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.

When At First You Don't Succeed....

...do what these yahoos do.


Why bail out students who pursue useless degrees or will drop out of university because they weren't prepared in elementary or secondary schools or people who cannot manage their credit card debt? Isn't that how the Americans got into trouble?

The country's political leaders have their sights squarely set on the hard-pressed pocketbooks of middle-class Canadian families on Day 4 of the federal election campaign.

In Oakville, Ont., Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff has unveiled a proposed "learning passport," which would provide $1 billion a year in tax-free student grants. to encourage roughly one million Canadian students to attend college or university.

The plan, which would see a Liberal government making contributions to existing registered education savings plans, or RESPs, would provide students $1,000 a year for four years, or up to $1,500 a year for four years for low-income families.

"This is the kind of investment in education which is a game-changer for our country," Ignatieff said, calling it the biggest investment in post-secondary education in Canada's history.

"It's a billion dollars of new money to make us the best-educated society on the planet."

NDP Leader Jack Layton, meanwhile, is promising action on a subject that's long been dear to his heart: capping interest charges on credit cards to help Canadian families ease the growing crush of consumer debt.

The NDP believes financial institutions shouldn't be allowed to charge consumers interest at a rate more than five percentage points higher than prime.

"I believe that you need strong banks in an economy so that you can have a healthy level of economic activity," Layton told a news conference outside a family home in Brantford, Ont., west of Toronto.

"I think Canadians deserve something in return here — just a little bit of fairness. But you know what? Under Stephen Harper, Canadians pay some of the highest credit-card fees in the world — and that's just not right."

Layton says the NDP cap on interest rates would save the average credit-card holder about $60 a month, or more than $700 a year.

Were world leaders willing to oust Gaddafi after the Lockerbie bombing?

International leaders meeting in London, England, agreed to establish a group to co-ordinate all international action against the Gadhafi regime in Libya.

World leaders fell short of a concerted group effort to oust Moammar Gadhafi, who has ruled Libya with an iron fist for more than four decades. Instead, British Foreign Secretary William Hague announced the creation of a loose coalition — known as the Libya Contact Group — that will centralize international action in monitoring the unfolding civil war in Libya.

Chinese spies are stealing Western technology. Time to stop trading with the octopus:

Universities acknowledge the threat from espionage, particularly by Chinese students, and are taking measures to counter it. Nicola Dandridge, chief executive of Universities UK, said: "We are very aware this is going on and we are taking it very seriously."

The concerns have emerged just days after Theresa May, the home secretary, watered down plans to slash the number of foreign students in Britain. Dyson said: "Britain is very proud about the number of foreign students we educate at our universities, but actually all we are doing is educating our competitors.

"Foreign governments and businesses are prepared to pay quite a lot of money for people to study at Cambridge, Imperial College and other Russell [Group] universities because they appreciate the value of these research posts.

"They go back home taking that science and technology knowledge with them and then they start competing with us. This is mad - it is madness.

"I've seen frightening examples. Bugs are even left in computers so that the information continues to be transmitted after the researchers have returned home."

A number of such cases have been uncovered at British universities, with leading research institutions the most heavily targeted.

Thievery by any other name....


Good luck with this:

Members of Pakistan's minority Christian community have protested against a senior government officer for allegedly insulting Jesus Christ and the Bible by holding demonstrations in front of the Punjab Assembly. 

The protesters marched from the Lahore Press Club to the Punjab Assembly and demonstrated outside the legislature for several hours on Monday. 

Provincial Law Minister Rana Sanaullah requested them to end the protest but they refused and demanded action against Solid Waste Management Managing Director Ajmal Waseem. 

Addressing the protesters, Christian leader Aslam Parvaiz Sahotra said police were not filing a complaint against Waseem and it seemed they were favouring the officer. 

He said the government should immediately remove the officer from his post and register a case against him for committing blasphemy If action is not taken against Waseem, the Christian will launch a protest against him across Pakistan, Sahotra said.

Where are the unsung heroes- the celebrities- raising money and awareness and making movies and such?


Cut. Pakistan. Off.


Take a look at the picture in this article. Did you see it? I'll put it here (all credit here).

It's Lent so I cannot ignore this. The cross, the chief symbol of Christianity, upon which Jesus died (and then ultimately rose) for all mankind will be destroyed by the very man whose divinity is denied by the believers of a seventh century war-monger. Is that right? The Word made flesh who showed compassion to Mary Magdalene and the Samaritan woman at the well (among others) will destroy the means by which He died for all human beings only to follow Mohammad.


Talk about delusions! Hell, talk about stupidity!


Take some lithium, guys. Seriously.


And now, the Stupid Letter of the Day. Sit back and have yourselves a laugh. This is going to be a good one:

Phyllis Chesler's toxic views are out of step with the gains made by the Palestinian-led International Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign, and solidarity campaigns and actions taking place around the globe.

(Sidebar: "Toxic"? Melodramatic much?  I realise it's fashionable to hate the Jewish state of Israel where people of all religions and sexual inclinations can live without fear of persecution but this is too much. The letter-writers are really over-estimating their importance and inflating claims that everyone feels the same way they do. I suppose low serotonin levels will do that to one.)

Ms. Chesler speaks from a place of entitlement embedded in Zionist ideology. She writes that, "Jewish lesbian feminists . are more concerned with the rights of a country that does not exist, Palestine, than with the rights of real Muslim women who are forced to veil themselves."

This is double-edged racism. With one hand she proclaims there is no Palestine (and we can therefore assume that there are no Palestinians); with the other hand she touts the anti-feminist line that Muslim women have no voice, no agency and no power to choose. Her statement that she has "seen these North American lesbian 'queers' at university-based Israel Apartheid Week events" exposes her lesbophobic discomfort with the power of lesbian and queer activism.

(Sidebar: Three things: "Zionist"? Is there a better way to attack the Jews? "Racism"? Islam isn't a race, nor are homosexuals a race. "Lesbophobic"? Can you actually make up words? Are you allowed to do that? It's obvious the letter-writers have ZERO understanding of what life is like for women, Muslim or homosexual alike. If they do and say nothing, one can measure their moral culpability of excusing or ignoring a backward cults' treatment of either of these groups in spades. But for some people, it's all about them.)

Ms. Chesler asks: "Why are so many 'Jewish lesbian feminists' in solidarity with the Free Palestine movement?" She provides an explanation, with a quote from Jews Against the Occupation-NYC: "The demonization and dehumanization of Palestinians under occupation resonates loudly for queers, as do other forms of racism and militarism." Ms. Chesler herself adds, "They do not view Palestinians as 'terrorists' but as freedom-fighters."

(Sidebar: Palestinians are demonised because they do things like behead three month old baby girls and then hand out candy. What do they think the Palestinians will do to the letter-writers? Welcome them? Fat chance!)

She's got that right.

(Sidebar: don't flatter yourselves.)



Not quite the rocket-propelled chainsaw but good enough.

Monday Post

Back to regularly scheduled programming.


Michael Ignatieff wants a coalition to help bring down a functioning government. Canada's Obama is hard at work.


Heather Mallick, if Harper were to win a majority, people like you would still wrap your heads in tin foil.



Because Kim Jong-Il cares...about himself:

North Korean leader Kim Jong-il has sent half a million dollars to aid Korean expatriates in Japan after the devastating earthquake and tsunami, Pyongyang's official news agency said on Thursday.


Decades of tightly controlled economic policy that has seen North Korea channel much of its scarce resources to arms development has left the country acutely short of cash although its leaders continue to live lavishly, according to South Korean news reports. Food is also reportedly scarce.

Japan, formerly Korea's colonial master, is frequently lambasted as a "war monger" in North Korea's state-controlled media along with South Korea and the United States.

"Leader Kim Jong-il sent (a) relief fund of 500,000 U.S. dollars to Korean residents in Japan who suffered from the killer quake and tsunami happened there," KCNA news agency said.

Half a million U.S. dollars is equivalent to the annual average income earned by 520 North Koreans in all of 2009, according to Bank of Korea data.

 U.N. sanctions in 2009 imposed for its nuclear and missile tests that defied international warnings have further cut into North Korea's finances, choking off much of its lucrative arms trade.

The North's Red Cross has separately sent $100,000 in disaster relief to Japan, KCNA said.

What prompted this act of "generosity" on Kim Jong-Il's part? Forgiveness or compassion for Korea's former foe? Hardly. Why not show everyone what truly humane man he is? If this meaningless stunt was meant to avert the world's gaze at his atrocities, no one is buying it!



Because he's Ezra Levant:

Saturday was so-called Earth Hour, a publicity stunt created by the World Wildlife Fund where enthusiasts were supposed to stop using electricity for an hour. Only a rich, luxuriant society would fetishize poverty and want. Japan is still rebuilding; there are still parts of that country where electricity is not back on. They are in a permanent state of Earth Hour deprivation — not as some fashion statement but because of a tragedy. How is that state of despair a morally commendable situation?

It was human development, industry, capitalism, electricity — and in Japan’s case, safe nuclear power — that has made the difference between their more modest death toll and the 230,000 who died in Indonesia’s earthquake and tsunami in 2004, or the 220,000 who died last year in Haiti. Haiti’s earthquake was less than 1% as powerful; it was their lack of industrial development that made it so deadly.

Is that really the state of affairs we want to be worshipped on Earth Day? For centuries, guilty, rich, white liberals have professed their admiration for the “noble savage” — an unspoiled man, typically in a pre-industrial civilization, not yet spoiled by our modern ways or troubles.

It’s a fantasy, it’s condescending, it’s political psychotherapy for the idle rich who feel guilty about how easy their own lives are, and who are clearly looking for some spiritual meaning they themselves lack. But in a world where there are enough natural threats to man’s happiness and longevity, fetishizing primitive economies is a suicidal fetish.

Yes!


Would any of the "thoughtful" eco-bots care to trade places with the poor people of Japan? They live in the dark; they are now destitute and hungry. Isn't that what Earth Hour is all about- being without the necessities of life like ready electricity and running water?



Just ONE of the reasons why Earth Hour and its fetid cousin, Earth Day, are a joke.



Why speaking skills matter.



Hideaki Akaiwa: Last Action Hero.

Celebrity Apartheid Week: the Wrapping Up

What a perfect way to nix the utterly pointless Earth Hour than with a special announcement: it's Leonard Nimoy's birthday.

Live long and prosper. Predictable but heartfelt.

Have we learned anything from Celebrity Apartheid Week? Probably nothing more than what we already knew but still bears repeating. Celebrities have, for whatever reason, put themselves on a pedestal with the help of people who can't see beyond what the famous are truly like.


Maybe next year, there will be something more to say.


Bit it won't be nice.

Celebrity Apartheid Week: Celebrities and the Stupid Things They Crusade For

This is where we see celebrities' stupidity shine.


Whether it's "winning without war" or  boycotting Israel, celebrities must enjoy being on the wrong side of things because they usually are.


As there are SO many examples (like Palin-baiting, not being a doctor but playing one on TV and palling around with dictators), I'll have to gloss over a few.


It's irrelevant to mention one's right to express one's opinion, even if it is outrageously stupid. This is not at issue. The issue is using one's status as a reason for validity and ultimately adoption. Why should I support saving rain forests because a celebrity read an article about it and now thinks he or she is an expert? Can I not form an opinion on my own? Or simply, I'm not paying for a movie ticket or using up an hour of my life watching some TV show just to be cluncked on the head by some hack writers' liberal politics and the face that utters their illogical dreck. When I form an opinion, I do so on my own. My upbringing gave me the wherewithal to do so. The arrogant presumption that I can learn only from some flash-in-the-pan is most galling. Yet, for some reason, the vapid masses cling to a celebrity's misguided sentiment as a commandment of sorts.


At least try to look to a higher being.


And there is a being much higher than Hollywood wags.


Cases in point (the wags, that is):


Artists United to Win Without War and its folly:

It is in the very heart of Hollywood, as misguided and self-serving as it is, to march in the streets, to make movies about their positions, and to yell like banshees: “War is not the answer!” The problem with Hollywood celebrities shouting anti-war babble is their inability to ask the question, “Without war, where would Hollywood be?”

War IS money.


Does anyone really believe celebrities banded together and pooled their knowledge of  international military engagements and conflict management to form one cohesive and well-informed group of valid political action? NO!  These are celebrities, not members of a think tank. If they actually lived where everyone else did, they wouldn't say half of the stupid things they do! Armed with their naivety and liberalism (or is liberalism a form of naivety? Another topic for another time), their dashed hopes pinned on one man must have put them in a spin.

Obama, why hast thou forsaken us?!

Case two: Israel is the whipping boy of the uninformed:

Kiss’ Israeli-born singer-musician Gene Simmons is shouting out loud at the string of musicians who refuse to perform in his homeland.


“They’re fools,” the legendary bassist told The Associated Press in an interview Tuesday, on his first return to Israel since leaving the country as a child more than 50 years ago...

Simmons had harsh words for musicians like Elvis Costello and the Pixies who have recently canceled concerts to protest Israel’s policies toward the Palestinians. Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters has gone further, joining an organized movement dedicated to boycotting Israel and its exports, though he appeared in Israel in 2006.

“The countries they should be boycotting are the same countries that the populations are rebelling,” he said. “People long to be free ... And they sure as hell don’t want somebody who’s a ruler who hasn’t been elected by them.”

It's bad enough that someone like Ryan Murphy doesn't realise how damn lucky he is not have gravel shoved in his mouth by a bunch of child-killing morons, it's quite another when other artists just jump on a band wagon. The Palestinians have Gaza and Jordan, rely on Israeli doctors to heal the children they will soon turn into walking bombs and Israel has the problem? How rich!



Then we have the self-esteem mavens:

Lady Gaga's mission to create a more tolerant culture extends to everyone, even much-maligned YouTube sensation Rebecca Black.

Black, a 13-year-old whose heavily Auto-Tuned single, ' Friday,' has generated an overwhelmingly negative response from Internet users across the world, is getting some unlikely support from Mother Monster herself.

During the Q+A section of 'Google Goes Gaga,' the 'Born This Way' singer said, "I say Rebecca Black is a genius and that anybody telling her she's cheesy is full of s**t."
Countless critics have panned 'Friday,' penned by Ark Music Factory, calling it everything from the "worst song ever" to "the most appalling thing on the Internet," leaving Black feeling "cyber-bullied."

Gaga, who has been outspoken in her anti-bullying efforts, admitting that she herself was bullied at school, said of the dangers of our highly critical and tech-savvy culture, "I, too, am a child of the dot-com era... That's the thing about fame that is difficult because if you screw up ... Google. It's there."

Well, Lady Gaga, we can't all be Ella Fitzgerald or Astrud Gilberto. You know, people who could actually sing. Maybe telling this girl to keep on trucking with a fledgling singing career is a bad idea. A really bad idea. Perhaps it would be better if she directed her abilities in another direction. Maybe she's good at science. I don't know. I'm just saying you're as bad at being a careers counselor as you are a fashion model wearing discarded pizza boxes while attempting to belt out an entirely forgettable tune.


This might seem like a convenient answer but, really, the dissolution of older and tried and true values only to replace them with the decadence and stupidity is the root of what we are seeing now. How else could mediocre talents earn fabulous but fleeting fortunes or actors turn themselves into idols?