Libs nuke one-member, one-vote

No vote for Joe Lunchbucket, say Liberals.MONTREAL -- Liberals have voted to cling to the format of delegated conventions to elect their leaders by narrowly rejecting the one-member, one-vote formula.The convention is expected to attract as many as 5,500 delegates by the time voting starts Friday. Each delegate had to pay a $1,000 registration fee, plus hotel and travel expenses.LAST WORD: Belinda...

Speaking of Antikythera...

Move over Einstein, that Hipparchos was one heckuva guy... Another profound question is how this extraordinary technology was lost when the Roman Empire came to dominate the Mediterranean. "In terms of historic and scarcity value, I have to regard this mechanism as being more valuable than the Mona Lisa," he added.Technorati Tags: Hipparchos, Antikythera Mechanism, ancient Gre...

NFL in Toronto?

Hmmmm... It has also been widely speculated that Toronto could get a team through franchise relocation, with the Buffalo Bills the most obvious possibility, because of an aging owner and its small market.Technorati Tags: NFL, Buffalo Bills, Toro...

Dope & Sodomy

Hey... we're gonna have a party.A very Liberal Party apparently.Lowering the age of consent for anal sex between teens and legalizing marijuana may be good ideas, but not high priorities, delegates indicated Wednesday at the opening of the Liberal convention.Well, that pretty much locks up the homosexual, adolescent party animal vote... for the 2011 elections anyway. File this one under, "Things...

Shameless

*** The Auditor-General highlights your Liberal Party. ***Here's a good one.Treaty negotiations with First Nations in British Columbia badly bogged down, with not a single treaty signed as costs skyrocket to $426-million since 1993.Remember that number the next time you think about all the Liberal majority governments since, well, whaddaya know... 1993.Not recommended reading on a full stomach.Technorati...

It's not just Human Rights

*** Never mind human rights. ***China has a problem providing clean drinking water to its citizens.Everybody is talking about what an industrial juggernaut China is becoming... but there's a price to be paid.BEIJING, Nov 28 (Reuters) - Water from a reservoir that serves as Beijing's fourth-biggest source of drinking water is unfit even for irrigation, state media reported on Tuesday, underlining the...

They will be remembered

Two more Canadian soldiers made the supreme sacrifice.Sgt. Major Bobby Girouard, 46, had been a soldier for 29 years before his latest stint in Afghanistan, said his brother Peter Girouard from the soldier's hometown of Bathurst.Girouard and Chief Warrant Officer Albert Storm were in an armoured personnel carrier when a civilian vehicle drove alongside and detonated explosives.Technorati Tags: Afghanistan,...

Smart, funny and legs that go all the way down to the ground

Sorry... this post isn't about scantily clad babes on so-called 'reality tv'... it's about "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip".If you enjoy bang-bang dialogue and plot that actually has a point, you'll like this show... if not, just keep it tuned to "tv lite".Wes: We're eating worms for money. "Who Wants To Screw My Sister?" Guys are getting killed in a war that's got theme music and a logo? That...

Less babies... more lap dances

Remember former Liberal Immigration Minister Judy Sgro? Well, she's continuing her campaign for 'Women's Rights' from the Opposition ranks.“I think Harper and his Conservative government, based on their policies, would clearly prefer women would stay barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen and move us backwards 40 years,” she said.Of course, this is the same woman who was hip-deep in the dodgy business...

Never mind that stupid Darfur thing

*** That's only about people. ***After an outbreak of H5N1 bird flu at a farm in South Korea, authorities say they plan to cull cats, dogs and pigs to stem the spread of the virus.I can imagine the swell of international outrage after this thing hits the 6 o'clock news. Don't get me wrong... I'm not a dog hater. I just think human life should take some sort of priority.Let's not even get into...

Will 'Lifers' get pensions?

*** So does this mean Clifford Olsen and Paul Bernardo get pensions? ***Someone needs to get their head read. In his annual report to Correctional Services of Canada, Howard Sapers claims Canada's inmates are underpaid, saying compensation for their work and participation in programs hasn't increased in nearly 20 years.The Prisoners' Rights Committee is asking that inmates get paid at least minimum...

Religion of Peace Update

Chalk up three more for Allah.A suicide car bomber blew attacked a convoy of foreign troops in southern Afghanistan on Monday, killing two Canadian soldiers and an Afghan civilian, police said.Hmmmm... what's that sound I don't hear?Yeah... that's it. The sound of Canadian Muslims speaking up about the mass murder in Iraq & Afghanistan these last couple of days.I guess after the six Sunni Muslims...

Sign of the times

Probably your first reaction here, will be to write me off as some sort of 'Y2K type nutjob'. If so, you'd better be prepared to expand this category to include your elected representatives. Has anybody else seen the television commercials the government has put out recently on dealing with some nebulous...

Benny's Big Balls

I should preface this entry by admitting that once upon a time... I was a reasonable facsimile of a Catholic. These days I'd say I'm more of a P.J. O'Rourkian, as in... "show me the logic AND the lab equipment." Regardless of my religious non-affiliation... say what you will about the Pope, he sure...

Next book on my reading list

Hugh Segal's... The Long Road Back: The Conservative Journey, 1993-2006.Segal on Stephen Harper..."Even when I disagree with him on issues -- which, as you can imagine, will happen -- here's a guy who sends his kids to public school, probably the first prime minister in decades to do that; who didn't think there was anything inappropriate in him wandering in to the Ottawa Civic Hospital and waiting...

A resister without a war

Here's a riddle for you... "How can you be a conscientious objector, if you were never in line for a combat post?"I guess you could try asking Francisco Juarez."What is a war resister?" he asks. "How do we define a war resister? Certainly some people say you have to be in a situation where you are going to be sent and then you refuse.Yeah, that'd be the way normal people see it, but apparently it's...

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Macleans has a media roundup (Globe, Star & Financial Post) on Jim Flaherty's economic update.Flaherty's message seems simple enough, and positive to boot: "The economy is strong, government spending is focused, our debt is lower and taxes are coming down." In other words, all is well. But to some critics, perhaps accustomed to more lofty ambitions during the short-lived Martin era, the 2006...

Less talk... more rock

In the true spirit of Conservatism, Stephen Harper is providing more funding and less government interference... in the fight against cancer.“In the cancer community, this is like a new bill of rights,” said Pat Kelly, national program director of the Campaign to Control Cancer, a coalition of 55 of Canada's leading cancer organizations.The new strategy, which has a $260-million budget for five years,...

Killing the messenger... and the truth

In case you were in a coma this last month, the Liberal Party's latest sleight-of-hand has been constantly attacking Environment Minister Rona Ambrose over her announcement regarding the Kyoto protocols.So why exactly is she being pilloried? How about for... telling the simple truth.And that's not just my opinion. Ask Jayson Myers, chief economist for the Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters Association....

Get Piggy with Iggy

For a while Michael Ignatieff seemed to be bucking that infamous Liberal character flaw.... elasticity of conscience.He seemed determined to stand on principles, as unpopular as they might prove to be. He took ownership of his ideas.Of course, as the going gets a little tougher, he panics and starts to thrash around a little.Early Wednesday afternoon in a round-table discussion with The Canadian...

Use a gun... you're done

While Liberal Leadership convention organisers are busy planning just how to entrench your teenage sons rights to engage in... no word of a lie... anal sexual relations with other men... that scary Stephen Harper has been wasting valuable time targeting violent criminals.“We made it a priority because Canadians had made it very clear to us that they wanted the scales of justice balanced.”Under the...

Stop it Dalton, you're killin' me

Or to be more precise, killing cancer patients.In Canada, in fact, no other technology promises cancer patients such inequitable access as PET scanners, and, among provinces that have them, Ontario is the most restrictive of all.Funny, you don't see anything about this in Dalton McGuinty's health care infomercials on tv. Every time an Ontario hospital does a PET scan, it comes right out of the hospital...

This can't be a good sign

Turns out the Iranian Islamic bomb thing may dissol.... er, resolve itself.Maybe it's just me, but if you're foolin' around with nuclear fission, shouldn't you already know how it works?Tehran & Vienna: Iran said on Thursday it would like technical aid from the UN atomic watchdog for its Arak heavy water reactor but would press ahead even if its request was eventually rejected.Turns out being...

Out of the Ashes

It could have been my brush with cyber-oblivion, or perhaps I am simply imbued with the spirit of nascent nationhood... but like Stephen Harper, I too have a somewhat gratuitous, non-binding and largely symbolic announcement of my own. It is with great pride that I announce to my heretofor fellow Canadian...

Arrrrrr... Billy, have you ever been to sea?

Bill Graham and the Fiberals are apparently taking another "principled stand"... this time fighting for the rights of teenage boys. No, no... relax. It's not another government subsidised heroin parlour. It's just resolutions for the upcoming Liberal Leadership Convention.Resolution No. 45: WHEREAS the current law discriminates against unmarried same-sex couples by not permitting unmarried persons...

A zealous fire, but nobody's home

While I was away, Tarikur dropped in to tell me what an ignorant and unreasonable infidel I am. I thought I'd drop by his place and see what other wisdom he might be sharing.Yeah, that's what I thought.Technorati Tags: burka, Islam, Netherla...

If a Blogger falls in the forest...

We are all, to some extent, convinced of our significance in the larger world. Call it ego, or arrogance or whatever... it's a very human failing.Thus I feel compelled to explain my absence of the last four days, all the while knowing that it makes not a whit of difference to anyone out there in 'the real world'.Anyway, after experiencing a totally unexpected harddrive meltdown, I have been dealing...

Big Burka Bombshell

Here's the best solution I've seen so far.Perhaps rather than banning in public... that they require both male and female members of that religion to wear the darned things. I suspect that in short order they would no longer be that popular.Join the fray.Technorati Tags: burka, Islam, Netherla...

I believe

Has anybody else seen the commercials where two people are in a car, driving along the road just shooting the shit, when their car suddenly gets 'godsmacked'... and all hell breaks loose as the airbags fire and the people pull about four gees, while the twisted hunk of former vehicle spins out of control?I think the slogan they use is "safe happens".The first time I saw this thing, it took my breath...

I nearly crapped myself

I had to read this more than once, just to make sure I hadn't accidentally landed at the Onion. Nope... Jerusalem Post, just like I thought. So, the question remains... if Israel doesn't have a problem with Al Jazeera International, maybe someone's missing the boat here.In fact, Daniel Seaman, head of the Government Press Office, said, "I have only the utmost respect for Al Jazeera in Israel. They've...

Dalton tries on OJ defense

Climbing down from yet another campaign promise, Dalton McGuinty is taking a page from the Johnny Cochrane, "absolutely, 100 percent, not guilty" playbook.TORONTO — Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty is blaming unidentified advisers for his government's inability to keep its promises to close the province's coal-burning power plants.Mr. McGuinty conceded yesterday that the smokestacks from the coal...

And while we're on China...

If the Liberals could spare a little time from their "Let's Crucify Rona Ambrose" campaign, perhaps they'd like to cast a critical eco-eye a little further eastward.Yes, it's the same poor country they've been casting, all day long, as having been unnecessarily snubbed by Prime Minister Harper.Not only does China have an appalling human rights record, it is killing nearly half a million of its own...

David Frum goes to Gitmo

And finds that all the detainees are totally innocent.Another detainee, a Yemeni, explained that he had come to Pakistan to study medicine at a university. Unfortunately, the particular university he had selected lacked any medical faculty.He ended up instead studying Koran in a student guesthouse – and when one of his housemates suggested they take a sightseeing tour of Afghanistan, he agreed to...

A Badge of Honour

**********UPDATE: Scary Stephen Harper at it again.Quick, hide the kids! Stephen Harper is gonna... well, he's up to, uh... something really, really bad. Honest.Prime Minister Stephen Harper says his government will not abandon "important Canadian values" by toning down criticisms of China's human rights record to improve trade relations with Beijing.And the Liberals are still trying to manufacture...

Holier than thou... and thou... and...

Pakistan has taken the first step towards repealing the Hudood Ordinances, which made it virtually impossible to prosecute rapists in Pakistan.Pakistan's national assembly has voted to amend the country's strict Sharia laws on rape and adultery. Until now rape cases were dealt with in Sharia courts. Victims had to have four male witnesses to the crime - if not they faced prosecution for adultery.The...

Religion of Rest in Pieces

How screwed up is Iraq?POLICE around the Iraqi capital found 46 bullet-riddled corpses, many of them tortured, of men shot to death in apparent sectarian attacks, a security source said.And that's not even the big news story today.It's kind of telling when even the Prime Minister apparently chooses sectarian warfare over democratic rule.It now appears that the mass kidnapping of a hundred or so employees...

Hideously abundant trees

Tim Blair says we'll need to replace Global Warming with a new scare should it ever go out of fashion:That suggests a contest in creative scaremongering. My first offer is … collapse of the hollow earth! (Via Colin N., who notes: “Let’s hope the expanding and increasing forests are not swamped by the...

Bad news for thugs & lawbreakers

It's back to basics for the Ontario Provincial Police. No more Gwen Kissy-Face.Fantino likes his image as a hard-nosed cop. "I believe that the laws of the land are there for all of us to observe and obey and I believe those who transgress are to be held accountable," he said. "Sure, criminals don't like me. That's fine. And a lot of defence lawyers don't like me and that's fine, too. If you are...

The Land of Misfit Toys

I wonder what starving people in Africa would make of a toy that costs more than their whole village makes in a year.The Playstation 3 game console will be released this week in North America, to the delight of teenaged boys and grown men who don’t wish to be burdened with a sexual relationship.In a related story, now we’ll never get him out of our basement, your mother said.Deprived of male companionship,...

Great Britain - Zero... Junkies - 1

Maybe Sharia Law is the answer... for the Brits. It's gotta be head & shoulders above this lunacy. Prisoners are set to be paid compensation because they were forced to stop taking drugs in jail. Drugs charity DrugScope said the group of six inmates and former inmates who used heroin and other opiates were on the verge of settling out of court with the Prison Service after suing the Home Office.File...

Police Association backs Conservatives

Remember all the fuss judges and lawyers kicked up last week, about the Conservative proposal to have a police representative on the secret committees that select candidates for judgeships?A spokesman for law enforcement in Canada had this to say...The head of the Canadian Professional Police Association says he's astounded by the criticism."I was very surprised - shocked, even - to see that some...

Cherrypicking the news

What the Star left out of the Le Devoir column.My translation... With its debate about recognizing Quebec as a nation skidding into the ditch, the Liberal Party of Canada is in the process of letting its last best chance of escaping its isolation in Quebec slip through its fingertips.via Norman SpectorTechnorati Tags: Toronto Star, Liberal Party, politics of self delus...

The will of Allah

Or just a metaphor for the rickety Palestinian pseudo-state?A wooden stage collapsed during a memorial for Yasser Arafat on Sunday, lightly wounding 14 people, including the sister of the late Palestinian leader.Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't everything in the world supposed to unfold only because it is the will of Allah? What was he thinking here?Technorati Tags: Yasser Arafat, Palestinian,...

Bravo for life's little ironies

You can wish upon a star...The program Sunday Morning on CBS had a segment today on the movie Bobby which had a quote in it from Robert Kennedy. "We are," he said, "a nation of compassion, a nation of peace, not a nation of war." Kennedy was shot, I was reminded, by Sirhan Sirhan, a Palestinian.Of course, you can also try to reason with a cat... for all the good it will do.Read the rest... at Meso...

The Party of Polls

The Liberal party loves polls. They love spending taxpayer money on polls.Perhaps if they didn't cherrypick which polls they really loved, they'd learn something valuable.While the question has spawned a predictable blizzard of spin from the various Liberal leadership camps, they are all in for a cold shower from a new SES Research public opinion poll conducted this past week for Sun Media.The SES-Sun...

Third Liberal appointee turfed at IRB

I don't know what I find more disturbing... the lying, cheating and stealing... or the lecherous behaviour.First there was Yves Bourbonnais and Steve Ellis.Now here's a third allegation of sexual misconduct, by yet another Liberal appointee.Lloyd Fournier was escorted from the tribunal's Toronto premises in September and told he could no longer adjudicate asylum claims following an alleged incident...

Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae

The attestation papers of Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae.Within three weeks, 45,000 Canadians had rushed to join up. John McCrae was among them. He was appointed brigade-surgeon to the First Brigade of the Canadian Forces Artillery with the rank of Major and second-in-command.Just before his departure,...

We remember

They stood up and fought for us. Today we honour the memory and the sacrifice of our brave veterans.After the Great War, Canada was never the same. More than 600,000 of a population of barely eight million served in the Canadian Expeditionary Force. Of those, 60,000 were killed and another 154,000...

I've said it before

I'll say it again. There will be no Iranian nuclear bomb.Or, to be more precise, it'll only ever happen over Israel's blackened smoking corpse.Sanctions against Iran are unlikely to work, so Israel must be prepared to thwart Teheran's drive for a nuclear capability "at all costs," the newly installed Deputy Minister of Defense Ephraim Sneh has told The Jerusalem Post."I am not advocating an Israeli...

Vladimir Palanuik is dead

Who hasn't watched 'Shane' at least once in their lifetime? And anybody who can do one-handed pushups at all... never mind at age 71, gets my respect."I am deeply shocked and saddened by the loss of my dear friend Jack Palance, a true movie icon," Crystal said in a statement Friday. "Winning the Oscar for that movie and the one-arm push-ups he did on the show will link us together forever, and for...

There's just one problem

It's called the Senate.So, the Conservatives put together a bill that directly addresses the failure of the government to be accountable to the citizenry... and what happens?The Liberal dominated Senate has 150 things it doesn't like about the Federal Accountability Act.That's right... 150 amendments, at least one of which coincidentally, puts more taxpayer money in the Liberal Party's apparently...

What do you call 100 lawyers...

Naw, too easy... everybody knows that one.Judges and lawyers are pissed off that your police force could have a presence on the secret judicial advisory committees that choose candidates for judgeships.Yeah, let's not have any input from the dirty, plebeian footsoldiers in the never-ending war on crime. What do cops know anyway, compared to, well... judges & lawyers?Beverley McLachlin, Canada's...

I'm speechless... and amazed

That this lunatic and his equally irrational lawyer thought they could justify this in a Canadian Courtroom.On the other hand, the Liberal Court Challenge Program gave the vote to Paul Bernardo & Clifford Olsen.. so who knows?Join the discussion at the Broom.Allah made me do it The Supreme Court of Canada declined an invitation on Thursday to consider whether Muslim cultural and religious beliefs...

WHO ARE THEY PROTECTING?

The NDP and the Liberals oppose Stephen Harper's 'get tough on crime' bill. They think it's too draconian. On criminals, that is. Like the murderers of a 15 year old girl. Here's a prime example of who the Libs & Dippers are enabling with their catch and release mentality.A man arrested...

Iggy nation

**********UPDATE: Voters not happy with Lib "nation" idea In a telephone survey of 1,000 people conducted this week, respondents were more than twice as likely - 40.4% versus 16.3% - not to vote Liberal in the next election if the party symbolically recognized Quebec as a nation."I think the fact of the matter is, outside Quebec, it's just not on," said SES Research president Nik Nanos. **********There...

Boys WILL be boys

There are, of course, exceptions to the rule, but I know I've read somewhere that the most significant influence in a young child's life is the same-sex parent. That makes perfect sense to me. As a general rule, boys model themselves on their father, as do girls on their mother.So it's no huge surprise, to me anyway, that if kids are separated by gender, they tend to do better at academics.TRAIL,...

Hail to the Chief

Looks like there could be more First Nations fireworks at another building site in Ontario. I sure hope the Liberals don't decide to rush in there with another multi-million dollar taxpayer bailout.The chief of the Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte is appealing for calm in a dispute over who owns land slated for a $30 million-plus housing development in Deseronto. The Chief of the band in question is...

Your tax dollars at, well... eternal rest

Another reason to scrap the Bureau of Indian Affairs and bring these people into the larger Canadian community.When are we gonna stop the insanity? OTTAWA, TORONTO -- Indian Affairs Minister Jim Prentice says there is a good reason why the vast majority of homes in Pikangikum have no running water and toilets: He says it is the custom of residents of the remote Ojibwa community to bury their loved...