November 29, 2002

Happy Chanukah! 9:34:04 PM

B'nai Brith Canada is suing the Canadian government to stop any Hizbullah fund raising in Canada. 9:33:08 PM

MSNBC has a Wall Street Journal article on Wi-Fi vs. cellular telephones and cellular telephone modems. 9:29:42 PM

Glenn Reynolds points to the following report, gleefully rejecting the Canadian firearms registry. INTERESTING REPORT FROM CANADA:  Toronto's recent wave of street murders -- more than 40 since the beginning of 2001 -- debunks the claim that Ottawa's gun registry is making Canadians safer from crime. As the price tag for this colossal bureaucratic mess nears $1-billion, it is clearly time for the federal government to consider shutting it down and redirecting some or all of the resources to real crime-fighting measures. Nearly all of the Toronto murders have been committed with handguns. Yet handguns have been subject to registration in Canada since 1934. In fact, registration has done nothing to stem the use of handguns in murder: In the past 15 years, the proportion of all firearm murders committed with handguns has nearly doubled in Canada from just over one-third to nearly two-thirds. Imagine that -- just as gun-rights supporters predicted. He left out this section: Pistols are easily concealed. That makes them the weapon of choice for gang members and drug dealers -- the two groups responsible for most of the Toronto shootings. Smuggling from the United States is the source of most of the handguns used in Canadian murders -- up to 90% according to the Ontario Provincial Police. Even if a national registry could produce information useful in preventing crimes -- or even just solving them -- it would be at a loss to produce it on nine of 10 handguns used in Canadian murders, since those guns would not have been registered in the first place. Maybe the solution is to expand the registry to the United States. 9:13:20 PM

On The Corner on National Review Online WOOPS/UGH [Jonah Goldberg] I accidentally erased my previous post. As I said earlier, no need to tell me how awful last night's Crossfire gig was. A waste of time for all carbon-based life forms, Canadians included. Posted at 09:57 AM I agree and that's just from reading the transcript in a few minutes. 12:15:31 AM

The Globe and Mail reports that Canadian Defence Minister John McCallum wishes to make public details of Canada's Joint Task Force 2 (JTF2) special forces operations in Afghanistan now that they are on their way back home. JTF2 is listed as being on an "operational pause" to reconstitute for possible future missions. Is Iraq next? 12:09:16 AM

News.com looks at Via Technologies’ Mini-ITX motherboard and the surprising objects hobbyists put them into as they turn briefcases, drawers, dolls and other objects into computers. 12:05:27 AM

While finally banning Hamas fundraising in Canada, the Canadian government still allows Hezbollah to raise funds in Canada for its "non-military" wing. How the Canadian government can be sure of where the money is going is not explained nor does the government seem to realize that by allowing Hezbollah to provide its own services outside of the Lebanese government it gains the supporters it needs to keep its terror activities going. 12:02:19 AM