Mid-Week Post

A nice, daffodilly start to the Easter season....


How offensive is "Kung Fu Fighting"?

A pub singer has been arrested on suspicion of racism for singing the classic chart hit Kung Fu Fighting.


The song, performed by Simon Ledger, 34, is said to have offended two Chinese people as they walked past the bar where he was singing.


The entertainer regularly performs the 1974 number one hit, originally by disco star Carl Douglas, at the Driftwood Beach Bar in Sandown, on the Isle of Wight.

But after one of the passers-by reported his routine on Sunday afternoon, Mr Ledger was arrested on suspicion of racially aggravated harassment.

‘We were performing Kung Fu Fighting, as we do during all our sets,’ he said.

‘People of all races were loving it.  Chinese people have never been offended by it before.


‘But this lad walking past with his mum started swearing at us and making obscene hand gestures before taking a picture on his mobile phone.

'We hadn’t even seen them when we started the song. He must have phoned the police.’


Officers later called Mr Ledger while he was eating in a Chinese restaurant to arrange a meeting.


The singer assumed it was a prank – but he was later arrested and is still under investigation.


‘They seemed pretty amazed but said the law is the law and it was their duty,’ he is reported to have said.

I assure you, if kung fu fighting WAS offensive, THIS guy would let you know.

There is so much wrong with this. First of all, Carl Douglas gets the short end of the stick and ABBA does not spend ONE minute in jail for its disco travesties? Just wrong. Secondly, how and why have we let idiots have so much power to change the course of not only the law but the entirety of Western civilisation? Since when is "aggravated racism" a crime on par with- oh, let's say- aggravated assault? In a sane world, it isn't. Make no mistake, racism is a disgusting attack on the human person and on reason but we are fooling ourselves if we think that "aggravated racism" constitutes a legitimate crime rather than an offense conjured up by politically correct bullies for whom anything and everything is offensive. I thought show trials, forced confessions and re-education went the way of the Yugo (save in North Korea, Cuba, Vietnam and other Third World hell-holes). Now, the entire system is geared toward padding things. For as much as people might find this situation absurd, they cannot divorce their thoughts from it. Could they ever imagine the state NOT interfering and declaring ANY slight to be a crime or something that needs regulation? Are we children in need of constant protection? Shall we place corks at the ends of forks next?  Thirdly, why do we infantilise grown people? Whatever happened to walking away while plugging one's ears if the strains of the disco martial arts anthem was so noxious? But that would give power to intelligent, thick-skinned individuals who are able to distinguish a SONG from a slur (which the song is hardly).


And now, "Kung Fu Fighting".



Pull this stunt anywhere else and it would be a news quip. We don't HAVE to give them a state, you know.


(hat tip)


How will inflation affect how China puts down a revolt?


From a tasteless attack to a parallel on eugenics. Leftists are both cockroaches and Medusa- they hate the light and mirrors.


Layton as PM means sticking it to the taxpayer and his descendants.

Happy Easter!

Let us relish the Paschal season.

Friday Freakout

For Good Friday.


Earth Day... or something... who cares?


Easter egg fun.


More Easter egg fun but with movies this time.


Simon's Cat and a wily rabbit.

Thursday Post

Guts are only for elected people:

The spectre of a hidden social conservative agenda forced the Harper government's tightly-scripted election campaign into damage control mode Thursday in an attempt to keep the divisive abortion issue off the table.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper's chief spokesman summoned reporters to the lobby of a Newfoundland hotel early Thursday to offer unsolicited comment about a Toronto Star and Le Devoir story about a Saskatchewan MP that apparently went badly off message.

Spokesman Dimitri Soudas's impromptu scrum at 12:30 a.m. was sparked by reports that quoted a Conservative Saskatchewan backbencher bragging in a weekend speech that International Planned Parenthood Federation had its funding blocked because it supported abortion.

Candidate Brad Trost reportedly told a pro-life meeting in Saskatchewan that the efforts of the movement had likely denied the organization funding after decades of receiving it.

A recording of Trost's remarks was obtained by the Liberals and given to the media.

(Sidebar: if the Liberals use this against the Tories, that would only make the Tories more appealing.)


What Trost said:

“Those petitions were very, very useful and they were part of what we used to defund Planned Parenthood because it has been an absolute disgrace that that organization and several others like it have been receiving one penny of Canadian taxpayers dollars,” Trost said.

Why not defund Planned Parenthood? They don't need public money to exploit minors.


(hat tips all around)


Baby Joseph is breathing on his own, no thanks to Canada's "universal healthcare" system.


The Holy Father asks we get right with God this Holy season:

Pope Benedict lamented the widespread abandonment of religion in Western countries at a Holy Thursday ceremony, saying the heartlands of Christianity were turning away from their faith.


The German-born pontiff said during the service at St. Peter's Basilica it sometimes seemed as if the West had become bored by its own history and culture.

(Sidebar: AMEN!)

"Have not we -- the people of God -- become to a large extent a people of unbelief and distance from God?" he said during the service in which he blessed oils to be used in Catholic rites.

"Is it perhaps the case that the West, the heartlands of Christianity, are tired of their faith?"

We've abandoned faith not for reason but for instant gratification, whether it is in the form of decadence or instant proof of God's Love or existence. I suppose no one has read the Bible.


A slight continuation of yesterday's post.



I cannot decide if back-pedalling on a vile (and ultimately futile) attack on a three year old with a mental disability is cowardice or just another example of stupidity. Freedom of speech is a gift. Many have suffered and/or died for it. To pretend that calling a CHILD WITH DOWN'S SYNDROME a "retard" (among other completely sickening things) is not only freedom of speech but perfectly objective and valid political criticism insults not only the freedom for which many risked or gave their lives, but insults the intelligence and even the very soul of the human person. What is profited by (quite frankly) losers who hide behind supercilious monikers attacking a CHILD WITH DOWN'S SYNDROME (this cannot be emphasised enough because it is the crux of the matter)? Let us be clear that the only kind of person who would sling this kind of excrescence at a child, especially one with a disability, is scraping the bottom of the barrel. The offensive post was left up for TWO days with equally repulsive comments to it unmoderated and totally tolerated. The post itself was nothing more than a beating of sorts on a kid with cackling crudity tacked on. What brave, manly pundits Wonkette must be populated with! They stood by their sickening assault until the sponsors started withdrawing. Way to defend the very principle of freedom of speech, a convenient refuge for the hacks of the world who pick on kids. It's pointless to mention how these disgusting cowards would NEVER, EVER utter such calamities to anyone outside their hovels, let alone tell the Palins what they really think. I certainly don't want to subject the Palins to the crap that's been slung at them. However, I think people should really start examining things. Really. After the Two Minutes Hate, don't you feel like taking a shower, even a little?


Lady Gaga is an insecure, attention-seeking poseur. Who knew? Happy Easter, you talentless wonder.

Mid-Week Post

Something quick for the remains of the day (that was a good movie, actually. Damn, Anthony Hopkins is a great actor!).


But I digest....


What he said:

Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff said in an interview this week that he’d be willing to work with leaders of the other parties — “even Mr. Harper” — if Canada once again finds itself with a minority Parliament.

But Mr. Harper shot down that possibility, saying he believes the Liberals, NDP and Bloc Quebecois have already decided to team up to defeat the Conservatives soon after the election and form a coalition government.

I do not believe for one minute that Ignatieff returned to Canada to "rescue it". His threats to form a coalition (especially with the Bloc whose mandate it is to separate the country) should be sufficient reason to distrust him. He came back because Liberal leadership is a career change, and a lofty one, too. Who needs that kind of leadership?


The scar on Che Guevara's face was actually caused by his shooting himself in the face, not during the struggle against imperialism or whatever Kool-Aid Castro wanted people to drink. Never ask a rich boy to do a revolutionary's job.


How vile do you have to be to attack a toddler? Seriously? Is your paranoia and misogyny so great that the only counter-argument you can come up with is an attack so completely immoral that corporate sponsorship runs from you as though you were a rabid dog?



Beyond disgraceful.


John Cleese is being quintessentially English... or something:

Cleese also spoke about the shift in British attitudes away from a “middle-class culture” and the emergence of a “yob culture”.

He said: “There were disadvantages to the old culture, it was a bit stuffy and it was more sexist and more racist. But it was an educated and middle-class culture. Now it’s a yob culture. The values are so strange.”

He added that he preferred living in Bath to London because the capital no longer felt “English”.

“London is no longer an English city which is why I love Bath,” he said. “That’s how they sold it for the Olympics, not as the capital of England but as the cosmopolitan city. I love being down in Bath because it feels like the England that I grew up in.”

I could discuss this at greater length on Saint George's feast day but I will say the sun has set on the British Empire. It did so ages ago. Any country that extols the virtues of Posh and Becks, soccer and the dole to those who hate British infidels has nothing to be surprised about.


And now, some really bad looking Easter cakes. Way to break off Lent.

Tuesday Post

Quick thoughts for Holy Week and in general.


Devolution: morons in Canada and in the US where the decline isn't just financial:

In such a world it becomes more difficult to innovate, and frankly not a priority. When I deposit a New Zealand check at my bank in Montreal, the funds are available to me within two seconds. The last time I deposited a New Zealand check at my bank in the U.S., they sent it for “collection” (an entirely artificial concept in the computer age) to Australia, and by the time it came back it had expired. They couldn’t understand why I was annoyed — c’mon, man, we were in the ballpark! To resolve the issue, I had to go to the bank president, who, on being informed of my Canadian comparison, said, “Well, you must understand smaller countries by their nature have to get used to dealing with the rest of the world. It’s different for America.” 
 

This might have been reasonable enough in 1950, when America was last man standing on a Western world otherwise reduced to rubble. But it seems an odd attitude for a country whose households are entirely filled by products made elsewhere and whose future is mortgaged to foreigners. And it made me wonder if perhaps Ferguson and I are being insufficiently apocalyptic. A gargantuan bureaucratized parochialism leavened by litigiousness and political correctness is a scale of decline no developed nation has yet attempted.

Carbon and stupidity, people. Americans don't get that Canada is its neighbour and Canada is so multicultural and cosmopolitan that they think the Eskimo the Inuit still live in igloos.


Thank you, God, that Sun TV lets Ezra Levant talk and talk. Sarah Palin's Wonder Twin deserves his own mic.


Not everyone likes Sun News, however, principally the people who like their women stupid:

I only watched a couple of minutes of Sun News today so I can’t really comment much on the content except to say it sure ain’t like anything else on Canadian TV which in itself makes me very happy.

What I did want to comment on is the snide remarks being made from Sun News’ media competitors and especially the ones which smack of being misogynistic.

CBC’s Rick Mercer - “Just yesterday SUN TV’s studios was full of dry wall, today it is full of silicone”

Ottawa Citizen’s Dave Dutton - “26 babe shots in intro; still awaiting actual news”

Globe and Mail’s Jeff Blair – “If the ratings are as high as the hem-lines, Sun News has a chance”

I’m not normally one to get bent out of shape over stuff like this but imagine the outcry if it was the Sun’s journalists and on-air personalities taking shots at the CBC’s Wendy Mesley or CTV’s Jennifer Ward about how short their skirts are and sneering about their boob jobs?

Tsk-tsk.


Take your "art" and stuff it:

When New York artist Andres Serrano plunged a plastic crucifix into a glass of his own urine and photographed it in 1987 under the title Piss Christ, he said he was making a statement on the misuse of religion.

Controversy has followed the work ever since, but reached an unprecedented peak on Palm Sunday when it was attacked with hammers and destroyed after an "anti-blasphemy" campaign by French Catholic fundamentalists in the southern city of Avignon.

The violent slashing of the picture, and another Serrano photograph of a meditating nun, has plunged secular France into soul-searching about Christian fundamentalism and Nicolas Sarkozy's use of religious populism in his bid for re-election next year.

It also marks a return to an old standoff between Serrano and the religious right that dates back more than 20 years, to Reagan-era Republicanism in the US.

What is worse: the incident or the padding in the article (juvenile, really)? YOU decide. Is the last acceptable prejudice anything like the religion of peace?


It's no Miss America but just as entertaining if halal TV entertainment is your bag.


(hat tips: SDA and BCF)


And now, some historical brass (or copper and silver as the case may be): recordings of trumpets from Tutankhamen's court.

Tuesday Mutterings

Russia remembers when the Soviet Union sent a man into space and he didn't die:

Russia on Tuesday marked a half century since Yuri Gagarin became the first man in space, the greatest victory of Soviet science which expanded human horizons and still remembered by Russians as their finest hour.

As Russian state television proudly broadcast archive footage of the smiling Gagarin touring the world after his exploit, President Dmitry Medvedev described the flight as a "revolutionary" event that changed the world.

At 0907 Moscow time on April 12, 1961 Gagarin uttered the famous words "Let's go" as the Vostok rocket, with him squeezed into a tiny capsule at the top, blasted off from the south of the Soviet republic of Kazakhstan.

After a voyage lasting just 108 minutes that granted the 27-year-old carpenter's son historical immortality, Gagarin ejected from his capsule and parachuted down into a field in the Saratov region of central Russia.

From that moment on, his life, and the course of modern space exploration, would never be the same again.

For the record, Chekov also didn't die. Came close but no paskha.


How De Gaulling! A faceless woman uses European values to support her right to be completely covered:

She's the face - or rather, the veil - of the French burka ban. A niqab-wearing Kenza Drider, 34, was arrested in Paris Monday, the first day a law came into force forbidding women from appearing in public with their faces covered.

"This law infringes my European rights. I cannot but defend them -that is to say, my freedom to come and go and my religious freedom," the voluntary worker and mother of four told reporters in Avignon before she boarded the train to the French capital.

Interestingly enough, this woman wouldn't even be interviewed in Saudi Arabia where apparel police would beat her for being uncovered. I suppose she has the right to be treated like cattle if she wishes but don't we have the responsibility to curb this vitamin D-depriving baggage? After all, common sense and decency would be the better determinants of choice of garb, not the emotional or cultural infancy of fanatical men (as one quick wit put it: "Of course they don't. No woman in history has ever been thrilled to show up somewhere to find that another woman is wearing the exact same outfit."). What are we saying when we allow one segment of society to subvert the law, custom and common sense because their tribal beliefs are deemed in their eyes to be superior in every way? Do we really support this in the interests of respect for other cultures or do we not expect some people to behave any better? Or perhaps we are too cowardly to defend the values that benefit us each day?


Why not take the argument in this direction: can I be served wearing a mask? Can I pass through a checkpoint or airport gate without having my identity verified? No. So why allow it for anyone else?


And now, some Iranian girl kicking some morality police @$$:




Moving on, Bolivia wants to be a smelly hippy country:

Bolivia will this month table a draft United Nations treaty giving "Mother Earth" the same rights as humans -having just passed a domestic law that does the same for bugs, trees and all other natural things in the South American country.

The bid aims to have the UN recognize the Earth as a living entity that humans have sought to "dominate and exploit" -to the point that the "well-being and existence of many beings" is now threatened.

The wording may yet evolve, but the general structure is meant to mirror Bolivia's Law of the Rights of Mother Earth, which Bolivian President Evo Morales enacted in January.

That document speaks of the country's natural resources as "blessings," and grants the Earth a series of specific rights that include rights to life, water and clean air; the right to repair livelihoods affected by human activities, and the right to be free from pollution.

It also establishes a Ministry of Mother Earth, and provides the planet with an ombudsman whose job is to hear nature's complaints as voiced by activist and other groups, including the state.

Let me know how that works out for you.


Mis-titled article should really read: "Chinese nuclear watchdog reassures citizens that the Fukushima crisis is no direct danger to them."

China nuclear watchdog says Japan crisis no Chernobyl

China's nuclear safety agency said radiation from Japan's leaking Fukushima Daiichi plant is no immediate threat to Chinese residents, playing down parallels with Chernobyl, the world's worst nuclear disaster.

Take this with a grain of salt as this is China.


A lawyer talking utter is still talking utter rot:

Canada's anti-polygamy law is akin to the long-abandoned criminal prohibition on homosexuality, fuelling social stigma while forcing people in honest, committed relationships to live in shame, says a lawyer arguing the law should be struck down.

George Macintosh says removing polygamy from the Criminal Code would have the same positive effect as the decriminalization of homosexuality in 1969.

"In this sense, (the anti-polygamy law) is precisely the same as the law against homosexual sex, which was struck down in Canada 42 years ago," Macintosh said Tuesday during his final arguments at a landmark B.C. court case.

Polygamy fell out fashion in many circles because it was more convenient and morally amenable to have one man and one woman legally and culturally bind themselves in a union beneficial to society. Throwing in the minuscule population who demand public acceptance or else really throws a wrench into the spokes.



It wasn't tectonic warming at all but a gigantic fish!

A New Post for a New Monday

The cat's mad.

Not only did the bloggers concerned do the leg work (so to speak) and not get credited for it, there is the little matter of a total lack of logical and moral revulsion:

This is a classic media trajectory: Something goofy happens - in this case, a prominent Muslim organization posts a David Duke video; a couple of bloggers start looking into it, and a week later the snooty old legacy media picks up the story after all the legwork's been done for them....  

So, of course, Bernie with his reflex urge to censor immediately reaches for the, ooh, naughty "hate law" violation. It shouldn't be illegal for Muslims to post David Duke videos if they happen to like them. Which these guys clearly do. The real issue, as Blazing Cat Fur points out, is how plugged in this Muslim organization is to everyone who matters in Trudeaupia - photo ops with Liberal MPs, Toronto's police chief, the NDP leader... How disgusting does a "mainstream" Muslim organization have to be for Bill Blair and Jack Layton to decline to be photographed with them? 

The hater in question is a white bigot who now happens to be embraced by a Muslim group. Is he now too big to throw under a bus? Is he protected by an invisible force-field of impunity? Who will fend off these fanatics with a stick?


(hat tips all around)


A treasure trove of thoughtful articles at American Thinker including terrorism that dare not speak its name, risks the abortion industry would rather not mention and stupid people call Easter eggs 'spring spheres' because calling them the former might cause offense to absolutely no one.


Shut up, China:

The United States is beset by violence, racism and torture and has no authority to condemn other governments' human rights problems, China said on Sunday, countering U.S. criticism of Beijing's crackdown.


The row between Beijing and Washington over human rights has intensified since China's ruling Communist Party extended its clampdown on dissidents and rights activists, a move which has sparked an outcry from Washington and other Western governments.

When the United States arrests people for partaking in religious services, kills political prisoners and uses their organs, exploits labourers, gives poisoned milk to children and sends North Koreans back to be killed, THEN you can criticise your largest trading partner.



Some defy the French veil ban because a caliphate along the French Riviera sounds like a nice idea.


And now, a real trooper- a boy without hands wins a penmanship award.

It's Friday

Some stuff to mull over the week-end.


Some who can, do. Some who can't, tell others what to do. Watch the train wreck:

On this, Dr Power elaborates, highlighting another benefit of the egalitarian ideal: “In principle then, there is no reason why a teacher is smarter than his or her student, or why educators shouldn’t be able to learn alongside pupils in a shared ignorance.” 

I'll tell you why it won't work, oh "learned ones". If a student knew everything, he wouldn't be a student. No one would have to pay somebody whose patience, understanding and knowledge could mould an impressionable mind into a keen one. No, I'm not referring to Wisconsin teachers who bolt on a whim. I'm referring to people who are true educators, those who stay after school, mark assignments and actually know and care about their students. What a perfect way to create a series of proles than to assume all teachers are (or should be) as ignorant as their students and that all students have equal capacity for anything and everything. Is that so? There will be an excess of neurosurgeon cowboy artists then? Perhaps in Shangri-la but not in the real world.


What's yours is mine and what is mine is also mine.  Win-win for some.


Father cuts the throat of his daughter to "preserve honour". Culture matters.


Gwyneth Paltrow and Scarlett Johansson cement the need for Celebrity Apartheid Week by defending a corporation that hides child abuse.


Gaza "seethes" (as usual) at Israel for having the audacity to defend itself:

Israeli air strikes in the Gaza Strip killed three militants from the Islamist group Hamas and three Palestinian civilians on Friday, in a second day of a fresh upsurge in the conflict.

At least 29 Palestinians have been killed since the latest spasm of violence erupted on March 20, with 11 killed over the past two days by Israeli action after an attack on a school bus which injured two Israelis including a teenager.

Israel has an apartheid week just to itself. Discuss.

Friday Freakout

Finding a snake in your bathroom counts as incredibly freaky.


Cats can dream, too.


People who clearly have too much money.


Capture your difficult moments in cake form.

Thursday Post

Japan just can't catch a lucky break:

Japan was rattled by a strong aftershock and tsunami warning Thursday night nearly a month after a devastating earthquake and tsunami flattened the northeastern coast.

The Japan meteorological agency issued a tsunami warning for a wave of up to 6 feet (two meters). The warning was issued for a coastal area already torn apart by last month's tsunami, which is believed to have killed some 25,000 people and has sparked an ongoing crisis at a nuclear power plant.

Officials say Thursday's aftershock was a 7.4-magnitude and hit 25 miles (40 kilometres) under the water and off the coast of Miyagi prefecture. The quake that preceded last month's tsunami was a 9.0-magnitude.

But at least the radioactive leak was plugged.


Remember- Obama wanted to meet Iran WITHOUT any pre-conditions:

An exiled Iranian opposition group said Thursday that its spies have found a factory that plays a key role in Iran's secretive nuclear program.

Spokesmen for the Mujahedeen-e Khalq told reporters that over the past 4 1/2 years the Iranian government has used a manufacturing facility west of Tehran to produce parts for tens of thousands of enrichment centrifuges.

These machines can make the low-enriched uranium fuel used in many nuclear power plants or the highly-enriched uranium required by nuclear weapons.

Iran says it is building a civilian nuclear power program, but the U.S. and other nations suspect that it is seeking the capacity to build nuclear bombs.

Speaking of Obama:

President Barack Obama on Wednesday said concerns in the United States about the potentially "destructive" nature of the Canadian oil sands need to be answered before his administration decides whether to approve the construction of Calgary-based TransCanada's Keystone XL pipeline.

Speaking publicly for the first time about the controversial Keystone XL project, Mr. Obama referred to Alberta's bitumen deposits as "tar sands" -the term favoured by environmentalists -but refused to offer an opinion about whether the 3,200-kilometre pipeline should be approved.

"I will make this general point, which is that, first of all, importing oil from countries that are stable and friendly is a good thing," Mr. Obama said, essentially repeating comments he made last week in a major speech on U.S. energy security.

Canada "is already one of our largest oil exporters." Mr. Obama said during a town-hall meeting in Pennsylvania on energy. "These tar sands, there are some environmental questions about how destructive they are, potentially, what are the dangers there, and we've got to examine all those questions."

Canada is the biggest foreign supplier of oil to the United States, providing about 23% of the crude America imports every year.

The $7-billion Keystone XL has been delayed since last July, when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency asked the State Department to conduct a supplemental environmental impact study to address concerns about pipeline safety and the impact on climate change of oilsands production.

Who said Obama was Canada's friend? Let's put it more succinctly: who said Obama knew what he was talking about?


Which weasel will acknowledge how far up a certain creek we are?

Into the vacuous open pit of policy trivialities that has become this election, David Dodge, former governor of the Bank of Canada, has just dropped a ticking time bomb. The Canadian universal health care model, with governments as the major funders of service, is fiscally unsustainable.

If the election platforms of the major parties are an indication, no Liberal or Conservative bomb squads will be available to neutralize Mr. Dodge's device -a tidy bit of forecasting titled Chronic Healthcare Spending Disease.

Mr. Dodge reports that health-care spending in Canada could rise to take up almost 19% of the national economy within 20 years, up from about 12% today.

In dollar terms, that works out to an increase from about $5,000 today to $10,700 by 2031 in constant dollars for every person in Canada. If Election 2011 is being fought over family values, how's this for dinner-table political chat: Health-care costs for a family of four will jump 50% to $42,800 within 20 years.

The political question from Mr. Dodge is: How are Canadian families going to pay for these rising costs? He said Canadians cannot "sleepwalk" into the looming policy crisis on the assumption that no changes will be needed to the healthcare model they hold so dear -a model that our electioneering politicians refuse to talk about beyond empty platitudes. "We'll strengthen universally accessible health care," says Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff in a platform that contains nothing on how that might be done. Same for Stephen Harper's Conservatives.

In Mr. Dodge's analysis, such evasions mask what is an impossible and unsustainable funding regime.

Publicly-funded services rely on numbers and taxes. Where do our politicians suggest we get either of them from?


He never considered recusal because he's selfish.


We can always trust the parole system. Yes we can:

A B.C. man who killed all three of his children in 2008 has been granted escorted day passes from a psychiatric facility. 

Allan Schoenborn, 42, pleaded at a hearing before the B.C. Review Board on Tuesday for an opportunity to "get out in the community, go down to the mall for coffee." 

The board ruled on Wednesday that he may have "escorted leaves" from Hawthorne House at the Forensic Psychiatric Institute in Port Coquitlam. 

"He will have no unnecessary access to the community and no overnight leaves, but he could be given escorted day leaves, for example to a recreation centre or for fitness purposes," said review board chairman Bernd Walter in an interview. 

It was exactly three years ago Wednesday that Schoenborn killed each of his three children, slashing Kaitlynne, 10, and smothering his two boys, Max, 8, and Cordon, 5.

Another "popcorn and beer" moment or the unfiltered truth? YOU decide!

Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff has fired Quebec candidate André Forbes over past comments he made about the province's aboriginals suggesting they're lazy. Mr. Forbes, who is Métis, was the Liberal candidate for the riding of Manicouagan in northern Quebec. He was the founder of l'Association des droits des blancs, or the Association for the Rights of Whites.

He suggested in a 2002 newspaper interview that he felt aboriginal people are poor workers and are given too much money and land rights by government.

"We all know that the aboriginals will not keep their jobs . I have worked for many years for Gulf Paper of Clarke City, which closed in 1968. Many Montagnais worked there. I only remember one who did a good job. There must have been others hardworking among them, but I don't recall one name," Mr. Forbes told Le Soleil in March 2002.

The New Democrats raised the controversial comments and Mr. Ignatieff asked staff to check their validity. He fired the candidate on Wednesday afternoon.

Related: just one of the many reasons why teachers' unions should be abolished:

Ontario's English Catholic school teachers will be required to pay $60 each to their union to subsidize its effort to re-elect Premier Dalton McGuinty in the Oct. 6 provincial election.

Members of the teachers' association were informed of the fee increase in a letter, which noted that "much discussion" had gone into the matter. The money will be paid on July 1, providing the union's "political action committee" with a $3million pot to campaign against Mr. McGuinty's challengers, particularly Progressive Conservative leader Tim Hudak.

It should surprise no one that a public sector union would use members' contributions to further the leaderships' personal political agenda, as Canadians have become wearily accustomed to such things. But there is something particularly egregious about a union charging its members an extra fee so it can back a political party many of them don't support.

Union president James Ryan insists the association is not trying to tell members how to vote. He insists the money will pay for an "issues-based campaign promoting the educational rights of children and of students and of having a good educational system."

Call it what you will. For the 33% of union delegates who voted against the measure, it's a compulsory political donation to a cause they might not personally support. Although the measure was passed by a majority at the association's annual general meeting, it cannot be assumed those teachers who served as conference delegates are reflective of the rank-and-file teachers they represent. Teachers choose representatives they feel share their concerns for workplace issues; no one is asked who they vote for.

Ontario teachers are well paid, and well within the demographic among which Mr. Hudak finds much of his support. Others may prefer the New Democratic Party. Too bad for them. They'll be paying their union to support the Liberals. Even while offering lip service to non-partisanship, the union's letter makes clear it is targeted at Mr. Hudak, noting that "local AGM delegations left the AGM acutely aware of how the election of a Conservative government under Tim Hudak would threaten the common good." Not only does the association presume to choose the desired candidate for its members, it feels empowered to define what constitutes "the common good" on their behalf.

This might be defensible if teachers' membership in the union was voluntary. It isn't. Those who wish to pursue the high calling of educating children are in effect being forced to subsidize a political campaign if they wish to remain in their profession.

Why we should never let up and why we should cut Pakistan off:

A U.S. progress report on Afghanistan and Pakistan warns the Taliban insurgency in Pakistan's western border region is gaining in strength, despite the deployment of hundreds of thousands of troops.

The 38-page semi-annual report presented to the U.S. Congress Tuesday harshly criticizes Pakistan, saying it has "no clear path toward defeating the insurgency" along its borders with Afghanistan.

The review notes an effort by the Pakistan military to clear rebels from the Mohmand and Bajaur tribal agencies that began in January is failing -for the third time in two years.

The failure is "a clear indicator of the inability of the Pakistan military and government to render cleared areas resistant to insurgency return," it says.

Stupid letter of the day:

During the last 1,500 years, Islam's march to embrace tolerance has been very slow. The inherent quality of Islam, compassion, as claimed by the vast majority of its followers, does not really tally with the realities on the ground. No one can imagine such violent reactions from the Christian world if a copy of the Bible were burned or desecrated, as Christians do not believe that such an act can annihilate Christianity. Muslims must accept that only forgiveness can bring freedom and herald an era of enlightenment.

No, the transition of Islam from radicalism to rationality has been non-existent (just like compassion; see here) and Christians don't explode into fury whenever someone desecrates a religious symbol or insults them.


Culture: it matters.


And now, make it Tso.

Monday Post

On the election front:

The federal long-gun registry, long a thorn in the side of many rural Canadians and hunters, is back on the Conservative policy agenda, not that it ever really left. 

Tory leader Stephen Harper promised again today to scrap the registry hoping to attract rural voters and erode support of a number of NDP and Liberal candidates who changed their positions during a parliamentary vote on a private members bill last September....

And, it was no accident Harper chose Welland to make the promise. Welland NDP Malcolm Allen voted  against killing the gun registry and only retained his riding in the 2008 election by a small margin, fewer than 500 votes to his Conservative rival.

The Tories hope to capitalize on this and in other vulnerable ridings as well, including several in northern Ontario.  The Tories have targeted eight Liberals and six New Democrats in this campaign over their vote reversal on the gun registry.

I'm glad Harper is sticking it to Malcolm Allen, who is clearly the more nauseatingly socialist of the two evils. If in one's riding, one cannot leave their car door unlocked in a church parking lot, one should not be worried about a marksman defending his home from the very people who would benefit from Allen's nanny-statism. 




They clearly haven't been given a life sentence if they can apply for parole in ten years:

Two youths who brutally raped and murdered 18-year-old Kimberly Proctor last year have been sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole for 10 years.

This morning, B.C. Supreme Court Justice Robert Johnston sentenced the two teen boys — who were 16 and 17 at the time of the murder — as adults.

Johnston has not yet lifted the publication ban that has been protecting their identities since their arrest last June. Under the Youth Criminal Justice Act, the identities of youths are protected in court, but that ban usually is removed once they are sentenced as adults. The teens are now 17 and 18.

In October, the teens pleaded guilty to the first-degree murder of Proctor, whose badly burned body was found under a bridge on the Galloping Goose Trail on March 19, 2010. The two admitted they lured the Grade 12 student to one of their homes, tied her up, gagged her, sexually assaulted her, beat her, suffocated her and mutilated her body with a knife over several hours. They then put her body in a freezer, and the next day travelled to the Galloping Goose Trail and set it on fire. 

This morning, Johnston also sentenced the boys to five-year concurrent sentences on the charge of indignity to human remains.

Lousy legal system.


No, Japan! Don't do it! Remember how they screwed up last time?!

Japan has asked nuclear superpower Russia to send a special radiation treatment ship used to decommission nuclear submarines as it fights to contain the world's worst atomic crisis since Chernobyl, Japanese media said late on Monday.

This is not good.


Guantanamo wasn't closed so the Obama administration could bring you a special military commission to try Khaled Sheik Mohammad:

Attorney General Eric Holder today announced that self-proclaimed Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammad and his four alleged co-conspirators will be tried in a military commission, as the CBS News Investigative Unit reported earlier today. A source tells CBS News the commission will be held at the Guantanamo Bay prison. 


Today's announcement represents a pronounced shift in the administration's handling of terrorism cases. Trying Mohammad in a civilian court and closing the Guantanamo prison were once some of the Obama administration's top priorities, but political realities have hamstrung both goals. 


Holder said today that he still believes the federal court system would have provided the best court system. The Justice Department today unsealed the indictment against the accused 9/11 plotters in December 2009, which Holder said revealed "we were prepared to bring a powerful case against Khalid Sheikh Mohammad."

"I continue to think the Article 3 courts are the best place to bring" the accused terrorists to trial, he said. However, he added, justice for the victims of 9/11 has been "long overdue and must not be delayed any further."

A rock and a hard place: shutting down a prison-resort for terrorists and avoiding a public circus trial for the man who helped bring about the September 11th attacks.  Appearance is everything in this administration.


Let's remember something: the perpetually angry would have found another reason why they are "aggrieved", Koran or no burned Koran. No one else behaves this way- not the Copts whose churches were and are burned to the ground, not the Buddhists whose ancient statues in Afghanistan are now rubble, not the Christians who, everyday, wonder if they will see tomorrow in Pakistan.


Women are stupid. Not all women, just the ones who think that by wearing ugly clothes they are combating crime:

The same people who accuse Reverend Whosits of inciting Muslims to kill people because he burned a Koran are now marching (in their thousands, mind you) for what amounts to the right to provoke men sexually without consequences to themselves.

(I have never attended an anti-Jihadist event in Toronto that attracted thousands of people. Oddly enough.)
Revenered Whosits was not genetically programed to burn Korans.

And even I don’t believe Muslims are genetically programmed to kill people for stupid reasons.

However, men ARE genetically programed to react to sexual displays by females — and then expected to control themselves 95% of the time, while women either don’t know this or worse, evidently just don’t care.

And that is why Slut Walk is worse than burning the Koran.

No one deserves to be a victim of a violent crime. Likewise, no deserves to be on the receiving end of a spectacle that in no way prevents, addresses or actually stops violent crime. These wags tarted themselves up because they didn't like the blunt advice of a seasoned cop. That's it. Full stop. Did this juvenile stunt accomplish anything other than showing spectators how pouty they can be? Way to achieve nothing, you petulant adolescents.


And now, some happy news.


A dog, adrift for three weeks after the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, has been reunited with its owner.

Friday Post

Because it's Friday.

The fat cats get fatter:

Governor General David Johnston was the second highest paid public sector worker in Ontario last year, one of only two people paid more than $1 million by provincial taxpayers.

Johnston was paid $1,056,813 in salary and bonus as president and vice-chancellor of the University of Waterloo, but will be paid only $129,800 in the vice-regal position he took on last October.

Johnston was second to Ontario Power Generation president and CEO Tom Mitchell on the province's sunshine list of public sector workers paid at least $100,000.

Mitchell was paid $1.3 million in 2010, compared with the $2.1 million paid to his predecessor, Jim Hankinson, who was in first place on the 2009 list. Mitchell, who took over in July 2009, was No. 2 on last year's list with salary and bonus totalling just over $1 million....



Health Minister Deb Matthews, who spoke before the list was released, admitted hospitals pay very well, but said she wasn't concerned that 2,000 nurses also made the sunshine list.

"I share the concern that the public has with very high salaries in health care, so that's why we've taken some significant steps (like) tying compensation for senior executives in hospitals to achieving quality outcomes," said Matthews. "I'm not going to apologize for paying our nurses well. They're highly skilled people working very, very hard delivering front-line care."

There are 71,478 public sector workers on the list, up 11 per cent or nearly 7,400 workers from last year, but the finance ministry said the average salary on the list is down one per cent.

That wasn't exactly what the Liberal government had in mind when it asked for a two-year wage freeze in the broader public sector to help trim a deficit now at $16.7 billion. Arbitrators refused to go along because there was no legislation to back up the wage freeze.

"I don't disagree with those who look at very generous settlements at a time when people are losing their jobs, when other unions in the private sector are taking large concessions, it does irritate people," said Finance Minister Dwight Duncan.

The Opposition pounced on the growth in the sunshine list as proof the Liberals aren't serious about reigning in the bureaucracy.

"I just think it's shocking that during the eight years that Mr. McGuinty has been premier that list has tripled, and he's doubled the debt of the province," said Progressive Conservative critic Jim Wilson.

I don't object to qualified, hard-working people getting paid good salaries. I object to their feeding at a public trough that was supposed to be light on the numbers.


Now remember- these people are angry for no reason at all and need no rationale for setting fires and killing people. If these actions seem perfectly sensible, you might just be a dhimmi. Enjoy living on your knees:

Afghan protesters angered by the burning of a Koran by an obscure U.S. pastor killed up to 20 U.N. staff, beheading two foreigners, when they over-ran a compound in a normally peaceful northern city on Friday in the worst ever attack on the U.N. in Afghanistan.


At least eight foreigners were among the dead after attackers took out security guards, burned parts of the compound and climbed up blast walls to topple a guard tower, said Lal Mohammad Ahmadzai, a police spokesman for the northern region.

Five protesters were also killed and around 20 wounded.

Are all cultures the same and perfectly valid? The discussion goes on....



Are there any schools that actually- you know- prepare students for the marketplace and not shove propaganda down students' throats?

At an equity conference next month, Ontario’s Dufferin-Peel Catholic school board will feature several homosexual activists including one gay magazine reporter who covered the 2010 Toronto Pride Parade, with video showing him gleefully interviewing various Pride participants, including men dressed in sado-masochistic thongs....



Pihach will deliver a workshop at the board’s ‘(In)equity Conference: Hope for All’, which is aimed at Roman Catholic educators.  The event takes place April 16th from 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. at St. Marguerite D’Youville Secondary School.  A student panel from the high school will participate.

Les Storey, principal of equity, diversity, and inclusive education for the Catholic board, emphasized that it’s a conference for adults.  “It’s looking at making sure that our adults are aware of what the issues are when it comes to same-sex orientation,” he told LifeSiteNews.

Asked if there were speakers faithful to Church teaching that could have addressed the issue instead, he said the homosexual speakers will share about their experiences of discrimination.  “We’re still maintaining being faithful to the Church’s teachings,” he said.  “It’s definitely a Catholic-focused type of day. ... This is just one piece of the day.”

Should I start with the inappropriateness of the material, the creepiness of the pervert coming to speak at a Catholic school, the pointlessness of an "equity officer", or the plain and simple fact that schools are meant to teach necessary skills to impressionable future citizens, not inundate them with sexually freaky codswallop? Maybe I should ask who would allow this and how can he or she or even they be fired? Maybe I should ask the parents why they would think this is a good idea or how long they want this perverse pantomime to continue? Perhaps the bishops would like to weigh in. Where are God's go-to guys when you need them?


Because they are expendable. That's why. Don't let anyone tell you it's "humane".



The "Arab Spring" is going to be a really big problem:

A lawyer who works with various Islamist groups has predicted that 3000 leading figures of the Jama'a al-Islamyia and Egyptian Islamic Jihad groups will return to Egypt in a few days, as their names have been dropped from the "wanted" list maintained by Egyptian security forces.

It's not violence, it's 'violence':

Readers may recall Priyamvada Gopal and her efforts to redefine violence so as to include anything to which she and her peers take political exception, thereby elevating actual thuggery to the status of retaliation. For Ms Gopal, setting fire to occupied buildings isn’t “real” violence and is no more objectionable than “hypocritical language.” This bold and convenient philosophy appears to have been embraced by other Guardian contributors - among them, chronic confabulator Laurie Penny, whose recent pronouncements on Twitter included the following (now deleted):

I have no problem with principled, thought-through political ‘violence.’

What 'idiots'?



And now, chivalry with ducks.