Elliott C. Back: Internet & Technology

This is old news, but the American fighter pilots that mistakenly bombed four Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan last year will not face court martial: news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/3004644.stm. Facing possible sentences of more than 60 years in prison, with “reckless disregard for flight rules” demonstrated, they were let off the hook by Lieutenant General Bruce Carlson, of the Air Force.

Will Canada legalize same sex marriage? According the Civil Marriage Act (2005), yes. They have an interesting FAQ that deals with some counter-arguments, including “the slippery slope to bigamy.”

I haven’t lived in Canada for 7.5 years now, so I don’t know much about our new Prime Minister (PM), Paul Martin. China Digital News, however, has an interesting article which documents an incident where he made no fuss when two of his journalists were refused entry into the country. CDN claims the journalists were denied entry because they would write articles “not flattering to the government in Beijing.” On such an occasion, they believe that Paul Martin should have stood up for the right to speech of his journalists and caused an international incident.

Now, I’m no expert, but causing a political relations disaster with a world superpower over two journalists, no matter how important, would be a bad move, impolite, shortsighted, and tactless. Since Paul Martin is Canadian, I assume he has excellent manners, and would not insult the Chinese over such a small matter. Rather, he’ll pick a good time to land a sharp-witted blow, where the issue matters more than several visas.