Category: Other

Watching Obama’s visit on Facebook

There were only about 1000 people on Parliament Hill today to greet President Obama as much of downtown was locked down. There were barricades and security officials on the MacKenzie King bridge and checkpoints a plenty as the Parliamentary precinct was secured for Obama’s seven hour visit. Barricades also line Wellington street past Sussex through Rideau and also cover the street to the US embassy.

Staying away from the fray, I’m tracking the Obama visit passively via status updates on Facebook. Here’s a sample.

F – if this was Bush, they’d be calling it a police state.

J is irritated that Air Force One delayed flights at Ottawa International today, and that all of Ottawa is going crazy b/c of President Obama…

S is chuckling at the Canadian news media who are all experiencing the big O.

R can’t shake the feeling that there’s something going on here today. I guess everyone else is excited about the Oilers taking on the Stars tonight too.

N saw obama in his motorcade, and did not experience any change.

B is demanding 20 minutes with Obama as well.

A is happy for Ottawa’s leper community today.

R is Obamatastic!

E just missed barack in the stairwell… saw his entourage.

S questions the sanity of the people calling in to cpac.

C counted from his office window 40 vehicles and 2 helicopters in the Obama entourage

B is stuck in traffic, why didn’t the President just fly to the Hill like a superhero? Or he could have walked on the canal proving he can walk on water.

L just saw the motorcade go by! Video to follow!

H is going to the Obama press conference!

J is wondering – can Canadian media get any stupider over a Presidential visit? “Yes they Canada!”

Z thinks that if they’re going to close the city down, it might as well be a holiday.

J is wondering were the anti-war protesters are?

E – OBAMA IS HERE! EVERYBODY FREAK OUT

Obama motorcade arrives in Ottawa

Picture taken on Sussex today just outside the US embassy.  President Obama’s motorcade arrives in Ottawa.

The Presidential limo is just out of frame on the right.  There’s an indent on the door where a magnetic presidential seal is affixed when the President is in the limo.  The second vehicle to the right in the photo is a Chevy Suburban and has an interesting feature that any self-respecting motorcade should have:

There are usually 15 cars in the motorcade including two “presidential” limos. One limo serves as a security decoy and both are missile proof.

Perhaps Harper’s “Bush-like” motorcade can upgrade itself to “Obama class”,

OTTAWA — Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s motorcade has acquired a presidential look.

But one MP says the big black SUV now cruising at the rear of the entourage is a bit too remindful of President George W. Bush.

And its gas-chugging potential raises other issues, even for a prime minister who ditched the Kyoto accord, says New Democrat Pat Martin.

Michael Ignatieff’s uncertain position on the civil liberties of terror suspects

“We have to chart a path somehow in which we make some hard choices, some lesser evils, that is to say I’m not sure we can keep to a pure civil libertarian position all the way, for example we might have to engage in the preventive detention of suspects on lower standards that we would use in a criminal case, we might even have to engage in certain forms of targeted assassination of terrorist enemies. These are evils in the sense that people get killed, people get hurt, we don’t keep to the fullest standards of due process, but they avoid greater evils which is that our society lays itself open to constant terrorist attack and in response we still do worse things to our constitutional fabric.” — Michael Ignatieff

“I think you can draw a relatively clear line between interrogations that subject a terror suspect to a certain kind of stress, a certain kind of sleep deprevation, a certain disorientation and you can keep that clear of torture.” — Michael Ignatieff

And in a letter he co-signed with Bloc Quebecois leader Gilles Duceppe and NDP leader Jack Layton, (a lot of tri-partite letters have been signed lately) Ignatieff argues,

“It is also clear that Mr. Khadr has been subjected to conditions of confinement and interrogation that Canadian courts have found violate international prohibitions against torture and other forms of cruel, inhumane, and degrading treatment.” — Michael Ignatieff

I find Ignatieff’s ambiguity on this topic to be notable.

Also, Ignatieff is calling for the repartiation of Omar Khadr whereas Khadr should instead be granted full due process and face his accusers in the United States. Let’s clear up that matter before we embrace him with open arms and “call upon Prime Minister Harper to cooperate in these efforts [to repatriate Khadr] and ensure that appropriate arrangements are made through the provincial government of Ontario and appropriate members of civil society to provide for Mr. Khadr’s supervision and reintegration into the community upon his return to Canada.”