operation. The cost of purchasing items is about a 40% discount on what Canadians usually pay. It is not surprising that 30% of the customers at Menards in Grand Forks are from Manitoba.

I would do one better. Perhaps it is time for the an invitation from the bigwigs in government and business for Menards to open a full store and distribution center in the city. Perhaps it is time to join their fellow compatriots from Cabela's in setting up shop.

Have A Look At The New Age Sonam Kapoor

Nurse Practioner - Flawed NDP Policy

You would have thought that the NDP government in Manitoba would have figured this out. If you are going to announce a big health policy that entails using nurse practitioners to help ease the congestion in ERs and for primary medical care.

Unfortunately, we are now hearing that nurse practitioners were not even consulted when the government of Greg Selinger announced his plans for five clinics that would be staffed by these skilled professionals.

The reactions has been shock among nurse practitioners and an opinion that the policy is not only flawed but could be a failure.

There has been a lot of anger at nurse practitioners for speaking out. Looking at the comments, which I usually try to avoid since they are often made by provocateurs, said the nurses should shut up.

The fact of the matter is that the government will need the nurses on board if they want this policy to succeed. They will have to explain how this policy will work and how it will improve things.

At the moment, we have seen little in the way of a policy paper explaining how this idea was derived and based on what facts.

I am still of the opinion that one of the solutions for the bottlenecks in ERs could be private clinics of doctors running 24 hours a day. However, I would not announce such a policy in government if I hadn't researched it and consulted the various people and organizations that would be needed to run it.

Policy on the fly is no policy at all.

The government has been making bold statements on a variety of issues. If this has been off the cuff stuff because an election is looming, then we could be seeing a whole lot of failure ahead.

Dear Darwin: Nonviolence is the fittest

"The U.S. military’s presence increasingly takes form not in permanent installations, but through bilateral agreements for military operations and maneuvers" (Lindsay-Poland, 2009, p. 80).

What is the extent of the US military around the world and how does that impact us daily?

The US military is everywhere, all up in everyone's business, spending taxpayer money on embedding anthropologists into combat units in Afghanistan, keeping satellites in orbit to track all important security events everywhere, conducting joint operations with the Ecuadoran army to stop drug trafficking at the Colombia-Ecuador border, swarming the German countryside from Ramstein Air Force Base in Germany (53,000 US troops), and on and on and on.

As a result, US security is severely eroded. We play like we are in control, we pump up fear of everyone everywhere, we spend money on the military as though there is no limit, and we can't even figure out that North Korea has thousands of nuclear weapons-grade uranium enrichment centrifuges until Pyongyang invites three American academics in to tour them. We send thousands of military vehicles to other governments along with extensive maintenance operations and we can't slow down drug violence coming into our nation as you read this. We pour $billions into Pakistan and 20 percent of their people report any favorable feelings about us. Pentagon spending has eviscerated our economy more than has any other economic activity and that is a direct security issue to each American. All this activity enriches an elite and impoverishes all the rest of us.

Fixing this takes radical measures, not "defense reform" that diddles at the margins. For a good beginning, listen to many former military officials who are calling this month for a fundamental reorientation of US military missions. Stop basing, training, supplying and creating the impression of control globally. Those same officials note that no one understands or keeps track of how the US spends Pentagon dollars, so we cannot even control our own budget lines, let alone everyone's business everywhere.

The better approach would be to draw in our horns and invest in nonviolence from the local to the transnational. Teach civil society how to become ungovernable in the event of foreign takeover. Work on making our domestic police disarmed. Nonviolence is an ethic and a commitment; you cannot replace a committed war system with nothing in a world overrun with humans, one that was 2.5 billion people the year I was born--it took humanity five million years of evolution and population growth to reach 2.5 billion and it's more than doubled in 60 years. If we don't learn nonviolence we simply have no hope. The natural resources needed to continue violence are radically unsustainable and their use pollutes what is left.

Nonviolence is evolution.

References
Lindsay-Poland, John (2009). U.S. bases in Latin America and the Caribbean. In Lutz, Catherine (Ed.). The bases of empire: The global struggle against U.S. military posts. New York: New York University Press.