From the Start

A new year brings with it a new post, plus some.

And what a week it was!

Sid Ryan, Ontario CUPE president, has apologised for what he now calls an ill-worded analogy of Israel to Nazi Germany. Never mind how utterly wrong he is about the entire Israel/Hamas conflict or drawing very erroneous parallels of Israel with Nazism (he wouldn’t be the first to make such a ludicrous claim), should he or any union member overstep their purview and direct public opinion to their own? What does the conflict in the Middle East have to do with Canadian union members being fat and overpaid? I wish someone would apologise for that.

Israel, relentless in its mission not to eliminated by Hamas (whose mission it is to destroy Israel and all Jewry, sells humanitarian aid to its already poor droves of would-be suicide-bombers, faux-tography enthusiasts and producers of anti-Semitic children’s programming, hides amid civilians, bombs Israeli citizens and drives out Christians), still can’t get a break from the liberal media or unsympathetic countries whose populations border on the restive (don’t worry- neither can Sarah Palin whose great misfortune is that she isn’t a Kennedy or a Biden. Yay, hope and change!). Israel, upon close examination, has been quite restrained now and even before this current conflict. CNN runs story after story of the poor downtrodden Palestinians killed or maimed by Israeli bombings but neglects to correct itself when taken by someone who always seems to have a dead child handy, or even asks Hamas what happened to Palestinian civilians who end up dead for non-Israel related reasons. Israel has listened to other countries pleas for a ceasefire but won’t do anything yet. The last time it has relented to a ceasefire Hamas had the opportunity to re-arm and start bombing Israel all over again. Arab states and Iran are keen on seeing Israel gone but are not willing to help the Palestinian sandbags who try to cross the border (especially not Egypt). A whole lot of fingers are pointed at Israel but no one lends a helping hand against people who are more than happy to kill children to get what they want.

Speaking of CNN, celebrity doctor Sanjay Gupta has been offered the plum position of Surgeon-General. See what happens when your network is in the tank with a presidential candidate? It pays to kiss up.

The parents of five year-old Phoenix Sinclair want the public to pay for their appeal. Convicted last month of first-degree murder, the parents, Samantha Kematch and Karl McKay, expected to be charged and tried for a lesser charge, like manslaughter. To illustrate the likelihood of the couple getting an appeal, it is important to understand the nature of their crime. Phoenix Sinclair was beaten, neglected, forced to eat her own vomit, made to sleep in a cold basement often without clothes, emotionally abused and shot at with a BB gun. God willing, there will never be an appeal.