Search: “London”

I suppose that the literal definition of a ‘moonshot’ is the act of sending a rocket to the moon.  Interestingly, there is another set of metaphorical definitions I found online which include: an ambitious, exploratory and ground-breaking project undertaken without any expectation of near-term profitability or benefit and also, perhaps, without a full investigation of […]

When it comes to Islamist terrorism there is a lot we know and a lot we don’t.  We may not be able to predict – ever – why and when a given individual chooses to adopt the violent radical ideology that leads him or her to engage in acts of extremism, but we do have […]

How much money do you carry in your wallet?  If you are Canadian not much.  We are apparently the world’s most frequent users of debit, followed by the Swedes.  So I guess not much then. Before the dawn of debit, though, I would wager that most people carried $60-100 on them at any given time. […]

I remember it as if it were yesterday.  My first day at CSE was July 14, 1983.  I moved to Ottawa from London (ON) and went to the Sir Leonard Tilley Building where I was brought to a former RCMP officer I’ll call ‘Joe’ who provided me my security indoctrination.  After outlining what CSE did […]

Is there anything more aggravating than meandering slowly through a security line at an airport?  We’ve all been there and we all hate it.  People have missed flights because they were delayed at checkpoints and we have all suffered insults to our ‘dignity’ because of the need to comply with security demands (Who left liquids […]

One thing that is confounding police and intelligence agencies the world over is what to do about car rammings/vehicular terrorist attacks.  We read of them often – last week’s incident in London near the Parliament buildings in just the latest.  Over the past five years or so there have been at least 20 such events, […]

Well, you have to give terrorists some credit.  They certainly have settled on a winning approach to carrying out acts of violence and causing mayhem.  And that approach is remarkably simple and easily accessed.  I am talking of course of vehicle attacks.  We have seen a lot of these lately, in Barcelona, in Stockholm, in […]

We need to take a realistic approach to all this. No, not all returning women and children pose a danger to our societies and not all are inhuman monsters.

When I was quite young I came across a very old edition of Rudyard Kipling’s Just-so Stories, written in 1902.  For those not familiar with this book – you really should be – it is a collection of  fantastic accounts of how certain animals acquired their distinctive traits.  Among the tales concocted by Mr. Kipling […]

This piece appeared in The Hill Times on June 11, 2018. All is takes is a cursory glance at the news on any given day to conclude – erroneously as I hope to show – that Islamist extremist terrorism is a daily event that threatens us all.  We read of bombings in Afghanistan, beheadings in […]