Plagiarizing former Australian Prime Minister John Howard

Plagiarizing former Australian Prime Minister John Howard

line

On March 17, 2003, former Prime Minister Jean Chretien announced in the House of Commons that Canada would not send troops to Iraq. That same day, U.S. President George W. Bush announced in an address to the nation that Saddam Hussein must leave Iraq within 48 hours.

The next day, on March 18, former Australian Prime Minister John Howard delivered an address to the Australian House of Representatives to express support for sending Australian troops to Iraq – one of only four nations in the world to do so [1].

On March 20, the U.S.-led invasion began – without the backing of NATO – with U.S. forces launching their “shock-and-awe” bombing raid on Baghdad.
Stephen Harper Stephen Harper, Prime Minister of Canada

Later that day, Canadian Alliance leader Stephen Harper – then leader of the Official Opposition – delivered an address in the House of Commons. It was in response to a motion of the Bloc Quebecois which had called for Canada to stay out of the war. He later voted against the motion [2].

Almost half of Mr. Harper’s speech was an exact word-for-word replicate of Mr. Howard’s speech given less than two days earlier [3].

Mr. Harper also used that plagiarized speech as a basis for several editorials on the subject. They appeared in such as publications as the National Post [4], the Toronto Star [5], the Ottawa Citizen [6] and the Wall Street Journal [7].

Mr. Harper’s desire to join Mr. Bush’s “Coalition of the Willing” was widely condemned. And history has shown that condemnation to be well-targeted.



When the plagiarism became public, the reaction was swift.

Maclean’s magazine Paul Wells said:

“I find it extraordinary that on a central issue or claim of Stephen Harper to superior moral force, which is his foreign affairs and defence policy, he was clipping speeches off cereal boxes instead of doing his own thinking … I have no idea how the prime minister will respond to the next war, except to look at how he responded to the last war. And if Harper was so cavalier to choose his words on such a decision, it doesn't flatter him in terms of how he treated the fundamental decision itself. I think that's what matters.” [8]

And the Toronto Star’s Chantal Hébert said:

« Dans une salle de rédaction ou dans une université, le texte du discours prononcé en mars 2003 par Stephen Harper dans le cadre d’un débat aux Communes sur la participation du Canada à la guerre en Irak ne passerait pas ce que les anglophones appellent le “smell test”. » [9]







References
[1]Link to Mr. Howard's speech on the Parliament of Australia's official website: http://www.aph.gov.au/hansard/reps/dailys/dr180303.pdf
[2] Link to Mr. Harper's speech on the official Parliament of Canada website: http://www2.parl.gc.ca/HousePublications/Publication.aspx?DocId=771117&Language=E&Mode=1&Parl=37&Ses=2#Int-464588
[3] Click here to watch Mr. Harper and Mr. Howard deliver their speech:
http://www.liberal.ca/video_e.aspx?guid=4666DC99-F70E-4FFD-A461-FF1B3A060706
[4] “The Canadian Alliance refuses to be neutral,” Page A20, Byline: Stephen Harper, Friday, March 21, 2003
[5] “The case for joining war,” Page A25, Byline: Stephen Harper, Friday, March 21, 2003
[6] “Canada should stand with its allies,” Page B7, Byline: Stephen Harper, Saturday, March 22, 2003
[7] “Canadians Stand With You,” Byline: Stephen Harper and Stockwell Day, 3/28/03
[8] CBC Newsworld, September 30, 2008
[9] Chantal Hébert, blog, September 30, 2008

Walmart spam be careful

pointer;">Walmart 2 steps survey,and win a 150.00$ gift certificate.
and complete the form to receive your reward.Thank you

This is an automated message, you do not have to reply. Message id: 0011966wmrtsrvwmrtsrv

Flashing a laser pointer at an aircraft is dangerous and punishable by jail time

This is my public service announcement to the idiots who have decided to shine green laser pointers into the cockpits of airplanes either taking off, landing or ascending to cruising altitude. Stop doing it! You could kill hundreds of people and I or some of my friends might be one of them. For those of you who don' know, when a laser of any colour is shone into your eyes, it can take the optic nerve a minute or two to recover normal vision and depth perception to say nothing of being able to see the colours of warning lights on the instrument panel. According to Government of Canada data, these incidents have occurred 46 times in 2008 alone. The good news is, none of these victim aircraft suffered any technical problems that would put anyone at risk. To illustrate, anyone using an optical mouse has probably had the red laser light shone into their eyes after putting in new batteries. You will see spots for a very long time. Repeat exposure may permanently damage the eyes which is not good for anyone in general and especially if you are pilot. So, to the morons who think this is fun, I will remind you that if you ever have to fly, you better hope that none of your friends flash the aircraft you are on.

software engineers do not want to see this.

Airbus Gives Alert as Autopilot Caused Plane's Plunge (Update5)

By Ed Johnson

Oct. 15 (Bloomberg) -- Airbus SAS issued an alert to airlines worldwide after Australian investigators said a computer fault on a Qantas Airways Ltd. flight switched off the autopilot and generated false data, causing the jet to nosedive.

The Airbus A330-300 was cruising at 37,000 feet (11,277 meters) when the computer fed incorrect information to the flight control system, the Australian Transport Safety Bureau said yesterday. The aircraft dropped 650 feet within seconds, slamming passengers and crew into the cabin ceiling, before the pilots regained control.

My friend has 2 good posts about Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles

• Sarah Connor Chronicels picked up for a full 2nd season!!

  posted by Lurker at RANDOM THOUGHTS OF A LURKER -
  

  Armageddon just got bitch-slapped. Sources confirm that Fox has ordered a full season of *Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles*. I'm told the back-nine order came down late Friday. *Sarah Connor*'s r...
• TTSCC Episode 206 preview clips

  posted by Lurker at RANDOM THOUGHTS OF A LURKER -
  

  The first clip is quite intriguing can't wait to find out the mystery behind the T-1001's child. This show just continues to get better and better. Episode 2x06 entitled "The Tower is Tall but the Fa...

An email i sent to the Liberal party before last Tuesday

Lebanon rescue snafu

Hello
I noticed one Conservative scandal that was missing from this list at
Scandalpedia. The disastrous humanitarian rescue operations that were
put together on the fly by the then brand new Conservative government
in response to the Israeli-Lebanese war in 2006. If this is too long
ago as far as scandals go, then my apologies. However, the lack of
planning and poor execution of the rescues certainly does not look
good for the Canadian government especially a Conservative party that
plays up it's love of national defence and sovereignty. We had to do
the embarrassing thing of hiring a shipping line to send three ships
to rescue vacationing or working Canadian citizens. The last time I
checked, we had a few Canadian frigates on NATO duty and I am sure if
we asked NATO politely to temporarily absolve ourselves from patrol
duty to rescue our own citizens in harms way, they would not have
minded. But that didn't happen. Instead, we hire civilian ships that
will not enter a port that is under military fire due to Maritime Law
preventing sea captains from doing so. One of the proposed solutions
was to have military ships act as armed escorts to accompany the
civilian ships into and out of the port. This was not done and our
citizens were left to their own devices to get out of a war zone.
Equally embarrassing was the fact that if a person had dual
citizenship, the secondary country is usually more than happy to
rescue the civilian on Canada's behalf. This will probably require
more research for references, but it was a scandal and Mr. Harper did
not even recall parliament from summer vacation to make it look good

Fun email thanks to Windows Live.

Me

Hello I have noticed in your recent members communications emails that you are slowly rolling out a new user interface and some upgraded features in the next build of Hotmail. I am curious to know why there does not appear to be an entry in the Microsoft Connect Community web page for debugging and feedback? The last time you made any major changes to Hotmail, you allowed people who were interested in debugging the current version of Hotmail to do so through the connect web page. In this case, you appear to be going from alpha-testing production without beta- testing in between. I am one of the people still listed on Microsoft connect as a tester for Windows Live Technology and was wondering if you gave any testers the heads-up so it could be tested in real world conditions. Are you so confident about the new design that you decided to just release it into the wild and hope it works? If that is the case I hope it works and doesn't crash the system. If it does, you are going to have a very large crowd of angry users. Hope it goes well.


----------------------------------

Windows Live Hotmail Technical Support




Thank you for writing to Windows Live Hotmail Technical Support Team. and I understand that you want to know why it does not appear to be an entry in the Microsoft Connect Community web page for debugging feedback when realizing a new user interface and some upgrade features. I know how important it is for you to know that Windows Live Hotmail is realizing a new user interface.
Windows Live Hotmail has just released a new version to provide better user experience. We understand this change may have come as a surprise to you, but we strongly feel you will soon have a much better experience with the new Windows Live Hotmail. As always, your satisfaction is our main goal. Of course, all your information (contacts, calendar, and e-mail address) is still the same and there are some great new features that customers have requested. You can now sign in to Web Messenger within your Windows Live Hotmail account and on top of that you would be able to access your account 70% faster. To learn more about the new features and benefits of Windows Live Hotmail, please visit: http://www.windowslive-hotmail.com/comingsoon/en-us/default.htm Matthew, we recognize that a change like this can feel unexpected and surprising, and we are eager to hear your feedback (both positive and negative) about the auto-upgrade process. To send your feedback: 1. Please go to http://feedback.live.com/eform.aspx?productkey=wlmail&page=wlfeedback_home_form 2. Select the first option in the drop-down list, "I want to provide feedback on the automatic update to Windows Live Hotmail."
or click on the help icon "?" and choose "Feedback" on the upper right side of the page.
You are valuable at Windows Live and we look forward to provide you with consistent and effective service. We appreciate your input and involvement in our Windows Live products.
Sincerely,



Windows Live Hotmail Technical Support





Good Technical Support Not