Canadian newspaper clippings

A couple of Canadian newspaper articles caught my eye while flying down the Alaska Highway:

Murder Suspect Faces Extradition — “A New Brunswick man who arrived at the U.S. border toting a red-stained chainsaw faces a hearing tomorrow on whether he should be returned to Canada for trail in the murder of an elderly couple. … Residents in Minto, N.B. where the gruesome attack occurred, say they cannot believe [Gregory] Depres was allowed into the U.S. after arriving at the border with a backpack full of weapons and a chainsaw with red stains on it.” (Calgary Sun, July 20)

The article is accompanied by a truly scary looking photo of Despres, who wears a wide-eyed insane expression.  Perhaps the U.S. Customs folks thought that anyone with a “backpack full of weapons” would fit right in here in the U.S.

“Mohammad Momim Khawaja remains locked up … accused of conspiring in a plot to blow up British citizens.  … In the 1970s, Mr. Khawaja’s parents met in Ottawa after separately emigrating from Pakistan.  The family moved to Saudi Arabia for a few years. … An outspoken scholar, the father has written several essays denouncing ‘American-Zionist collaborative political encroachment in the Middle East.’  … Mr. Khawaja was also allegedly stepping up his Internet activities, reported logging on to chat rooms and running a blog. … In 2003, Mr. Khawaja went to Pakistan, telling friends he was off in search of a bride.” (The Globe and Mail, July 16)

What caught my eye is the photo that accompanies the story.  It shows a bearded perpetrator in the back of a police car.  The caption reads “Momim Khawaja, a computer programmer, leaves an Ottawa courthouse escorted by the RCMP on May 3, 2004.  He has been jailed since March 29 of last year.”  Anyone who say the photo and read the caption but not the article would assume that Mr. Khawaja’s crime was being a programmer.  (The prosecution in the Sami Al-Arian case is apparently having a tough time proving that Mr. Al-Arian, a tenured University of South Florida professor who was born in Kuwait,  is guilty of anything more than being a computer nerd as well.)

The Canadian equivalent of the FAA has some good publications too.  Posters in some areas where pilots of small aircraft gather read “Learning how to fly takes approximately 40 hours.  Learning when to fly takes a lifetime.”  (Given Canada’s harsh weather this tends to be tautological.  Or at the very least the lesson about when not to fly will tend to come at the very end of one’s lifetime.)  They offer an educational safety video entitled “To Kill a Whopping Bird.”