All bark, no bite Baird

"With our action today we're seeking to try and reform the group so that it can be more successful in following its main mandate," Baird said. "What I know won't work, what I know won't be good for this conference, is if countries like Canada re-main quiet and go along to get along."

Uh-huh.  Yeah.  With no other country in agreement with banning nasties from such conferences, the UN is going to tremble and change its mandate for Canada.  Not the old Canada that carried some weight, but the new harper Canada with its pretense at principled stances when its doing nothing more than engaging in domestic politics while on the international stage.

I suppose harper would have banned Russia from the cold war resolution talks.

You have to engage the nasties in talks, or international meetings banning them simply become exercises in planning the next war against them.  It implies that words are useless, reason and diplomacy go nowhere, and only relentless bombing and killing will get the nasties to be nice.

And will the nasties just sit in a corner wearing a dunce hat?  Not likely.

Other concerns among diplomats focus on the potential "precedent" the Canadian boycott sets. While the West considers North Korea to be run by a rogue regime, countries like Cuba and Venezuela - as constant critics of the United States and Western capitalism - may in turn start to boycott U.S. or other Western chairmanships, some at the UN suggest.

harper's  divisive politics:  now international.

Nice. Now don’t back down

Carleton University's student association said Thursday it will vote in December on whether to change its policies and allow an anti-abortion group to register as a club.

Carleton Lifeline, an anti-abortion group on campus at the Ottawa university, said this week its club status had been revoked as part of the student association's policy against discrimination, which specifically bans any group that opposes a woman's right to have an abortion.

Some defenders of free speech are saying this is an infringement on the right to express differing views, but the foetus fetishists can still post their foetus porn in public areas since the group will continue to be offered public space and tables on campus which is consistent with the university's practice with respect to other student groups.

The Lifeline group wants the legitimacy a club would give them, I think, as well as the funding for clubs, of course. 

They aren't being prevented from speaking, but the student association is right in this case because funding the group would show support for their efforts, and that means they would be supporting a group that is attempting to take away some of women's rights.

Going to watch this one.