The Jack of Hearts

“It feels horrible. There was blood and feathers everywhere.”

2012-01-31T12:50:00.000-05:00

Left behind were the birds’ heads, claws, feathers, bones, blood and guts, as well as the unwashed saucepans, cutlery and a plate.

Curious? Check out the full story here.

Police have done the full CSI in this case.

Jönköping police have taken DNA samples from the used plate, and are labelling the crime as theft and vandalism.

What the flock? Ritual sacrifice? Starving transient? A plucky poacher? A fed up neighbour ticked off by the pigeons? It's anybody's guess.

Bizarre doesn't begin to explain this. Creepy comes close.

Rats!

2012-01-27T08:22:00.000-05:00

From the Local (Swedish mouse edition)

Gholam Hafezi was mystified when he didn't get a receipt for his 700 kronor ($104) withdrawal, but noticed instead what looked like a shoe lace hanging out of the machine, the local Västerbotten Folkblad newspaper reported.

Hafezi grabbed hold of it and to his amazement realized it was the tail of a mouse, with the head and the rest of the body stuck inside the machine.

[...]

Hafezi eventually got help from staff who were looking after trolleys, and together they managed to extract the rest of the rodent from the machine

“One of them pulled out the mouse, and its head was left intact, although it was a little bloody. Then I got out my receipt,” Hafezi told the paper.

Hell Hath No Fury, etc., etc.

2012-01-27T08:07:00.002-05:00

Have you ever tried testicles?

Woman fined for crotch grab assault

A scorned Swedish woman who got back at her ex-husband by hijacking his Facebook account to indicate he was gay and then later attacked him by grabbing his testicles and biting him has been convicted for the assault by a court in southern Sweden.

The couple's 3-year marriage ended in the spring of 2011 after three years, prompting the woman to start a campaign of revenge against her ex-husband, who had quickly moved on to another woman, the local Skövde Nyheter daily reported.

In June, the man suspected his Facebook account had been hijacked after he discovered several contacts had been erased and his sexual preference had been changed to "interested in men".

[...]

However, the attacks didn't stop there.

When the man stood outside his new home with his new girlfriend later that summer, the upset ex-wife dropped by.

She walked up to her ex-husband and asked what they were doing, at the same time grabbing a firm hold of his testicles. [ed. - Yikes!]

I've heard they taste like nuts.

'Your baby looks like Saddam Hussein'

2012-01-19T23:16:00.000-05:00

Must have been the Stalinesque mustache.

The Local (Swedish edition)

An administrator at the Swedish Migration Board (Migrationsverket) is facing disciplinary action after telling a family of Iraqi asylum seekers that their newborn baby looked like Saddam Hussein.

[...]

The comparison of the baby to the former Iraqi dictator came during an interview conducted last year between the employee and an asylum seeking couple from Iraq who brought their newborn infant along to the meeting.

“Who do you think he looks like?” one of the proud parents asked the Migration Board employee.

“Saddam Hussein,” the man replied.

But wait, there's more. This chap seems to have a slight miscalibration of his internal censor when it comes to veiled women too.

In other news, Sweden's unemployment rate over the past year has fluctuated between a high of 8.8% to a low of 6.6%

Most Unfortunate Headline of the Week

2012-01-18T21:44:00.001-05:00

Football Head: Gay Players Welcome

The Story from the Local (German edition)

The head of the German Football Association has called on gay football stars to come out of the closet and openly declare their homosexuality.

Players should have the “courage to declare themselves,” Theo Zwanziger said Tuesday during a public discussion on sexuality in elite sports at the Sportschule Hennef near Cologne. He said the situation for gay players in football was much better than it had been.

The comments come amid increasing criticism of star footballer Philipp Lahm over remarks he made earlier this week implying that Germany is not ready for gay athletes.

“Football is like earlier gladiatorial combat. Sure, politicians can now come out as homosexuals. But they don’t have to play in front of 60,000 spectators week after week,” Lahm said, according to the Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung.”

And so it goes.

Real people being real in the comments.

Quality of Sweden's Universities Called into Question

2012-01-17T14:15:00.001-05:00

Sweden's Education Minister Jan Björklund explains to media just how cold it is outside.

Alright, not really.

Sweden's Education Minister is appalled at the declining standard of higher education. As reported in the Local:

“The quality of the knowledge that Swedish students have when they leave university is not enough to prepare them for adult life,” Björklund told Sverige Radio (SR), adding that too often, the quality of Swedish universities is often "too low".

“We need a much tougher and more stringent government inspection of Sweden’s higher education.”

The first proposal is bureaucratic streamlining at the top. Currently there are three government authorities overseeing universities. Björklund wants to blend those into just two.

Secondly, and more vaguely, Björklund wants to "get rid of all courses that are not up to scratch."

I would recommend re-evaluating all courses that originated from progressive hobby-horses and return to a classical liberal education comprising traditional humanities, sciences and maths; and a polytechnics education oriented around applied sciences (i.e. engineering, mining and metallurgy, meteorology, computer programming and software design, etc.).

However, this is progressive Sweden. So don't expect that this otherwise encouraging development automatically rings the death knell of Applied Marxist Social Justice and Transgendered Studies, or oceanography classes in Gay Wales Against Racism.

But it's a start. Would that we could begin the same process here. Then maybe all of the Occupy This Or That brats would be graduating with degrees that rendered them employable, and equipped them with skills that were broadly transferable. At the very least they might graduate with expectations that were grounded and realistic.

Best of luck, Mr. Björklund

Sarkozy wants France to be more like Germany

2012-01-15T14:43:00.001-05:00

For the record, so did Marshal Philippe Pétain. Just sayin'.

The real story from The Local. (Hint: it's really about strategic fiscal restructuring in the face of the European debt and currency crisis. But you already knew that.)

Sarkozy occasionally has spats with his German counterpart Angela Merkel. They have had seriously different ideas on how to resolve the European debt crisis, for example, and Sarkozy has most recently irked Merkel by vowing to go it alone in introducing a financial transaction tax.

But the French leader clearly thinks his country has a lot to learn from a neighbour with which it has fought three wars in the past century and a half.

To be fair, you could do worse than to emulate the Germans on fiscal policy and industrial policy. If more European economies behaved like Germany, and fewer behaved like Greece, the Eurozone might have had a fighting chance -- honey-glazed though it was from the beginning by artificially low interest rates across the board irrespective of local/national economic situations.

Sweden: Rat Poison Found in Erectile Disfunction Pills

2012-01-15T02:49:00.000-05:00

Wow. That was a real boner.

It's okay when guys like this say it ...

2012-01-15T01:09:00.002-05:00

... just don't quote them or you'll end up in front of a human rights commission.

Mark Steyn's book America Alone (2006) posited that the demographic decline of European peoples and the rapid growth of Islamic populations would necessarily change the character of European culture and politics. Some accused him of being alarmist; others of being bigoted; and others still of being "blasphemous" for daring to critique the influences of Islamic cultural penetration upon the European polity. Three separate complaints to three separate human rights commissions in Canada (one federal and two provincial) were levelled against Steyn, and against Maclean's magazine who published an excerpt of his book.

But, if you think that Steyn's dystopian (though often darkly funny) auguries for Europe were alarmist, bigoted or over the top, then consider what Muslim clerics themselves are saying.

One of the specific complaints against Steyn concerned a quotation attributed to a Kurdish Sunni Muslim cleric living in Norway, one Mullah Krekar who said that Islam would dominate the West because Muslims were "breeding like mosquitoes."

Well, Mullah Krekar isn't alone. Far from it, in fact.

Here is the Egyptian cleric Ali Abu Al-Hasan preaching that through the demographic pressure exerted by Muslims in the West, "Europe will become a single Islamic state" in a matter of decades.

So, what say you Steynophobes? Is the Egyptian cleric Ali Abu Al-Hasan an alarmist? An "Islamophobic" bigot? A human rights complaint waiting to happen?

Or, is he an Islamic supremicist? A cultural imperialist? A religious triumphalist?

h/t Vlad

Columbia University Cancels the Ultimate Bird Course

2012-01-13T15:19:00.002-05:00

Mic check .... mic check ... mic check ...

Anarchists, cultural Marxists, Code Pink, Syndicalists, and Maoists, and all other student activists ... please listen up [... please listen up]. Slacker inactivists, this means you too [... this means you too]. The credit course [the credit course] in Occupy Wall Street [in Occupy Wall Street] at Columbia University [at Columbia University] has been cancelled [has been cancelled]. Got it? [God it?] Oh, and why do you [... why do you] mindlessly repeat [mindlessly repeat] everything I say? [everything I say?]

*****

Yes, that's right. Columbia University has reversed its previous posting of a credit course in Occupy Wall Street. This is indeed bad news for "(You Name It) Studies" students across the campus.

Memo to students: if you absolutely must, then whinge at the 1% on your own time. The university is neither required to endorse your particular activism, nor is it required to give you a trophy for it.

The course in question, posted weeks ago as a new offering in the Anthropology department, to be taught by Dr. Hannah Appel, was to be called “Occupy the Field: Global Finance, Inequality, Social Movement.” According to Anni Karni in the New York Post, this course "promised a light reading load because students were expected to spend time protesting." Woo hoo!!! An easy A.

Here's the thing. With an annual tuition of about US $45,000, most students who could attend a top tier school like Columbia (scholarship and bursary students excepted) are already part of the 1%. Or at least they will be ... some day in the future ... when their parents, against whom they rebel, leave them with embarrassingly comfortable legacies.

But, I guess being a class struggle poseur is all part of the full college experience these days.

h/t to the venerable Fashionista Jewhadi

January, 1946: UN Flies Flag at Half Mast to Mourn the Death of Adolph Hitler

2011-12-31T08:31:00.000-05:00

Okay, maybe not Adolph.

But, Kim Jung il? Sure, why not.

Comment of the Day over at SDA from Rob:

There's not enough flags on the planet to lower one for every korean who died of malnutrition/poverty while this crazy bastard pursued his nuclear program.

Merry Christmas

2011-12-20T18:18:00.000-05:00

Vince Guaraldi -- Christmas Time is Here

... and that's what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown.

Celtic Woman (featuring Chloe Agnew) -- O Holy Night

Vaclav Havel -- Rest in Peace

2011-12-18T16:16:00.000-05:00

Vaclav Havel, the soul of the Velvet Revolution and father of the modern Czech Republic, has passed away at the age of 75.

A steadfast champion of freedom, he will be greatly missed.

Say No to Blood Bananas

2011-12-18T02:08:00.000-05:00

Boycott Chiquita.

#BloodBananas

#BoycottChiquita

A New "Hate" Crime is Born

2011-11-08T11:58:00.000-05:00

Homo-Sphenisciphobia -- the fear (or nonacceptance) of gay penguins.

The National Post

Splitting up a pair of potentially homosexual African penguins and pairing them with females might sound anti-gay, but keepers at the Toronto Zoo insist they are simply trying to preserve the species.

Pedro, 10, and Buddy, 20, were brought to the Toronto Zoo this year from Pittsburgh’s National Aviary to “pair-bond” with a couple of eligible females. Instead, the pair bonded with each other. Zookeepers now report seeing the pair snuggling, calling to each other and displaying courtship behaviour.

Good candidates for gay penguin marriage. And as for offspring? They can always adopt.

Also, judging by their formal attire, it's a fairly good bet that they're not part of Queer Penguins Against Israeli Apartheid. At least there's that.

Ontario -- Yours to Recover

2011-10-06T11:32:00.000-04:00

Cartoon by David Strutt

From the National Post:

“Mr. McGuinty’s political paralysis on this file simply has no honourable explanation. When faced with a choice between a controversial confrontation with Six Nations protesters or appeasing them at the cost of the safety and rights of other Ontario residents, he chose the latter. He is unworthy of another term in office on these grounds alone.”

h/t Voice of Canada

Medal of Honor Cat

2011-07-11T08:36:00.003-04:00

Semper fidelis

And he looks a lot like my Tawny.

I Want My Jetpack

2011-05-11T14:00:00.000-04:00

The future sucks. But this gives me hope.

Sun TV News Carried on Bell Networks? Well, apparently not.

2011-05-05T01:03:00.003-04:00

Posted by special request.

Click this link for the video. Or watch it here.

If this issue affects you, please take notice and take action.

h/t Blazing Cat Fur via Ezra and our friends at Sun TV News.

Children of the Corn

2011-05-04T14:18:00.002-04:00

Jack Layton is the new leader of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition with an astonishing 102 seats, 58 of them in Quebec. The new freshman class will include a cacophony of re-branded Marxists, soft sovereigntists, social activists, artists/musicians, sandal-wearers, bartenders, and of course teenagers. A bevy of place-holders rode an unexpected -- indeed inexplicable -- wave to victory.

In order to handle his swollen caucus, Mr. Layton will need to employ a firm hand with a velvet touch.

The National Post has the skinny.

The best line of the day on this topic goes to Jerry Agar (or was it Mike Bullard?) of CFRB: "Doogie Howser, NDP".

I, for one, welcome our new teenage overlords-in-waiting.

*Update*: Only in Canada, you say? Well, not quite.

But Luis Ignacio Planas is the Crazy One

2011-03-23T07:37:00.001-04:00

Okie dokie. But then there's Venezuela's far-left coalition pirate president. Bask in the crazy.

Capitalism may be to blame for the lack of life on the planet Mars, Venezuela's socialist President Hugo Chavez said on Tuesday.

Perhaps a little bird told him.

Sean Penn could not be reached for comment.

'Sadistic sex crimes on animals rise in Sweden'

2011-03-22T18:31:00.000-04:00

Wow! Just wow! From The Local --

According to the Swedish Veterinary Association (Veterinärförbundet) there were around 20 reported cases of horses or cows with their sexual organs mutilated reported in 2006. By 2010 this number had doubled to 40 cases.

[...]

Niklas Långström, sex crimes expert and professor of psychiatric epidemiology at Karolinska Institutet, told TV4 that this is not a case of ordinary cruelty to animals.

“This is done by people getting a sexual kick from animals in general and of inflicting pain on them, a sexual sadistic kick, so to speak,“ he said.

Disgusting. Just a thought for the sick perps: when you've got an itch to scratch on a brisk Swedish night, you have the option to solicit the services of whores, NOT horse.

(*this and other odd images at the Small Bits and Pieces blog)

Taqiyya in the Classroom

2011-03-20T19:07:00.001-04:00

Jed Gladstein sounds the wake-up call in American Thinker. Here's a sampling, but read the whole thing, for the full flavour.

To a certain extent, the increasing sway of Arabs over our educational system reflects the lamentable influence of petrodollars in our economy. Textbooks are moneymakers and so are legitimate economic targets, but that doesn't explain the subversion of our history and social studies curricula. Publishers can make as much money publishing truthful accounts of Western civilization as they can by publishing pseudo-historical narratives. To understand the pro-Islamic perversions in our school textbooks, we must understand taqiyya.

I would go one step further and argue that we need to understand the subtle tactical difference between taqiyya (the dissimulation and concealment of one's convictions) and kitman (the dissimulation and concealment of one's malevolent intentions). See Daniel Pipes piece on this topic.

As with many such cultural challenges, this is a bipartite assault. Externally, the highly motivated political Islamists (whether they be Wahhabi, Salafist, Ikhwan, or some other militant manifestation) wish to elevate Islam in the West and weaken the ability of the West's defenders to counter or resist their messaging. That is, taqiyya paves the way for Sharia. In order to accomplish this goal, they must sanitize their history and sugar-coat their doctrine.

Internally, the radical Progressive left (the inheritors of Gramsci's "long march through the institutions") have been working steadily and tirelessly for decades now undermining the cultural confidence of Western societies. In many ways, they have behaved as a fifth column. Whether it be the imposition of social policies/ideologies such as official multiculturalism (the formalization of cultural relativism), or the pedagogical drift toward victimology in the classroom, their messaging is the same. Western culture (indeed western civilization in toto) has everything to apologize for and nothing to celebrate. Any expressions of cultural or civilizational confidence, in fact, will be put down sternly with a reflexive and feckless charge of "racism". You could set your watch by it.

Yet, in spite of the obvious absurdity, the tendency of some progressives to equate opposition to -- or criticism of -- an ideology with the hatred of a person on the sole (and indefensible) basis of skin colour or ethnic background has already become regrettably commonplace. So successfully has "the long march through the institutions" progressed.

"What Happens in Vagueness Stays in Vagueness"

2011-03-20T17:58:00.000-04:00

Clark Whelton, former speech writer for N.Y.C. mayors Ed Koch and Rudy Guiliani, laments the infantilization of spoken English in post-adult America.

In 1988, my elder daughter graduated from Vassar. During a commencement reception, I asked one of her professors if he’d noticed any change in Vassar students’ language skills. “The biggest difference,” he replied, “is that by the time today’s students arrive on campus, they’ve been juvenilized. You can hear it in the way they talk. There seems to be a reduced capacity for abstract thought.” He went on to say that immature speech patterns used to be drummed out of kids in ninth grade.

Progressivism? Overbearing PC pieties? The self-esteem movement? Elongated adolescence? Oprahfication and the feewings culture? Helicopter parenting? Take your pick.

Read the rest of the article at City Journal, and see if it resonates. (Do you remember, like, up-talk? J'yah.)

The War of the Poses Returns

2011-03-19T20:38:00.000-04:00

I'm informed, via Blazing Cat Fur, that the cease-fire has been broken. The pin-up war is on.

So, because it's Saturday Night, because I'm not doing anything else right now, and (mostly) because it's Billie Piper ...

Well, they'll stone you if you try to cast your vote ...

2011-03-19T20:28:00.000-04:00

An Egyptian referendum on constitutional reform is reportedly drawing larger than expected crowds. That's the good news. Now the bad news.

Egypt's prominent opposition figure Mohammed El Baradei was attacked Saturday by stones and bricks thrown from crowds when he arrived at a polling station to vote on the constitutional amendments in Cairo, Xinhua informed.

A crowd of people shouted "We don't want you" when Baradei came out of his car at a polling station in the El Mokatam area in the capital, witnesses told Xinhua. [editor's note: a not so subtle hint that some young Egyptians perhaps view El Baradei as ... well ... the Iggy of Egypt -- the tourist politician who's really just visiting.]

People then threw stones at him as he retreated into his car. He left without casting his vote.

Baradei, who intended to run for the presidential polls, has said he would vote against constitutional amendments and called for a new constitution.

Flash mob attacks: they're not just for Coptic Christians and western journalists anymore. In the post-Mubarak/pre-Ikhwan Egypt, "everybody must get stoned."

New from the American Institute for Wanking in the Social Sciences

2011-03-08T09:15:00.000-05:00

Or, as Kate MacMillan might say -- 'Soon to be Published in the Journal of the Blatantly Obvious.'

Youngsters say they like the taste of a breakfast cereal more when there's a popular character on the box, a small study indicates. CTV

But worry not. The social engineers have been hard at work to correct this, with some success apparently.

Vaala said the kids sampled the same cereal from one of four boxes -- labelled either "Healthy Bits" or "Sugar Bits," and with or without penguins from the movie "Happy Feet" shown on the box.

The product was an organic crunch cereal with six grams of sugar per serving that was likely to be unfamiliar to the children by sight and taste.

"They all tasted the same cereal, and the results showed that when there was no character on the box, children who saw the 'healthy' cereal box liked the taste more than children who saw the sugary cereal box with no character," Vaala said.

"So we thought this is a positive, favourable finding that these health cues, these messages for kids to eat healthy foods, seems to be resonating ... However, when there was a character on the box, these health cues didn't matter. Children liked the cereal a lot, regardless of whether the cereal sounded healthy or unhealthy."

Islamic States Apartheid Week

2011-03-03T00:03:00.001-05:00

Surely, turnabout is fair play.

Nope. No Agendas Here.

2011-02-04T09:49:00.002-05:00

Just move along folks. Nothing to see.

Okay. I'll play.

Q. -- A Prius leaving San Francisco travels eastbound toward Cape Cod at a constant rate of 45mph. The driver is wearing a rainbow hat. At the same time another Prius leaving Cape Cod travels westbound toward San Francisco at a constant rate of 40mph. The driver is wearing a puffy pirate shirt. Assuming that neither driver makes more than three stops for mocha lattes, in which city will the drivers hook up?

A. -- ?

In the spirit of inderdisciplinary studies, I suppose this is a combined LGBT math/geography question.

Okay. How about a science question?

Q. -- Discuss why it is homophobic to make jokes about dolphins just being "gay sharks"? (Bonus points if you suggest how legislation can be used to punish people who do.)

A. -- ?

Speaking of gay sharks, has "progressivism" jumped one in the U.K.?

h/t Flaming Catfur;)

From the Arab Street: A Report on the Egyptian Protests from the Ground

2011-02-02T00:34:00.001-05:00

This is an extraordinary first-hand account of the events unfolding in Egypt, placed in the broader context of recent Egyptian history, politics and culture. A truly extraordinary perspective that likely you won't find on the coverage by CNN or other such network or cable news outlets.

If you are trying, as many of us are, to sort out events and make sense of the coverage we are witnessing, then read this. Read it all. Major food for thought.

A sampling from the closing paragraphs.

You seem to wonder after all of this where El Baradei and the Egyptian opposition are. CNN's anointed leader of the Egyptian Revolution must be important to the future of Egypt. Hardly! Outside of Western media hype, El Baradei is nothing. A man that has spent less than 30 days in the past year in Egypt and hardly any time in the past 20 years is a nobody. It is entirely insulting to Egyptians to suggest otherwise. The opposition you wonder? Outside of the Muslim Brotherhood we are discussing groups that can each claim less than 5,000 actual members. With no organization, no ideas, and no leaders they are entirely irrelevant to the discussion. It is the apolitical young generation that has suddenly been transformed that is the real question here.

[...]

On the long run the Egyptian question remains the same. Nothing has changed in that regard. It is quite remarkable for people to be talking about the prospect for a democratic transition at this moment. A population that was convinced just two months ago that sharks in the Red Sea were implanted by the Israeli Intelligence Services is hardly at a stage of creating a liberal democracy in Egypt. But the status quo cannot be maintained.

h/t Jay Currie

(They built a mosque.) They Built a Monster Mosque. (A monster mosque)...

2011-01-29T06:42:00.002-05:00

A Temecula, California monster mosque has been approved, in spite of an avalanche of angry emails, letters, disputations, and even "staged protests with bullhorns and dogs."

They insist their protest is not based on religion but instead on concerns about increased traffic on an already overburdened road, and flooding issues that could impact the mosque’s neighbors — two Christian churches.

In response, the City Council modified the construction permit to include traffic reviews every five years and ban the use of external speakers that could be used for calls to prayer.

I guess it doesn't matter in the long run if two Christian churches get flooded out in the future so long as PC orthodoxy and mult-culti ideology are properly appeased today. And we'll see how long it takes CAIR to launch a suit challenging the ban on the muezzin.

The Infidel

2011-01-22T20:35:00.003-05:00

The Infidel (2010)

A family man, devoted father and "relaxed" Muslim fellow in the U.K. discovers:

a) that he was adopted; and
b) that he's actually Jewish.

Hilarity ensues.

The trailer:

Who says there's no comedy in Islam? Oh yeah, that was the Ayatollah Khomeni way back when. Fatwa in 3 ...2 ...1.

Ikea Reports Profit Boost for 2010

2011-01-14T07:00:00.002-05:00

Perhaps they auctioned off all of the abandoned cars of people who couldn't remember where they parked after they left the store.

Ikea -- Swedish for "where the hell did I park my car?"

iPad for Israel

2011-01-14T05:26:00.001-05:00

Ladies and Gentlemen, start your CPUs.

It's a pro-Israeli blog-off. Forget all of this left wing Israeli apartheid nonsense. It's unbalanced ahistorical rubbish anyway. Until the progresso-fascists deal with the much more evidential apartheid of the Wahabbi entity, their alleged moral indignations have no credibility. So I don't really care to hear their propaganda, their feigned outrage, their slanders about Israel, or their self-satisfied moral preening. Until they deal with the wholesale slaughter of Christians in south Sudan and central Nigera, and the routine persecution of Christians in Egypt, Gaza, Lebanon, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Malysia, and Indonesia, I couldn't give a rat's ass what they have to say about the human rights records of liberal democracies.

But I digress.

Aussie Dave is hosting an pro-Israeli blog contest at Israellycool. The rules are simple. The concept is creative -- kind of a round robin sort of thing. Go on over and check it out. What are you waiting for? Click the link. Then fire up your CPU and rev up your keyboard.

The winner will be awarded a brand-spanking-new iPad.

Not a bad return for a blog contest. Usually you just get bragging rights.

Good on ya', Dave.

Canadian Broadcast Standards Council Rules that "Money For Nothing" is Verboten for Its Use of the Word "Faggot", But the Parody Skit "Bob the Fag Man" is Still Okey Dokey

2011-01-14T01:02:00.002-05:00

Jeebus, that is so gay.

The mostly toothless Canadian Broadcast Standards Council (CBSC) has acceded to the identity politics complaint of an aggrieved Elgeebeetee activist. It has ruled that the playing of the Grammy Award winning 1985 hit song "Money for Nothing" by Dire Straits is no longer acceptable fare for Canadian radio.

In the song, lead singer Mark Knopfler assumes the persona of a working-class delivery man shuttling electronics and appliances from the display floor to the homes of conspicuous consumers. The power wall of T.V.s blares MTV programming to personnel and would-be customers alike milling about the showroom. In the second verse, Knopfler's working-class alter ego sneers ironically (and with just a soupcon of envy):

The little faggot with the earring and the make-up
Yeah, buddy, that’s his own hair
That little faggot’s got his own jet airplane
That little faggot, he’s a millionaire

In other words, there is a clear dramatic context to the usage, one that seems to have been lost on the CBSC and the wilfully offended complainant alike. Anyone who was around in the 80s would know exactly what Knopfler's working-class hero character was alluding to -- in a decade in which reports of Radio Star's death at the hands of Video were greatly exaggerated. Duran Duran, Culture Club, Men Without Hats, Wang Chung, and on and on it goes. Here was a decade replete with glam rock and hair bands, all transient and trendy; and here was Dire Straits buttressing the defenses of (what must have seemed like) the roots-rock Alamo.

"Money for Nothing" contains three uses of the word "faggot".

For our edification, the CBSC reprinted the lyrics in full when posting their decision to their website. So hateful was this reference to the word "faggot", a word which (according to the Council) belongs to "the f-word family". I kid you not.

But they didn't stop there. The word subsequently appears twice more in short order -- once in the introduction to the complaint ...

The CBSC received a complaint about the broadcast via its webform on February 1, which expressed objections to the use of the word “faggot” in the song.

... and again in the reprinting of the complaint itself:

A song was aired, “Money For Nothing” by Dire Straits, and included the word “faggot” a total of three times. I am aware of other versions of the song, in which the word was replaced with another, and yet OZ FM chose to play and not censor this particular version that I am complaining about.

I find this extremely offensive as a member of the LGBT community and feel that there is absolutely no valid reason for such discriminatory marks to be played on-air.

***That's a total of five usages of 'the other f-word' before we're even really out of the gate.***

Of course it continues. After rationalizing the need for broadcasters to stay abreast of the permanently shifting goal posts of language usage in our topsy-turvy progresso-PC world, the Council's decision includes a discursive section entitled (I'm not kidding!) "The Use of the Word 'Faggot'".

Here's a taste:

The Use of the Word “Faggot”

As to the word under consideration in the matter at hand, namely, “faggot”, the Panel notes that no other CBSC Panel has been called upon to render an opinion, although there are two earlier decisions dealing with the English word “fag”. In the first of these, CILQ-FM re Parody Skit (CBSC Decision 95/96-0218, May 8, 1997), the Ontario Regional Panel dealt with a skit entitled “Bob the Fag Man”. The Panel found no breach [...]

In the second, namely, Comedy Network re Comedy Now (“Gord Disley”) (CBSC Decision 05/06-0290, January 20, 2006), the National Specialty Services Panel dealt with a complaint about the use of the word “fag” in a stand-up comedy routine. The comedian began his joke by saying “I’m not a fag myself” and “homophobia in the year 2000 looks particularly stupid.” He then went on to compare the interior decorating abilities of heterosexual and homosexual men, saying “Fags renovate like a [muted phrase: ‘son of a bitch’]” and suggesting that straight men are not adept at decorating projects. A viewer complained that the word “fag” was an insulting and hateful epithet, and questioned why the station muted coarse language but not that offensive term. [...]

The Panel notes that those two precedents dealt with the shorter form of the word challenged in the present complaint, namely, “fag” rather than “faggot”. While the Panel cannot substitute its view of those two decisions for the views of those Panels (in 1997 and 2006), it is aware of the fact that the shorter word has a couple of commonly-known harmless usages in English (although primarily the version spoken in the United Kingdom). The first is the term for a junior who performs duties for a senior in the English public schools tradition. The second is the term for a cheap cigarette or, even more generally, any cigarette. But a 'faggot'? Well that's a whole other story.

Got that? Sometimes a fag is just a fag. So says the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council. But a 'faggot'? Well, that's a whole other story.

In this section of the report, the CBSC almost seems to be doing its best bureaucratic parody of "Yes, Minister". In addition to the five previous uses of the word "faggot" to establish the context of the complaint, this report adds eight more, for a total of thirteen instances of a word that Knopfler used only three times and the aggrieved weeping willow used only once. Meanwhile, in a strange departure into the valley of the shadow of tortured sophistry, the CBSC report contorts and contrives a silly defense of the word "fag", and illustrates their point by using the word fully twenty times in this section of the report. Yikes.

Talk about money for nothing. That's the way you do it.

Skinn-a-ma "Wiki" Dinky-Dink, Skinna-ma "Wiki" Do

2010-11-29T10:38:00.007-05:00

WikiLeaks --

A dump of secret documents was leaked. The BBC sat on the documents for some time before the leak finally went public -- and viral -- via the world wide web. Even after that leak, the CBC sat on the story for two full weeks, ostensibly hoping the story would just go away. Oh wait, that was Climategate last year. Bottle genies, eh?

No, this year the whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks, currently directed by the Australian progressive gadfly computer slacker Julian Assange (who, as Jonah Goldberg wryly observes, is astonishingly not dead yet) has leaked a massive dump of diplomatic cables that purport to air some of the dirty laundry of diplomats and world leaders. (So far there doesn't seem to be much more to it than that.) But unlike last year's leak of the Hadley CRU papers, international media revealed themselves to be collectively salivating at the prospect of jumping out of the gate early and often. Le Monde, Der Speigel, and the Guardian, among others, were fully prepared to run the story (complete with an interactive map in the case of the Guardian) even though WikiLeaks itself was reportedly trying to fight through a "denial of service" (DNS) attack.

So, what have we learned so far? Not that much really -- mostly "inside baseball" stuff. Politicians and diplomats say snarky, unkind things behind other world leaders' backs that they most likely would not say to their faces. Some world leaders have urged certain actions that anybody who's been paying attention already figured they were urging. Well knock me over with a feather.

Those cited in the leaked cables will no doubt dust themselves off, deflect attention from their embarrassment, and publicly rally and reaffirm their relationships -- even if they harbour suspicions and grudges privately.

An anticipated further round of leaks may tread into more dangerous, more security-sensitive areas, but that remains to be seen. The concern within American diplomatic circles (they're not alone in this) is that the release of secret memoranda and other types of documents, falling into the wrong hands, could put lives in jeopardy. This concern, I believe, is well-founded. And on that basis alone, the WikiLeaks project seems reckless. The public's right to know ends where hostile adversaries' desire to know begins.

If spies must report back to their own governments, could we not at least insist that they do their own damned legwork? Don't espionage crutches like WikiLeaks just set the bar too low, and dumb down the spies' craft? I'm just sayin'.

Happy Birthday, Climategate

2010-11-17T17:13:00.000-05:00

Climategate turns one. They grow up so fast.

So, because it's Climategate's birthday (and because it's Marilyn Monroe)

Muslims Against the Crusades Dishonours Itself by Disrupting Solemn Remembrance Service

2010-11-12T00:01:00.003-05:00

Shameful and disgusting.

Protesters from the militant Islamist cabal, Muslims Against the Crusades, disrupted this year's Armistice Day commemoration in the Kensington area of London. As the two minutes of silence began at the eleventh hour, the bellicose MAC belligerents began hurling invective, shouting deeply insulting and hateful slogans, and burnt a large model poppy. They held signs incribed with various threats including "Allah is our protector and you have no protector;" "British soldiers burn in hell;" "Afghanistan the graveyard of empires;" and "Islam will dominate." Also conspicuous were those crypto-jihadists among them who brandished the black flag of the khalifah.

Muslims Against the Crusades appears to be the successor to the baleful Islam4UK (Anjem Choudary's previous militant hate group), proscribed by the British parliament in January 2010. The demonstrators were led to their allocated protest zone through an underground connecting tunnel, and were later led back out the same way, by police escort. (NB. you can't spell 'demonstrators' without 'demon' -- just saying.)

Not surprisingly, the khalifascists were met with opposition from the local chapter of the EDL. Hilarity ensues, sort of.

For the full article click on the Daily Mail.

Hey, I may be a "cracker", but I didn't grow up at the Ritz

2010-11-08T16:58:00.002-05:00

The City of ~~Phnom Penh~~ Edmonton wants you to fight racism by admitting your white privilege (white guilt being assumed from the outset). Only white people can be racists, dontcha know, because racism is about power, and power is an unearned privilege of being white (or some such cultural marxist claptrap).

And what better way to indulge in moral preening, broadcast your "tolerance', and demonstrate your ~~neo-fascist~~ anti-racist bona fides, than to sport a keffiyeh?

And, of course, the Alberta Human Rights Commission is on board. Oh brother.

*Update*

Sunlight is the best disinfectant. The offending page has now been taken down by Racism Free Edmonton. I guess most folks have had enough of (oh, what was the delicious phrase that Alykhan Velshi used?) "jejune, sophomoric, retro class warfare."

For the record, here is the original screed. (Click on image to magnify)

Where do you fit on the political matrix?

2010-10-29T03:15:00.001-04:00

Alright, that was a spot of fun. Take the test. But be warned, the questions permit no "fence sitting". I prefer the idea of situating political affinities on a grid or a matrix, as it forces the mind to think beyond the self-limiting, linear and wholly inadequate "political spectrum" model that we were all force fed in school.

Apparently, I'm pretty much a centrist. Who knew?

You are a

Social Moderate
(50% permissive)
and an...

Economic Conservative
(65% permissive)
You are best described as a:

Link: The Politics Test on Ok Cupid
Also: The OkCupid Dating Persona Test

Centrist

h/t Mesopotamia West for pointing this out. Thanks, Frank.

Rick Sanchez is on "The List That Nobody Gives a Rat's Ass About"

2010-10-03T07:35:00.001-04:00

CNN has announced the sudden departure of the blow-dried host of Rick's List, a sophomoric programme that blended fluffly headline coverage with incipid viewer feedback via Twitter. Despite its lack of hard substance, news fibre, insight, and depth, Rick's List occupied a sizeable slice of programming real estate -- two hours on weekday afternoons and one hour of prime time in the evenings.

Sanchez's sudden 'departure' comes directly on the heels of some unfortunate and unguarded comments during an interview with Pete Dominick on XM Sirius Radio, in which he called Comedy Central's Jon Stewart "a bigot", and then went on a strange tangent about the Jews' control of the media.

Initially, Sanchez defended his characterization of Stewart as "a bigot" by saying only that he surrounds himself with people who are a lot like him. Dominick pressed Sanchez for more clarity in his remarks, and in so doing, invited Sanchez to dig a deeper whole.

"I'm telling you that everybody who runs CNN is a lot like Stewart, and a lot of people who run all the other networks are a lot like Stewart, and to imply that somehow they, the people in this country who are Jewish, are an oppressed minority? Yeah," Sanchez responded.

Of course, Sanchez's grievance against Stewart seems to be a little more personal than ethno-cultural -- less about skin tone than about being thin-skinned. "That's what happens when you watch yourself on his show every day," said Sanchez, "and all they ever do is call you stupid."

Of course, Stewart would not have been the first to do that. Talk radio and Fox News host Glenn Beck also famously called Sanchez "the dumbest man on television."

Yes, you heard that correctly. When the Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajökull erupted in April 2010, and the reporting was left in the capable hands of Rick Sanchez, he actually said: “When you think of a volcano, you think of Hawaii and long words like that. You don’t think of Iceland. You think it’s too cold to have a volcano there.”

Ah, Rick, we'll miss these kinds of 'Ted Baxter-isms'. Buena suerte, amigo. Oh, and the next time you make a list, take a cue from Santa Claus and check it twice.

Polling and Reporting -- The Toronto Mayoral Race 2010

2010-09-24T15:24:00.002-04:00

In politics, perception is reality ... except when it isn't.

This week two polls were released on the mayoral contest in Toronto.

At the beginning of the week (September 19), the Globe and Mail. reported that Councillor "Rob Ford has taken a commanding 24-point lead" over his nearest rival, former provincial health minister George Smitherman.

This poll, conducted by Nanos for the Globe and Mail, CTV, and CP24 during the dates from September 14 to 16 ranked the candidates as follows:

Rob Ford ... 45.8
George Smitherman ... 21.3
Joe Pantelone ... 16.8
Rocco Rossi ... 9.7
Sarah Thompson ... 6.4

So for so good, right?

At the end of the week (September 24), and Angus Reid poll conducted for the Toronto Star showed Councillor Ford still in the lead, but by a somewhat truncated margin. The Angus Reid poll was conducted between September 14-15. This poll ranked the candidates as follows:

Rob Ford ... 39
George Smitherman ... 26
Joe Pantalone ... 13
Sarah Thompson ... 11
Rocco Rossi ... 8

A somewhat different picture, leading the Star's Urban Affairs Bureau Chief to surmise that "the high number of undecideds suggests Ford’s 13-point lead is surmountable."

This afternoon, CFRB host Jim Richards characterized this Angus Reid poll as indicating that over the course of this week Ford's support has "slipped" by 6 points.

Except (pay attention to the bolds above), while these two polls were released five days apart, they were actually conducted on the exact same days last week. If anything , all the differential between these two polls indicates is the statistical margin of error, which tends to be much wider in municipal polling than, say, provincial or federal polling.

Always be suspicious of horse-race reporting during election campaigns.

The Jack of Hearts does the fact checking that people paid to do it don't.

You're welcome.

The UN Human Rights Council

2010-09-23T03:07:00.001-04:00

Ahmadinejad's loyal lapdog ...

"The Human Rights Council blamed Israel prior to the investigation and it is no surprise that they condemn after."

... and puppet of the OIC

The Human Rights Council, a subsidiary body of the UN General Assembly, has courted controversy for its excessive focus on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

While it has passed over a dozen resolutions condemning Israel since it was created in 2006, the council has been more reluctant to censure states such as Sudan, which has been accused of serious human rights violations in Darfur.

Pointe de Bascule Reponds to MAS (Edmonton)

2010-09-06T00:23:00.001-04:00

"Opposing Hassan Al-Banna and the Muslim Brotherhood is not some kind of racism."

No, in fact, many good folks the world over consider it to be self-defense and common sense.

The Muslim Association of Canada announced its intention to open a mosque, an Islamic community centre and an elementary school in a vacant strip mall in the Lessard/Gariepy neighbourhood of Edmonton's west end. Local residents initially expressed concerns about increased traffic flow, parking issues, and zoning considerations.

However, before long the MAS itself became an issue for residents as certain vexing declarations on its web site came to light. A petition opposing the project was signed by 60% of local residents

Marc Lebuis and Étienne Harvey, for Pointe de Bascule, explain:

The MAC is the Canadian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB), an organization whose motto concludes with "Jihad is our way" and "Dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope". A previous article published on Point de Bascule exposed the totalitarian ideology of the organization and ithat of its founder Hassan al-Banna. On its own website, the MAC pledges to implement al-Banna's ideology as "the best representation of Islam".

[Note: Hassan al-Banna founded the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt in 1928. It's motto was “Allah is our objective; the Qu'ran is our constitution, the Prophet is our leader; Jihad is our way; and death for the sake of Allah is the highest of our aspirations.” The MB has since developed a global presence as the ideological face and the activist arm of political Islam, insinuating itself wherever communities of the Muslim diaspora settle. In Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood remains a banned political organization.]

According the an article in the Edmonton Sun, this affair could become peculiarly litigious:

The chairman of the Muslim Association of Canada's Edmonton chapter says the organization is considering suing a tiny handful of "people exhibiting Islamophobia" who are spreading distortions and outright falsehoods about the organization.

The degree to which the Muslim Association of Canada does or does not have direct links to the Muslim Brotherhood may be a matter for a proper debate. But explicit evocations of the 'teachings' of Hassan al-Banna, in the absence of such a proper debate, should certainly elicit grave concerns. Can such concerns properly be described as "Islamophobia", particularly when those concerns arise from declarations found on the MAS's own web site? (And can allegations of such 'thought crimes' as "Islamophobia" ever be considered the basis of actionable torts?) Or is this threat merely a strategy to silence critics -- i.e., an example of what some critics of the MB have come to call "stealth jihad"?

Back to the response by Pointe de Bascule:

The very notion of Islamophobia has been developed in the late eighties by Islamists to make their critics pass for irrational haters of Muslims. The MB's recourse to this concept is flawed for the simple fact that many of its critics are Muslims themselves. Many of the most eloquent expositions written against the MB's ideology have been produced by Muslims. Many of the most courageous stands against the MB have been taken by Muslims. Consequently, condemning the MB cannot be equated to condemning Muslims in general.

Just so.

Read the rest of the response here. Marc Lebuis and Étienne Harvey flesh out their pointed response with a great deal of background material related to the MB and its affiliates.

h/t Catfur for the push on this.

IPCC Scolded by Actual Scientists

2010-08-31T06:49:00.001-04:00

There is nothing wrong with the IPCC that changing everything about it couldn't fix, says an international panel of actual scientists.

UNITED NATIONS — The UN climate panel should only make predictions when it has solid scientific evidence and avoid straying into policy advocacy, a group of national science academies said in a report on Monday.

The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was hit with a wave of criticism after acknowledging in January that its 2007 global warming report had exaggerated the pace of Himalayan glaciers melting. It had previously said the report had overstated how much of the Netherlands is below sea level.

Of course that's not the half of it. The wheels have been coming off that bus for the better part of the past year.

The report said the 12-year limit for the chair of the IPCC, currently Rajendra Pachauri of India, was too long and should be shortened. It called for an overhaul of the panel’s management, including the creation of an executive committee that would include people from outside the IPCC.

Regarding the errors that appeared in the IPCC reports, the review group’s report called for stronger enforcement of the panel’s scientific review procedures to minimize future mistakes.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, however, remains in denial and thinks that R.K. Pachauri & Company are just swell.

No Snitching

2010-08-29T18:30:00.000-04:00

It's not just for hip-hoppers and urban street gangs anymore. Catfur has the skinny.

Khurram Syed Sher Ain't Misbahuddin

2010-08-26T14:50:00.004-04:00

Reporting on the joint police press conference detailing this week's terrorism-related arrests in Ottawa and London, Ontario -- via the Ceeb

The RCMP have charged three Ontario men for allegedly taking part in a domestic plot, and possessing schematics, electronics and explosives related to creating improvised explosive devices.

RCMP Chief Supt. Serge Therriault said Misbahuddin Ahmed, 26, and Hiva Alizadeh, 30, both of Ottawa, and 28-year-old Khurram Sher of London were involved in a conspiracy to commit "a violent terrorism attack."

Therriault alleged at a news conference in Ottawa that the men conspired with three men, who they named as James Lara, Rizgar Alizadeh and Zakaria Mamosta, as well as persons unknown in Canada and in Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Dubai to commit terrorism-related offences.

C'mon Khurram. Why d'ya have to go and (allegedly) make things so complicated?

*Update* By all appearances it seems that (Dr.) Khurram Sher had absolutely everything going for him in Canada -- a bright medical career and a young family.

So much for ~~American~~ Canadian Dreamz -- Dreamz with a Z.

Crop Swaskika Sighted in Bavaria

2010-08-26T03:39:00.002-04:00

Freaky, huh? Nazis from outer space, maybe?

A photographer spotted the Nazi symbol, about half the size of a handball court, on Sunday during a sightseeing flight, and passed the photos on to police, daily Süddeutsche Zeitung reported on Tuesday.

“We've never had something of this dimension,” Bavarian police investigator Gerhard Karl told the paper. “At the most someone has peed a swastika into the snow.”

The owner of the land in question, Erna Lechner, called the incident a “pigsty” and a “murderous injury” to farmers in the Upper Bavaria region.

The farmer who rents the land from Lechner did not wish to comment.

“The poor man will now be expected to do something, and in the worst case will have to destroy the crop,” she said.

Read the rest at The Local, but don't forget to read the comments (way more entertaining than anything in the article itself, as readers dine out at the expense of both the journalist who wrote the story and the investigators cited in it.)

Just a sampling of the comments:

15:45 August 24, 2010 by Thelonious Monk
can we have a picture of the swastika peed in the snow as well, please?
__________

16:15 August 24, 2010 by Sylvain
And when did handball courts become an official unit of area? Are we talking about outdoor handball, in which case the symbol would be about 20x20 meters, or the Irish version of handball, in which case the symbol would be 6x6 meters.

If you're going to invent new units of measurement, at least be precise!!

I personally would've preferred they use the French commune of Montgibaud as a unit. "The symbol was 0.00002859 Montgibaud."

Or better yet, the surface size of an old LP album would make a good unit. "The symbol was 4305.564 LP Albums in size".
__________

16:33 August 24, 2010 by Thelonious Monk
you have to admit it does look like a handball court
__________

16:37 August 24, 2010 by Bipa
This is obviously just the imprint of alien landing gear folks, so nothing to worry about.
__________

16:55 August 24, 2010 by bohemka
If you Bild it, they will come.
__________

19:02 August 24, 2010 by GreenTea
I mean, just imagine if that crop gets harvested. You could be eating swastika-tainted bread every day and not know it, until the morning when you go goose-stepping into the baker's shop, perform the Hitler salute, and demand pure aryan white rolls, but by then it will be too late.
__________

AND THE WINNER IS:

19:55 August 24, 2010 by Muldoon
Looks like some inglourious basterd has given that goddam Nazi cornfield somethin' that it caint take off...

Welcome Blazing Catfur readers!

Why Everything Progressives Pretend to Believe In Is Bullshit

2010-08-23T23:55:00.001-04:00

from a post at Gates of Vienna, via Sergei Bourachaga

Here's what the British novelist Dorothy Sayers (1893-1957) had to say on the subject of tolerance:

In this world it is called Tolerance, but in hell it is called indifference, the sin that believes in nothing, cares for nothing, seeks to know nothing, interferes with nothing, enjoys nothing, hates nothing, finds purpose in nothing, lives for nothing, and remains alive because there is nothing for which it will die.

But, of course, that raaaaaaaacist, right?

Leaving aside for a moment that I sincerely wish that I had framed my contempt for this progressive meme so eloquently, if you take a look at the period during which the author lived, you will quickly realise that this "tolerance" nonsense has been going on for a long time.

Of course, progressives (and other varieties of Trotskyist neo-Marxists and Frankfurt-School addled post-Gramscians) still believe that anyone who challenges their nonsense is ~~Hitler~~ Cartman.

"Oh Stewardess, I Speak Jive."

2010-08-23T16:14:00.007-04:00

Of course, this isn't "racial profiling" or anything, right?

The Department of Justice is seeking to hire linguists fluent in Ebonics to help monitor, translate, and transcribe the secretly recorded conversations of subjects of narcotics investigations, according to federal records.

[...]

Ebonics has widely been described as a nonstandard variant of English spoken largely by African Americans. John R. Rickford, a Stanford University professor of linguistics, has described it as “Black English” and noted that “Ebonics pronunciation includes features like the omission of the final consonant in words like ‘past’ (pas’ ) and ‘hand’ (han’), the pronunciation of the th in ‘bath’ as t (bat) or f (baf), and the pronunciation of the vowel in words like ‘my’ and ‘ride’ as a long ah (mah, rahd)."

No, actually it can't be "racial profiling". Black Studies departments have been promoting the idea of Ebonics as a distinct linguistic category, and have been promoting Ebonics classes in schools, for years now.

Which all brings to mind, Barbara Billingsley's comically counter-intuitive cameo in Airplane (1980):

h/t The Halls

Malmö: Swedish for 'Roll Over and Play Dead'

2010-08-18T02:51:00.000-04:00

Sweden's third largest city, Malmö, is becoming famous for its "no go zones", its epidemic of *cough* 'youth' crime, its escalating violence against Jews, and its reprehensively indifferent hard-core leftist mayor.

Well, Malmö continues apace Sweden's general decline, adding one more nail to the national coffin.

Malmö makes hunting illegals harder for cops

The municipality of Malmö will no longer print the personal identification numbers of marrying couples on the lists of upcoming civil weddings in a move which will make it harder for border police to hunt for illegal immigrants at weddings.

Meanwhile, Swedes can indulge in a little temporary vainglory now that Newsweek has ranked Sweden third in its Best Countries To Live In list. Sweden ranks right behind Finland and Switzerland.

I'm guessing that the good editors of Newsweek didn't bother consulting with any of the remaining Jews in Malmö, who have watched their once thriving community shrink as fellow Jews have been fleeing in droves. Perhaps this unambiguous article from The Telegraph just escaped their notice -- "Jews leave Swedish city after sharp rise in anti-Semitic hate crimes" (February 2010).

In 2009, a chapel serving the city's 700-strong Jewish community was set ablaze. Jewish cemeteries were repeatedly desecrated, worshippers were abused on their way home from prayer, and "Hitler" was mockingly chanted in the streets by masked men.

[...]

Malmo's Jews, however, do not just point the finger at bigoted Muslims and their fellow racists in the country's Neo-Nazi fringe. They also accuse Ilmar Reepalu, the Left-wing mayor who has been in power for 15 years, of failing to protect them.

It's just a hunch, but I'm guessing likely none of the illegals attempting to marry in Malmö are Jews. Just sayin'.

Happy Dominion Day -- Roadside Attractions Edition

2010-07-01T03:07:00.002-04:00

This year, I'm proud to present a Dominion Day photacular. From our bulging collection of Canadian roadside attractions.

"Big Stupid Fish" -- Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario

"Canada Goose" -- Wawa, Ontario

"Winnie the Pooh" -- White River, Ontario

Happy Dominion Day, Pooh-bear.

"Bicycles on a Standard (for some reason)" -- Manitouwadge, Ontario

"Terry Fox Memorial" -- Thunder Bay, Ontario

"Max, the Moose" -- Dryden, Ontario

"Husky, the Muskie" -- Kenora, Ontario

"Inukshuk" -- Vermillion Bay, Ontario

"World's Largest Coke Can" -- Portage-la-Prairie, Manitoba

"582 Foot Swinging Bridge" -- Souris, Manitoba

"Giant Indian Head" -- Indian Head, Saskatchewan

"Giant Teepee" -- Parkland College, Fort Qu'Appelle, Saskatchewan

"Historic Ruts" -- outside Lipton, Saskatchewan
We have a personal anecdote about these ruts that still makes my wife laugh.

So, of course, here are the ruts -- or so the farmer who cultivates the field of rape (i.e. canola) eagerly told us, without our prior solicitation, when we stopped there a couple of years ago. I think it might have made his day. And God love him for that.

"Don't Fence Me In (by Donald R. Hefner)" -- North Battleford, Saskatchewan

"Mountie Statue (1963 Golden Jubilee)" -- North Battleford, Saskatchewan

"World's Largest Sun Dial" -- Lloydminster, Alberta

"World's Largest Easter Egg" -- Vegreville, Alberta

"World's Largest Kielbasa Sausage" -- Mundare, Alberta

"World's Largest Cowboy Boot" -- Edmonton, Alberta

"Giant Beer Can" -- Edmonton, Alberta

"World's Largest Badminton Racket" -- St. Albert, Alberta

"The Legacy" -- Podoka, Alberta

"Francis the Pig" -- Red Deer, Alberta
There's an interesting local story about Francis the Pig. Well, actually it's more long than interesting.

"Mermaid and Child" -- Sylvan Lake, Alberta

"Clem T. GoFur" -- Torrington, Alberta
Home of the Torrington Gopher Hole Museum. They get hate mail from PETA.

"World's Largest Dinosaur" -- Drumheller, Alberta

"Cowboy Boot on Wheels, McCloud Trail" -- Calgary, Alberta

"Oggie" -- Calgary, Alberta

"Okotoks Erratic" -- the Big Rock (from whence the brewery is named) -- Okotoks, Alberta

"Wolves, outside a 7-11 store" -- High River, Alberta (place of death of W.O. Mitchell, if anyone cares)

"The Starship Enterprise (Yeah, I know. I know)" -- Vulcan, Alberta

"The Little Church" -- Bellevue, Crow's Nest Pass, Alberta

"Enormous Teepee Thingy" -- Medicine Hat, Alberta

"Nature Conservatory" -- Chaplin, Saskatchewan

"Giant Moose" -- Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan

"Corner Gas and the Ruby" -- Rouleau, Saskatchewan

"Giant Wheat Stalk" -- Taber, Saskatchewan

"Take that, Taber." -- Weyburn, Saskatchewan (birthplace of W.O. Mitchell, if anyone cares).

"Lignite Louie" -- Estevan, Saskatchewan

"Mountie" -- Redvers, Saskatchewan

"Giant Mosquito Carries Off Man" -- Upsala, Ontario

"Bigfoot" -- Vermillion Bay, Ontario

"Loggers Memorial" -- Blind River, Ontario

"The Best Little Pork Shoppe" -- Shakespeare, Ontario
The name of this meat store, located on the site of the owner's farm, is not an idle boast. If you're in the Stratford area, stop in and get some pork and bacon and such.

"3478? There's an 11 in progress on Bloor St."

2010-06-28T00:16:00.005-04:00

"Oh my God. An 11? You mean two people standing beside each other minding their own business? I'm on it, Dispatch."

Some days it seems you just can't tell the good guys from ... you know ... the black-clad violent retard anarchists. Read it and freep.

Question: Is there a Jenny Craig program for heavy-handedness?

*Update on Heavy-handedness 1 -- Two photographers of National Post are arrested and detained. WTF!

*Update on Heavy-handedness 2 -- A reporter for the Guardian newspaper web site is beaten and arrested. WTF!

*Update on Heavy-handedness 3 -- TVO's Steve Paikin is threatened with arrest if he does not leave the scene. WTF! Then he tweets:

I saw police brutality tonight. it was unnecessary. they asked me to leave the site or they would arrest me. i told them i was dong my job.

they repeated they would arrest me if i didn't leave. as i was escorted away from the demonstration, i saw two officers hold a journalist.

the journalist identified himself as working for "the guardian." he talked too much and pissed the police off. two officers held him....

a third punched him in the stomach. totally unnecessary. the man collapsed. then the third officer drove his elbow into the man's back.

*Update on Heavy-handedness 4 -- Keystone Kanuck Kops. WTF!

*Update on Heavy-handedness 5 -- Mike Brock's testimonial of 'harassment'. WTF!

Well, at least a lot of the anarchist scum were also rounded up, thanks mostly to some good intelligence work, after the fact. The UofT raid this morning was a nice touch. However, it might have been more satisfying, and certainly more reassuring, if -- just maybe -- they had cracked down hard before the criminal anarchists trashed Yonge St. After more than 20 years of this nonsense at summits around the world, the block bloc tactics could not possibly have taken them by surprise. It's "Direct Action Protest 101". I have to believe they were expecting it. And if not, they should have been. Just saying. 'Cos a lot of us are really pissed off about that.

Chutzpah

2010-06-27T07:37:00.001-04:00

CP, via CTV

Police securing the G20 leaders' summit in the city now say they've arrested 412 people in connection with yesterday's violence.

Const. Michelle Murphy says there are also people who have camped overnight outside the prisoner processing centre to protest the arrests.

Why not hold them until Monday or Tuesday, then put them (two by two) in stocks in Nathan Phillips Square, and provide the good citizens of Toronto with bushels of rotten fruit. Let's see how that goes.

Irony Alert. Activists for Asinine Cultural Marxist Group "No One Is Illegal" Alleged to Have Been Arrested

2010-06-26T21:10:00.003-04:00

Following an afternoon of mayhem on the streets of Toronto, as G20 protests quickly turned violent (no surprises there), police have reportedly started making arrests. The arrests, however, appear to have less to do with the afternoon's rioting than with the stubborn resistance of protesters to police attempts to clear them.

From Reuters, via the Vancouver Sun:

Farrah Miranda, an organizer from community group No One Is Illegal, said she [and] Syed Hussan were stopped by officers who refused to identify themselves.

She said they threw a handcuffed Hassan into an unmarked car and drove away.

She said she was handcuffed, driven around, questioned and released on a street corner in what she called “intimidation and bullying tactics.”

Well, Farrah, sometimes the question of whether or not someone is illegal depends on which side of the handcuffs they're on.

It will be fun to listen to all of the armchair-quarterback reviews come Monday. The same people who have been causing and/or cheer-leading this chaos will be chalk-full of venomous recriminations. When you hear them rationalize and justify themselves, and hurl abuse on the (patient) behaviour of the police, remember how disgusted you are today with the thugs and their hard-left apologists.

Remember, these are the same ass-holes who are likely to tell you that the tea-partiers are violent.

**Gratuitous violence -- It's a left thing. You wouldn't understand.**

A Primer on Protesting

2010-06-26T17:56:00.001-04:00

Lessons from Toronto and Muskoka, June 2010 edition.

This is good --

Huntsville (Globe and Mail)

This is bad --

Toronto (Toronto Star)

That is all. Class dismissed.

The Face of 'Peaceful' Activism

2010-06-26T16:56:00.004-04:00

Live blogging of G-20 protests (cum riot) at the Toronto Star's site. Who exactly did not see this coming? Especially given that whenever activists -- be they Anarchists, Trotskyists, Eco-Marxixts, One-Worlders, Anti-Poverty agitators, Post-Colonial Jihadists, etc. -- were interviewed (for print or radio), they almost invariably refused to disavow violence as a tactic. Not to tarnish all of these idiots with the same brush, there were a couple of notable exceptions. But still, the live blogging at the Star, and the live coverage on CFRB radio is now revealing a story that most Torontonians feared but fully expected.

From the Star's live blog:

4:03 p.m. Smoke fills financial district
The police car set on fire is slowly exploding now; it is popping every now and then. The mob was trapped on the west, south and north, so everyone ran east away from the car. Smoke is whipping through the financial district.
One woman with a megaphone yelled: ”Violence is not the answer.” The mob is yelled obscenities at her. “They’re no better than the G20,” she retorts.
4:01 p.m. Police wall off intersection
Police have walled off King and Yonge. The cops are moving up Yonge. Medics are running around, screaming “Is anyone hurt?”
3:57 p.m.
I hear people say we're headed to Dundas Square. Everyone walking north on Yonge St; the goal of reaching the fence has been abandoned, seemingly.

And then there's this revealing description, a little later on:

3:30 p.m. When it turned violent

Groups were still crowded at the intersection of Spadina Ave. near Queen St. W. when protesters began smashing a police vehicle, with an officer inside. Officers scared the protesters away with batons and managed to get the officer out. The protesters continued to smash the vehicle before heading east.

No specific group targeted the police cruiser. Protesters wearing black have broken a Nike business window, and other business windows. There was a discussion and the protesters are now going back to Spadina, most clad in black in gas masks.

Protesters are breaking windows, destroying commercial business windows. They are chanting "against police, against prison." They are refusing photos by media. Nike store window was destroyed. Foot Locker was also targeted.

Protesters are also dragging mailboxes into the streets to block them. It is beginning to get unruly.

The black-clad protesters are leaving independent shops alone. They hit Subway hard, throwing pieces of cement and reusing them again. CIBC was just smashed. Others are tagging walls and moving on. People are blocking cameras’ lenses.

There is a man with a hammer, he is taking out windows.

"Protesters wearing black" and "black-clad protesters" -- where have I heard that before?

Oh, yes. Most recently from Jonathan Kay in the National Post. When revisiting the events of the Summit of the Americas, held in Quebec City in 2001. Kay recalls:

Many of the legitimate protesters I interviewed insisted that the Black Bloc was a violent fringe with its own militant agenda. And there was truth to that: As the weekend conference unfolded, I saw that it was the same few dozen black-clad protesters who were throwing bricks at police and generally acting like criminals. But it was also true that the rest of the protesters often acted as the Black Bloc’s cheering section.

Chris Boutet is also live-blogging for the National Post here.

While police have shown considerable restraint, by all accounts, there will invariably be questions in the coming days about whether the police could have prevented any of the damage and mayhem. And there will be questions about arrests that were made (in pre-dawn raids), and arrests that may not have been made during the rioting and vandalism.

As we go through the post-mortem of the G-20, let's spare a few words of contempt and ire for the militant 'black bloc' wannabes, the radical revolutionary poseurs, and their assorted throng of 'cheerleaders' from some of the 'peaceful protest groups'.

*Update* There are now reports (as of about 5:00 pm) that tear gas has been used for the first time in Toronto's history. At this moment it's still unconfirmed.

Steyn on the First Post-American President

2010-06-11T21:43:00.002-04:00

Reading a Steyn column is often like sitting at the feet of a master as he holds court at a writers' clinic. He teaches only by object lessons. He makes it look easy. It isn't.

Of 'The One' who condescends to lead a whiny nation, he writes:

Like many of his background here and there, Obama is engaged mostly by abstractions and generalities. Indeed, he is the very model of a modern major generalist. He has grand plans for “the environment” – all of it, wherever it may be. Why should the great eco-Gulliver be ensnared by some Lilliputian oil spill lapping round his boots? He flew in to Cairo to give one of the most historically historic speeches in history to the Muslim world. Why should such a colossus lower his visionary gaze to contemplate some no-account nickel’n’dime racket like the Iranian nuclear program? With one stroke of his pen, he has transformed the health care of 300 million people. But I suppose if there’s some killer flu epidemic or a cholera outbreak in New Mexico, you losers will be whining at Obama to do something about that, too.

Damn. I wish I'd said that. Allusions both to Gilbert and Sullivan, and to Jonathan Swift, in the same paragraph. The unlikely coupling of comic pageantry in one stroke with mordant satire in the next. Classic.

Read it all here. (Added bonus, Steyn taps Iggy as the set-up man in this piece.)

Binks Speaketh

2010-06-04T16:57:00.000-04:00

Binks, the indefatigable web elf who tirelessly aggregated all the commentary fit to follow during the heady days of the free speech wars, returns with another insightful, content-rich, link-laden, and (in at least a couple of instances) quite poignant post. Regular readers of Binks have always been treated to a cornucopia of commentary, resources, reflections, and (yes) prayer. Always stimulating; always informative; always thought-provoking; always community-building.

Please visit, and leave your best regards and best wishes. It's always well worth your time and attention.

Visit Binks at Free Canuckistan

Best wishes, Binks, and thanks.

Humaniterrorists for Gaza

2010-06-04T05:47:00.002-04:00

We Con The World. Please Give Disingenuously.

h/t Closet Conservative, Jay Currie

Related

Celestial Junk Israeli Commandos Used Incredible Restraint

Jay Currie All We Are Saying Is Give Peace a Chance (irony alert)

Jay Currie More Scenes From the Pali Humanitarian Crisis

Jay Currie Not All Lefties Are Idiots

Vlad Tepes More on the Flotilla. Video Evidence Appearing Everywhere.

Elderofzion Danish Report From Gaza: "Where's the Humanitarian Crisis?"

Small Dead Animals Selective Outrage

Small Dead Animals "Remember Haibar, Oh Jews."

Scaramouche Not So Sweet Charity

Scaramouche Ship of Fools

Scaramouche Zionhass Keeps 'Em Together

Scaramouche Tough Luck, Ahmadis.

Scaramouche Sensing Blood, UN Zionhass Council Sharks Move in for the Kill.

Mesopotamia West Why the Hysterical Reaction to the Flotilla Conflict?

Moose and Squirrel More on the Gaza Goons 'Peace' Flotilla

Ghost of a Flea Vindication

Ghost of a Flea The Narrative

Moose and Squirrel Gaza 'Flotilla of the Huns' Chanted Islamic Battle Cry Invoking Slaughter of Jews.

Moose and Squirrel Hey Turkey

Moose and Squirrel The Palestinian Humanitarian "Crisis".

Blazingcatfur Flotilla Rioters Prepare Rods, Slingshots, Broken Bottles and Metal Objects to Attack IDF Soldiers

Blazingcatfur Artists, Intellectuals, Journalists

Blazingcatfur Red Rover, Red Rover, Send the 'Rachel Corrie' Over

"I'll take career enders in the police force for SEK500, Axel."

2010-05-09T00:52:00.001-04:00

Axel: Alright, Olaf controls the board.
Olaf: I'll take career enders for SEK500, Axel.
Axel: Doing this could get you summarily suspended, demoted or fired.
Olaf: Um ... what is ... being politically active in the Swedish Democrat Party?
Axel: That is correct. One would need to be active in the Swedish Social Democrat Party to ensure career advancement. Okay, Olaf you retain control of the board ...

From The Local (Stockholm) -- "Police Launch Q&A Game to Solve Ethical Dilemmas":

Is it okay to be a police officer and be politically active with the Sweden Democrats, a nationalist party? Is it appropriate for police officers to write about their profession on Facebook? These are a few issues that the the Swedish Police Union (Polisförbundet) address in its new professional ethics tool, a flashcard game.

The aim of the tool, called MoralMatch and developed by police union activists, is to increase the ethical standards of the police.

"I hope this contributes to higher ethics in the police force," Police Union Chairman Jan Karlsen told The Local on Friday.

"It's necessary to make progress in ethical questions. A good way to start talking about it is with simple play. It is necessary to discuss ethics and very important for a police force. We have to remind ourselves everyday, so to speak."

Swedish police were dogged by allegations of racism last year after a police officer was disciplined for describing a suspect as a "negro" in an email, while Malmö police used fictional names such "Neger Niggersson" and "Oskar Neger" (Negro) for internal training purposes.

The new game hopes to prevent these types of situations from occurring and consists of 110 cards posing describing ethical scenarios raised from the responses of 3,000 members to a questionnaire.

Sure the references contained in the emails (cited above) were out of line. Emphatically so. And of course ethics are important in police work. Again, emphatically so. But, is this a "police union activist's" way of introducing mandatory sensitivity training for all, in order to wash away the publicized sins of a few? Is it a way to encourage police to become Bjorn-again progressives? If so, then it is asinine.

Well perhaps after they get through playing "quiz-master" with each other, they will have developed the necessary skills and scruples to 'sensitively' investigate and put a stop to such teensy-weensy problems as no-go zones, attacks on emergency personnel in 'certain' neighbourhoods, the harassment of Jews in towns like Malmo, and of course the rising tide of rape gangs. Well, how about it?

So, here's to Sweden's finest.

But, as a palette cleanser, here's to Sweden's finest.

Happy St. George's Day

2010-04-23T04:17:00.002-04:00

While this might not sit well with some of the more militant followers of [bleep] in a bear suit, happy St. George's Day.

While some English communities are mired in their own feckless dhimmitude, and others are beleaguered by militant sectarian grievance hustling, the Archbishop of York, Dr. John Sentamu, is urging Britons to fly the flag of St. George and celebrate their English heritage. Well it's about time. What's the English word for cajones?

Shake It For Boobquake

2010-04-22T17:10:00.001-04:00

You go, Jen. You rock.

An Islamic cleric's suggestion that immodestly dressed women cause earthquakes has drawn thousands to join an American student's busty bid to shake up the world by revealing cleavage.

Jen McCreight is the creator of Boobquake, an event scheduled for Monday, which has already garnered the support of more than 40,000 people on Facebook.

McCreight, a 22-year-old attending Purdue University in Indiana, is pushing women to bare their breast cleavage for a day to satirize Islamic cleric Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi, who recently blamed earthquakes on immodest female clothing.

Boobquake demonstration: Monday, April 26, 2010.

If mammary serves, Boobquake currently has over 40,000 Facebook supporters already and untold numbers of Twitter followers, cross my heart.

Happy Earth Day -- "Proletarii vsekh stran, soyedinyaytes!"

2010-04-22T11:01:00.002-04:00

April 22, 2010 -- Today environmental activists encourage us all to join them in commemorating ~~Lenin's birthday~~ .... er ... Earth Day. Eagerly answering the call will be governments, cities, schools, and all manner of NGOs. Media outlets will fill the six o'clock hour this evening with feel-good stories about school children and service clubs doing things to help clean up their neighbourhoods -- things that ought otherwise to be done by petty felons sentenced to community service.

Don't get me wrong. I love the earth. Earth is where I keep my stuff. But, I was a little bit remiss this year. I failed to get my Earth Day cards into the mail on time, and I left my Earth Day shopping to the last minute. As such, the Earth Day fireworks this evening will be a more modest event, but the weather looks like it's going to hold out for the annual Earth Day barbecue. I still have happy memories of the Earth Day bonfires of my youth.

What's not to love about Earth Day? Well, how about its origins? For starters:

The first Earth Day "teach-in" was celebrated on April 22, 1970, to protest the Vietnam War, pollution, and littering -- and to commemorate what would have been the 100th birthday of one of history's most notorious villains.

As the father of communism, the deaths of tens of millions of people can be laid at that Soviet dictator's doorstep. That now forgotten fact about Earth Day's origins should place your child's sudden enthusiasm for recycling, saving the panda bears and energy efficient light bulbs in a new, well, light.

Like the Marxist philosophy that inspired it, today's environmental movement has become, for its most ardent proponents, an ersatz religion. As Joseph Brean recently observed, "in its myths of the Fall and the Apocalypse, its saints and heretics, its iconography and tithing, its reliance on prophecy, even its schisms -- the green movement now exhibits the same psychology of compliance as religion."

The choice of Lenin's birthday was not accidental, nor coincidental. It was deliberate.

At the very first Earth Day celebrations in Philadelphia, one of the (self-described) masters of ceremonies was the local leftist activist and self-promoter Ira Einhorn. Nowadays, it should be acknowledged, the environmental left can't distance itself from this fellow fast enough.

A friend and contemporary of Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin, and acquaintance of authors Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsburg, Timothy Leary, Alvin Toffler, and Isaac Asimov, Einhorn held the floor for a half hour, during the first Earth Day celebration, in Philadelphia, kissing Edmund Muskie on the lips before surrendering the microphone to the Senator from Maine.

(Well, Senator Muskie. Philadelphia is the "city of brotherly love".)

Okay, other than Einhorn's leftist bona fides, his moral exhibitionism, and his unfortunate lapse in judgement in his choice of kissing partners, what's the problem?

There is no evidence that Muskie rejected his advances, or that anyone associated with the event had ever voiced any disagreement with Einhorn's place as a key organizer until after his arrest for the murder of Holly Maddux.

Oh.

But, wait ... it gets worse. After murdering Maddux, Einhorn tried to cover up his crime. He stuffed the body into a steamer trunk and hid it in a closet where it was discovered about two years later. Dude.

Or, as Kathy Shaidle cleverly quips: "Maybe long-time Earth Day advocate Ira Einhorn took the whole “recycling” thing a little too far when he “composted” his girlfriend’s remains in a trunk in his closet."

So, this year marks the 40th celebration of Lenin's birthday rebranded as Earth Day. That's 40 years of environmental alarmism -- from "the population bomb" and the coming of a new ice age in 1970, through the ozone hole and acid rain and "save the whales", to climate change alarmism in the present day. What all of these "alarms" have in common is that they were/are all said to require a huge govenment response, massive wealth redistribution, international cooperation, global activism, ideological puritanism and a voluntary surrender of individual autonomy. And remember, the science is 'settled' -- it just has to be.

Lenin would be so proud.

Memo to BlazingCatFur:

2010-04-10T00:46:00.001-04:00

Re. "Sigh ... I Dunno"

There are probably better pictures of Audrey Hepburn that you could have gone with. Like this one, for instance.

But if we're talking period-film crushes from the "golden age and beyond", I'm more inclined towards either Natalie Wood ...

... or Ingrid Bergman.

Heck, in The Bells of St. Mary's, Bergman even looked pretty hot in a nun's habit. (But I'm probably going to hell for saying that.)

Well, sigh ... I dunno either. But thanks for inspiring the diversion.

Vimy Ridge - April 9, 1917

2010-04-09T12:50:00.002-04:00

In Remembrance.

About the pin.

*UPDATE* Vimy Ceremonies Salute Last WW1 Vet, and Red Ensign Flies Again at Vimy Ridge Ceremony.

An "Honour" Killing That Might Have Been Prevented?

2010-04-08T05:37:00.002-04:00

Well, perhaps.

In Australia, the Emergency Response number is 000 (the equivalent of 999 in Great Britain, or 911 in North America).

Well, a judge in a murder trial in Australia has ruled, in effect, that 000 turned out to be a real triple goose egg in the tragic and brutal murder of Marzieh Rahimi at the hands of her cousin/husband.

From the Herald Sun

A JUDGE has slammed a 000 operator's reaction to an Afghan woman who called complaining of domestic violence days before her death.

Soltan Ahmad Azizi, 46, strangled his wife Marzieh Rahimi with her veil after complaining she had become "too Australian''.

Sentencing Azizi to a minimum of 17-and-a-half years behind bars, Justice Betty King said police should have been there for Ms Rahimi after she called 000 for help just days before her death.

Ms Rahimi, a mother of five, was killed in front of the couple's three-month old baby and toddler, 22 months, in their Hampton Park home in November 2007.

"It is most unfortunate that no assistance was forthcoming as a result of a very disappointing reaction by the telephone operator to your wife's inability to speak English in anything other than a broken English manner,'' Justice King said.

Upon a closer rendering of the details of this story, it would appear that the 000 operator was not personally at fault. However, during the time it took to get a translator on the line, the distressed caller from the victim's address had hung up.

Tragically, this story has an all-too-familiar pattern to it:

- a (presumably) loveless arranged marriage between cousins;
- a domineering, controlling and abusive husband;
- a wife cut off from casual and ordinary social contact or interaction;
- a resistance to acculturate and integrate into the broader host society;
- a complaint to family that the wife was becoming "too Australian" (read too westernized);
- the revelation that the wife desired to seek a divorce;
- the symbolic use of the hijab as a weapon for strangulation;
- the call to the police (by the husband) after the killing, saying he was "ready for the handcuffs";
- the predictable "not guilty" plea in court.

The jury, for their part, bought none of the husband's rationalizations in his defense, and returned a guilty verdict.

Prior to sentencing, the judge remarked: "Your treatment of your wife over a period of time was not what would be normally acceptable in this country, but you are not here to be punished for that, you are to be punished for your ultimate treatment of your wife which was that you killed her." Soltan Ahmad Azizi was sentenced to 22 years, with no chance of parole for 17 years.

David Menzies' One-Man Celebration of Human Achievement Hour

2010-03-31T18:40:00.000-04:00

"Earth Hour" Post-Mortem

As David Menzies crows:

Earth Hour 2010: Was it good for you, living for 60 minutes in the darkness and partying like it was 1799?

Personally, I wouldn’t know. Your humble correspondent took a completely different approach to Earth Hour last Saturday: I lit up my house like a Las Vegas casino – inside and out.

Borrowing movie lights from the Toronto Media & Film College and procuring the services of an industrial-grade four-beam searchlight, my Richmond Hill, Ont. abode resembled a glittering gem. I simply wanted to protest the hypocrisy of Earth Hour. For example, who needs preachy environmental types – from Al Gore to David Suzuki (who have carbon footprints significantly larger than average citizens) – telling the rest of us to make do with less?

I feel humbled. My wife and I just went to the movies and skipped the whole thing. Much planning to do for next year's Human Achievement Hour though (only three hundred and sixty shopping days left). The gauntlet has well and truly been thrown down.

"You might, Rabbit, you might"

2010-03-27T02:41:00.000-04:00

Canadian Government to Close Three Major CHRC Offices

2010-03-26T00:44:00.003-04:00

A pretty nice way to close out the week.

The Canadian government, led by prime minister Stephen Harper, has announced that it will be closing three branch offices of the so-called Canadian Human Rights Commission. The bed wetters at the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) are pissed.

More bed wetting to follow tomorrow from the legions of cultural Marxists, political correctness enforcers and squishy Trudeaupians. Expect the predictable bromides -- reflexive accusations of racism and discrimination; ad hominem references to knuckle-dragging neo-cons; faux outrage on behalf of "racialized" Canadians; yawn, yawn, and yawn again.

It seems like a pretty good start, if a little late in coming. We'll see how this plays out. My best guess is that the sun will come out tomorrow, bet your bottom dollar ...

UPDATE -- Oh for chrissake.

Perhaps I Can Assist Young Fatima With Her Alternative Air Travel Dilemma

2010-03-23T10:40:00.000-04:00

No flying carpet? No problem.

Now, depending upon where you find it commercially, it will either be branded "The Flintstone Flyer" or "The Barneycopter". Hope this helps.

Climate Sceptism, or Why I Don't Appreciate Being Lectured by Infants

2010-02-26T21:57:00.000-05:00

Judith Curry wants to restore trust in climate science, badly damaged by the Climate-gate leak last November. Climate-gate (or more formally FOIA2009.zip), whether the power barons would admit it or not, left a pall over the Copenhagen Summit and pretty well ensured no binding treaty. Much to the consternation of alarmist die-hards, the post-Copenhagen climate was no more forgiving, with a host of revelations that called into question the trustworthiness of the IPCC, and revealed its disturbing coziness with, and reliance upon, activist groups like WWF and Greenpeace. Judith Curry, however, seems to think that it's just a communications problem, and that if climate scientists would just learn to use new media to better propagandize their claims, then public trust would be restored.

Has Curry been living in an ivory-tower bubble?

Willis Eschenbach certainly thinks so. And he's not mincing words about it.

Because the truth is, climate science is one of the newest sciences. The truth is, we know little about the climate, we’ve only been studying it intensely for a couple decades. The truth is, we can’t project the climate of the next decade, much less that of the next century. The truth is, we have no general theory of climate. The truth is, we don’t know if an average temperature rise of a couple degrees will be a net benefit or a net loss. The truth is, all of us are human, and our knowledge of the climate is in its infancy. And I don’t appreciate being lectured by infants. I don’t appreciate being told that I should be put in the dock in a Nuremberg style trial for disagreeing with infants. You want to restore trust? Come down off your pedestals, forsake your ivory towers, and admit your limitations.

[emphasis mine]

Now before you say "What'choo talkin' 'bout, Willis," do read the whole thing -- a priceless smack down indeed.

PS. Progressives just hate it when you use Alinsky's Rules for Radicals against them.

Hold Me Closer, Tony Danza

2010-02-20T04:57:00.004-05:00

A reading from the Epistle of Elton John to the Effetes.

(Congregational response: Thanks be to Gawd.)

Jesus was a compassionate, super-intelligent gay man who understood human problems.

What would we do without ~~theologians~~ celebrities?

War of the Poses -- Day Three

2010-02-11T00:44:00.000-05:00

Happier days and days to come.

U.K. Immigration Inquiry Demanded by Opposition

2010-02-09T22:18:00.000-05:00

A few months ago, private government memoranda surfaced in the U.K. that seemed to indicate that the governing Labour party had deliberately accelerated the pace of immigration for the purposes of social engineering, with the intention of expanding Labour's voting base and marginalizing the Conservative party.

Now the Conservatives are demanding a formal inquiry into the matter, just months before the government of Gordon Brown must call a general election.

The Government has always denied that social engineering played a part in its migration policy.

However, the paper, which was written in 2000 at a time when immigration began to increase dramatically, said controls were contrary to its policy objectives and could lead to “social exclusion”.

Last night, the Conservatives demanded an independent inquiry into the issue. It was alleged that the document showed that Labour had overseen a deliberate open-door policy on immigration to boost multi-culturalism.

Voting trends indicate that migrants and their descendants are much more likely to vote Labour.

The irony is that if Labour were using mass immigration to cement a new and loyal voting base, the governing party seems to have all but alienated its traditional white working class voters. In some districts, this has created fertile ground for the emergence of the BNP. Politics, like nature, abhors a vacuum.

War of the Poses -- Day Two

2010-02-09T21:27:00.000-05:00

Blazing Catfur has the battalion assignments, but Jay Currie is mounting a spirited offensive.

Natalie Wood. Take that, Jay.

So It's a Pin-Up War, Is It?

2010-02-09T01:06:00.000-05:00

So much for the entente cordiale. Erstwhile peaceful relations between Catfur and Currie have broken down. Alliances are forming, ammunition is being cached, bloggers are being deployed, in what surely will be known for generations to come as "The War of the Poses".

So, here's my shot across the bow. Call it "Operation Hussy Fit".

Sometimes in war, you have to do things you're not proud of.

(P.S. My apologies if this flagrant flashing of ankle gives any frumpy dowagers the vapours.)

Just Give Me That Old Time Religion ...

2010-02-05T11:51:00.000-05:00

... from the Washington Examiner --

"How Climate Change Fanatics Corrupted Science"

The secular religion of global warming has all the elements of a religious faith: original sin (we are polluting the planet), ritual (separate your waste for recycling), redemption (renounce economic growth) and the sale of indulgences (carbon offsets). We are told that we must have faith (all argument must end, as Al Gore likes to say) and must persecute heretics (global warming skeptics are like Holocaust deniers, we are told).

A concise summary of the some of the recent tribulations at the IPCC, and the blowback and backdraft hitting AGW dogma in its face. Read it all.

h/t a commentor (Philip G. Shaw) at SDA

"Nobody's gonna make fun of your name anymore, Mr. Glasscock."

2010-02-04T20:57:00.002-05:00

The swelling controversy of Akbar Zeb --

Despite having served for years as a distinguished Pakistani diplomat, Akbar Zeb reportedly cannot receive accreditation as Pakistan's ambassador to Saudi Arabia. The reason, apparently, has nothing to do with his credentials, and everything to do with his name -- which, in Arabic,translates to "biggest dick":

"I have a vewy gweat fwiend in Wome named Biggus Dickus."

h/t the Fashionista Jewhadi

Send In the Clowns -- PETA Protester Gets Pied -- Instant Karma

2010-01-29T22:26:00.001-05:00

I never seem to have my camera ready at the exact moment something goes down. Fortunately some guys do.

Prelude to a Fur Pile?

Earlier this week, Canada's Fisheries Minister Gail Shea was speaking at the Canada Centre for Inland Waters in Burlington, Ont. As she spoke, a woman lunged toward the podium and threw a pie in Ms. Shea's face. The woman was a member of PETA, and had ostensibly traveled all the way from New York to embarrass and humiliate a member of the Canadian government, in order to make some sort of statement about the seal hunt. PETA still likes to propagandize that seal hunters club baby seals, a practice that was officially outlawed more than twenty years ago.

Not to fall into the fallacy of post hoc ergo propter hoc, but it's hard not to read this follow-up story without thinking of Bugs Bunny saying: "Of course you know this means war."

St. John's, Nfld. --

PETA got a taste of its own tactics as one of its seal hunt protesters was pied in St. John's on Friday.

A woman wearing a seal suit was waiting for Prime Minister Stephen Harper to arrive for a speech when a man approached, dressed in a local mascot's outfit — a dog with a rain slicker and a Sou'wester rain hat.

The seal hunt supporter shoved a cream pie into the woman's face after knocking off the head of her seal costume.

Photo: The Globe via CP

Don't Miss It! It's God's Law Versus Man's Law! Exclusive Engagement!

2010-01-21T07:27:00.000-05:00

FRIDAY! FRIDAY! FRIDAY!

Taken outside the Taj Mahal. Great moments in Agra-culture. (Sorry)

Credit: Dennis Lane, as submitted to The Telegraph (U.K.) Sign Language pages.

Memo From Canada ...

2010-01-14T17:02:00.007-05:00

... to our weather-whining beleaguered friends in the U.K.:

You wimps.

Buy a decent pair of hiking boots. You'll be surprised how sure-footed you become.

By the way. How's that global warming working out for you? And the windmills? They're still doing their useful work?

[But if you see Anjem Choudary, give him a push for me, okay?]

h/t Celestial Junk

Sweden: Floor collapses Beneath a Weight Watchers Class

2010-01-14T04:21:00.006-05:00

"Isn't it ironic, don't you think? A little too ironic, yeah I really do think."

Alright, so Alanis Morissette misused the word "ironic". But the point is clear enough anyway.

“We suddenly heard a huge thud; we almost thought it was an earthquake and everything flew up in the air. The floor collapsed in one corner of the room and along the walls,” one of the participants told the Smålandsposten newspaper.

Then [sic] floor then started to give way in other parts of the room. Shortly thereafter, the smell of sewage began to waft up into the room.

"We're going to have to find a replacement premises," Weight Watchers consultant Therese Levin told the newspaper.

But the Weight Watchers didn’t let the damaged floor stop the evening's weigh-in.

When everything had calmed down, the participants instead moved the scales to a nearby corridor and set about seeing how many kilos they had shed. And this time the floor held.

No one was injured in the incident, the cause of which is still under investigation.

On an old Simpsons episode, Dr. Hibbert characterized such episodes as "traumadies" -- i.e. vaguely comical misfortunes. Of course, if anyone was hurt, I suppose it wouldn't seem all that damned funny. At least not right away -- "too soon" and all that.

Three Stories You Just Don't Read About Everyday

2010-01-13T02:49:00.005-05:00

Pour your coffee.

1. "Teacher believed to be Belgium's latest serial killer"

2. "Swedish girl 'grows back face'"

3. "Astronauts' urine clogs space station water recycler"

Pour a second cup.

"Revenge Is Like Cold Cuts"

2010-01-12T04:30:00.003-05:00

An Ontario judge has ruled out the 'Soprano gambit' in family law.

Justice Ellen Macdonald decided against a Toronto woman who sought to have her husband's choice of counsel removed because she had a brief conservation with the lawyer months earlier, ruling that if such a minimal amount of contact were sufficient to declare a conflict, then a divorcing spouse could pre-emptively handicap their wife or husband simply by talking to the best lawyers in town.

In fact, the strategy was employed on the television show The Sopranos, when Tony Soprano wanted to restrict the choice of lawyers his wife might hire. The fictional mob boss, on the advice of his lawyer, called some of the most feared divorce attorneys in New Jersey in order to have them disqualified from acting for his wife.

Bada Bing.

The Climate Crisis is Over ...

2010-01-09T10:58:00.003-05:00

... and the heroes we have to thank for that are not Al Gore and David Suzuki, but Ronald Reagan and Brian Mulroney.

Who knew?

Okay, Blazing Catfur. It's On.

2010-01-06T16:51:00.001-05:00

Pet wars.

Meet Tawny. Thirteen and a half years young.

In his salad days, he was the Rum-Tum-Tugger. But he still has a lot more fight in him before he resigns himself to become Old Deuteronomy. We've been avoiding the inevitable talk about the Heavy-Side Layer, for obvious reasons.

Maude Barlow Has a Hate-On for Stephen Harper

2010-01-05T21:14:00.004-05:00

Yawn.

Okay. So Maude Barlow says she's now ashamed to wear the maple leaf.

Good. Now maybe the rest of us can stand a little taller on those occasions when we wear the maple leaf, knowing that this powerful and pride-lifting symbol won't be compromised any further by the likes of Maude Barlow.

I feel better already.

Global Warming -- "An Ecological Pie in the Face"

2009-12-21T00:31:00.006-05:00

According to renowned East Anglia Climatologist Emmett K. Bozo (pictured above).

See Iowahawk, "The Miming is Settled," for the details.

Oh, and just to be clear ...

... self-immolation raises your carbon footprint significantly. We are a carbon-based life-form, you moron. Seemed like a good idea at the time, right? I weep for this generation of idiot activist youth -- every bit as dumb as every other generation of idiot activist youth.

An Australian Town Re-Instates "Merry Christmas" as Approved Greeting

2009-12-20T09:29:00.004-05:00

"Political correctness" most affected.

Parramatta Council, in Sydney's west, has taken down its "season's greetings" banners in favour of posters wishing "Merry Christmas". The move came after the council produced Christmas cards and 50 banners for five years without mentioning Christmas once.

Councillors believe the politically correct banners reflected "a secular view of Christmas" instead of the "traditional Australian view of Christmas".

"Our community is fed up with this erosion of the true meaning and essence of Christmas through this ridiculous pre-emptive surrender of the real Christmas on the basis it may offend someone," councillor Michael McDermott said.

"All we do is offend the great majority of our residents by this politically correct nonsense and watering down of the historically accurate view of Christmas.

Do shed a tear for the misguided useful idiots of Frankfurt School cultural Marxism, and their beloved secular "Seasons Greetings". I'm sure they feel the pain of this backlash against political correctness, a major setback indeed.

Italian Constitutional Court to the European Court of Human Rights: 'Go F**k Yourselves'

2009-12-20T08:33:00.006-05:00

Where rulings of the European 'Roos' conflict with the constitution of Italy, the Italian courts will uphold the Italian constitution. Take a hike, ECHR. The Italian courts will not defer.

Oh, and the crucifixes stay! The Lisbon Treaty be damned, Italy is sovereign.

This could be seen as an early challenge to the project of 'Superstate Europe'; it certainly is quite a blow to the sanctimonious tyranny of the Human Rights apparatchiks in Strasbourg. As Gerald Warner comments for the Telegraph (U.K.):

The Constitutional Court ruled baldly that, where rulings by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) conflict with provisions of the Italian Constitution, such decrees “lack legitimacy”. In other words, they will not be enforced in Italy. Although this judgement related to issues concerning the civil service, the universal interpretation is that the ECHR’s aggressive ruling in Lautsi v Italy, seeking to ban crucifixes from Italian classrooms, shortly before, was what concentrated the minds of the judges in the Italian Supreme Court.

Che Guevara's Christmas Greeting

2009-12-19T13:29:00.003-05:00

... from the world's most successful t-shirt salesman.

h/t The People's Cube

"The Supreme Court This Week Effectively Made the Jewish Religion Illegal"

2009-12-19T08:35:00.005-05:00

In the Telegraph (U.K.), Charles Moore comments on the implications for religious freedom in the face of a daunting Human-Rights-addled legal orthodoxy. The case in question -- whether an orthodox Jewish school may exercise its discretion in determining, based on ancient Jewish law and custom, who does or does not qualify for admission.

Actually, it goes wider than that. The court is effectively saying that a religion's way of defining its own membership, practised over 3,500 years, is illegal. This is an acute problem for Jews, who are at great pains to maintain their own rules while respecting the law of the land. It will also be used by anti-Jewish groups, which are growing in strength, to bolster their argument that Judaism is racist and that the state of Israel is the equivalent of apartheid South Africa. So the Race Relations Act, set up to help minorities, ends up punishing them.

I would argue that the judgment goes wider still. It is part of a current idea of equality and of human rights which, in the name of freedom, is beginning to look like tyranny.

The whole article: Charles Moore, "Our human rights culture has now become a tyranny," Telegraph (U.K.), 18 December 2009.

*Related*

Christian Horizons, anyone?

The Twelve Days of Global Warming

2009-12-16T00:25:00.002-05:00

Just in time for CopenChristmas.

Holiday cheers from the guys at Minnesotans for Global Warming.

Free Sex for Copenhagen Climate Conference Delegates

2009-12-05T16:49:00.007-05:00

This is not a joke. Woman-made warming at Hopenchangen.

A group of prostitutes has decided to offer free sex to delegates taking part in UN Climate Change Conference (COP15) in protest against the city’s attempt to dissuade conference participants from visiting brothels.

The city council has contacted 160 hotels asking them not to arrange prostitutes for guests, reports Avisen.dk.

In collaboration with The Nest International – an anti-trafficking organisation – and tourist organisation Wonderful Copenhagen, postcards with the slogan ‘Be sustainable – don’t buy sex’ have been distributed to hotels as part of the campaign.

Read the rest: "Prostitutes Protest With Free Sex," The Copenhagen Post Online.

Now there's something else for rigid activists to get hot and bothered over.

Actually, I see an opportunity here for Viagra(tm) to counter with its own 'Be Sustainable' ad.

U.K. Left-Wing Activists March in London Demanding Action on Climate Change

2009-12-05T16:20:00.008-05:00

20,000:

Thousands of people marched through central London on Saturday calling for a deal on climate change at next week's conference in Copenhagen.

Organizers of the Stop Climate Chaos Coalition had originally estimated that more than 10,000 people would participate in the event that began at Grosvenor Square and made its way to the Houses of Parliament on the River Thames.

But London's Metropolitan Police said there were about 20,000 people at the march.

But the progressive global government crowd still could not muster as many people on a dreary London afternoon as ... say ... the Gay Pride Parade did.

500,000:

Rubber suits, drag costumes and knee-high boots were the order of the day as central London was awash with colour during the annual Pride celebrations.

The parade, celebrating gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender culture, brought the West End to a standstill.

Up to 500,000 marchers gathered in Trafalgar Square for a party with live music and dancing.

I guess the eco-warriors, climate alarmists, gullible college activists, and anti-western one-world-government types should have had "live music and dancing."

Oh, and rubber suits.

Global Warming and "The Madness of Crowds" -- A Warning to Investors

2009-12-05T14:59:00.000-05:00

Caveat Emptor on Green Funds, Eco Derivatives, Civic-Virtue Hedge Funds, and the like, cautions Avner Mandelman for Globe Investor.

This, in effect, is what's happening now: global warming has become a near-religious test of civic virtue, just as being invested in Internet stocks became a test of investment savvy in 2000. Which is why many investors dazedly held on to Nortel all the way down to zero, even after its accounting issues had been revealed. And now, even though you can't trust the climate change data, the Copenhagen conference still goes on and promoters including Al Gore are out begging the public to give the scientists the benefit of the doubt. This is the same Mr. Gore who is profiting from tax credit-based environmental investments.

Indulgences carbon credits, anyone?

Read the Rest.

Rex Murphy on Climategate

2009-12-04T15:59:00.004-05:00

Brilliant. Simply brilliant.

Well done, Mr. Murphy. And thank-you.

A nice Christmas card for the medieval-warming-period (MWP) denier Michael Mann, don't you think?

I'm Embarrassed That Heather Mallick Is A Canadian

2009-12-03T02:29:00.006-05:00

It doesn't reflect well on our public school system.

(It seems most of those who ventured to comment on her drivel, posted on the guardian.co.uk website, seemed virtually uniform in their belief that she's an idiot.)

*Related*

The syndicated radio broadcaster Charles Adler has (I hope not facetiously) offered to pony up $133.00CDN towards a fund to expatriate Heather Mallick to whatever shit-hole progressive autocracy she would find more to her liking. (Read "My Letter to Heather Mallick".) That's one dollar for every brave Canadian who has fallen to date in Afghanistan since 2002.

Fine Charles. Put me in for $133.00 too.

"Cringing Over Climategate"

2009-12-02T06:44:00.003-05:00

Shikha Dalmia, in Forbes, writes:

"Science and scientific process must inform and guide decisions of my administration on a wide range of issues, including … mitigation of climate change," President Barack Obama declared in a not-so-subtle dig at his predecessor soon after assuming office. "The public must be able to trust the science and scientific process. Public officials should not suppress or alter scientific technological findings."

Last week's Climategate scandal is putting Obama's promise to the test. If he wants to pass, there are two things he should do, pronto: (1) Start singing hosannas to whoever broke the scandal instead of acting like nothing has happened; and (2) Ask eco-warriors at the Copenhagen Climate Change Summit next week to declare an immediate cease-fire in their war against global warming pending a complete review of the science.

Amen.

Read the rest.