31 March 2008

In other pagan news...

Scientists get to mess with the most famous pile of rocks on the planet...
-- (LONDON) -- Some of England's most sacred soil was disturbed Monday for the first time in more than four decades as archaeologists worked to solve the enduring riddle of Stonehenge: When and why was the prehistoric monument built?

The excavation goal is to find remnants of the original bluestones, or related materials, that can be subjected to modern radiocarbon dating techniques...
Myself... I've always had a bit of a soft spot for Mighty Carhenge.

And they say 'modern art' isn't accessible.

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I dunno... I'm still waiting...

For my "Highland Clearances" compensation cheque from the British Royal Family...
As the clock ticks down on Monday's application deadline, many Chinese-Canadians who were forced to pay Canada's controversial head tax in the late 1800s and early 1900s have not applied for a federal redress payment.

Since those people could miss out if they don't apply for $20,000 in government compensation, Chinese community advocates are calling for the deadline to be extended by another three months.
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RELATED: Time for Dr Dawg's weekly deworming
Dr. Dawg has seen the movie and didn’t like the tie in between the Koran and the ongoing Islamic terrorism which Wilders’ film underscores.

Dawg drags out the hoary idea that the Bible has blood curdling passages too, so there. Which explains all the headlines we see about Anglicans beheading the infidels and Biblically inspired Amish hostage takings.
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See... a PhD in religious studies...

Is good for something after all...
"If the name of the game is patriarchy, if we're in a society that still places great value on women's looks, then one way to make the game work for you is by taking that which patriarchy values - your beauty, your sexual appeal - and making them pay for it."
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RELATED: Big brain... bigger ideas

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Danny Millions

"Champion of 'some' of the people."
-- ST. JOHN'S -- Newfoundland and Labrador's former health minister said Monday his staff made the Premier's office aware of problems with breast-cancer testing months before it became public.

A spokeswoman for Premier Danny Williams's office said he is off on personal time and not available to comment
.
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Next time the dumbass leftosphere...

Starts cryin' about those poor fellows down at Guantanamo Bay... maybe you could spare a moment in your thoughts for Matt Maupin...
Sergeant Maupin was a 20-year-old private first class when he was captured on April 9, 2004, after his fuel convoy, part of the 724th Transportation Company, was ambushed west of Baghdad.

A week after his capture, the Arab television network Al Jazeera broadcast a videotape showing Sergeant Maupin sitting on the floor surrounded by five masked men holding automatic rifles.
Yet another telling example, of the capricious, unknowable "Will of Allah."

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UPDATE: Stoogeleft says, "So what, it's just tit for tat".

Ol' Stooge thinks (in the comments) it's no big deal that Matt Maupin was executed on video for the whole world to see.

Well, Bobo... at least we know what side you're on.

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RELATED: Of course, Pink Tory has bigger fish to fry...

And for his loyal hangers-on, he provides both words... and pictures...
"While a few lights may have been briefly dimmed for an hour or so last night, at the same time maybe this entirely painless and quite easily managed conceptual exercise has inadvertently provided us with another, highly revealing sort of illumination..."
Yeah, Pink... that is "highly revealing" all right.

Hey... is this where you trot out all your Holocaust jokes?

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LAST WORD: Be careful what you wish for
"The problems began when, as part of the refurbishment of the town hall -- built in 1546 -- the council decided to heat the building with geothermal power from deep below the earth's surface."

"In September last year an Austrian company sunk seven geothermal probes 140 meters into the ground."
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Tonights CTV Moonbat moment

Just watched five term City Councillor Diane Deans on the CTV affiliate CJOH... explain why the city of Ottawa is in such financial straits.

Apparently, Diane lays this misfortune squarely at the feet of the evil Mike Harris government... very specifically citing the "downloading of social programs" to municipalities in Ontario.

It seems though, that Ms. Deans is having some sort of seniors moment. On her own website from February of this year, she reports as follows...
On January 29, two colleagues and I attended a hearing of the Provincial Standing Committee on Finance and Economic Affairs to tell the Provincial government what the City of Ottawa would like to see in the 2008 Provincial Budget.

We asked that the Ontario government help municipalities become more financially sustainable *** "by uploading the cost of social programs" *** and public health, and to help us fund a youth treatment facility for Eastern Ontario.
Now, for anybody who has been living in a cave since 2003... that meeting would be with... not the long-gone Harris government... but the two term McSlippery regime.

So, Diane... does your pal Dalton... who has been running things in Ontario for five years now... and who has decidedly not reversed the Harris government downloading decision... not bear any of the responsibility here?

Funny how that works.

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FROM THE COMMENTS:
"Don't suppose Deans mentioned that McGuinty closed the Rideau Correctional and Drug Treatment Center on the Southern border of Ottawa and Montague Township, eh?"
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30 March 2008

I've always loved the argument...

That the real reason MP's have to keep on raising their own salaries... is so they can attract a certain calibre of candidate...
"Belinda Stronach, who rejoined the company as executive vice-chairman in May, collected about $4.3 million U.S. for eight months work while keeping a foothold in the House of Commons."
I mean... who could take issue with that?

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FROM THE COMMENTS:
"If we are to castigate someone for drawing on a salary while doing little to earn it... let's start with Paul "guitar hero" Martin, who I understand has the among the lowest attendance records among all MPs."
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Hunters, farmers and target shooters...

Totally off the hook... yet again...
Wendell Damian Cuff, 25, of Toronto, was arrested at his home early Sunday and charged with one count of first-degree murder and five counts of attempted murder.

A warrant has been issued for another 25-year-old Toronto man named Owen Anthony Smith, wanted on the same charges as Cuff.
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RELATED: Yup... it's true

It is a lot like... riding a rocket.
A downtown subway shooting was likely the result of a petty argument between strangers that quickly escalated into a young man shooting a young woman -- who was also armed, police say.

As the three men exited at Spadina station, one pulled out a gun and shot one of the women in her thigh. The men then fled.
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LAST WORD: Security camera footage of suspects

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Another Day at Hypocrisy Central

"Their empty cubicle farm located at street level is always lit up at any hour of the night when I walk by on the sidewalk."

"Sadly, Earth Hour was no exception."
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RELATED: In other "progressive" news...
"There is no innocent until proven guilty. You are guilty once they decide you are and they will prove it no matter what."
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LAST WORD: Changing the channel
“Earth Hour wasn’t ever going to be about the electricity results.”
That's very true.

It was kinda... as per usual... more about talkin' out yer pinko ass.

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I'm still waiting...

For Mayor David Miller to call for metal detectors at all subway stations...
"The TTC is wound into the very fabric of the city and the life of the city goes on the TTC as well," he said yesterday. "It's important to keep this in perspective. Toronto is a safe city, but there are incidents that occur from time to time."
"Incidents?" I guess that's one word.
Last year, a 21-year-old man was stabbed to death at Victoria Park subway station and a fare collector was killed there in 1995. In 2003, a 19-year-old was shot several times while waiting for a bus at the Kennedy subway station.
Oh yeah... I guess it doesn't count as TTC-related crime, if you actually walk out the door.

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RELATED: That's funny... they forgot this one too
"A gang of 10 teenagers violently robbed scores of subway commuters yesterday afternoon during the peak of commuter rush hour."
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A curious double standard

Here in Canada... as our overburdened healthcare system continues to collapse under the crush of increasing demand, we are constantly being told that our emphasis must shift to prevention... rather than treatment... of illness.

It's an idea that is very much in vogue in the larger world as well.
"At least one organization that treats AIDS patients has called for giving up on a vaccine and shifting the money to testing, treatment and prevention."
But the New York Times, yet again defying logic, reason and common-sense pronounces...
"That is too defeatist."
Now, call me crazy... it just seems to me that AIDS... at least here in North America... is one of the more easily preventable diseases one might encounter.

So, how about it guys?

Maybe incredibly promiscuous, drug-fuelled sex isn't such a great idea after all.

Or that whole messed-up i.v. drugs thing... what's that about?

If it's not too much trouble here, how about you throw on a condom... or maybe take a pass on that "community" syringe?

Just a thought.

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RELATED: One for the ladies

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Maple Syrup Update - Day 3

No boiling today... but we had another pretty good haul of sap late in the afternoon.

Got on the scoreboard, as of last night, with one beautiful bottle of the best maple syrup anybody could hope for.

Some anxious moments near the end, as we were afraid of creating another batch of maple sugar. Today we also picked up a candy thermometer.

We'll see if it gets any easier to work that maple magic tomorrow.

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29 March 2008

Laibar Singh is on a roll

Looks like he's managed to piss off all his former supporters... as well as Canadian taxpayers...
"He's a liar," declares Balwant Singh Gill, president of the Guru Nanak Sikh temple in Surrey, near Vancouver. "He said he would obey the laws of Canada and go home. We think it's in his best interest to go home. We even offered him $100,000 for medical treatment in India."

Half that amount was posted as a surety to the Immigration and Refugee Board, in order to buy some more time for Mr. Singh to recover from his illness and arrange his affairs in India. The money, raised by local supporters, has been forfeited, says Mr. Gill, thanks to Mr. Singh's intransigence.
Why should anyone care about this case? Apart from the outrageous lies Laibar Singh has told to everyone to remain in Canada... the fact is, the money comes right out of your pocket.
Mr. Singh's care in Canada also has a price, one borne by taxpayers. Earlier this month, the Vancouver Sun reported that his public medical bills have already reached $491,900.

That's in addition to the $62,947 the Canadian Border Services Agency has spent on its aborted deportation attempts.
Get rid of this guy... NOW.

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28 March 2008

Gives a whole new meaning...

To the TTC buzz-phrase... "Red Rocket."

News reports are beginning to come in about a firefight at Toronto's Spadina subway station...
"Heavy gunfire erupted on a subway train just after 8pm on Friday. Early reports suggest two groups may have been involved in a shootout and one woman was apparently hit by a bullet in the leg."

"One of the shooters has been described as a black male in his late teens or early 20s. He's 5'8, with a medium build, wearing a black baseball cap with a jean jacket and jeans."
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UPDATE: Women deliberately targeted
CTV reported that the incident was believed to have started in the north end of the city and that the victim and a second female had been arguing with a male suspect and another male for most of the trip before the gunman open fired on the train full of riders making their way downtown.
Now, it's the Globe & Mail that claims CTV is reporting this event... but as of 11:30 pm it wasn't on the CTV news with Lisa LaPhlegm, or on their website.

CTV... where, apparently, there's no such thing as a bad boy.

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LAST WORD: "Hey, beee-yotch... 'dispute' this!!!"
"There was a dispute between a man and a woman. She slapped him in the face and he took out a gun and shot her in the crotch," a plainclothes police investigator said at the scene.

Police were looking for a black male with a black jacket and a red patch on the front who ran from the northeast subway exit.
Oh yeah... the Toronto 'Red' Star had a slightly less complete description of the suspects...
"Police combed the area to try to find three male suspects, all between 18 and 20 years old and wearing dark-coloured clothing. One man had a beard and an athletic build, and another had braided hair."
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We shouldn't feel slighted

Apparently Shawn Brant doesn't give a crap for Mohawk rules and regulations either...
A judge has returned control of a disputed Deseronto-area building and lands to the local Mohawk band council, but a defence lawyer says his clients will appeal the ruling.

In a judgment released Wednesday, Justice Lynn Ratushny of Ontario's Superior Court of Justice ruled the building and lands must be returned to the Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte (MBQ) band council.
It does appear though, that not all the Mohawks have rejected the jurisdiction of the wily white man's courts.
The case had been brought by MBQ Chief R. Donald Maracle on behalf of band council and all band members against Shawn M. Brant, his father, Ronald L. Brant, Andrew Clifford Miracle and Ohwistha Capital Corp.

The lands were occupied and the building built by the Brants, then sold to Miracle - though the judge wrote neither the Brants nor Miracle ever had band council's consent.
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RELATED: Shawn Brant, aboriginal hero...
Ratushny, in her written ruling, explained that in 1992 the Brants approached the band with an offer to purchase the property in question.

Though they did not purchase or pay for the lands, they did borrow hundreds of thousands of dollars from Ohwistha - an Aboriginal finance company that administered development loans for native businesses - and from Industry Canada to help them construct buildings there.

None of these funds were repaid.
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Free Online IQ Test

"Have you made special plans for Earth Hour Saturday?"
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FROM THE COMMENTS: A word is born...
"I live in a hood that has a high percentage of 'glowtards'."
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LAST WORD: WWF throws in with Iran...

Proposes return to "pre-industrial" society...
"Julie Langer, of World Wildlife Fund Canada -- the group organizing the event in Canada -- said the goal of Earth Hour is to inspire action and promote change."

"Langer said most people realize that simply turning off the lights for an hour won't save the planet."

"But the hope is that by doing so, people will become motivated to 'make every hour Earth Hour.'"
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Yeah... you dumbass con...

I feel your pain...
Is it a deterrent against bad behavior, or a way to keep weapons out of the hands of violent inmates?

Some prisons are serving inmates Nutraloaf, a blocky mash of ingredients that provides all the nutrients growing convicts need to thrive — and can be eaten without a fork or a knife.
Now... shut up and eat.

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This one's a no-brainer

If it pisses off Iran... I'm in.

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UPDATE: Somebody's getting a little cranky
Note: Due to high traffic and DDOS attacks the site may be unusually slow. We're working on resolving these issues...thanks for your patience.
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LAST WORD: A fatwa on you and you and you
"Following threats to our staff of a very serious nature, and some ill informed reports from certain corners of the British media that could directly lead to the harm of some of our staff, Liveleak.com has been left with no other choice but to remove Fitna from our servers."

"This is a sad day for freedom of speech on the net but we have to place the safety and well being of our staff above all else."
Not to worry though... as soon as I heard that these guys had wussed out... I figured somebody would pick up the slack.
"LiveLeak has removed Dutch politician Geert Wilders controversial movie on the Koran because of death threats."

"I figured that would happen and that is why I uploaded it onto our own server."
Imam Darcey to the rescue.

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You are what you eat

While most of the fuzzy-bunny left seems to be overly obsessed with, say... what's going on with the Antarctic ice-shelf... I've decided to focus on stuff a little closer to home... like what I shovel into my yap, three times a day.
-- OTTAWA -- The number of organic farms in Canada increased by almost 60 per cent in five years and continues growing, though they still fill only a tiny part of the food supply, Statistics Canada says.
So... a 60 percent increase... that's a startling statistic.

Well, don't put on your party hats just yet.
Statistics Canada noted that organic products accounted for less than one per cent of the $46.5-billion Canadians spent in grocery stores in 2006.

In fact, the agency said, the most common certified organic crops are hay and field crops, and most of this production is exported.
Head on over to Statistics Canada for facts and figures.

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RELATED: Speaking of Antarctica, who said...
“I’m tired of having a bunch of white people running around doing science... when it comes to Antarctica, it isn’t just the landscape that’s white.”
Hey, Doc... throw in a couple of deaf lesbians and we're virtually guaranteed to have "peace on earth."

I've got this other killer idea... let's all turn off some lights for an hour... and solve all the world's environmental problems.

Damn... I'm good.

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We don' need...

No steenkin' evidence...
"Tuesday's hearing probably won't change the outcome of the case against Lemire: Like a five-star hotel that guarantees its guests full satisfaction, the HRC provides handpicked complainants with a 100% success rate on hate-speech cases."

"Better than that: The commission actually lets certain complainants waltz into its Ottawa facilities to fiddle with the online evidence-gathering."
So lemme see if I get this right... Paul Bernardo and Killer Karla are entitled to more "due process"... than anyone who gets dragged in front of this penny-ante kangaroo court?

What's that about?

Oh wait... uber-visionary HRC investigator Dean Steacy... (who, ironically, is also legally blind)... offers up the answer...
In one famous exchange during the Lemire case, Steacy was asked "What value do you give freedom of speech when you investigate?" -- to which he replied "Freedom of speech is an American concept, so I don't give it any value."
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RELATED: Nice job, if you can get it
"Welcome to the wacky world of Canadian "human rights." If it sounds like a fetish club for servants of the Crown, well, that would be a lot cheaper."
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Okay... I think I get it now

Stephen Harper is a crazy control freak... but Stephane Dion is a benevolent, fatherly disciplinarian...
-- MONTREAL -- Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion moved yesterday to regain control of his Quebec troops, calling on them to show a "steely discipline," although he would not say what he would do if other dissenters pop up.

"I have a much better team than Harper. Not only is it better, it's united," Mr. Dion said.
Steffi-licker supreme, Serge Joyal, seemed a little less optimistic about that superlative and extremely loyal Liberal team...
"They don't seem to realize that we are in a war and in that war, you shoot at the outside, not the inside. You won't improve the situation if you kill some of your own soldiers," Mr. Joyal, who is now a Liberal senator, told CTV News.
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FROM THE COMMENTS:
"I am thrilled that Steffi is still around, it's like having a perpetual live Monty Python skit to view daily -- 'E's not dead....e's just restin'."

"Keep him around, the comedic factor is incalculable."
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RELATED: Obama gets a pass in the media, but...
"If his white grandmother's alive... I think it's gonna be a tense Thanksgiving this year."
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27 March 2008

Maple Syrup Update - Day 2

Be careful what you wish for.

Conditions today were apparently some sort of arboreal "perfect storm"... for the production of maple sap. Came home from a seminar on organic farming to find Mrs. N hip-deep in magic elixir.

There was a mad scramble to find containers to hold the raw sap... we ended up using the flour and sugar canisters off the kitchen counter, to hold all the stuff we couldn't get into the big stock pot and the slow cooker.

Did I already mention the three containers out on the deck?

Everyone has headed off to bed. I'll babysit the big stock pot for a while and we'll finish this lot off tomorrow morning... just in time to empty our six buckets again.

I think we're gonna have to press our big water-cooler jug into service.

All I can say is... this had better be some damn fine syrup.

A.M. Report - okay, still below freezing... not much in the buckets right now

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FROM THE COMMENTS:
"Just remember: you are doing it for LOVE...forget the fact that when you add in your costs for the energy to boil the sap, the time spent, etc., you are creating a $200 bottle of syrup!"
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I understand Justice MacKenzie...

Is also working on a ruling... to repeal the "law of gravity."
-- VANCOUVER -- A B.C. judge has ruled that a full-patch member of the Hells Angels and two associates are not members of a criminal organization in a trial that was a key test of the recent federal anti-gang legislation.
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RELATED: Gotta respect the law, huh?
-- DALLAS -- The city cannot shut down a Dallas strip club just because a 12-year-old danced nude there.

"There's a laundry list of things we can use to deny or revoke a license, but having a 12-year-old dancing in their establishment is not one of the things that automatically enables us to revoke their license," said Lt. Christina Smith, a Dallas police vice unit commander who oversees licensing of such establishments.
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LAST WORD: More stupid lawyer tricks
"Defence lawyer Greg Lafontaine said that Allen was a young man when he committed the crime and has matured behind bars.

He argued that Allen’s previous convictions of assault and threatening death, though serious, do not approach the level of violence of the shooting."
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How ab-nirmal...

Do you have to be... to bring a bat to a gunfight...
When an officer arrived he saw a man wielding a baseball bat. The officer confronted the man. After some interaction the officer fired his pistol. The man sustained a single gunshot wound to his abdomen.

22-year-old Nirmal Bagri was taken to Brampton Civic Hospital by ambulance where he underwent surgery. Mr. Bagri is recovering in hospital.
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Child sacrifice

It ain't just for crazy jihadis...
On the night the protest began, as the blockades were erected and police readied themselves for a showdown, Kelley was behind the barricades with the Mohawk protesters. She said it took some convincing, but they finally agreed to let her stay with them behind their barricade lines.

The documentary also shows that Mohawk leader Shawn Brant had children at the blockades. The inclusion of the youth in the events was meant to show them that they too "may have to someday stand up and fight for what they believe in," Kelley's documentary quotes Brant.
Remember... this is the same Shawn Brant who warned OPP honcho Julian Fantino... that the aboriginals had firearms at the blockade... and were prepared to use them that night... a fact that is curiously absent from reporter Susanna Kelley's account here.
Asked if children in the protest perimeter was proper, in her experience, Kelley said, "As a journalist I'm non-judgmental about these types of things. That's up to the public to decide."
Hey, Susanna... let me help you out here... "dropping children into the middle of a potential firefight?"

It's not acceptable... EVER.

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Things that make you go...

Hmmm...
"Why was Tuesday's hearing the one day that won't be transcribed and published?"

"Why was a trifling savings of a court stenographer -- who costs, what, a third of what a lawyer bills? -- chosen as the one area of economy to find?"

"Is the Tribunal, with the unlimited resources of the government, out of cash?"
Not worried yet? Maybe you should be.
"Do you access the internet on a wireless connection?"

"Well, your government "thought protectors" may be borrowing your internet identity to play-act as white supremacists on foreign internet forums - if you're lucky."

"Because if they can play-act as "Jadewarr, jew-hater", they can play-act as "Jadewarr, child pornographer", or "Jadewarr, bridge blower"."
I'm not sure how tech-savvy my readership is... but you should be aware that virtually every laptop sold nowadays comes with built-in wireless capability.

I also read somewhere recently that over 90% of wireless routers are installed as-is... wide open, no password... and it appears as though "Jadewarr" at the HRC has been taking advantage of that fact.

And with the advent of widespread high-speed access and 50 dollar wi-fi routers, there isn't, even out here in the backwoods, too many places where I can't find a mobile connection.

For example... I'll be taking Mrs. N shopping this afternoon... and I'll be checking my email and blogging from the grocery store parking lot.

So, to all my less geeky, more trusting fellow citizens in the apartment across the street from the shopping centre... I say thank you in advance.

I do appreciate your helping hand.

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Just something to ponder...

The next time the screechy, hysterical lunatic left attempts to manipulate your emotions...
"An estimated 2,300 Canadians died in 2006 after contracting antibiotic resistant Staph bacteria, costing the national heath-care system between $200 million and $250,000 million that year, new figures suggest."
As devastating as they undoubtedly are to friends and family of our military casualties... combat deaths in Afghanistan... have so far averaged out to 10 or 12 soldiers per year.

Guess what... it's "a war." People get killed. That's why it's not called "Circle of Friends."

The fact is, if Steffi and Taliban Jack were truly concerned about saving Canadian lives... and not just making political hay out of our brave soldier's deaths... perhaps they'd devote a little time to stuff that is actually taking a far (in this case, just shy of 200 times) higher toll right here in Canada.

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FROM THE COMMENTS: Meet my new friend 'MIKMOUSE'
"I would like to see your humanity adressed(sic) to 35,000 preventable deaths each day, you sanctimonious, bombastic(fool) fuck."
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Well... smack me with a rutabaga

How... in the name of "goddess mother earth"... did I not think of this?
"TWO things that you can find a lot of in Portland, Ore., are vegans and strip clubs. Johnny Diablo decided to open a business to combine both."

"At his Casa Diablo Gentlemen’s Club, soy protein replaces beef in the tacos and chimichangas; the dancers wear pleather, not leather."
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26 March 2008

Saving Private Rinzen

So if Tibetans are the new Nazis... does that mean the Chinese army is just re-enacting D-Day?
-- OTTAWA -- China's ambassador to Canada held an extraordinary news conference Wednesday where he likened Tibet's traditional governance to Nazi Germany and called the country's exiled spiritual leader a serial liar.
That's weird... I guess I missed the part where Monty and Eisenhower totally crushed those pesky French citizens.

And all the devious, untrustworthy Buddhist monks... thank goodness someone is finally giving them their "just desserts."
"The Dalai Lama has been telling lies to the world for decades," Lu Shumin told a group of invited journalists at the Chinese Embassy.
Three cheers for freedom-fighting China.

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They're not really Jihadis...

They're just good ol' boys like you and me.
-- BRAMPTON, ONT. -- Call it the double-double defence: Would dangerous jihadists take a break from their winter training camp to warm up inside a Tim Hortons?
Yup... sounds like a pretty typical bunch of hosers - doing what any red-blooded Canadian lads would be doing in their spare time.

Well, you know... except for the bits about attacking Parliament, beheading the PM and detonating a massive truck bomb.

But hey, nobody's perfect.

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UPDATE: Red Star hops on defense bandwagon

Apparently, Toronto's pinkest paper... overlooking such geniuses as Lee Harvey Oswald, John Hinckley Jr. and Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme... is buying into the "dumber than a bag of hammers" defense strategy...
"Now we know where the evidence for that spectacular allegation came from – a conversation in a car during a 10-hour drive back to Toronto from the Northern Ontario settlement of Opasatika where the government claims (implausibly to anyone who has ever been to the tiny community) the alleged plotters hoped to establish a jihadist training camp."

"The suspects seem unsure as to just who the Prime Minister is that they are apparently conspiring to behead. One thinks it's "Paul um what's his name – Paul loser (former prime minister Paul Martin). Another is sure (correctly as it turns out) that Harper is the man."

"Are these the words of an Al Qaeda fanatic? A rabid Protestant? A management consultant?"

"From the evidence, it is hard to tell."
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You can brag about...

Your lakeshore condos and that bran' spankin' Porsche Turbo... but out here at the Halls, we're brewin' up the world's most expensive breakfast garnish.

At Mrs. Neo's behest, we finally, after six years on the property... went out and bought the gear to gather and produce our own maple syrup.

It's a pretty modest enterprise, consisting of a mere 6 buckets on 3 trees... but it's ours and we're proud of it. The buckets, spiles, lids and filters, to our initial horror, set us back 80 smackers... but we'll be amortising that over the next couple of decades so I guess it's actually no big deal.

It's coming up 24 hours and we have been simmering the first haul, off and on, all day. Apparently you need to boil down 40 gallons of sap to get one gallon of syrup.

It'll be interesting to see how it all turns out.

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UPDATE: Day 1

Ok... no syrup today.

I had to go out and Mrs. Neo was holding down the fort. Apparently there is a very fine line between concocting maple syrup and maple sugar. Mrs. N says that's the trouble with real life versus "book larnin'".

On the plus side, maple sugar is pretty tasty too.

We'll try again tomorrow.

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Who says...

There's no entrepreneurial spirit on those native reservations?
More than 300 police officers raided Mohawk territories in Quebec, eastern Ontario and New York State Wednesday morning, arresting suspects in a drug smuggling ring, police said.

The raids were conducted by provincial police, RCMP, Mohawk Peace Keepers, and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.
Talk about busy little beavers... it appears there's more of it... than I previously suspected.
Arrests were made in Montreal, Kahnawake, Kanesatake, and on the Akwesasne territory, which spans the borders between Quebec, Ontario and New York near Cornwall, Ont.
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UPDATE: Say what you will...

I'm thinkin' this traditional huntin'-fishin' thing... is gettin' out of hand.
A massive police raid at three different Mohawk reserves in Quebec Wednesday morning netted $2.5 million in cash and a large firearms cache, including three grenade launchers.
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There oughta be a law

If only we had some some sort of legislation "that would ban" carting around a shitload of guns and drugs...
A Montreal man faces more than 60 charges after police in Ajax stopped an SUV loaded with a "substantial" amount of drugs and an arsenal of firearms, including an assortment of nine weapons, thousands of rounds of ammunition and even a grenade.

The officers also found a kilo of cocaine worth about $100,000, four 500 ml bottles of the date rape drug GHB, $10,000 in cash and several boxes of laboratory equipment.

Hanna Anastas, 34, of Montreal, faces 64 charges, mostly related to firearms and drug trafficking.
And a cry rose over the tormented multitude... "more laws, more bans..."

'Cos it's been working out so well, so far.

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RELATED: Now, call me wacky...

But if the cops weren't chasing after bloggers... who "maybe" hurt somebody's feelings... they'd likely have more time to chase real criminals, no?
"A police officer gets a warrant to seize buddy's hard drive based on a specific charge with a judge's consent. But that warrant has to be fairly specific, I would presume, to the complaint at hand."

"The authorities are not supposed to just do fishing expeditions and maybe discover that buddy's also been cheating on his income taxes or selling fake Viagra."
And circumventing the intent of a search warrant... what's that about?
"But then, this police officer just hands the hard drive over to the Human Rights Commission, which has much mushier standards of evidence, so a totally new agency can do a fishing expedition without having to go through the hassle of getting a warrant."
I guess "Lucy" Warman would tell you... it's all about "the greater good"... except, of course, he hadn't bothered to show up.

Which is how things work, in the "Land of Hurt Feelings."

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Kathy Shaidle has 600 emails...

To plow through this morning... and I'm thinkin' I know who most of them are from...
"Obviously Kinsella's borderline slander is prompted by jealousy."

"Steyn visits the White House and Buckingham Palace while Warren hunts for Nazis in boy's washrooms."
**********

RELATED: Special K's 'selective apoplexy'
"I've got a question for Kinsella."

"Where was his outrage a few years ago when more than 1,000 Muslim radicals marched through Calgary chanting "death to the Jews" and flying the flag of the terrorist group Hezbollah?"
**********

FROM THE COMMENTS:
In India, they have a problem with cobras. Thousands of people dying every year. So, the government put a bounty on cobras. Makes sense, profit motive, etc.

Well, not so much. Turns out some real smart guys started farms to breed cobras...

I think we are seeing the same thing here. There is cash in cobras, and folks like Warman and Kinsella breeding the hell out of them.
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Another year...

Another mythical spring offensive.
-- KABUL -- The Taliban has said it will use new techniques and draw on years of fighting experience to increase attacks in Afghanistan this spring.

A statement Tuesday attributed to Taliban senior commander Mullah Bradar also warned Afghans working with the government to quit their jobs or risk being targeted.
Translation... we're gonna keep on sneaking out in the middle of the night to plant booby-traps beside the highway... and Allah be merciful to all those bureaucrats down at the Ministry of Agriculture... 'cos we're gonna slaughter them... and their wives & children too.

As for brilliant new tactics, what's really left... besides rounding up another lot of mentally handicapped villagers... duct taping semtex to their battered, undernourished bodies and sending them out into public venues? I mean, it worked out so brilliantly last time, didn't it?

The fact is, each and every time these raggedy-ass donkeyheads actually stand and fight our troops... they get a 'one-way ticket' to the foot of the prophet. Every time... no exceptions.

The only people who really seem to be impressed are Field Marshall Dion, Taliban Jack Layton and screechy, little Lizzie May.
“It's the same old story, it's the same old nonsense,” Mark Laity, the NATO spokesman in Kabul, said Wednesday. “What are they saying they will do? More destruction, more unhappiness, more misery.
So, Mullah Bradar, you give it your best shot... like you... and your late predecessors... threaten to do every year.

Just don't be too surprised when you look out from your hillside burrow one day and realise that you're about to get your fondest wish... meeting your bloodthirsty maker... courtesy of Rick Hillier and a bunch of hard-ass trigger pullers from a place called Canada.

See, we're on a schedule now, pal... and trust me... we're gonna bring the rain.

**********

UPDATE: Taliban kicks off "Spring Slaughterfest"

Hey, Jack... "negotiate this."
A car bomb has exploded near a farmers' market in southern Afghanistan, killing eight people and wounding 17.

The provincial police chief Mohammad Hussein Andiwal told reporters there were no security forces in the area and that civilians were the target.
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Camo - check... videocam - check...

Assorted room temperature IQ's - yup... we're good to go...
The jihadist exhortation – a centrepiece of the Crown's case that was recovered as police seized video from one of the suspects' computers – was entered in evidence yesterday.

“You go back, you're living with society and you have to put on that face, you know, that we're a bunch of peace lovers,” he said.

The transcript indicates there was laughter in the tent.
Hmmm... this little escapade sounds so familiar.

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25 March 2008

Tim Blair is human, too

"I drove to the shops a few hours ago, where I parked under heavy sniper fire. Oh, excuse me; that was a misstatement and a minor blip."

"What I meant was that it was raining."
So how is it... that this sort of thing gets a pass in the mainstream media?

Much like Jeremiah Wright's paranoia-laced racial rant... this is the type of behaviour that would cost Joe Sixpack his livelihood and friends... yet these folks continue to enjoy apparent immunity.

Actions should have consequences.

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The phrase you're looking for is...

"Caught with his pants down."
Finally, we get to the heart of the argument, as far as Lemire's defence: Barbara suggests that Steacy emailed Lemire to trap him into admitting that the initial complaint was made in a "vexatious" manner, and he - sort of admits that was a factor, although not really.

Ahh, but if he *had* replied to Steacy's email, Barbara points out, the commission would be able to use that to dismiss any future complaint from Lemire.

"That's not the way we work," Steacy insists. "It's on a case by case basis."
Ah yes... the old, "we only screw over some of the citizenry... sometimes" defense.

Go Dean.

**********

UPDATE: The testimony continues...

While being blind may indeed sharpen your other senses... apparently it doesn't do squat for your memory...
Finally, she gets to her question: does Steacy remember that testimony?
Answer: "Sort of."

Did he sign onto Stormfront again?
Answer: "Probably," although he doesn't remember for sure.
Go Deaner... you're really smokin' now.
2:18:27 PM
So why *was* he on freedominion.ca before there was a complaint?
Answer: Because there was the *potential* for a complaint to come in, he says - prompting muffled gasps from the group beside me, which includes the two founders of Free Dominion.

Now Doug Christie is on his feet, and expressing grave concern over the fact that a CHRC representative was investigating the site before a complaint has been made.
Barbara K wants to know *who* - othe than Gentes - was considering making a complaint, and Steacy refuses to answer.
**********

LAST WORD: Not so 'Special K'
"UPDATE: Oh, before I forget: this website hereby announces it will pay $0.23* for a clear photo of Warren Kinsella and any Liberal frontbencher together, taken in the last two years."

"For such a well-connected political insider, they seem to be hard to come by."
*

Calling Gloria Steinem

It's a sad day for personal freedom... but local Dads are apparently ecstatic...
Researchers at Indiana University's school of medicine plan to use cellphones to track the movements of 160 14- to 16-year-old girls over the course of a year in an effort to better understand the connection between specific locations and bad behaviour.

"If we know there's an area of town where an adolescent girl is more likely to engage in some sort of risky behaviour, then we could potentially program those phones to deliver an intervention," Sarah Wiehe said.
I'm not sure what they mean by "intervention"... maybe something akin to the electric shock collars you can get for training your dog not to stray off the property?
The study, which will take place in Indianapolis, is scheduled to wrap up in 2010. It will compare the girls' geographic location with their reported activities, such as smoking and having sex.
Now, from what I seem to remember about my youngest sister's 'teenage antics'... somebody at Indiana U had better be working on a 'taser phone'.

Mrs. Neo suspects this may be a case of 'available technology' driving this particular course of research... pointing out that these devices will likely lack a "backseat alarm"... and suggests that researchers might want to start fine-tuning their "brain-reading hairband devices" instead.

**********

FROM THE COMMENTS:
"Been a long while since I was a teen, but from what I remember, the more a place was "out of bounds", the more popular it became."

"Do they really want to draw, literally, a map for them?"
*

Ezra vs Bladerunner

I'm not up on all the latest lingo... but I think this is called "declaring a fathead..."
"P.S.: Good lord -- look at what a commenter dug up. Young Abdullah isn't just importing sharia law to Moncton -- he's importing stilettos and other assorted weapons, too, as fast as he can. This is a picture of one that he bought just two weeks ago on eBay. Here are the details."

"Oh, and here's what the Criminal Code has to say about stilettos that can be opened with the click of a button -- they're illegal (scroll down to the definition of the phrase "prohibited weapon")."

"But I'm sure Abdullah would tell the police -- if their diversity squad permitted them to raise this touchy subject -- that he follows a higher authority than Canadian laws."
Don't bother trying to open up the link to the Moncton Mosque... it seems young Abdullah has suddenly turned shy.
(see update below)

Looks like he decided to shut down his Facebook profile too.

I did find this though... in case anybody is interested in sending our homegrown jihadi their best wishes...
**********

UPDATE: We have the technology...
Hey, Abdullah... your heart may belong to Allah... but your ass belongs to "Google Cache."
Wait a minute... Abdullah's webpage has resurfaced... and, lo and behold... he suddenly has a new hobby.

Funny... that's not what the page said... before it disappeared... after Ezra's post.

The mysterious ways of Islam.

**********

LAST WORD: Better late... than never
Public notice of change of registered name
under the Change of Name Act, chapter C-2.001,

Previous Registered Name: Robert William Palmer Delancey

New Registered Name: Abdullah Robert Delancey
Address: 22 Seventh Street
Moncton, N.B. E1E 3G1
Date Granted: November 28, 2006
If this guy is 38 years old now... isn't he some sort of 'Abdullah-come-lately'.

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24 March 2008

Mount Cherniak is dribbling nonsense...

Yet again...
"Do you actually believe that anybody has the 'personal freedom' to 'take over the state?' This is so embarrassingly stupid, I'm shocked."

"The Nazis were criminals, Jason! It's the crime that's the problem, not the personal freedom!"
Don't worry, Jason... Jeffy 'Bugboy' Davidson still loves you.

**********

COUNTERPOINT: So Jason, let's try a big boy argument
"The activists, NGO types, censorious government mandarins and law-school profs who champion Section 13.1 declared their fealty to hyper-tolerance as a state creed many years ago, and are impatient for the rest of us to recite the same pledge of allegiance."

"It sickens the censors that anyone, anywhere, no matter how marginalized, entertains private thoughts at variance with their enlightened attitudes."
(via bcf)

**********

FROM THE COMMENTS:
I got a kick out of his phrase Nazi libertarians.

I had to get out my political dictionary for that one. I'm still trying to figure out what it's supposed to mean.

This forms a pattern. Cherniak appears to believe that the greatest threat to freedom is... freedom.
*

See, Dalton... it's not what you say

It's what you're actually prepared to do... and to most people, the term "high-risk offender" carries with it some built in warnings... such as "danger, avoid contact, monitor closely" and very probably... "don't let this monster loose."
-- KINGSTON, Ont. -- A high-risk sex offender is back behind bars after he allegedly threatened to kill a group of children after being freed from Kingston Penitentiary.

Bateman has a criminal record that spans more than 30 years. It includes violent sex attacks on children accompanied by torture and humiliation.
So, Dalton... what exactly is this guy doing out on the street?
In 1991, Bateman received an eight-year sentence for repeated violent assaults on a Belleville, Ont. girl that included an attempt to rape the nine-year-old with a screwdriver.

He hung the boy by his ankles over a stairwell in once instance and rammed his face into a plate of hot pasta in another.
Apparently, in Dalton McGuinty's fuzzy-bunny socialist paradise, there's no such thing as a bad boy.

(via reader rich)

**********

RELATED: Hey... let's just ban guns... AGAIN
The man arrested in a high-risk takedown Easter Sunday in a taxi was wanted for a murder last month during which a suspect was identified from surveillance images.

Toronto Police today said Mohmed Ahmed Nakhuda, 36, of Toronto, was sought for the shooting death of Jonathan Rodrigues.

Homicide Det.-Sgt. Dan Sheppard said the motive is believed known and he and wanted man were "associates" involved in "lifestyles" he declined to describe.
If only poor Mohmed hadn't been brainwashed by that inanimate chunk of metal.

I hate when that happens.

*

Paging Jeremiah Wright...

"Here's the biggest thing we 'racists' notice."

"Every single immigrant group that ever came to America -- including the Chinese who came as railroad slaves -- has risen out of poverty and want to achieve prosperity and respect."

"The Irish, the Italians, the Polish, the Jews, the Koreans, the Vietnamese."

"Every group but you."

"And you're the only group we fought a war to free..."
**********

RELATED: The author of the piece above responds...

To the inevitable fuzzy-bunny shitstorm.
UPDATE 3/23. Well, well, well. First things first. Glenn Reynolds did not link to this post, so leave him alone. Second, all you Nazis and white supremacists can go straight to hell; you can't read any better than Glenn Greenwald. Third, Althouse was right (I won't sully her rep by linking her) when she speculated that I'm too old to care what people think of me.

As for the rest of the pious bloggerites of the left and right who have been so quick to label this a "racist rant," my only retort to you is laughter.

You are determined to build for yourselves a nonsense world made out of delusions that will continually frustrate and defeat you because you are incapable of being honest about matters which are truly complex and in which no one on any of the innumerable "sides" is free of guilt, wrongdoing, and responsibility.

I pity you. Because you're the ones who will have to live with the consequences of your own deep personal dishonesty, your transparent projections, and your fearful sycophancy. Not me. So leave me out of it too, and see if you can have that discussion you think you want among yourselves.

Good luck with that.
*

Theocracy now!

The infelicitously named teachers union in the U.K. has come up with a novel way to solve all of Britain's social ills... let's do away with the separation of Church & State -- in its entirety...
-- NUT conference, Manchester -- Head teachers should allow imams, rabbis and priests to offer religious instruction to pupils in all state schools, teachers' leaders have said.

The National Union of Teachers (NUT) said the move would be a way to reunite divided communities.
Well, that one's gonna be hard to dispute... I mean, look at how well it's been working in the Islamic Middle East.

**********

RELATED: CBC... BBC... what's the difference?

Check out the last two paragraphs in this online article...
It is not clear why those on board the Global Patriot opened fire.
And... wait for it...
Al-Qaeda militants have in the past used small motorboats to attack US military and other foreign vessels in waters off the coast of Yemen, our correspondent adds.
*

Beat of a different dumber

Following the recent example of evil genius bossman OBL... Ayman the Pieman continues to work that madman mojo...
"Israel and additional Western targets must be attacked as revenge for Israel's aggressive policy in the Gaza Strip."
I'm not sure what sort of cultural disconnect allows this guy to overlook thousands of randomly launched HAMAS rockets... but ol' Ayman, once again, trips the light craptastic.

And, of course... he actually has a bigger beef than just those evil 'Joos'.

It's... SURPRISE... those darn cartoons... again.
Like bin Laden, the al-Qaeda second in command issued a threat against those countries in which cartoons of Muhammad were published, saying that "They cannot insult our prophet and support Israel and then expect to live in peace in the countries."
Anybody remember that old episode of the original "Lost in Space" where the cheesy robot is reprogrammed by aliens and runs around yelling, "CRUSH, KILL, DESTROY!!!?"

Hey, Ayman... be careful what you wish for.

*

23 March 2008

Somebody please tell me...

Why someone like Chief Clarence Louie isn't Minister of Aboriginal Affairs...
The 47-year-old chief of B.C.'s Osoyoos Indian Band believes the way the federal government has treated natives is dead-wrong.

"Our people have to get away from that mentality of spending money and start making money," Louie said. "I love creating jobs and I love making money."

"Hard work, not handouts, is the way to solving the criminally high rate of native unemployment, poverty and incarceration," he argues.

Taxpayers of all races (including aboriginals) shell out $10 billion annually
to help an estimated 1 million natives.
Good grief.

(via dmb)

**********

RELATED: Welfare for life sure isn't the answer
Roughly half of aboriginal Canadians subsist on an annual income of less than $10,000, according to the most recent data; unemployment among aboriginals is 26%, three times the national rate; Statistics Canada calculates that more than half of native kids are living in poverty; ¾ drop out of school before completing Grade 12; the incarceration rate of aboriginal men is 11 times that of non-native men; of women, it is 250 times the rate for non-native women.
**********

LAST WORD: What about Caledonia?
"In recent months, especially, I have been impressed by how ordinary citizens have taken it upon themselves to report the story that the media at-large has ignored."
*

Speaking of China

Mrs. Neo, who has an insatiable appetite for the written word... is currently plowing through the collected works of Canadian journalist Jan Wong... pausing occasionally, to offer up the ripest morsels from the feast...

"Like lots of resident Western journalists, my phone had been tapped, my mail opened. The secret police tailed me, interrogated my sources and sometimes arrested them."
And like any good writer... she gets up close and personal.
"In 1989, a few days after the massacre at Tiananmen Square, plainclothes police mistook me for a student and tried to kidnap me. I fought back, screaming–in English. The agents stopped trying to stuff me in the back of the unmarked car."

"Still shaking on the sidewalk, I belatedly realized that if only I had gone along with them, I would have had a great story."
I'm obviously gonna have to read this one myself.

**********

UPDATE: An excerpt from the book...
"But on this trip I’m nervous, because I’m returning to Beijing for another reason. I am not only planning to chronicle the future of this great city; I also need to come to terms with my own past."

"For this, I want moral support. I need my family to reassure me that I’m not a horrible human being. Or that, if I am, they love me anyway. Thirty-three years ago, in one thoughtless, misguided moment, I destroyed someone’s life."

"This is what I did: in 1973, I ratted out a stranger at Beijing University who wanted to get to America. At the time I did not give it much thought. I certainly did not understand the enormity of what I had done. I recorded the incident in my diary, and forgot about it."
Except that she could never really forget.

Fascinating read.

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Hey, relax bro... it's no big deal

If we can't find any dastardly 'Joos'... we'll just kill each other...
Clashes have broken out between Palestinian factions in a refugee camp in southern Lebanon. The fighting was between members of the Fatah faction and an Islamist group called Jund al-Sham.

It took place in the densely populated Ain al-Hilwe refugee camp, which is located on the outskirts of the southern city of Sidon. Fighters launched rockets and exchanged gunfire in the middle of the camp, causing dozens of civilians to flee.
Who exactly, are these homicidal freaks?
Lebanese and Palestinian officials said one Fatah member was killed and four others wounded, the Associated Press news agency reported.
**********

RELATED: One potato, two potato...

The... yet again... capricious, unknowable "Will of Allah."
Iraqi officials say insurgents attacks in Baghdad and northern Iraq have killed at least 40 people.

In the Iraqi capital Sunday, gunmen in several cars opened fire on pedestrians in a religiously mixed southern district, killing seven people. A suicide car bomber also killed at least six people in a Shi'ite neighborhood (Shula) of Baghdad.
Oh, man... when it rains, it pours.

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