Monday, May 23, 2022

And the Rest of It

Quite ...

 

What a political prisoner looks like:

Ahead of her Thursday court appearance, Crown prosecutors are arguing Ottawa protest organizer Tamara Lich should be back in jail because she is violating her bail conditions by continuing to support the Freedom Convoy.

Lich agreed to attend a Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms (JCCF) gala planned in Toronto for June 16, where she is being given a "Freedom Award."

According to an application filed by Crown lawyers, Lich is not to support "anything related to the Freedom Convoy" and the document charges the event is "designed to support the Freedom Convoy movement."

The event includes a VIP reception with tickets going for $500, and the Crown says, "It is the only reasonable inference that Ms. Lich has agreed to attend to this event in support of the Freedom Convoy cause."

Lich has been out of jail since March 7, on the condition she leave Ottawa, reversing a decision made the previous month to keep her in jail. She has been living at an Alberta residence for about two months.

Moiz Karimjee, the Crown counsel prosecuting Lich, also alleges in his latest application the decision to release Lich in March was done without proper analysis.

She was arrested Feb. 17 shortly before the major push by police to clear out the remaining protesters who occupied downtown Ottawa streets. Lich stayed in custody and was denied bail on Feb. 22, but then appealed and was released.

 

 

He has his pension. What does he care?:

Liberal MP Sven Spengemann is stepping down from his Toronto-area seat to take a position with the United Nations, marking the first resignation of the new Parliament, which will force a by-election later this year.


 

It also didn't help that the RCMP didn't warn the public, nor did it help when two constables shot at unarmed people running for safety:

A Mountie who led much of the response to the 2020 Nova Scotia mass shooting testified Wednesday that spotty radio service and the lack of an RCMP helicopter were among the equipment problems that hampered the manhunt.

A public inquiry into the April 18-19, 2020, killings is now hearing from senior RCMP officers about command decisions taken during the 13-hour rampage by a gunman who drove a replica police cruiser and murdered 22 people.

Jeff West, a staff sergeant who retired last year, was the critical incident commander from 1:19 a.m. until 10:20 a.m. on April 19, based in a firehall just east of Portapique, where the killings began.

It was more than two hours after he first received the call at home in Halifax that he arrived at the command post in Great Village, N.S.

When he got to the firehall to assume command, West said he initially couldn't broadcast over the police network from his portable radio. It was four minutes before he got a signal by standing next to a window. He told commission counsel Roger Burrill it was concerning that the portable radios lacked the power to allow a critical incident commander to announce his presence.

 

What a gong show. 

 

 

Craziness? Like kitten videos?:

Federal legislation is needed to control the craziness of the internet, a cabinet advisor said yesterday. “We are now looking at a whole new alignment of what is online harm,” said Bernie Farber, appointee to a 12-member panel on censorship: “We live in a time of craziness. We live in a time where people will believe whatever they want to believe.”


If the majority of polled Canadian students believe that the Holocaust either did not happen or was somehow exaggerated, banning some random crackpot who spews his hatred online is simply not going to help but it will give the government the censorial advantage it needs!:

The Liberals have included a proposed change to the criminal law in their budget that would make “condoning, denying or downplaying the Holocaust,” a criminal offence.

Cara Zwibel, director of the fundamental freedoms program at the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, said the bill is more about politics than actually addressing anti-Semitism.

“We are opposed to this, but that’s not because we don’t think Holocaust denial is egregious and terrible and it’s not because we don’t think it’s harmful. It’s because we don’t think that the criminal law is the way to approach it,” she said. “We are talking about putting people in prison for things that they said.”

Zwibel said as popular as the idea might be politically, it is likely to have unintended consequences.

She points to the case of notorious holocaust denier Ernst Zündel who was charged with wilfully promoting hatred, an existing piece of criminal law. She said he used his trial to argue his hateful views in a public forum.

“He used his trial to basically make an argument that the Holocaust didn’t happen and it was debated in a Canadian courtroom,” she said. We risk giving a very significant platform to these people that are engaged in this kind of hate.

 

 

But aren't they homophobes?:

The image at the centre of the furor included several depictions of couples, all illustrations, including one of two women in hijabs about to kiss. It was published by Western University as part of its effort to mark the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia, and Biphobia.

As the local imams sought to clarify their stance, their pushback against the image was drawing criticism.

Homophobic Muslims were offended by (the) post by” Western University, wrote Twitter user Yasmine Mohammed. She added: “We are against homophobia . . . unless of course if homophobes get upset, then we will happily capitulate to homophobes.”

Wrote officials with the Canadian Anti-Hate Network: “LGBTQ+ Muslims exist and have every right to be represented.”

 

Let them fight. 


 

What is wrong with people?:

Surrey RCMP have arrested three young girls after a 15-year-old was bullied and beaten in an ambush that left her in the hospital.

One youth alleged to be the primary aggressor was arrested the same evening and released to a guardian pending a future court date. Since then, two other youths alleged to be part of the assault were arrested and released, also with a promise to appear. No charges have been laid at this time while the investigation continues.

On May 7, a neighbour called 911 around 9:30 p.m. complaining of screaming and shouting at a local elementary school. A large group dispersed by the time police arrived, Cst. Vanessa Munn, a Surrey RCMP media relations officer told National Post.

A victim was found at the scene with physical injuries. She was transported to a hospital and later released, Munn said.

Some in the crowd caught the attack on video. One clip shared on social media shows a group of girls chasing and cornering the victim, who is bleeding from her face. She is badly punched and cornered by a chainlink fence, where she forced to kiss their shoes and apologize for something (it’s unclear in the video for what.)

 

 

People who despise poetry, music, art and literature are more than welcome to live in fire-less caves without the rest of us:

These are institutions that now seem dedicated to degrading thought; to deploring its highest expressions; to politicizing what is beyond all politics; to pushing young minds away from the greatest artistic expressions and highest esthetic manifestations the whole world has to offer. Stealing the most necessary food from the hungriest minds.

Woke is a curse and a fraud. Identity politics is a brutal narrowing of human fellowship. Throwing skin colour into the appreciation of art should be criminal. These new curricula are not just wrong. They are pernicious.

An expense of spirit in a waste of empty instruction. Obviously Shakespeare did it better.

 

 

To be clear, she brought this on herself:

As you have not publically repudiated your position on abortion, and continue to refer to your Catholic faith in justifying your position and to receive Holy Communion, that time has now come. Therefore, in light of my responsibility as the Archbishop of San Francisco to be “concerned for all the Christian faithful entrusted to [my] care” (Code of Canon Law, can. 383, §1), by means of this communication I am hereby notifying you that you are not to present yourself for Holy Communion and, should you do so, you are not to be admitted to Holy Communion, until such time as you publicly repudiate your advocacy for the legitimacy of abortion and confess and receive absolution of this grave sin in the sacrament of Penance.

Please know that I stand ready to continue our conversation at any time, and will continue to offer up prayer and fasting for you.

 

 

Chinese-backed nuclear threat:

When the U.S. and South Korean leaders meet Saturday, North Korea’s nuclear weapons and missile program, already a major focus, may receive extra attention if intelligence predictions of an imminent major weapons demonstration by the North, which is struggling with a COVID-19 outbreak, are right.

What's less clear, however, is whether the meeting between Joe Biden and newly inaugurated Yoon Suk Yeol will produce a meaningfully new way to handle a nuclear threat that has bedeviled the allies for decades.

 


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