In Alberta, the income in real dollars of a single person on welfare has decreased by almost 50 percent since 1986. Since 1992 in Ontario, the welfare income of a lone parent with one child has decreased by almost $6,600 and a couple with two children has lost just over $8,700. The National Council of Welfare's report, Welfare Incomes 2005, paints a dismal picture, and one that is getting worse. When adjusted for inflation, many 2005 welfare incomes were lower than they we...

I?ve long been a proponent of an empowered and emboldened Newfoundland and Labrador but I have to admit there are times when I question whether or not my words, and those of others, are falling on deaf ears. At times there seems to be strong movement afoot to re-take control of our destiny, but at others this sentiment seems almost non-existent, a figment of an overactive imagination if you will. It?s at times like these, when frustrations run high and apathy creeps into the ...

Torture and other abuses against detainees in U.S. custody in Iraq were authorized and routine, even after the 2004 Abu Ghraib scandal, according to new accounts from soldiers in a Human Rights Watch report released today. The new report, containing first-hand accounts by U.S. military personnel interviewed by Human Rights Watch, details detainee abuses at an off-limits facility at Baghdad airport and at other detention centers throughout Iraq. In the 53-page report, "N...

It is rare, rare indeed when a major media entity bucks the trend, and does what it believes in. Recently ABC under Disney?s guidance aired the $40 million production, ?The Path to 9/11?. This was a five hour-two night portrayal of the events that led to 9/11. Having gone through the history of terrorism over the last 25 years, I believe this portrayal was as accurate as you can get. The screenwriters were not politically motivated in any way. They could have come down on the...

Most people would now agree that the Los Angeles Unified School District is in need of some overdue changes. While classes continue to be overpopulated and text books remain in short supply, there is a real need for change. With lights and ceiling tiles falling off regularly our students just aren't able to learn, there is a real need for change. At long last change is about to happen, but will it really make a difference to our children. A bill was signed on Monday, Septe...

Liberal Americans claim that Bush over-politicized the Presidential Address made on the Fifth Anniversary of the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon ? what we all remember to be the largest terrorist attacks ever on American soil. Realists contend that you cannot reflect on the events of September 11, 2001 without placing that day on a continuum of global politics. Both parties are arguing not only about the current war in Iraq, but also on the broader ide...

Last night's primetime address to the nation on the fifth anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks was more of a fear-provoking missive than a reverent reflection on the traumatic events of 5 years ago. The White House had billed Present Bush's address as a time for the nation to come together under the same glow of unity we as Americans felt on that terrible day when the Twin Towers and the Pentagon were attacked in the name of a terrorist agenda. Instead, ...

Funding for college education is at a critical impasse in the United States. The largest ever cuts in American educational funding were passed in December of 2006, signed into being by no other than Vice President Dick Cheney. These were historical cuts -- to the tune of approximately 20 billion dollars to be rolled out over the course of 3 years -- with the largest blows to lower income students and families. The cuts began taking effect in July of 2006. At a time when ga...

PM Harper?s first speech at the UN was not lacking in either audacity or hyperbole. He quite baldly claimed that the future of the world body depends on the success of the Afghan mission. Not only is Harper wrong he is dead-wrong. The real crisis for the UN is whether or not it will survive the use and abuse of the USA with some semblance of integrity and credibility. Over the UN?s history the US has sought to use the world body to its own ends with varying degrees of succ...

Over the course of George Bush's six years in office it has become abundantly clear that Mr. Bush and his cronies are in a state of "willful denial" about the worsening situation in Iraq....and so is a large chunk of the American public, willingly or due to misleading partisan information. As the temperature rises and with less than 5 weeks left to the mid-term elections, some of the most zealous backers of this administration in the Republican Party are running scared lea...