Let There Be Dark

LUCAS OLENIUK/TORONTO STAR

TOP: Toronto skyline, as seen at 8:27 p.m. on March 29, 2008. BOTTOM: Toronto skyline, as seen at 8:19 p.m. on March 26, 2008.


Participating in the World Wide Earth Hour, a campaign to bring awareness to the Climate Change brought by man, Toronto went Dark for an Hour or So and Hit the Target..This is the first year of its participation of the Earth Hour, which Started in Christchurch, New Zealand and Suva, Fiji 17 hours ago and will Culminate in Vancouver and San Francisco where the Lights are to go out at the Golden Bridge.

Just before 9 o’clock, the meter at the Toronto Hydro control centre hit a low of 2,738 megawatts - 5 per cent below the demand an hour earlier and about 8.7 per cent less than a typical late March Saturday night

Across the downtown, while most street-level storefront signs remained on, business logos atop high-rise office towers and hotels were dark, and lights blinked out in many condo windows.

Staff at the Sheraton Centre hotel apologized because technical problems delayed their participation, but they vowed to keep the lights out until 10 o’clock as compensation.

In Sydney, the event appeared to be at least as popular as last year, when 2.2 million people took part and electricity consumption fell by 10.2 per cent. This time, lights at the famous Opera House and Harbour Bridge were switched off and Australians held candle-lit beach parties, played poker by candle light and floated candles down rivers.

Australian energy officials said electricity consumption was down by 1,000 megawatts across the country, the equivalent of shutting down two large generating stations.

In Bangkok Thailand, some of the city’s business districts, shopping malls and billboards went dark, although streetlights stayed on. One major hotel invited guests to dine by candlelight and reported brisk business.

But for some reason or another, some countries and cities decided not to participate:

France, Germany, Spain and European Union institutions - planned nothing to mark Earth Hour.

That didn’t dismay organizers, who said there’s a powerful message in the fact that the usual powerhouse countries aren’t leading the way, and that even in wealthy places like Canada it’s very much a grassroots phenomenon.

“I’m just beginning to get a sense that this is a way of giving voice to a lot of people who don’t normally have a voice,” Andy Ridley, of WWF in Sydney, said a day before the event.

For details of the articles and Videos of the Earth Hour, it is here at the Toronto Star

After the Holy Week, something Bad and Something Good..

TONY BOCK/TORONTO STAR
A Toronto police robot is used to check a package left behind by a suspected thief at the Royal Bank branch at 5080 Sheppard Ave., March 25, 2008.

A bank robber was shot by Police after leaving the scene of Bank Robbery and leaving a package he threatened bank staff as “bomb”. He was rush to Sunnybrook hospital for life threatening injuries...Robot has been sent inside the bank to check on the “package”.

Earlier today, in midtown, three more Bank robberies suspected to have been carried by the same man wearing disguises, threatening bank employees with gun, but in all cases no gun was drawn...

Police would not say if the robber got shot late today was the same robber who robbed three banks earlier...

To read the details of the crimes after the Holy Week check here


THE CANADIAN PRESS
Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty (left) and Finance Minister Dwight Duncan smile as they wait to deliver the provincial budget in Toronto, Tuesday, March 25, 2008
And for Something Good:

Today the Provincial Government brought down the Annual Budget and in it something good:
$1.5 B for Jobs Training:

Finance Minister Dwight Duncan is targeting the unemployed and the poor in a provincial budget designed to cushion Ontario against an economic slowdown.
In a record $96.2-billion spending plan tabled this afternoon in the Legislature, Duncan unveiled a three-year $1.5 billion Skills to Jobs Action Plan.

“The plan is as sweeping in scope as it is balanced in approach,” the treasurer said of the budget, which did not increase taxes while forecasting a $600-million surplus for 2007-08.

Ignoring federal Conservative Finance Minister Jim Flaherty’s call yesterday for Ontario “to step up in support of our businesses” and slash corporate income taxes, the Liberals instead invested in human capital.

“It is a balanced approach that is prudent and pragmatic,” said Duncan in a shot at Flaherty, who has long insisted that tax cuts pay for themselves by stimulating economic activity.

For related articles of the budget you may check the toronto star

Happy Easter to All ! ! !

Easter Bunny


Happy Easter to All!!!

Thrity Three Years After, An Arrest for Murder...

Barbara Brown holds a picture of her sister Beverly Lynn Smith. (Sun File Photo)




There is no Statute of Limitation for Crimes, especially for Crime of Murder:

THIRTY THREE YEARS AGO, Douglas Smith, as he did every night, calls home to check with his wife and new baby from his work at GM Plant in Oshawa, Ontario. But that night on December, l974 there was no Answer. Worried he called his neighbor Alan Smith (no relation) and asked him to have his wife run over and check on his wife Beverly and her Baby.

”Doug, she's lying on the floor. You'd better come home," was the call he got back.

She was shot with a .22 cal weapon on the back of the head. Baby Rebecca was safe sleeping on the next Room.

It was the first homicide for the Durham Regional Police force, which was formed that same year. And for more than three decades, there have been few developments and even fewer leads.
That is, until last Monday, when police charged that same neighbour, Alan Smith, with her murder.

Alan Smith was arrested in his home in another town where neighbors said he is living with his daughter and granddaughter. He is charged of second degree murder.

Detectives wouldn't say what led to his arrest. "Just old-fashioned, dogged detective work," said police spokesperson David Selby
In 1992, then-Chief Dave Edwards told the Star they'd had the same suspect from the beginning, but never had the proof to nail him.
"One day he will let his guard down," Edwards said. "What goes around comes around ... and when the times comes we will be there."
There is no indication Alan Smith is that same suspect. And police would not say whether a member of the public came forward with more information or whether DNA advancements led to the arrest.
But whatever the reason, Barbra Brown and the rest of the Smith family view the Durham squad as heroes.

For details of the articles and the video check the pages of Toronto Star: Arrest in l974 Slaying

Gunfight at the City's North End..one down, five hurt.

RICK EGLINTON/TORONTO STAR

Officers prepare to canvass March 15, 2008 in the housing complex at Dufferin St. and Lawrence Ave. W. where six men were shot a day earlier, one fatally.



RENE JOHNSON/TORONTO STAR

A bullet hole is seen in the aftermath of a shootout March 14, 2008 near Dufferin St. and Lawrence Ave. W. which left one man dead and three others in hospital

Gunfight at the City’s North End:

An 18 years old identified by Police as Abdikarim Ahmed Abdikarim, was the 11th homicide victims of the City for the Year and five other young men were hurt in a shootout in Toronto Northend of Lawrence and Duferin Area at a Toronto Housing Corporation apartment building.

Witnesses said the Area is known for the hangouts of youths, some or most carrying guns and the melee may had been started when some youth playing with gun accidentally discharged prompting others to shoot back thinking the war has started.

for more details and witnesses comments clik here
and here

LATEST UPDATE from the City's Police, March 16 4:00am EDT Brazen shooting left one dead, five injured, Toronto Sun Media

Six young men caught in a hail of bullets, one of whom was killed, were minding their own business when a gunman opened fire on them at a Lawrence Heights housing complex, police say.

Surveillance video shows two men walking up to the six shortly before 10 p.m. Friday as they stood on the doorstep of a lowrise apartment at 87 Amaranth Ct., near Allen Rd. and Lawrence Ave. W.

Then, without warning, one of them pulled out a gun and opened fire, hitting all six.

"There's no explanation for why the gunman opens fire," homicide Det.-Sgt. Brian Borg said yesterday after viewing the video. "It was quite a brazen shooting."

He said the victims had no chance to escape because they were "boxed in" on the porch.

No arrests had been made as of last night. Tipsters are urged to call the homicide unit at 416-808-7400 or Crime Stoppers at 416-222-TIPS.

PM Orders Probe of NAFTA-Gate...

CHRIS WATTIE/REUTERS

PM Chief of Staff...The Man at the Centre of NAFTA-Gate that could tip the Campaign for Democrats Presidential Nomination in favour of Hillary Clinton..


PM Orders Wider Probe of NAFTA-Gate to Include his Own Office..

Prime Minister Harper refused to heed opposition demand to Fire his Chief of Staff Ian Brodie for what is now known as Nafta Gate.

A document leak last week suggested an Obama adviser told the Canadian government that Obama wasn't serious about his campaign threats to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Allegations of hypocrisy and double-talk rocked Obama's campaign in the final days before the critical Ohio primary, which he lost to Hillary Clinton by a wider-than-expected margin.

It was a key link in a chain reaction set off days earlier when Brodie made some candid comments to journalists in Ottawa last week.

Brodie reportedly downplayed talk by Democratic candidates that they would reopen NAFTA.

According to one source present, he specifically said the Clinton camp had told Canadian officials that her tough talk should be taken with a grain of salt. Brodie says he doesn't recall specifically mentioning Clinton or Obama, but he has not denied the rest of the conversation.

CTV pursued the story from Washington the next day. For reasons that remain unclear, the network wound up focusing its subsequent reports much more heavily on Obama than on Clinton.

When Obama denied such things had taken place, a leaked diplomatic memo surfaced. It contained a written conversation between Obama’s adviser and being interpreted that the Presidential nominee just posturing and not serious about re-opening the NAFTA agreement. The Adviser said the conversation was twisted out of context.

Obama was hounded by the Story and had to cut short a news conference where he was pounded with very aggressive questioning about the leak. The Leak occurred at the eve of Ohio Primary.

Allegations of Hypocrisy and Double Talk rocked Obama campaign during the final days of Ohio Primary which he lost by wider than expected margin to Hillary Clinton..

PM Harper asked Kevin Lynch, the chief of the Privy Council, the most Senior Bureaucrat to led the Probe and said he will take whatever measures Lynch recommends.

The New Democrats said the prime minister's promises of a probe are not good enough. They want Brodie fired, and have lambasted Harper for telling the Commons this week that his chief of staff was not responsible for the leak.

"Will he now apologize to this House, the American people, and Senator Obama, and will he fire his chief of staff?" NDP Leader Jack Layton asked during the daily question period.

"Will the prime minister show some backbone and show Mr. Brodie the door immediately”

Both Leaders of the Oppositions Liberals and New Democrats asked the PM to request the RCMP to Investigate as the leak may have violated the Security and Information Act for leaking of secret diplomatic documents.

Last year, the Mounties hauled a Junior-Level in handcuff for leaking a Climate Change document to the Media, and the Opposition are wondering why the PM would not Publicly ask the RCMP to step for this Nafta-gate which could be a more damaging Leak..

Tory mumbling and fumbling about the NAFTA-Gate Leaks and the Man at the Centre

And for the PM widening Probe read the details PM asked Country’s Top Civil Servant to Led the Probe

Bribery or Breach of Ethics???

LUCAS OLENIUK/TORONTO STAR

PM Harper has a lot of explaining to do about this Affair..

Update: March 4 10 am: PM Harper give notice to the Liberals and Party Leader Spephan Dion that he will sue for Libel if the Liberals would not retract from their Website their post claiming that the PM had knowledge of the supposed Bribery and it did took Place..Cadman widow in a subsequent interview, said that Harper, then an opposition Leader met with her after the vote and assured her that no offer was made..here is the details of the Update..

A biography of Cadman, to be published this month, charges that two Conservative party officials offered Cadman, who was critically ill with cancer, a $1 million life insurance policy if he voted against the then-Liberal minority government in a confidence vote on May 19, 2005. If he had voted with the Conservatives, the government would have fallen, forcing an election.

Background: Chuck Cadman was a British Columbia MP who remained Independent after the Re-Uniting of the Conservatives, who split up into splinter Parties after the debacles of Elections past. During the Confidence vote in Paul Martin minority Liberal Government in May 2005, his vote was crucial for the survival of the Government, thus arising to the Scandal that the Conservatives, in the opposition at that Time was trying to lure the Independent MP to their side to defeat the Government triggering an Election with an alleged Offer of a $1 Million in Life Insurance Policy. Cadman voted for the Liberal, thereby assuring the survival of the Government for another few months..Cadman died July 9. 2005, less than two months after the vote.

Now the Liberal Party, the main opposition, who have been propping up the Minority Conservative government to avoid an early Election nobody wants, is re-examining it’s strategy of supporting the Government and instead openly musing of toppling it as the Members find it hard to support the Government after the allegation.

The allegation was supported by Cadman’s widow, who herself now is a candidate for the Conservative Party and was also echoed by his daughter, which also followed her Mother’s statement that her father told her of the same before he died and added that she so proud he didn’t not take the offer...

Confronted with the allegation PM Harper, who had an Interview with the Author of the Book which script been released in Advance, even suggested that he knew of the offer but has this to say:

And an interview with the book's author, Vancouver journalist Tom Zytaruk, Harper, who was opposition leader at the time, even suggests he knew of the offer.
Asked about the insurance policy, Harper said, "it was only to replace financial considerations he might lose due to an election, okay? That's my understanding of what they were talking about."

All personalities involved in the allegation do not deny that they had been meeting with the MP, but denied about the offer of Life Insurance Policy or any monetary incentives..(pls note that according to the experts in the field of insurance, Chuck Cadman at the time was uninsurable for having terminal cancer)

It is considered an offence under the Criminal Code to offer a politician an inducement, financial or otherwise, to influence him or her.

The Opposition Liberals already written the RCMP to look after the allegations and the Force will review the contents of the letter and will make up the decision to proceed with the investigation or not...

For more of the Brewing Scandals check the pages of the Toronto Star

And for those who may have doubts that the tale maybe too good to be True how about this column by tom walkom