Celebrity Apartheid Week: The Happenings

Already in medias res.


First, some good news: it's William Shatner's birthday.

The bad news, Elizabeth Taylor has passed away.

Just one of her sixty-five costumes. (sigh)

Celebrity Apartheid Week: Some People Aren't Big Bullies....

... just big girls' blouses.


Case in point: Ryan Murphy, progenitor of the truly awful show, Glee. What amount of time would a right-thinking individual spend watching scrawny teen-agers belt out crappier versions of crappy songs on a weekly basis? And why? It's not reflective of reality and it certainly isn't enjoyable. Remember when Jane Lynch was in Best in Show and A Mighty Wind? Why did she sell out? What did Ryan Murphy promise her? It can't have been the hilarity of the movies she's been in.


What a hack Murphy is!


And an insolent whiner and a cringer, apparently. Ryan Murphy thinks that not only should everyone watch his show (the UN-mirror of the real teen-aged world) but self-respecting artists should donate their hard work for his audio butchery. This article says it best:

Glee is the worst show on television, and its creator Ryan Murphy is the most unabashed bigot in television.  We saw Kathy Griffin portray an egregious Tea Party stereotype last week (and, remember– this character was supposed to highlight Murphy’s “inclusiveness” toward conservatives), and Murphy has continued this winning trend by making friends and influencing people mouthing off about artists who have actually created the popular music he parasitically exploits.  I’m sensing a pattern here; anyone who dares to challenge Murphy gets publicly insulted, even with hateful portrayals on his show (including shockingly racist ones– but more on that later).

I will admit, when it was first announced, I looked forward to the show, because it was promoted as an offbeat comedy featuring Jane Lynch, who’s normally hilarious, but it’s nothing of the sort.  This is a soap opera of the worst kind– it’s the ultimate wet dream for the kind of people who actually believe that gays should be more outraged at high school bullies than Shariah-ordered executions.  

(Sidebar: tell me about it)

It’s nothing but blatant wish fulfillment for TV executives who are at the top of the world but can’t get over some hangup from high school. Your glee club wasn’t that great and didn’t get any funding in school?  Aww, poor baby, let’s make a show where everyone in the glee club would be a final contestant on American Idol! You got picked on in high school?  That’s okay, you can write a show where the homophobic bully is secretly gay!  Don’t like Christians opposing gay marriage? No worries; we’ll just create a stupid, belligerent, superstitious, overweight, violent black character to mock them...

And, even worse, it’s a musical.  Not a musical in the sense that characters express themselves through songs– it’s a musical where the characters extraneously break into glammed-up, severely auto-tuned covers of hit pop songs.  It’s all about leeching off the success of those who create in the music world…
… and some in that world have begun to publicly denounce it.

When the band Kings of Leon quietly rejected a request to license their music to the show, Murphy shot backhim “arts education.”  Slash of Guns ‘n’ Roses rightly dissed the show as an insult to musicals, and Murphy tactfully declared, “people who make those comments, their careers are over; they’re uneducated and quite stupid.”  That’s odd, because the rather popular and prolific Damon Albarn of Blur and Gorillaz didn’t have nice things to say about Glee, either.  Nor does Dave Grohl of the Foo Fighters:  ”f— that guy for thinking anybody and everybody should want to do Glee.” by telling the band “F— you,” calling them “self-centered a–holes,” then accusing them of the unforgivable sin of neglecting


I’m glad that a Glee backlash is building in the music community; Murphy is little more than a bully with simultaneous messiah and victim complexes.  A normal, well-adjusted adult would recognize that not 100% of the music community is going to want to hear its work turned into pitch-corrected teenybopper jams and accept the fact that not 100% of his licensing requests will be accepted.  However, Murphy interprets these as insults, not only against him but against his mission, as if a vapid primetime soap opera is crucial to “arts education” in America (“Allow me to butcher your songs… it’s for the children!”).

Wow. Just wow. The show is not satire, it's outright insulting. Satire involve wit and subtlety. Where is the satire in lampooning an angry black Christian who hates math (because, apparently, all Christians hate math)? That's just a disgusting caricature. No, it's worse, actually. She is, however, just one in a gallery of travesties. It's like lining up duck decoys to shoot. "Don't like that one- bang."



Oh no! Gun imagery! Even the word "gun" kills!



The show and its desecrated songs are not amusing. It's electronica noise. And it's helmed by some annoying twit of a person who is simply incapable of adult behaviour. An adult (assuming he was stupid enough to even conceive of this show in the first place) would just accept rejection and move on. Not Murphy, though. I can just see an enormous infant pumping his fists into the air and yelping until he turn purple. If there is anyone who deserves acidic backlash, it's Ryan Murphy.

Celebrity Apartheid Week

Why not start a new tradition, a new week and the seven hundredth post with Celebrity Apartheid Week?

Don't look directly at it!

Is there any one group of people who deserve a week more than celebrities? You know celebrities - the people who, by pure virtue of their seemingly flawless features, demand some sort of regard for being in a TV show or movie, or having the most downloaded MP3. For one or all of those reasons, they believe they deserve respect for being the intellectual giants they aren't and wonder why people aren't chiming onto their alleged political prowess. Don't give me this nonsense that so-and-so gave money to this or that charity, and that you read so in a magazine. Yes, the celebrity in question got his or her reward. This person was in a magazine being seen doing something humanitarian by a vast and vapid audience. That sense of emotional warmth is not from digging a well, I can tell you.


Yes, there are good performers but there are also divas who crave attention like the cat that sits in front of the computer. But at least you can shoo the cat away.

Is that Jennifer Aniston's new hair do? No, it's just another cat.

Why do we value celebrities? Rather, why do we elevate celebrities above people and things that actually matter (ie- God, family, health, major world events)? Surely a major world occurrence is far more important than how this tart starlet does her hair or what some talentless hack with the voice of a choking hamster is wearing this time. This goes above and beyond admiring a well-made film. We've replaced higher and more sophisticated things with them.



How awful we are for giving them the time of day.


Let's start with something timely: where is Hollywood's overly visual relief for Japan?

The entertainment industry has rallied en masse following some of the world’s most devastating recent tragedies, organizing relief efforts for survivors of 9/11, the 2004 tsunami in Indonesia, Hurricane Katrina, and last year’s earthquake in Haiti. The latter crisis alone prompted — mere days after the disaster — a star-studded charity telethon spearheaded by George Clooney and Wyclef Jean and which raised $57 million for the stricken nation. So why, in the wake of last week’s 9.0 magnitude Japan earthquake — and its resulting tsunami and nuclear crisis — have we heard so little from Hollywood this time around?

A week after the March 11 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami claimed over 6,000 lives (over 10,000 people are still reported missing), destroyed entire cities and ravaged a nuclear power plant to meltdown, no concerted group relief effort has been made in Hollywood. 

Instead, we’ve witnessed individual efforts varying from sympathy tweets to calls for donations via text message (which totaled $2.8 million by Wednesday, according to the American Red Cross) to personal contributions on the part of filmmakers, actors, musicians and corporations. Some celebrities got creative with their support: Lady Gaga began selling “We pray for Japan” bracelets soon after disaster struck, and has raised a reported $250,000 to date. Director Chris Weitz announced early in the week that  he’d donate $1 for every Tweet he posted in the month of March — and he’s been Tweeting up a storm. Linkin Park’s Mike Shinoda designed two charity T-shirts, one of which is emblazoned with the words, “Not alone.” And even before Sandra Bullock stepped up yesterday to publicly announce a personal pledge of $1 million to the American Red Cross, Charlie Sheen promised that $1 of every ticket sold for his upcoming “Violent Torpedo of Truth” tour (which has sold out all of its dates, often in a matter of minutes) would go to the Japanese cause. A number of media corporations including Sony, Disney and Warner Bros. have pledged their support as well.

But in the general populace, as in Hollywood, there seems to be a hesitation to collectively jump to arms. Does America have relief fatigue?
 
Consider that in the wake of Haiti, dozens of celebrities announced significant personal contributions to charity, leading the cause by example. With her $1 million pledge to Red Cross, Bullock remains the lone major Hollywood figure publicly doing the same for Japan. Veteran publicist Michael Levine points to differing perceptions of Haiti and Japan on the scale of global power — i.e., Japan isn’t some poverty-stricken, underdeveloped country — as an explanation as to why image-conscious celebrities haven’t stepped up as urgently.

Aren't the Japanese "Katrina" enough? Is there no George Bush to hate?



Anyone in need is a charity case, whether at home or abroad. Japan, as a First World nation of non-looters, doesn't seem dramatic enough. I would consider losing one's home, freezing and starving in the dark, and a possible meltdown to be pretty dramatic. The support so far is quite generous and certainly needed. But there is no sense of urgency, no sense of cause celebre. Where are these moral vanguards of Hollywood when you need them?


Indeed, what would happen to Veena Malik (hat tip: BFC) if she pulled this stunt again? We know from the South Park debacle, 24, indeed, virtually any TV show or movie how apologetic Hollywood is to Islamofascists.  Who would have her back? Who is brave enough to risk a starring role in a soon-to-be panned sequel and say: "I stand with Veena Malik against Pakistani imams who preach lunacy and hatred"? I don't mean saying anything politically correct or innocuous. Where is their courage (unlike here and may I say it's about time)? I mean really give Islamofascists a black eye (figurative because anything else would be "barbaric"). If one can "bravely" attack the Catholic Church, Sarah Palin or George Bush, surely one can go toe-to-toe with prudish imam.


Speaking of Sarah Palin (they made her a celebrity when they tried looking up her skirt), she was in Israel:

Former American vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin expressed support for Jews praying openly on the Temple Mount on a visit to the Old City of Jerusalem on Sunday, officials who accompanied Palin said.

Palin and her husband Todd arrived for a two-day visit on Sunday afternoon and toured the Western Wall and its adjacent tunnels. They will visit the Old City again on Monday, tour Gesthsemane and the Mount of Olives, and have dinner with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and his wife Sara at their official residence in Jerusalem.

  

(Sidebar:  two Sarahs are better than one.)




Further:

World Likud chairman and Likud MK Danny Danon and Western Wall Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz served as Palin’s tour guides on Sunday night. Palin was told that Jews were not allowed to pray openly on the Temple Mount and about the Arab riots that accompanied Netanyahu’s decision to authorize the creation of an exit from the Western Wall tunnels in 1996.

“Why are you apologizing all the time?” Palin asked her guides.

Palin expressed regret that she would not be able to visit Nazareth or Bethlehem during her brief stay in Israel, but promised that she would soon come back for longer.

“It’s overwhelming to be able to see and touch the cornerstone of our faith,” Palin told reporters upon exiting the tunnels. “I’m so thankful to be able to be here, and I’m thankful to know the Israel-American connection will grow and strengthen as the peace negotiations continue.”

Rabinowitz said that Palin prayed at the point closest to the Holy of Holies and left a note with a personal prayer. Unlike the incident that occurred when then-presidential candidate Barack Obama visited the Western Wall in July 2008, nobody removed her note from the Wall and gave it to the press.

“She said that she absolutely supports Israel and that America is the biggest friend that Israel has,” Rabinowitz said.

When Rabinowitz shared the story of Purim with Palin, she told him it was especially meaningful to be at the Kotel on Purim.

Danon said that Palin’s visit to the Western Wall Tunnels was very exciting.

“She really connected to the story of the Jewish nation,” Danon said. “She knows the material but there’s nothing like standing in front of those big stones and hearing about the connection. I know that she loves Israel, and after a visit like this, she has a personal connection to the Western Wall.”

 

(hat tip: this guy)




Oh look- an  American politician who loves Israel. If only the man in charge did.




Mrs. Palin asked: "why are you apologizing all the time?"  Indeed. Why are they? Why does Obama apologise for America? What  is there to apologise for? 


And finally....



No, you can't make sense of the earthquake:

Hundreds of people at a Vancouver church offered prayers and donations Sunday for the victims of the Japanese earthquake and tsunami, as they were told not even religion could explain the unspeakable tragedy that has befallen the east Asian country.

The 130-year-old Christ Church Anglican Cathedral in downtown Vancouver held a service Sunday afternoon that alternated between English and Japanese, bringing together Japanese-Canadians, members of other local Anglican congregations and people from outside the faith — many still coming to grips with the devastation unfolding across the Pacific.

The 9.0-magnitude earthquake and tsunami have together killed at least 8,600 people, with nearly 13,000 still missing and another 452,000 living in shelters. They have also sparked a continuing crisis at the damaged Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant which has been leaking radiation since the natural disasters.

Sunday's service began with the thunderous rhythm of a Japanese taiko drum as a candle-lit procession entered the packed cathedral. Next to the pulpit at the front of the church stood a cherry blossom tree adorned with dozens of colourful, hand-made paper cranes.

Bishop Michael Ingham told the audience that disasters such as the earthquake and tsunami in Japan are examples of "natural evil," which happen randomly and can't be explained by any divine plan.

"Natural evil is the result of things over which we have no control — earthquakes, tsunamis," Ingham said during the 90-minute service.

"We call them evil because they are evil. They wreak havoc upon the innocent and the defenceless. ... Natural evil is random. It is not planned. It afflicts us without reason and without human deserving."

No wonder people are leaving in droves.

Happy Saint Patrick's Day!

Happy Saint Patrick's Day!

A wonderful, glorious day when only a few are Irish.



Just the facts.


What "Riverdance" would look like if it had teddy bears.





A little light reading before the heavy drinking.


Enjoy.

An Open Letter from Japan to China

Dear China,


It's been a while since we've last written but you'll understand since we've been up to our knees in human misery and flood water. I mean- it's not easy cleaning up after a horrific earthquake and tsunami. Most of our buildings are built to withstand earthquakes and your schools aren't.


Anyway, we'd feel awfully amiss if we didn't comment on this (trust us- the emphasis is all ours):

China has become such an important market for U.S. entertainment companies that one studio has taken the extraordinary step of digitally altering a film to excise bad guys from the Communist nation lest the leadership in Beijing be offended.

When MGM decided a few years ago to remake "Red Dawn," a 1984 Cold War drama about a bunch of American farm kids repelling a Soviet invasion, the studio needed new villains, since the U.S.S.R. had collapsed in 1991. The producers substituted Chinese aggressors for the Soviets and filmed the movie in Michigan in 2009.

But potential distributors are nervous about becoming associated with the finished film, concerned that doing so would harm their ability to do business with the rising Asian superpower, one of the fastest-growing and potentially most lucrative markets for American movies, not to mention other U.S. products.

As a result, the filmmakers now are digitally erasing Chinese flags and military symbols from "Red Dawn," substituting dialogue and altering the film to depict much of the invading force as being from North Korea, an isolated country where American media companies have no dollars at stake.

The changes illustrate just how much sway China's government has in the global entertainment industry, even without uttering a word of official protest. Although it's unclear if anyone in China has seen "Red Dawn," a leaked version of the script last year resulted in critical editorials in the Global Times, a communist party-controlled paper.

 


Are you kidding us?


Seriously.


North Korea- a nation of about 22 million starving people, save Kim Fatty and the chubby lad he wants to replace him, a nation with either a non-existent or rusty infrastructure, is the lead villain, the invading force in the remake of Red Dawn.



Next thing you'll be telling us is that you are nothing like the despots in the Middle East and northern Africa or that you won't be selling pirated copies of this anywhere.



Now, we can tolerate a remake or two and there is the willing suspension of disbelief but this takes the cake and steps on it. There is NO way you can convince even the most bovine teen-ager that North Korea is a viable or realistic movie villain. Do you think no one has seen Team America? And that you're willing to let your lapdog take the fall for you says so much about your opinion of them. Tsk-tsk.



What it must be like to have the power to censor something without lifting a finger.


We suppose it's more Hollywood's fault than yours but you are still not off the hook (not that we expect anything out of Hollywood).



We'll come up with something. That's the great thing about living in a free (albeit somewhat innovatively-stunted) country. You can come up with anything, produce it, sell it and make a billion yen.



Tell that to your slave-drivers who own the factories.


Yours' in celluloid,


Japan

We think that says: "America, we have better posters than you do." We're not sure.

Saint Patrick's Day Week: The Dawn of Green

The dawn of something yet to come.


Like drinking.


A biography of Saint Patrick.


Moving on....


Please note the wording of this:

One of three mail bombs sent to Indonesians blamed for "sins against Islam" wounded four people when police detonated it, a new threat coming as religious intolerance rises in the world's most populous Muslim country.

The bomb that exploded was addressed to Ulil Abshar Abdalla, the founder of the U.S.-funded Islamic Liberal Network, which has long promoted a tolerant, open form of the faith through radio shows, the Internet, discussion groups and publications.

The low-intensity devices delivered Tuesday were placed in a hole carved into a heavy book titled: "They should be killed for their sins against Islam and the Muslims."

A note with the bomb asked Abdalla, who was not in his office at the time, to name those who should top the "hit list."

The explosion wounded four people, including the policeman who lost his left hand trying to defuse the device....

"This is clearly a terror attack," said Anton Bachrul Alam, spokesman for the national police, after video of the officer's attempt was aired on local television.

"We're still investigating to see who was behind this," he said, refusing to speculate if Islamic hard-liners were to blame....

Hard-liners seeking to carve out an Islamic state in the secular nation of 237 million have in recent months targeted Christians and other minorities, sometimes beating people with bamboo sticks and machetes.

Indonesia, home to more than 210 million mostly moderate Muslims, has been hit by a string of terrorist attacks blamed on the al-Qaida-linked militant group Jemaah Islamiyah since 2002, when suicide bombings on Bali island killed 202 people.

I am confused. I thought Islam was already a tolerant, open religion hijacked by only a few extremists. Who would send a mail bomb? A rational person? Did the report not say that: "They should be killed for their sins against Islam and the Muslims." Did a Buddhist group send this? Attacks against foreigners and Indonesian Christians have been common in the world's most populous Islamic country which, by some accounts, is secular and open, or were those reports wrong?


When our attention was diverted, four journalists went missing in Libya and supporters of the current regime in Yemen "peacefully" attacked demonstrators.


It's called a private business. Find someone else to decorate your circus.


And now, some happy news from Japan:  a man is reunited with his dog (and it feels so good), dog friends don't leave dog friends behind and a woman is pleased to see her cat again. This proves the strength of human/pet bonds, the humanity we should feel for our fellow man and how Japanese cats and dogs are above looting, just like Japanese humans.

Saint Patrick's Day Week: The Clovering

Saint Patrick at the party.

Uh-oh.



However....


And....

Perhaps more successfully than any other people of the world, the Japanese have evolved a social system capable of ensuring order and good behavior. The vast reservoir of social strength brought Japan through the devastation of World War II, compared to which even the massive problems currently afflicting it, are relatively small. Japan has sustained a major blow, but its robust social order will endure, and ultimately thrive.

Read the whole thing.



If female mutilation and honour killings are not barbaric, then what are they?

An updated government information pamphlet for newcomers to Canada, “Discover Canada,” warns against such “barbaric” practices as honour killings, forced marriages and other immoral or criminal practices. Federal Liberal Immigration critic Justin Trudeau yesterday made it known that he is “uncomfortable” with the word “barbaric.” “You could say it’s absolutely unacceptable as a phrase,” says Trudeau, adding that the word could have the effect of making newcomers “defensive.”

Reaction from the blogosphere, as well as from Conservatives, to Trudeau’s reflexive political correctness was swift and uncompromising. Immigration Minister Jason Kenney responded that the language in Discover Canada is deliberate and accurate. “There’s nothing more brutal than killing a woman because of some perceived slight to family honour,” Mr. Kenney observed.


Taken aback by the kerfuffle, Mr. Trudeau backtracked. In an email to The Globe and Mail, he wrote: “Perhaps I got tangled in semantic weeds in my comments, particularly in view of the Conservatives’ cynicism on these issues. I want to make clear that I think the acts described are heinous, barbaric acts that are totally unacceptable in our society.”

I’m puzzled by Trudeau’s logic. Both Justin Trudeau and the Conservatives believe that honour killings are “barbaric.” But according to Mr. Trudeau, the Conservatives’ views on immigration are “cynical.” Therefore, actually identifying honour-motivated crimes as “barbaric” in an official document is unacceptable to people like Liberals, who are not cynical about immigration, and who are therefore made uncomfortable by accurate adjectives pointing to unpleasant realities.

This Trudeau is a disaster just like his dear, old dad.


Why one would have to explain things like killing is wrong is still a mystery to me.



The sharks are eating each other. By that I mean the couple accused of elder abuse want separate lawyers and a bail review:

The Scarborough couple accused of keeping an elderly woman in a barely heated garage for months this winter have hired separate counsel and could end up blaming each other for the charges, according to one of their lawyers.

Kwong Yan, 43, and his wife, Qi Tan, 28, appeared via video link Tuesday in a Toronto courtroom.

The two face charges of failure to provide the necessities of life and criminal negligence causing bodily harm after Mr. Yan’s 68-year-old mother was found this month suffering from pneumonia and frostbite in the garage.


Ms. Tan’s lawyer, Haiyun Wang, said Ms. Tan and her husband decided to have their own lawyers in the case because of a possible conflict of interest when the matter goes to trial.

Unbelievable.


If Christopher Pauchay and Caledonia have taught us anything, it's that aboriginals can get away with crime:

Sentencing of a Winnipeg woman who admitted smashing a baby's head on a sidewalk has been adjourned pending a report into her background, including her native ancestry, which could be used by her lawyers to argue for a more lenient penalty.

Nikita Solange Eaglestick, 22, has admitted snatching a stranger's baby and causing the girl's injury in 2009.

Eaglestick was set to begin her trial Monday but instead struck a deal with justice officials. She pleaded guilty to abduction, assault causing bodily harm and failing to comply with a court order to abstain from intoxicants stemming from the attack in Winnipeg's north end.

In exchange, the Crown agreed to drop a more serious charge of attempted murder.
The background report, which could be used to argue for lenciency, is based on a previous Supreme Court ruling.

Forget about the kid who was nearly beaten to death. Forget about the greater interests of justice. Hell, forget about treating every single person the same.


Why elevate the aboriginal person to the status of a human being with flaws and perfections when one can easily excuse their behaviour as one might shake his or her head at a puppy who gnaws on shoes?

"...Like all savages they are liars, and certainly would not scruple at the utterance of any falsehood which might, in their opinion, shield them from the vengeance of the white man."

There, that's better. Continue perpetuating the myth of the "noble savage". Why be progressive and treat them the same as anyone else who would batter a child? Why be progressive and afford aboriginal children the same protections as other children?


No. That's asking too much. It's just easier to carry on with soft-serve racism, especially at the expense of justice for all.


Someone needs to be air-lifted to a reservation:

A beautiful house and a new car or truck are considered by many Canadians to be basic necessities. Unfortunately, First Nation people have been relegated to the worst areas of their territories and denied a rightful share of their own resources as well as the royalties. Band councils instituted by governments are but mirror images of those imperialistic institutions and do not reflect traditional First Nation leadership roles, where the respect of the people was earned by selfless acts of service and sacrifice.

Monetarily inflated bureaucracies spawned these puppet-government band councils. When it comes to accusations of serfdom, let's connect the dots properly. We need to set a proper example for our First Nations. Only then can we expect First Nation leaders to be accountable to their own people.

So the reason why aboriginal chiefs stole from and exploited their own people is because "the white man" didn't offer a better example.


Okay.


Because he's Mark Steyn:

On Friday night, twelve-year old Tamar Fogel came home to find both her parents, Ruth and Udi Fogel, two brothers Yoav (11) and Elad (four), and her three-month old sister Hadas murdered in their beds. They had had their throats cut and been stabbed through the heart.

That’s not shocking: There is no shortage of young Muslim men who would enjoy slitting the throat of a three-month old baby, and then head home dreaming of the town square or soccer tournament to be named in their honor.

Back in Gaza, the citizenry celebrated the news by cheering and passing out sweets.

That’s not shocking, either: In the broader Palestinian death cult, there are untold legions who, while disinclined to murder Jews themselves, are content to revel in the glorious victory of others.

And out in the wider world there was a marked reluctance to cover the story.

What is everyone waiting for? We can't wait to give the Palestinians a state of their own. Surely we can comment on the murder of a family.


While no one was looking, the UN introduced a no-fly zone over Libya resolution. Russia, of course, has "misgivings". There should be some punitive measure every time Russia defends its customers allies to the impediment of the rest of the thinking, feeling world.



And now, penguins can fly, have heart, and freaky gloves.

Celebrity Apartheid Week

The people have spoken (please see the poll).


Celebrities deserve their own apartheid week.


Next week will be Celebrity Apartheid Week.


Let everyone know that next week, we normal people will take back the night or fight on or wear ribbons or whatever it takes to raise awareness about the utter evil and banality or banal evil of celebrities.


Don't worry, normal people. You're not alone.

It's not always about you, you know.

Saint Patrick's Day Week: the Greening

Just think- in three days we'll celebrate the feast day of just one of the saints who rescued Ireland from darkness and illiteracy.


Awesome.


Things really don't look good for Japan right now.


Some happy news: a tsunami victim is rescued 10 miles out to sea:

A 60-year-old man has been found on the roof of his floating house nearly 10 miles out at sea, two days after the tsunami that devastated the north-east coast of Japan.

Hiromitsu Shinkawa must have resigned himself to his fate when he was swept away by the retreating tsunami that roared ashore in his home town of Minami Soma in Fukushima prefecture.

As the wave approached, Shinkawa took the fateful decision to return home to collect belongings. Minutes later he was out at sea clinging to a piece of the roof from his own home.

Incredibly, he was spotted by a maritime self-defence force destroyer taking part in the rescue effort as he clung to the wreckage with one hand and waved a self-made red flag with the other. He had been at sea for two days.

Something to think about:

Japan is not Haiti, and how do I know? Well, I was living just outside of Kobe when the monstrous jishin (earthquake) hit in January 1995 and virtually destroyed the center of a major Japanese city, killing 6,600 people covering a 20-mile swath. I was right in the middle. Down the street from where I lived, a seven-story apartment building ended up being four stories. My next door neighbor died from a collapsed roof. When the quake hit, I thought it was a bomb going off.

Here's what didn't happen:

~There was no looting or breaking into food stores.
~There was no time for trying to blame anyone.
~There was no one cutting in the front of the line to get water.
~There were no calls to lawyers.

Here is what did happen:

~The people in the Kobe area were not waiting around for a US aircraft carrier.
~The military was deployed immediately to dig and search.
~The Yakuza (Japanese mafia) were the early suppliers of medical supplies and food (they had the connections and the means to get the materials to the folks).
~Within days, temporary housing was being constructed all over the area.
~Within days, portable showers and toilet facilities were set up all over the area.
~Within days, supermarkets were opened, and the queues stretched endlessly as they could only let a few people in the stores at a time. There was no anger, yelling, blaming, looting, or cutting-in-front.
~Within hours, clean-up began by everyone— students, teachers, seniors, Yakuza, politicians. Everyone seemed to be contributing in some way.

As a foreigner, I was treated like everyone else, and by the time I left Japan four years later, I would say 90% of the entire city of Kobe had been rebuilt (and consider that New York has been unable to erect a couple of building at Ground Zero now for going on 10 years).

So like I said, Japan is not Haiti— nor New Orleans. They don't need us…That is not to say they would not be unappreciative of any assistance, but probably the best thing we can do is provide portable medical facilities, staffing (if requested), and search-sniffing dogs.

Japan has avoided mob rule and the Kanye West babbling moron mode.

"George Bush doesn't like Japanese people."

Related:


Japan's Resilience.


Also related: South Korean soap opera actors care about their afflicted fans in Japan (that's nice of them).


Canadian doctors are shocked that parents would choose what they think is best for their ill child.


I have an idea: let's cut Pakistan off:

The UK’s most senior Catholic has hit out at the British Foreign Secretary for operating an “anti-Christian foreign policy”. Cardinal Keith O’Brien’s comments come as the UK Government announced plans to double overseas aid to Pakistan to more than £445 million, without requiring any commitment to religious freedom for Christians.
Earlier this month the only Christian in the Pakistani government’s cabinet, Shahbaz Bhatti, was shot dead by gunmen in Islamabad. He had previously spoken out against Pakistan’s blasphemy laws. Noting the various attacks on Christians, the Cardinal said that conditions should be attached to any aid payments, requiring a definite commitment to protection for Christians and other religious minorities – including Shia Muslims.
Cardinal O’Brien’s comments come on the day a new audit of human rights reveals that;

75% of all religious persecution around the world is now directed against Christians.
 
100 million Christians around the world are now facing persecution

Now.


Because we can't forget Sarah Palin:

Politico's lead story on the Monday following Japan's earthquake leads with "Al Sharpton, Alaska version," and goes on to attack the former Alaska Governor for defending herself from the relentless mud-slinging thinly disguised as enlightened political rhetoric.

Did Politico forget about the devastating earthquake in Japan? How? Seriously- it's on, like, every channel. Is attacking one American political figure more important an enormous seismic event?


Unreal.


And now, bad St. Patrick's Day cakes. Really bad.

Saint Patrick's Day Week: The Greenhouse Effect

Not really. (though some sure thought it)

Not only did Japan suffer one of its worst earthquakes since it recorded them but now a volcano has erupted.


Pictures of the devastation.


The recent earthquake in Japan actually shifted the Earth four inches on its axis.


Just so we remember, Israel has its own apartheid week and the Palestinians who murder families in their sleep and hand out candy after the fact want a state of their own.


The world has taken crazy pills.


The Khadrs can take their brand of terrorism to people who value human life a lot less than we do:

A terrorist collaborator is walking the streets because a Canadian judge wrongly decided to stay extradition proceedings against him, the federal government asserts.

In documents filed with Ontario's highest court ahead of an appeal hearing, Ottawa maintains Abdullah Khadr should be handed over to the United States to face terror-related charges.

Instead, by ordering the stay, Ontario Supreme Court Justice Christopher Speyer put Canada's security at risk and damaged the fight against terrorism, the government argues on behalf of the U.S.

"Because of the extradition judge's errors, an admitted al-Qaida collaborator walks free," the documents state. "The security of Canada and the international community is put at risk, Canada's fight against terrorism is undermined, and the interests of justice are not served."

The U.S. wants to try the Ottawa-born Khadr, whose younger brother Omar is serving time in Guantanamo Bay for war crimes, on charges of supplying weapons to al-Qaida in Pakistan.

Unbelievable.


Because he's Rex Murphy:

IAW — as, alas, most know — is the annual festival of scorn and propaganda against the world’s only Jewish state, a yearl attempt to depict Israel as being in the same moral sewer as South Africa in the days of apartheid.

IAW tries to do much with big words like apartheid and genocide and racism, where they really do not apply at all. Israel is not perpetrating a genocide against the Palestinians. Nor is Israel a racist state.

Yet in cases where some of those big words might actually have applied — such as Saddam and the marsh Arabs, which is why I summoned the example — these campus activists forwent anything like a campaign equivalent to their tireless, annual, and at times feral denunciations of Israel.

Did I miss Saudi Arabian Gender Apartheid Week? Or let’s take another example: This very week in Libya, there is a zealous tyrant turning fire on his own people. Is there, or has there ever been, a Gaddafi Apartheid Week or its equivalent anywhere?

Even as injustices multiply against Christians in various Middle East countries, as Egypt roils with sectarian outrage, why is there not the same righteous fury that grips all the groups who annually appoint themselves scourges of the “Zionist entity” against the perpetrators of those depravities? Their moralism is so singular.

Rumsfeld obviously doesn’t deal with Israeli Apartheid Week in his book. But his whole way of thinking, as exemplified in the memoirs, shows a pattern of seeking contrasts and posing questions to highlight inconsistency or failed logic. By just such a method may we diagnose the brittle hysterias of anti-Israelism now on display.

It is an inverted moral calculus that tries to persuade the world to demonize one state that tries its civilized best to abide in a difficult time and place, and rides merrily by the examples and practices of dozens of states and leaderships that drop into brutality every day without a twinge of regret or a whisper of condemnation.

What he said.


Letters to the editor:


An example of a pampered fool with a useless degree:

Three waves and 100 International Women Days later, and I am continually disappointed by those who say that the feminist movement is an unnecessary thorn in our collective sides. Feminists are either accused of destroying families with their radical agenda or of being divisive, interfering with "larger" progressive goals.

The problem being that, while the fights (and wins) of our first-and second-wave sisters were relatively perceptible -allowing for women today to exist within a seemingly liberated state -these freedoms exist almost as a veil which works to hide enduring inequity.

Today, feminists fight for choices that may not be as tangible as the vote, but are imperative to our freedom. 

We fight objectification, the racialization and feminization of poverty, victim blaming and violence against women. And we still fight for Women's Studies programs.

More than ever, we need feminism. After 100 years, feminism's reputation is, simultaneously, a cause for celebration as well as a significant challenge, as we fight stereotypes and vicious attacks. Yet it is not a hangover I feel, but rather the energy and inspiration that comes from a century of fighting for our lives and still believing that we can win.

I seriously feel that some people need to be air-lifted to one of the globe's hot-spots to either shake them out of their stupid illusions or just to let them fester from the rest of the thinking population. The above writer is one of those people.


I am not saying people should or shouldn't own guns, only that people should apply the higher brain functions their species possesses before declaring that someone is "GI Joe":

Re: Self-Defence Vs. GI Joes, letters to the editor, March 9; Or Will It Just Turn Middle-Aged Men Into GI Joes?, letter to the editor, March 7, Taking a stand against the home ownership of army-style weapons is bound to get certain people up in arms. However, may I suggest the Post is guilty of "piling on" by running four letters in response to mine? I don't know which study Gary Mauser uses to come up with his preposterous claim that "Canadians use firearms to defend themselves or their property against threats from humans or animals approximately 66,000 times per year" but I bet it doesn't emanate from that left-winginfiltrated organization, Statistics Canada. Perhaps I don't live in the same Canada as these guys do, but I want to remind them that the original GI Joe did not wield his weapons in a home setting. Any Canadian, without a criminal record, can go to a firing range and fire Joe's army rifles to his heart's delight.

Bingo:

I have just returned from working for a few months on a fly-in-only native reserve in northern Ontario. Most houses there were no better than one might expect to find in a Third World community, yet some were beautiful. Most that were beautiful had families living in them with close ties to band council members. In February, the council stopped the lunch program for the elementary school. Funds were not available.

Yet the band's council liaison had just brought back on the ice road a brand new four wheel drive truck. Knowing the cost of the lunch program, it was not hard for me to connect the dots. That new truck could have easily financed the lunch program for many months to come.

The average First Nations person most certainly needs taxpayers' funding, if not only to get them out from under the control of their elite band councils, but also to help them become part of our modern Canadian society and rid the reserves of what can best be described as a serfdom.

Transparency will simply be a first step.

And now, do cats dream of paper fish?

Mid-Week Post

Begin Lent with how Mass should be (language).


Why International Women's Day is an enormous joke (just a few of the reasons, anyway).


And because no post would be complete without Sarah Palin, here are a couple of articles to mull over - "Islamophobia and Palin-phobia" and "The Day Sarah Palin Capped Feminism". Enjoy.


Interesting:

A melody heard three weeks before babies are born can slow their hearts when they hear it again one month after birth, scientists find.

This discovery adds to the understanding of the effects of what sounds get heard in the womb, including how babies learn to perceive speech.

Human hearing develops during the last trimester, or three months, of pregnancy. Past research showed that infants in the womb can hear, with little or no distortion, not only the voice of theirmother but conversation near her.

By five weeks before birth, the cochlea — the spiral-shaped part of the inner ear responsible for hearing — is usually mature. To see if babies can actually remember sounds from back that far, developmental psychobiologist Carolyn Granier-Deferre at Paris Descartes University in France and her colleagues played melodies to infants inside the womb and then tested them after they were born.

"I was interested in prenatal hearing and learning since my first pregnancy almost 40 years ago," Granier-Deferre explained.

Fifty women were asked to play a brief recording of a descending piano melody (one that gets lower in pitch) twice daily in the 35th, 36th and 37th weeks after their last menstrual period. (The average human pregnancy lasts 40 weeks after the last menstrual period.) The melody was nine notes long and lasted 3.6 seconds.

When the women's 50 infants were 1 month old, both the descending melody and an ascending nine-note piano melody were played to the babies while they slept in the researchers' dimly lighted laboratory.

The scientists found that on average, the heart rates of the sleeping babies briefly slowed by about 12 beats a minute with the familiar descending melody, and by only five or six beats with the unfamiliar ascending melody.

"Our data shows that a melodic sound, which is an important characteristic of a voice and was frequently heard during prenatal development, produces a much stronger cardiac response than occurs without that experience," Granier-Deferre told LiveScience. "The large heart rate deceleration means the 1-month-old infants paid more attention to that melody than they did to other melodies, even though they had not heard it for six weeks."

Precisely:

These two stories are eloquent expressions - for those still paying attention - of the nature of modern Canada. Bilingualism in its current form, especially as it relates to employment policies in the federal government, is a continual act of appeasement toward Quebecois nationalism. Rather than being an attempt to promote a more bilingual Canada - which is an impracticality - official bilingualism was instead a covert form of pro-Francophone affirmative action.

Yet so central has this policy of appeasement become to our government that nothing is thought of paying a small fortune to educate a dyslexic paper shuffler in French. There is, of course, no practical reason for training this bureaucrat in another language. Unless we are to believe there is a shortage of Francophone tax collectors in Canada.

The myth of national unity through appeasement contrasts with the myth of socialized health care. We are told that a system of socialized medicine is more compassionate than private alternatives. There is nothing in the story of Jill Anzarut that suggests compassion. There is also no such thing as socialized health care. It is a polite euphemism for monopolistic and bureaucratic health care. The Medicare Cult's defenders argue that the alternative to government care is a heartless free market, interested only in penny pinching and profit making. Does not, however, the actions of the Ministry of Health sound exactly like the caricature of a heartless corporate penny pincher?

We labour under these myths and half-truths because we've been led to believe our national identity depends on them. Our national identity depends on impracticalities and bureaucratic heartlessness? That's modern Canada in a nutshell, isn't it?


Israel, a sovereign state in the Middle East, a country where Arabs of any religious background can live freely and recipient of  vitriol coming from places of ostensibly higher learning, brings out the worst in the crazies (hat tip: BCF). Israel Apartheid Week at the University of Western Ontario and Michael Coren at York. I have yet to hear why Israel is singled out for the "honour" of being compared to an apartheid or even totalitarian state. If someone can furnish me with proof that Israel is as bad as North Korea (let's say), I'd like to see it.


The day the lights went out in Seoul:

The bustling entertainment districts of one of the world's largest cities, Seoul, were pitched into darkness early Tuesday as the government clamped down on energy use to cope with rising oil prices.


Neon signs and outdoor lights were ordered switched off in the business and entertainment districts of the South Korean capital, in a tangible sign of how the oil price rise is hurting the resource-starved country.

President Lee Myung-bak has called for a tighter national energy policy to counter the impact of higher prices stemming from a wave of unrest across the Arab world and North Africa.

Must be all those norae-bangs. But seriously, Canada has oil sands. Lovely, energy-rich oil sands. Get your energy needs met by a pork and alcohol-consuming friendly nation.


Question to Anglicans: why are you bothering?


Yes, because the Liberals have never abused their power.



Stop stealing my food and other office notes.

First Past the Post

...or something.


How long do you need to consider action against Libya? What warrants action against another nation? Would North Korea qualify?


Jew-Hating Israel Apartheid Week has started up. One wonders about Arab Apartheid Week:

Today, March 7, begins an annual part of the global campaign to delegitimize Israel, as student groups and academics -- on campuses around the world -- hold events marking "Israel Apartheid Week" [IAW].

None of these groups is holding similar events protesting human rights abuses in any number of Arab and Muslim countries -- Libya, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Iran, Turkey, Yemen, Pakistan, Nigeria, Iraq, the Sudan or Jordan -- where people are being jailed, tortured and often killed fighting for their human rights.

The IAW features a series of events, including lectures, films, demonstrations and other activities, which, according to organisers (http://apartheidweek.org/en/about), is aimed at "raising awareness about Israel's apartheid policies toward Palestinians and gathering support for the international Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign."

If Israel were an apartheid State, people like Arab Israeli Salim Jurban would not have been elected to Israel's Supreme Court and Ishmael Khaldi, a Bedouin Muslim, would not have been appointed an advisor to Israel's Foreign Minister, Avigdor Lieberman, and then to the position of deputy Consul General of Israel in San Francisco. If Israel were an apartheid state, there would not be 5 different Arab parties and 14 Arab Israeli members of Knesset, some of whom are the most outspoken and harshest critics of Israel, including Haneen Zoabi who participated in the terrorist flotilla in June 2010, and Ahmed Tibi, currently one of the Deputy Speakers of the Knesset.

There are Arab parties in the Israeli Parliament; full Arab voting rights. Arabs are welcome as both physicians and patients in Israeli hospitals, and as both teachers and students in Israeli schools. The only national institution from which they are exempted is the military, so that, if necessary, they should not be required to fight against their own brothers. Israel is clearly not an apartheid state.

Attempts, therefore, to compare Israel, to white South Africa are at best uninformed; at worst, maliciously dishonest and anti-Semitic.

 
Perhaps we need to strip this debate down to its basic components. Universities should not be havens of leftist dogma. Indeed, there should be NO social or political groups on campus. Someone is spending money for their kids to be educated and emerge as useful, productive adults, not as impressionable would-be barristas who hate whatever it is the other guy hates. Secondly, there should be no union so powerful that it takes funds from cash-strapped students and uses it for its own ends without any accountability (oh, hi, pro-abortion student unions). Thirdly, why Israel? Of all nations one chooses to vilify, why Israel? How many Arab/Islamic nations are ruled by dictators, persecute religious minorities and are rife with violence and oppression? Does Pakistan not merit an apartheid week? Why not? Do the killings of a Muslim politician who opposed blasphemy laws and a Christian leader not count as acts opposite to values we embrace in the West or are these deaths and the reasonings behind them immaterial?


Sadly, there is no Burma Apartheid Week.


Curious George isn't a tool of hegemonic imperialism. He's just George.

(lousy haters....)

Don't hate me because I'm curious.

It's all said here and it's all said by Mark Steyn:

Speaking of the left’s willingness to provide cover for Islamic imperialism, the hippetty-hop mogul Russell Simmons was in Times Square this weekend to stand in solidarity with the Ground Zero mosque under the slogan “Today I Am A Muslim, Too“:

Some 300 people gathered in Times Square on Sunday to speak out against a planned congressional hearing on Muslim terrorism, criticizing it as xenophobic and saying that singling out Muslims, rather than extremists, is unfair.

Hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons and the imam who had led an effort to build an Islamic center near the World Trade Center site were among those who addressed the crowd.

“Today I Am A Muslim, Too.” So, like, you can be a Muslim on a Sunday and something else on a Monday? Hey, that’s great! Who knew? Maybe Russell Simmons could pass the good news on to Said Musa? They didn’t get the memo on death row in Kabul, where he was imprisoned for converting to Christianity.

Kim Kardashian was unable to attend the rally but tweeted her support for it. Maybe Kim could jet in to the village of Soul in Egypt’s Helwan Governorate and personally pass on to the locals the exciting news that you can be Muslim just for a photo-op and then move on. I’m sure the girlfriend of Coptic Christian Ashraf Iskander would love to hear that, assuming she’s still alive:

A mob of nearly four thousand Muslims has attacked Coptic homes this evening in the village of Soul, Atfif in Helwan Governorate, 30 kilometers from Cairo, and torched the Church of St. Mina and St. George…

This incident was triggered by a relationship between 40-year-old Copt Ashraf Iskander and a Muslim woman. Yesterday a “reconciliation” meeting was arranged between the relevant Coptic and Muslim families and together with the Muslim elders it was decided that Ashraf Iskander would have to leave the village because Muslims torched his house.

The father of the Muslim woman was killed by his cousin because he did not kill his daughter to preserve the family’s honor, which led the woman’s brother to avenge the death of his father by killing the cousin. The village Muslims blamed the Christians.

It would be a waste of bandwidth to question the intellectual credentials of celebrities so I won't. I will ask the obvious because it will kill me if I don't, even though the answer is stupidity and cowardice in no particular order. Why the rush to defend a group of people who, when not clamouring for death to the infidel, are constantly in victim mode waiting for bloody retribution that never happens because they are living in an ostensibly civilised society that tends to look down on burning down churches and beheading schoolgirls? As much as it would pain people (read: the left) to admit it, the bulk of the world's current cultural ills are the fault of Islam. They are. No, I don't mean the descent of the West into decadence and decay or greed or even the environment. I mean the things one reads about every day- the violence, the extremism, the assassinations, the beheadings, the brutal treatment of women and religious minorities, the suppression of ANY form of expression lest it incite not hurt feelings but uncontrollable rage. I mean that. Yes, there are good Muslim people out there but there really is no point in bringing that up as doing so only serves as a monkey wrench thrown into the machine. I'm not worried about some guy who works nine to five and whose biggest concern at the moment is rising gas prices. I'm worried about the million who think wiping Israel off the map and instituting a form of archaic and misogynist law should be the top priorities of ANY country they happen to inhabit.

Let's turn the argument over here: where is the support for the moderate Muslims, the majority some claim exists? There are good people everywhere, even in countries where theocratic dictatorships can order roving mobs to do their violent bidding. How many Muslims fled these countries and moved to North America or Europe? Do they want their new homelands to be reduced to the violent hellholes from which they escaped? So why aren't Russell Simmons and Kim Kardashian tweeting their support for them? Can the moderates ever speak out or effect change in their communities? No they cannot and certainly not if people bury their heads in the sand and pretend that some emotionally backward way of life is just as valid as any other way of life and it should be protected from phantoms they say are out to get them.


But I guess that is asking too much.


If Sarah Palin and Kathy Griffin were locked in the Octagon Cage, it's safe to say that Sarah Palin would squash Kathy Griffin's skull like a melon:

The public clash between conservative political superstar Sarah Palin and self-described "D-List" comedian Kathy Griffin gained momentum in recent days, with each taking verbal jabs at the other.

After Palin, a former Alaska governor and one-time Republican vice presidential candidate, called Griffin a "bully" over the weekend, the comedian's publicist made a dig at Palin by highlighting her starring role on last year's TV show "Sarah Palin's Alaska," rather than her political resume....

The feud between the two women goes back months.

Aside from joking about Palin, Griffin has also made fun of the 2008 Republican vice presidential candidate's daughter Bristol, 20, for gaining weight on TV show "Dancing with the Stars," and she slammed Palin's other daughter Willow, 16, for anti-gay slurs the teen made on the website Facebook.

The feud picked up again this past Saturday when Palin, a politician-turned-pundit, appeared on Fox News and, in response to an anchor's question, blasted Griffin.

"She's a 50 year-old, adult bully, really, is what she is, kind of a has been comedienne, and she can (make jokes about) me, I would just ask for respect to my children," Palin said.

I don't see why Mrs. Palin should be dragged into the mud with the likes of Kathy Griffin.


Don't panic but Japan is developing a stealth jet. I don't think it will end up badly like last time:

A senior military official says Japan is on track to test a domestically designed prototype stealth fighter in three years.

Lt. Gen. Hideyuki Yoshioka says the prototype will likely be rolled out for a test flight on schedule in 2014.

And now, glacial caves.

Obligatory Sarah Palin Post

Just when you thought it was safe to enter the month of March:

The left clearly just wants to see Sarah Palin go away.


An online petition declaring this week "Ignore Sarah Palin Week" has attracted more than 32,000 signatures.


 
"We've tried debating her, arguing with her, boycotting her, voting against her, and yet... she keeps coming back. Much like a vampire or a nasty fungus," reads the petition posted on Left Action.


Hoping to avoid a scuffle with Palin fans, the site urges supporters to not say anything negative about her family or make any threats against her in the comment section.


"We wish only the best for Sarah Palin and her family," the petition reads. "We just don't want her to be president, and we just want to take a week off from paying attention to her. ... Have fun in the comments, but keep it nice, and no threats — even in jest, okay?"

Rejoice, sad cat! She's back!

Yay! More Palin!


You can see her here, here and here.


More Palin, more rock.

"It's destiny, baby!"