From the National Post:
A Canadian counter-terrorism investigation that led to the arrests of 17 people accused of plotting bombings in Ontario is linked to probes in a half-dozen countries, the National Post has learned.
Well before police tactical teams began their sweeps around Toronto on Friday, at least 18 related arrests had already taken place in Canada, the United States, Britain, Bosnia, Denmark, Sweden, and Bangladesh.
The six-month RCMP investigation, called Project OSage, is one of several overlapping probes that include an FBI case called Operation Northern Exposure and a British probe known as Operation Mazhar.
At a news conference Saturday, the RCMP announced terrorism-related charges had been laid against a dozen Toronto-area men and five teens under the age of 18.
The group “took steps to acquire components necessary to create explosive devices†including three tonnes of ammonium nitrate fertilizer, commonly used in terrorist bombs, police said.By comparison, the truck bomb used to blow up the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995, killing 168 people, contained a single tonne of ammonium nitrate.
“It was their intent to use it for a terrorist attack,†RCMP assistant commissioner Mike McDonell said.
“This group posed a real threat. It had the capacity and intent to carry out these attacks.â€Â
Police declined to identify the intended targets because the investigation is ongoing but said they were all in southern Ontario and did not include the Toronto transit system, as some media outlets had reported.
[My emphasis]
Somehow, I have a feeling someone’s civil rights were violated during all this “investigating” and “probing.” And if that’s the case, well, then the terrorists will have already won.
Although to be sure, lots of buildings and public transit venues in a number of countries remain intact as a result—and thousands of innocent civilians were probably spared. Still, small consolation indeed if it turns out some “spy agency” somewhere plucked a conversation out of (cyber)space and used it to zero in on these guys. Because make no mistake: if they can do it to them, they can do it to you. If you are planning on launching an attack on a major urban center, that is.
Keep an eye on Glenn Greenwald’s site for updates and analysis on how, during these overlapping probes, the Constitution was shredded.
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related: Dan Riehl has more on the ammonium nitrate; see also, Counterterrorism Blog; Ace, PJM, and Captain’s Quarters (h/t Terry Hastings).
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update: Well, let’s not be too hasty here. I mean, maybe they’re all at church. Or a Renaissance festival or something.
Me, I’ve never been, but I’ve heard that if you hang around long enough, some freckled courtesan drunk on mead and Berry wine coolers will invariably take of her top to the delight of the assembled courtiers.
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update 2: Top-Secret (!?) CSIS document on Sunni Extremism available at the National Post. Via LGF.
Gist? Islamic extremists are out to get us. But please, keep that hush hush.
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update 3: Were the attacks imminent? Because if so, that opens up this case to the potential for massive violations of civil liberties. A dirty little secret of law enforcement: sometimes rushing to stop enormous bomb attacks on your major urban centers can lead to sloppy and incomplete paperwork.
And I, for one, demand an investigation. Otherwise, the terrorists will have already… you know.
(h/t Allah)
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update 4: More details emerge [see updates]
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update 5: Somehow I missed Darleen’s post earlier, which is excellent in its own right. However for purposes of this update, I want to concentrate on a comment from which we learn the following (itself in response to an earlier commenter’s veiled suggesting that Canada was able to foil this plot without the equivalent of our NSA “domestic spying” program). Writes Philip Cassini:
Canada’s version of the NSA is called the Communication Security Establishment, and it has far more powers of intercept and communication than the NSA does. It is also a second-tier member of Echelon. CSE is probably the agency that monitored these Islamists, with INSET/CSIS doing the bagging.
If you think Canada has more rights than the USA, you’re dreaming. With our security certificates we can detain anyone, anywhere, indefinitely. Our constitution is so hedged with “reasonable this” and “probable that” that the government can pretty much do what it wants, and there is no tripartite separation of powers to stop them. The only thing giving refuge to Islamists is the very strong prevailing ideology of multiculturalism and political-correctness, wherein Muslims are always considered victims…even when they’re plotting to blow up innocents.
I suspect that last bit is editorializing—not Canadian policy—but hey, Phil is entitled to his opinions, particularly when he is so kind as to give us the lay of the land.
See also, smalldead animals here and here.
Can you imagine what it will be like if it turns out that the Mounties looked at… <shudder> their LIBRARY RECORDS????
Big Brother here. Take your head out of the sand you sheeple!
That shredded constitution will come in handy this winter.
Oh, wait…I’m moving to Kentucky this summer…never mind.
Durand
TW:elements, I shit you not.
3 tons of AN?
Kinda chilling, since I have seen some reports that a couple of people arrested in connection with this raid are Atlantans.
I have seen commenters on at least one Canadian blog say that this shows that police work is the best approach to terrorism, not war.
Yeah, Sanity…
We can’t shoot ‘em, we gotta arrest ‘em.
Still…that shredded constitution will keep me and my wife warm come this winter.
Or, if global cooling comes back into vogue, warm this summer.
Dude, I don’t care if they’re Hercules and Xena. I am outraged at the violation of the privacy of these oppressed persons of color! I demand that an equal number of White Male Europeans also be arrested to ensure that justice is done! And, since this is Canada, I further demand an appropriate percentage of them be Francophones…
And dammit, that Chimpy McBushitler is soooooo evil he went all the way to a country that isn’t even covered by the Constitution just to shred the Constitution!
I wonder if this will cause a significant number of Canadians to rethink their rather aloof aproach to the WOT.
Of course, long term strategic objectives, like creating free states in the ME are unfathomable to the anti war crowd. After all, it takes their other argument away that “we supported these thug dictators which created this atmosphere…what do you expect?!”
Canadians have no interest in democratic, free states in the Middle East … for they have no interest in such in Canada either.
Does this mean the return of our little narcisstic and compulsive friend, Mona? Say it isn’t so!
I do not believe this story at all. Muslims are not terrorists – in fact they have a superior morality, thanks to Mohammad (PBUH).
Imagine reading about this and finding out you live 4 blocks from the target location.
The main target was the CSIS Toronto HQ which is located across the street from the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corp) main broadcast center on Front Street (next to the SkyDome stadium).
Well, I wonder what sort of cognitive disonance is going through the minds of CBC reporters. Usually they are the first to express solidarity with terrorists. But, in this case, a bomb that size would have wiped them and all their friends.
To give you an idea of the size. the Ok bommbing was 660 kgs. This was 3000 kgs. 5 times!! It would have wiped out the one to the busiest areas in toronto.
Too bad you brought up the closeness of the CBC.
Until then I thought preventing the bombing was a fantastic success.
Now you’ve spoiled it.
OMG…not that! They just elected a neocon poodle of ChimpyMcHalliburtonSatanHead just a couple of months ago! I’m just saying…connect the dots!
None whatsoever, as cognitive dissonance presumes the possession of an intellect in the first place. As the recent influx of trolls has amply demonstrated, these twits get by on sheer emotivism.
Apropos of nothing at all, I had an opportunity to avail myself of several eighty-pound bags of 100% ammonium nitrate when we liquidated my father-in-law’s garden shop several years ago.
I blew it, of course. I was thinking: in rural Alabama, you can do practically anything. Who’s going to fuss over the detonation of a few hundred pounds of AMFO? But saner heads (my wife’s in particular) prevailed.
So it got plowed into someone’s garden. Dagnab it.
The last sentence of the National Post Article:
Is this the result of the domestic wiretapping we’ve been hearing so much about?
I’ve been to Canada. A more militantly multi-culti, apologetic, sensitive, suicidally tolerant madhouse does not exist on the planet.
Yet the Religion of Explosives finds it worthy of demolition.
So much for the “root causes” rationale…
Hey! No blaggarding the RenFaire, wastrel!
Besides, one bota of Zima will usually do it…
Dammit! That should have been “Avaunt,” not “Hey!”
That’s really gonna lower my Faire cred.
Shit! That should have been “Zounds!” not “Dammit!”…
This was all about Haditha, don’t you see that? The fact that it all started 6 months ago just means the bombers were ahead of the news cycle.
If you are looking for civil rights violations, I will point out that Osage is the name of an Indian tribe. An obvious right-wing attempt to make all brown people into the enemy.
You should take the kid before he’s old enough to figure out what the harlots, slatterns and fruit-women are going on about. He’d probably like it.
You really don’t need that much to get probable cause to search someone’s place. Probably much less in a place like Canada.
I stop and think about what this means. My day starts with a cup of coffee, shuffle around the house for the uniform (is it clean?) and the necessary search and destroy mission for the “cup” (because you know, I’d like grandchildren) …off to the little league game, drop off a friend, pick up a friend and then a quick trip to TarKAAABOOOOOMMMM!!!!
Stop and think…for one second…if you had heard on the news, police had picked up some dude in Oklahoma with a truck load of fertilizer…so many years ago…you and I AND THE LEFT would have THOUGHT NOTHING OF IT!
Maybee…you know it’s strange actually…I started looking for it, it was on Expose the Left….but General Wesley Clark was making eerily prescience comments about this very thing – Haditha-like accusatory stuff…shades of 16 words and the LIES—remember …it is an election year.
Man… I had spaghetti for dinner… with Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese… that was SHREDDED.
Synchronicity: the harder you look, the more you find it.
TopSecretK9  And? John Keegan wrote about the same thing in The Face of Battle… about WWI, WWII, Canadians, Australians, Irish, Royal Navy sailors…
About Haditha, I’ll wait for the results of the investigation. Bottom line, I have more faith at the moment in the USMC’s doing an honest job of it at the moment than I do the London Times, or, for that matter, Congress with Holloway and Jefferson…
the CSIS doc is SECRET, not TS, Jeff.
if it is real.
and if so it fills me with fear.
Code word Sabre? and they actually use Richard Reid as an example of a high-value recruit that could pass for…..what? normal? you’ve seen pics of the guy, the only place he could “pass” would be the muslim ward in Bellevue.
it is just amazing that the canucks caught the cell. the only encouraging thing about this is that as silly as the CSIS sounds means the terrorists must be bloody awful at their job too.
– Hmmmm…. Maybe the Chanuks will be in the market for an Office of Homeland Defense now, and we can finally pawn ours off on them….. Just change all the colors of the threat alert level to various shades of white for “beg for mercy”, “surrender”, and so forth… simple
TW: color ….. yes Turing twit…Once again you’re so helpful….
Kids love sluts.
â€â€Bertrand Barère de Vieuzac, speech before the French national assembly, January 16, 1793; usually credited to Thomas Jefferson
– And don’t forget the big funky people-puppets….and bawdy theater-in-the-round plays….Oh and pierogie’s
You know, I’m looking for something that ties the story together. Something I’m not getting from any of the media reports. Hmmmmm…. I wonder if social organizations, like the Boy Scouts or something else the ACLU has declared on is behind this.
Hey Jeff, loved your deconstruction of Higgleytown Heroes. Although you totally missed the role of the squirrel. But you missing the role of “the other” in Bob the Builder. Machines vs Humans and all that. I’m sure you’ll catch up to that as your son gets older.
Far be it for me to inject a degree of sensibility into this… Aw screw it.
Seeing as how the vast majority of those involved were not Americans and, as such, have no Constitutional rights, how exactly would the Constitution have been shredded? Seriously, if you’re going to snark the advance criticism, at least limit it to the one or two potential terrorist bastages that it would actually apply to.
Oh, and Jeff? If you’re looking for the little guy, you might want to head up to Capital Hill. Last I saw him, he was holding a “Will Bomb For Beer” sign in front of the Colorado Education Association building, with a bunch of Denver’s finest gathering around with itchy trigger fingers.
Or it could’ve been a different ‘dillo altogether. Can’t tell them apart easily, you know. But it couldn’t hurt.
Now you’re catching on…
I mean, absurd, isn’t it?
– Hey all you wingnut warmongering BushCo neoBots. The Whole world is “America”, and all of its people are covered under the Constitution….because we care!
– Besides didn’t we teach them all to sing and buy them a coke. Now get with the program. (Don’t worry. We’ll discard the frumpy old document as soon as we get back in power Konrads.)
TW: A horse is just a horse of course, except for Mr. Ed….
Canada, a country with an independent privacy commission, catches terrorists. Shocking, as I was told I had to give all that shit up.
Wesley Clark,…Feb. 1, 2006</b?
<b>GREAT
So????? When PRESSED he had nothing, or rather he was unwilling to prove his slander…excuse me if I think these guys might A- Be looking and/or trolling for a few Jesse’s or B– Coordinating false shit (cuz you know…they’ve never done that!)
I am willing to wait, and so since Feb. 1 when Wes Clark threw out a bunch of shit and well? Where was his grace period? Oh that’s right—no one cared.
Watch the Video, it is worse than I can articulate…it’s HERE
Well actus, maybe you forgot to read the fine print….
In response to the typical moonbat troll’s snarky question over at Daleens place, concerning whether Canada even has an equivalent to our NSA, a Canadian citizen posted:
So much for shredding the Canadian Constitution….NEXT!
Hmmmm…. missed the updates… well the thought was in the right place…. so shot me …. *snort*
For the benefit of Actus, the aforesaid Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms/ La Charte Canadienne des droits et libertés.
Not much wiggle room for actus this time. Changing the subject may his only recourse…
*may be*
Wow. Who knew Atrios, Kos, MyDD, etc. were all Seventh Day Adventists?
Shhhh…. you’re all wrong.
All behold the Moral Superpower!
DU
!
Somehow, I have a feeling someone’s civil rights were violated during all this “investigating†and “probing.†And if that’s the case, well, then the terrorists will have already won.
Oh, please don’t let your Klonopin-addled attention wander across the 49th parallel Pasty. You have a hard enough time understanding what’s going on in the next room.
Glad to see you read the Nasty Post…catch the blood libel against Iran the other day? And Small Dead Minds is always a treat. Kate hates everybody… except, of course, her dogs and her Malkin-approved Vibrolator5000.
Why do these trolls ^^^ never have a damned thing to say?
Keep an eye on Glenn Greenwald’s site for updates and analysis on how, during these overlapping probes, the Constitution was shredded.
Not to harsh your buzz, but the Constitution wasn’t shredded no matter how the RCMP caught these guys (and I’m very glad they did, too). The Constitution has no jurisdiction in Canada.
Jeff, the reason they aren’t posting about it is simple: all of us wingnuts are trembling, paste-eating bed wetters who shiver like a chihuahua at the mere thought of the overblown threat of a “terrorist attack”.
They, on the other hand, are so confident that the terrorist threat is either exaggerated or non-existent they see the Toronto incident as an anomoly, a yawn-inducing episode that warrants less than a “feh” and a shrug.
THEY ARE NOT AFRAID, JEFF, AND THEY REFUSE TO LET US FEAR-MONGERING BUSH KKKULTISTS RAIN ON THEIR PARADE!
I guess the snarkers going on about how they were in Canada so the Constitution doesn’t apply have missed the connection to Atlanta, and that taps of international communications helped break the case.
You know, the very NSA program we were all assured was horribly illegal. But now it’s apparently OK because it involved Canadians on one end, or something.
Another thing: Since they think the terrorist threat is so overrated, why are they complaining about NYC’s alleged cut in HSD funding?
Jeff: I hadn’t realized, until just now, that you’d never formally banned Ken Livingstone from commenting on this site.
Mustang Bobby sez:
That’s a fact, Bobby. You don’t think the ‘bats are going to let a fact get in the way of a good FEAR BUSH story, do you?
tw: data
Heh.
I think this comment, up-thread, deserves more attention:
Very true, but far from encouraging the Canadians to take the GWoT more seriously, it may well prompt them to go the Spanish route of capitulation.
This article in the Winnipeg Sun, after speculating that some or all of the recently-arrested may in fact be innocent, and that the arrests may have been a Bushitler PR operation, concludes:
Granted, the author, one Eric Margolis, has quite an impressive archive of anti-American columns (see here). In early October 2001, he claimed the US plans for military action in Afghanistan were motivated by a desire to build pipelines, and praised the Taliban for “restoring law and order”.
But still, there is undoubtedly a Quisling faction in Canada (reinforced by the millions of angry left refugees who fled AmeriKKKa after the 2004 election) who will blame this terror plot (like everything else) not on the murderous thugs who planned it, but on the United States.
That loud bang you just heard was the point of this thread zipping past mustang’s pointy head at the speed of sound.
Inquiry: If MB’s head was round, instead of pointed, would the sonic boom be louder?
Whoosh. That was the sound of air rushing through the heads of Pasty’s fans.
I’ve been to Canada. A more militantly multi-culti, apologetic, sensitive, suicidally tolerant madhouse does not exist on the planet.
Yet the Religion of Explosives finds it worthy of demolition.
So much for the “root causes†rationale…
Well, next time, get out the gay ghetto in Toronto and go up north and start lipping off to the some of apologetic, sensitive, suicidally tolerant locals you’ll find there.
Remember to pick up yer balls when you leave.
It’s just like English, only… you know… not.
Next time, try to remember: get a big person to type for you.
We can all agree that Due North‘s first season was hella good, right?
—
I already did there, Paul Bunyan, but I couldn’t find a real man in the two months I wasted in your little toenail of a country four years ago. Although all the donut stores and state beer conveyors and little tiny houses and red tape and all the general whining was kinda fun.
I got as far north out out of gay Toronto as Barrie but I never did hit Nunavut. Where all the people live. Call me naive.
Kent  Oh, come on, even old Red Ken ain’t that illiterate. Even if he doesn’t know who all the statues in Trafalgar Square used to be.
Who precisely are these explosive hounds anyway?
Anybody know what country they came from?
Hope their not home-grown;if so, we’ll have to fortify our northern borders as well….
Not really. If they follow anything like the european model, they have good protection from private sector sources but not from the government. Apparently Canadians like their government, but not their corporations.
Overall, we’ve heard a bit about how they were captured. What we haven’t heard is how properly. Just the fact that Phones were listened to doesn’t answer the question, of course. This site says they were monitoring websites and following suspicions. Which can be done properly, rather than indiscriminate suspicionless sweeps that the rest of us worry about.
Because not every terrorist threat is overrated. But the one that says that there are no monuments in NYC? Ya. you know that war on terror is from a liar.
Up There’s email address is a Canadian one. And I note he’s picked up both the Klonopin and Pasty tropes.
Christ. Not content to draw their security from the US, now they have to steal put downs, too.
And of course, rail on people like Kate McMillan, who has done more to help her country in the last couple years than Up There the anonymous internet troll—bane of the rightwing warmongers, champion of Truth!—has done in its entire sad, anonymous, impotent life.
I know you’re thinking about it, but you really don’t want to do it.
Trust me. Ignore actus.
– Its not “if” Goss…. As soon as we get through beating the inside the beltway Congress Dolts, both sides of the aisle, and BushCo into submission and get some control of the Mex border, Canukville is next…
I already did there, Paul Bunyan, but I couldn’t find a real man in the two months I wasted in your little toenail of a country four years ago. Although all the donut stores and state beer conveyors and little tiny houses and red tape and all the general whining was kinda fun.
Wow. This is really the best you can do, eh?
I got as far north out out of gay Toronto as Barrie but I never did hit Nunavut. Where all the people live. Call me naive.
All the way to Barrie, eh? Did you have an aboriginal guide with you? Anyway, you spelled “Nunavut” correctly. You must be the guy they call “The Perfesser” ‘round here.
I’m devastated and so very sorry Canada was such an abysmal disappointment to you. When we heard you were here, we all tried…we really did!
A tantôt mes petites noisettes américaines!
Must.not.respond.to.the.J-actass.
….neeeeedddd.more.coffee.
And when you show up here, we couldn’t care less. You know why that is, don’t you?
We don’t even notice you.
Oops…I missed this from Elmer’s poster boy himself:
Christ. Not content to draw their security from the US, now they have to steal put downs, too.
You betcha. Free-riders, baby, all the way! Besides, Pasty…there is just absolutely no one like you in the entire country. We don’t have the vocabulary, in either official language, to describe you properly.
And of course, rail on people like Kate McMillan, who has done more to help her country in the last couple years than Up There the anonymous internet trollâ€â€bane of the rightwing warmongers, champion of Truth!â€â€has done in its entire sad, anonymous, impotent life.
Now, now, don’t get all huffing..er..huffy…I’ve done just as much as Kate. More so, since everyone still likes me. She can’t even leave whatever flat, boring, square province she’s from anymore.
“A tantôt mes petites noisettes américaines!”
Et le Canada est un bouton sur notre tête d’épingle de gros orteil….
(And Canada is a pimple on our big toe pinhead)
Hey … Up There!
Up yours, baby! You lost. Live with it.
That’s good to hear, Up There. I too was abysmally disappointed that none of the quaint Canadian stereotypes bore out. Besides donuts.
Surely, I should have met your rugged self, eh, what with those bright stainless tongs of necessary American sociopolitical castration, you veritable contintent-savior, you? I mean, if you even suck at sucking teats, the least you can do is point out that mommy’s fat and stupid, eh?
Anyway, the rest of your politically-aware kin, such as they were, meandered between the insecure smugness befitting a second rate socialist culture and the simple fear born of a simultaneous continental dependance and the chronic want of a national identity of your own. Besides donuts.
The inevitable, confused, looking-over-shoulders snark was predictable, even in ‘01, before you started growing psychopaths.
They got wifi at Horton’s these days?
Evil White Canadian Bastards Dupe Innocent Muslims!
… which, according to Babelfish, translates into: “With sometimes my small American hazel nuts!”
Demonstrating, even more irrefutably than before, that this online afterbirth from a Juke/Kallikak shotgun wedding is staggeringly illiterate in two—count ‘em! TWO!—languages, rather than one.
This is all just so precious and adorable, really. Like watching an earnest young Helen Keller stolidly attempting to shoot skeet.
6Gun moves up the ladder in the world. From taking on domestic violence victims to canadians. Good show.
Actard! Your first personal attack? Not a lot of teeth, but at least you came out.
Good show!
(I prefer to call ‘em pointless socialists—you know me—but who am I to sully your day?)
Insert obligatory Dick Cheney joke here
Was that personal? I’m sorry. I don’t even know you.
Well actout, we just can’t get enough fodder for target practice, being the warmongering NeoCons that we are….Have to keep our shooting eye sharp for Liberal hunting season, Ahey!
Not a lot of teeth, but at least you came out.
You haven’t been paying attention.
I don’t even [want to] know you.
Awwww….. poor baby…. The Telephone pole is feeling neglected and ignored…. where ever could he have gotten that idea….
actout…. you really need to stay away from ragging… your snark sounds more like a whiney ass plea for Canadian donuts….
You know what they say about guys with big feet, Kent. Don’t go tuggin’ on Up There’s cape…they don’t call him the Great White Hoser for nothing.
“actout…. you really need to stay away from ragging… your snark sounds more like a whiney ass plea for Canadian donuts”
I’ve actually never had canadian doughnuts. Did have some Poutine though. If that’s not worth fighting the islamofascists for, I don’t know what is.
They wanted to blow up stuff in Canada?
…that’s the part that gives my brain a five-strand braid down to my waist. I guess they like the “soft targets.” Like Kids at the Renfair do.
Don’t know if anyone else heard this. I was listening to WBAL (Baltimore) during the 4pm news broadcast yesterday afternoon. They ran the national news feed first. Top story was the arrests. After giving the rundown, with absolutely no mention of the fact that the arrestees appeared to be militant Muslims, or giving any of their names so that we could deduce that for ourselves, they gave a sound bite from some expert. I’m paraphrasing here, but the gist of it was: “Well, there are militia groups in Canada, as well as the U.S. who strongly disagree with how our governments are running the country….”
Holy Shit. That was one of the most mendacious news reports I’ve ever heard. Militia??????? Oh, it was a bunch of white supremacists who were looking to bomb downtown Toronto. Thanks for that.
I called my wife and repeated what I’d heard, and she was stunned. She a bit more polyannaish than I am, but that even floored her.
I’ve looked around the web (and on cbsnews.com) for the audio, or even a transcript, but I can’t find anything. Anyone have any idea where I might be able to track this down? I think it really needs to be publicized.
Just as long as We (of the West) don’t infringe on their rights, of course.
jdm – I’m taking a wild guess here, but I would think that once your deadeded, civil rights is waaaaaay down your list of priorities…..
Its payback for the original reports of islamists hitting OKC. Then again, maybe WBAL doesn’t know that there are muslims in canada.
Of course. They’re our rights too.
Damn, two days in a row now with the sarcasm being misunderstood. I would’a thought a lawyer-ly-like only slightly exagerrated response to an actus lawyer-ly-like comment would’ve been understood.
Quick! I need a Simpsons quote…
TW: friends, as in with friends like these who is needing enemas.
EN RAISON DE L’HYPOCRISIE!!!!!!!
Not so hard to see your raise.
Of course, we could stop handing out “our rights” to people who want to kill us. I mean, that might be a start, yes?
TW: wall – how does he do this?
I’m guessing they’re not nearly so circumspect in their coverage of Haditha.
actuse exemplifies Mark Twain’s intending-to-be-misunderstood maxim. If you catch my drift.
Note the emphasis on intending. Lawyers can be paid to be obtuse when it’s in the side’s best interest.
Eventually much of lawyering, like all of actard, will be distilled down to rote code running on a laptop. It’s all that predictable.
Twasn’t snark on you jdm – Chest an observation…
Vous voyez ?
Sure. We often do this to murderers, or would be murdereres. All the time. We take away their rights to be free from searches and seizures, for example.
And who will decide what code to run? Keanu Reeves?
Actus. From what I said above: “They ran the national news feed first.”
Let me spell it out for you: It was CBS’s national news top-of-the-hour report. From Washington, I believe. It wasn’t WBAL’s local reporting on the incident. It was the national news feed.
This was a deliberate misrepresentation of the alleged perpetrators origins, by CBS. It can’t get any plainer than that. Which is part of your problem, I guess. The more straight-forward the conversation, the harder you fight.
Sorry, BCC: hoist on my own petard.
‘nother note: for anyone still reading this thread (Goldstein the Heretic has put up a new, fresh one), it would be seriously worth your while to read this post from Armed Liberal.
Since we (of the West) have to catch every islamofascist plot and they only have to have one success, it stands to reason that something awful is on the way.
And when it happens, the blowback is going to be bad. Certainly like the 50s, possibly like the Japanese internment camps of WWII, perhaps even suspension of habeus corpus, et al (Civil War). And because of people like actus, it’s going to be worse than it had to be because they’ve done everything possible to hinder normal, reasonable efforts.
‘Course, like AL writes in the post above, the irony is that people like actus will be in the forefront of these, um, extra-constitutional efforts.
JDM  Homer’s Brain: “You may have to stand here and listen to this, but I’m leaving!”
Ahhh yes actbird … Life would be so much simpler, (something even you might be able to cope with), if we could just by rote of some technocolor greatcoat magic, take away their right to murder instead….