No Gun, No Re-Election Issue

Fiberal Attorney General Michael Bryant is desperately looking for his one-line re-election issue. He thought he had it with "No Gun, No Funeral" which targets owners of legally registered firearms as some sort of miraculous solution for the wholesale slaughter presently centered in Toronto's northwest end.

Bruce Gold begs to differ.

In Canada in 2003, there were 548 homicides, 161 resulted from shooting (29.3%). There were 302,000 “crimes of violence” and 5% of these crimes “involved” a firearm. This “involved” category is misleading, guns “involved” in crime are guns picked up by the police from a crime scene - say ones that were found in a closet. Guns are actually used in violent crime about 1.9% of the time. no gun = no funeral” as a physical impossibility since 71% of homicides will not be affected

Statistics Canada has reported that 2.27% of homicides in Canada were committed with a registered gun and only 1.21% were committed with a registered firearm that was owned by the accused (Statistics Canada study of 5,194 homicides between 1997 & 2005).

A crackdown on the law abiding will accomplish what?

In 2003, there were 161 gun homicides in Canada. Assuming that each shooting involved a separate gun we can calculate what percentage of Canadian guns were involved in these murders. If we take the official figure of seven million guns we get (161/7,000,000 = 0.000023 or .0023%). Only 23 ten thousandths of 1% of the Canadian gun stock was involved in a homicide.

So what's the bottom line here, Bruce?

If we pursue our policy of regulating crime by strictly regulating gun availability to the general public we can reasonably expect that .0023% of our efforts will affect guns used in homicide and 99.997% of our effort will be wasted.

Perhaps Bryant should just rename his dog "Peace Moonbeam"... and hope for the best.

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RELATED: Profiling the product is stupid

Of course no one questioned that no actual criminals were caught. No one cared. Criminals weren't the problem. Guns were the problem.

If you could get rid of all the guns, there would be no criminals, and no crime violence. No gun, no criminal, no funeral.

Makes sense to some people.

Technorati Tags: homicides in Canada, Statistics Canada, Bruce Gold

Two more Canadians killed...

No, not in Afghanistan... it's the regularly scheduled long-weekend bodycount on Ontario highways...

Two fatal accidents have created a troubling start to one of the busiest travel weekends of the year on southern Ontario roads.

OPP Commissioner Julian Fantino said 295 people have died in crashes on roads patrolled by provincial police so far this year, 15 more than at this point last year.

Nineteen people have died in marine incidents, compared to 32 by this time last year and there have been 20 ATV fatalities, up from 12 last year.

Just something to think about the next time Taliban Jack and Sergeant Steffi try to wind you up about the 70 Canadian soldiers who have died over the last 6 years in Afghanistan.

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UPDATE: Add in two Toronto homicides

Toronto police homicide detectives are probing what could be the city’s second murder this weekend after a young woman was found dead in an east-end home.

Kabul's starting to sound downright homey.

Technorati Tags: fatal accidents, Liberal smoke and mirrors, Taliban Jack

Honey, have you seen that box...

With the plastic explosives?

Do you remember all the indiscriminate shooting and bombing that used to go on in Toronto when you were a kid?

-- Yeah... me neither. --

TORONTO — Toronto police temporarily shut down two major highways Friday as they gingerly removed several explosive devices from an east-end neighbourhood and ferried them across town in a slow-moving convoy.

The devices in question were plucked from a vehicle following the arrest Thursday night of a man police allege is connected to several attempted letter bombings earlier this month.

Probably those sociopathic monarchists again, or a gang of out of control, fanatical Baptists.

Wait a minute... they've arrested someone.

Adel Arnaout, 37, was expected to face several charges, including three counts of attempted murder, when he appeared in court Friday.

Police believe the three letter-bomb incidents were linked and that the motive for the attacks was personal.

You're pissed off at somebody... I guess it's too much to ask that you settle it like a sane person... without involving explosives or small arms?

Is there some sort of, ah... religious or cultural factor in play here?

Warr said the suspect is a landed immigrant from Lebanon with a Canadian passport, but police do not believe the crimes were motivated by religion or politics.

"There is absolutely no pattern as far as any religion, ideology or nationality," Warr said.

The police would not say if any other individuals or groups are being investigated.

Yet another reason to get out of the big city.

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UPDATE: The Broom has unsettling particulars

The rooming house that Adel Mohamed Arnaout lived in had been nicknamed the Bombay Bunker by neighbours because of its double steel doors and has been described to house as many as thirty people at a time.

Technorati Tags: Adel Arnaout, letter bombings, guns, bombs and videotape

Court system sends a message...

To aboriginal lawbreakers... "Live and don't learn."

Mohawk activist Shawn Brant was ordered to stand trial on nine criminal charges before walking out of a Dundas Street West courthouse and into the arms of friends and loved ones Thursday.

Brant, who has spent the last two months in custody, was released on strict bail conditions including not to participate in any demonstrations or protests and not to leave his house for the next 30 days without police permission.

Of course, the fact that Brant has previously broken his bail conditions, not once, but twice... apparently doesn't figure into this decision.

Sadly, none of this gets mentioned in the media. At the CBC website they refer to Brant, not as a law-breaking thug... but as a "Mohawk crusader."

Brant was also ordered to stay away from the Deseronto Road quarry currently occupied by fellow protesters and to report daily to his mother Deanna Brant and family friend Winston Maracle, both of whom put up $50,000 each to the court in collateral to secure his release.

Don't worry... he'll be back.

Technorati Tags: Shawn Brant, Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte, suckass political correctness

I wonder if David Carradine...

Just felt a disturbance in "the force"...

-- BEIJING -- China's Shaolin Temple has demanded a public apology from an Internet user who claimed a Japanese ninja beat its kung fu-practicing monks in a showdown, a lawyer said Friday.

Monks from the temple, nestled in the Songshan Mountains of central China's Henan province, said they will consider legal action if he or she doesn't make a public apology.

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RELATED: Our love of mythology

"Edison died on a pile of money in a 'Suck it, Tesla' T-shirt that he did not design"

Remember the fuss over "Saint Winnie"?

Technorati Tags: Shaolin Temple, Mahatma Ghandi, Winnie Mandela

Play-acting what you preach

In the Ontario Liberal's education equation... millionaire Finance Minister Greg Sorbara's kids are somehow deductible...

If, as Finance Minister Greg Sorbara did yesterday, one is going to slam funding for private religious schools because they are divisive and separate kids from one another, it is useful if you can show yourself as a public school supporter.

Sadly, Sorbara cannot. His six kids went to the exclusive Toronto Waldorf school -- not a faith-based school, sure, but not exactly the kind of place where your kids mix and mingle with children from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Just another reason why, folks.

Technorati Tags: Greg Sorbara, Liberal smoke and mirrors, Toronto Waldorf school

Digital Storm

Technology kisses up to law enforcement.

-- WASHINGTON -- The FBI disclosed new details about its secretive technology for tracing telephone calls and recording conversations during criminal, terror and espionage investigations, custom-made tools it has developed without fanfare for a decade.

Of course, they didn't disclose any of this, out of the goodness of their hearts.

The FBI was forced by a federal judge to give the files to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a San Francisco-based civil liberties group, which requested them under the Freedom of Information Act more than a year ago.

Truly a double-edged sword.

Technorati Tags: Digital Storm, Freedom of Information Act, Electronic Frontier Foundation

Fredheads rejoice

The courtship is over... looks like Freddy's ready...

On September 6, 2007, Fred Thompson will be announcing his intention to run for President of the United States with a webcast available to millions at www.imwithfred.com.

The launch of the video will be followed by a five-day campaign tour through Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina.

Technorati Tags: Fred Thompson, www.imwithfred.com, President of the United States

The gift that keeps on giving

Any one of the recent dumbass Liberal Leadership candidates...

For example, Michael Ignatieff...

"Excrement-hiding bird championed as Liberal symbol"

The element of this that's too funny for words... is that the Fiberals have been branding Iggy as "the smart one".

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UPDATE: Steffi takes a turn at bat

Now we've got Huffin' AND Puffin...

-- ST. JOHN'S -- The Liberals will force an early vote on the Canadian mission in Afghanistan this fall in a bid to set Prime Minister Stephen Harper on the defensive over the issue.

Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion said his party will use its first opposition day in the fall session to put forward a motion for Canada to notify its allies that it will withdraw from Kandahar in February, 2009.

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LAST WORD: The puffins weigh in

"When I come back to the burrow with a dozen sand eels in my beak I don't expect to have five of them taken away for the 'community.' Not that it doesn't happen."

"If you've ever had to dodge a herring gull to get through the door of your house you know what I'm talking about -- hey, maybe that should be the Liberal mascot."

"A bird that lives off someone else's catch."

Technorati Tags: Puffin, Michael Ignatieff, Liberal Party of Canada

You might as well try...

To reason with a cat.

-- NANTICOKE, Ont. -- Several Greenpeace activists who boarded a coal-carrying bulk ore carrier on Lake Erie en route to a power plant in Nanticoke, Ont., have now chained themselves to the ship.

I just hope the company involved has the sense to launch a civil suit against Greenpeace and more importantly, these three donkeyheads... for the downtime they have caused.

Aboriginal spokes-thug Shawn Brant could probably use some company in his cozy cell down in Prince Edward County.

Also nice to see the Green Party come out to endorse breaking the law of the land.

Green Party leader Frank de Jong applauded Greenpeace's actions, noting the Liberal plan to phase out coal by 2014 is not good enough.

What's a day without anarchy, huh?

Technorati Tags: Greenpeace, Green Party, Frank de Jong

Say what?

Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.

Hmmm, this has possibilities...

ksis my nvcvoeroaneiste ass... you cmiome pkino lbtfteos

(h/t to reader Bob)

Who am I, to argue with...

The will of Allah...

A wanted senior Taliban commander has been killed in a U.S.-led air raid in the south of Afghanistan, the Afghan Defence Ministry said.

Mullah Brother was killed in the pre-dawn attack in Helmand province.

Brother served as a top military commander for the Taliban government until its removal from power in 2001.

Running with the wolves

Another thing they didn't have in Toronto when I was a kid.

Fourteen teenaged boys have been charged with a rash of "wolf-pack" swarmings in which victims were surrounded and robbed on main streets and in parks and subway stations.

The robberies, which have been going on since mid-July, were committed by members of a new street gang called Grown Man Business, Toronto Police Det. Colin Greenaway said yesterday.

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RELATED: The gang's all here

Got a kid in high school in northwest Toronto?

"As consultations with teachers continued, it became apparent that safe-school transfers were a significant issue at C.W. Jefferys, which receives more safe-school transfers than it sends out to other schools," says the panel's report, released yesterday.

Jefferys last year took in 11 safe-school transfers, and sent out six; Westview took in 13, but sent out 21. Safe-school transfers are used to move students involved in serious or criminal incidents.

"Crime and victimization are serious problems for students at C.W. Jefferys, but sadly, these problems do not appear isolated within C.W. Jefferys or even within other schools in the `Jane-Finch' community."

Do the "Thug Shuffle".

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LAST WORD: Speaking of northwest Toronto...

It ain't just the teenagers spreadin' the love.

A Toronto family doctor admitted yesterday to pumping more than 130,000 prescription sedatives into the black market and defrauding Ontario's health care system of more than $750,000.

And this guy was no virgin...

Kitakufe, a Canadian landed immigrant, who was convicted of similar offences in Illinois nearly 20 years ago, was charged with conspiracy to defraud the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care, defrauding the ministry and conspiracy to traffic in the narcotic-based painkiller OxyContin.

Yesterday he admitted using his Finch Ave. W. practice in Downsview to provide inventory for operators of a black market in prescription narcotics.

The fun never stops in the Jane-Finch corridor.

Technorati Tags: Toronto gangs, C.W. Jefferys, Grown Man Business

Deck Chairs... Titanic

Enough said.

-- BEIJING -- China will ban all types of tobacco advertising and promotions by 2011, fulfilling its obligations under an international anti-smoking treaty, officials and state media said Wednesday.

A million smoking related deaths per year... that they'll admit to.

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RELATED: Oops, they did it again

-- NEW YORK -- Toys "R" Us has recalled 27,000 crayon and paint sets made in China because the packaging of the wooden box contains lead, as does some of the watercolor paint within, company and government officials said Thursday.

Swimming against the tide

Contrary to the big splash in the media... the court did not actually declare Steven Truscott innocent...

"I believe he's definitely guilty," he said. "I believe that the media and the people on his defence team have put a spin on this thing that he was a young - a young boy that was very innocent, but in reality he was - he was a tough kid."

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RELATED: Read the actual judgement

"The task of demonstrating innocence is particularly difficult in this case where in addition to the passage of almost a half-century since the crime, certain immutable facts cast some suspicion on the appellant."

"He was the last known person to see the victim alive and was with her at a location very close to where she was murdered."

"At this time, and on the totality of the record, we are in no position to make a declaration of innocence. Indeed, we are not satisfied that an acquittal would be the only reasonable verdict."

Which leaves the question of compensation.

Former Appeal Court Justice Sydney Robins, tasked by the Ontario government with reviewing the compensation issue, said he must first decide whether Truscott is entitled to an award before recommending how much, if any.

"The issue turns on the fact that there was no explicit finding of factual innocence in the case,'' Robins said in a telephone interview.

Lynn Harper's father also has an opinion.

“You never want to see someone who was innocent convicted of something,” the elder Mr. Harper said Wednesday. “But this is about money.”

The Harpers have long felt that part of Mr. Truscott's motive in continuing the efforts to clear his name has been to win a hefty compensation package from the government.

On Tuesday, Mr. Truscott's lawyer, James Lockyer, said his client should “get every penny he can out of the government after what he has been through.”

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LAST WORD: The gold standard of innocence...

Is when, say... they actually catch the guy who did it.

In 1997, U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno expressed regret over the leak regarding Jewell. "I'm very sorry it happened," she told reporters. "I think we owe him an apology."

Eventually, the bomber turned out to be anti-government extremist Eric Rudolph, who also planted three other bombs in the Atlanta area and in Birmingham, Alabama.

Technorati Tags: Steven Truscott, Richard Jewell, Eric Rudolph

Is Steffi schizophrenic?

Is this a really bad piece of writing, or is Stéphane Dion simply off his medication?

-- ST. JOHN'S -- Liberals continued Wednesday to sabre-rattle about a possible fall election even as they admitted they could use more time to woo voters.

Leader Stéphane Dion said Liberals don't want an election, but won't hesitate to vote against a bad Throne Speech this fall, even if it means toppling the minority Tory government.

“We want this Parliament to work,” he told reporters on his way into a Liberal caucus retreat to plot strategy for the fall.

It sounds to me as though Dion hasn't the faintest idea what he wants. I've heard more coherent strategy on promos for "Who's Smarter than a Fifth Grader?"

He may want to work on his smarmy, Eddie Haskell-like, sense of humour while he's at it.

“You may write what you want about us.... Don't worry, we're not the Conservatives, we will not send the police to hurt you,” he joked as MPs and senators gave reporters a standing ovation.

No wonder Garth Turner thinks he's got a shot at the Liberal Leadership.

Technorati Tags: Stéphane Dion, Atlantic Accord, Throne Speech

Two opposing points of view

Perhaps Toronto Mayor David Miller should sit up and take note.

-- FLORENCE, Italy -- Florence, Renaissance city of art and history, is trying to clean up its streets by cracking down on squeegee men, saying they were causing "great danger" to drivers and pedestrians alike.

Mayor Leonardo Domenici issued a decree last week to force the squeegee men — people who wash drivers' windshields and demand payment — off the streets, imposing fines and detention of up to three months.

Jean Leonard Touadi, a security adviser for Rome's City Hall, said the problem was real in many big cities.

"In very recent time, these people have become very aggressive, mainly with women," Touadi said.

On the other hand, I guess the egalitarian, progressive left feels a modern womyn should be able to tai-bo these social misfits right onto their aggressive, freeloading asses...

While the measure was applauded by some, leftist politicians said Florence was going after the wrong people.

"If there are attacks against people, they have to be stopped," Social Solidarity Minister Paolo Ferrero said in an interview with The Associated Press Television News. "But to consider being a squeegee in itself a crime, it is wrong."

Yup... maybe we need some safe-begging sites.

Technorati Tags: Ross Hammond, Toronto homicide, squeegee men

When this thing jumps off...

The back burner... and infectious disease experts agree it's only a matter of time... it'll make SARS look like diaper rash.

-- WASHINGTON -- A mathematical analysis has confirmed that H5N1 avian influenza spread from person to person in Indonesia in April, U.S. researchers reported on Tuesday.

Health officials around the world agree that a pandemic of influenza is overdue, and they are most worried by the H5N1 strain of avian influenza that has been spreading through flocks from Asia to Africa.

"The world really may have dodged a bullet with that one, and the next time, we might not be so lucky," he added.

Technorati Tags: H5N1, avian influenza, pandemic

More Liberal Principles

FLIP...

In 1998 Mr. McGuinty met with Mr. Farber and 50 other executive members of the CJC and told them he was open to faith-based school funding. It was the first positive sign from a provincial leader on the issue since the group began campaigning for it in 1984.

FLOP...

Dalton McGuinty has betrayed Ontario Jews who believed the Liberal Premier was in favour of funding their faith-based schools, says Bernie Farber, chief executive of the Canadian Jewish Congress.

Mr. Farber said yesterday he was floored to hear Mr. McGuinty attack faith-based schools as segregationist and harmful to Ontario's "social cohesion" last week.

My personal feeling here is that we can only afford to fund the one "public school" system.

That doesn't excuse Dalton McGuinty's unconscionable turnaround, after he managed to milk the Jewish community for their support. Didn't he pull the same sly trick on the parents of autistic children?

Another Fiberal promise crumbles into ashes.

Technorati Tags: faith-based school funding, Canadian Jewish Congress, Dalton McGuinty

Turbulence

Irish Police Commissioner Noel Conroy has agreed to meet Sikh community leaders to discuss the ban on turbans imposed on officers.

A spokesman for the force told the BBC that they were currently "examining" their policy on all religious symbols, including crucifixes and pioneer pins.

I know that Sikh police officers in Toronto are allowed to wear turbans.

My question is, "Is there ever a point at which we should draw a line?"

For instance, should we allow female Muslim cops to wear the burqa?

I'm sure aspiring Palestinian police officers would love to wear their colourful native garb as well.

If you allow turbans, how do you say no?

Technorati Tags: turban, Sikh, Police Commissioner Noel Conroy

Liberal Principles

FLIP...

Just after winning the Liberal leadership in December he told The Globe and Mail that the accord clouds the principles of equalization, which is designed to assist provinces with smaller tax bases.

FLOP...

Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion moved Monday to capitalize on anger against Stephen Harper's Conservatives in Newfoundland and Nova Scotia, pledging that he would respect the Atlantic Accord if he became prime minister.

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RELATED: Hey, Stéphane... ask Danny to equalize this

-- ST. JOHN'S, N.L. -- Three men, including a former top lieutenant in Premier Danny Williams's government, were charged Tuesday for their alleged role in an expense scandal that has shocked the province's political establishment and led to an overhaul of the legislature's spending practices.

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LAST WORD: Steffi has to do solo "stoop & scoop"...

After Danny Millions skips out on "dog and pony" photo op.

-- ST. JOHN'S, N.L. -- Federal Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion's plan to deliver a joint blast at the Harper government with feisty Conservative Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Danny Williams fizzled yesterday.

Williams, who has been waging political war on Prime Minister Stephen Harper who he accuses of breaking a 2006 election promise on offshore oil revenues, declared his meeting with Dion private, forcing the Liberals to cancel a scheduled photo opportunity with the two leaders.

Another Fiberal publicity stunt goes south

Technorati Tags: Stéphane Dion, Atlantic Accord, no whore like an old whore

Aboriginals look to McGuinty...

To slap down Ontario Superior Court Judge.

-- KINGSTON, Ont. -- Aboriginal protesters blocking access to a proposed uranium mining site in eastern Ontario are calling for the provincial government to settle the dispute after a judge ordered them to leave the property.

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RELATED: In other aboriginal news...

How's Shawn Brant enjoying the fruits of his labour?

The 42-year-old Mohawk protester was brought from the Napanee Detention Centre for a court appearance that was markedly less theatrical than previous appearances in court here.

There were about a dozen people who appeared to support Brant in the courtroom, but they were a subdued group.

Yup... reality, does indeed, bite.

Technorati Tags: Ontario Superior Court, Aboriginal protest, Shawn Brant

Layton in grief-stricken seclusion...

After Islamotards get their jihad-lovin' asses handed to them... yet again.

-- KABUL, Afghanistan -- U.S. led and Afghan troops battled suspected Taliban insurgents in southern Afghanistan on Tuesday in ground clashes and air strikes that left more than 100 militants dead, the coalition said.

The little back-stabbing bastards just don't seem to be able to get the hang of head-to-head combat. They'd best stick with sneak attacks and using women and children for cover.

The battle in Kandahar province's Shawali Kot district started after the joint force was ambushed by a large group of insurgents who tried to overrun their position several times, before being strafed by air strikes, the statement from the coalition said.

"Coalition aircraft destroyed the reinforced enemy emplacements and sniper positions as well as two trucks used to reinforce and re-supply the insurgent force,'' the statement said.

Not a single NATO casualty here.

Say Jack... does that mean we don't get another press conference?

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RELATED: Just take a couple of minutes...

Who was at the helm for a decade prior to the Afghan mission being launched?

Who signed onto the mission?

Who tasked our Canuck warriors to Kandahar?

Who refused to purchase heavy lift rotary wing transport?

Who starved the military for funds and equipment?

Who is now using our casualties for cheap political gain by demanding we pull out ASAP?

Technorati Tags: Taliban Jack, Afghanistan casualties, NATO

$700 million of sheer hypocrisy

-- Queen's Park Bureau -- Health Minister George Smitherman made the announcement today at a seniors' centre in Don Mills, saying money to fund the programs will start flowing next April.

"The only thing that puts it at risk is the election of John Tory," Smitherman said in reference to the Progressive Conservative leader.

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WAIT A MINUTE: Bernardo cruises... Granny loses

Here's how much Dalton cared about seniors, before he started his massive pre-election bribery spree...

Seniors in subsidized retirement homes — including war veterans who served their country — receive a per capita allotment of $5.46 for three meals a day.

That works out to more than $1.50 less than inmates in Ontario prisons who get $7 and it’s an irksome reality to many in the field of geriatric care.

Moonstruck

Mrs Neo set our alarm for 4:50 this morning so we could all get up and see the lunar eclipse... which was kinda cool... but for a closer look, you have to check out these pix.

-- Arizona State University -- Highly detailed photographs of the Moon taken by the Apollo missions are being made available to the public for the first in more than 30 years.

Many Nasa lunar images are already available through websites like Google Moon - but the pictures on the Apollo Image Archive are special because of the level of detail.

One of the samples already posted online is an image showing high-resolution surface detail of the moon taken from a camera that was mounted on the Apollo 15 mission in 1971. The original raw scan, available for download, is 1.3 Gigabytes in size.

Go here for more.

Technorati Tags: Apollo Image Archive, lunar images, Arizona State University

Back to basics

Yeah, let's save it for Friday nights at the after-hours club... you know... old school.

"It was young people trying to settle an argument," said Mary, a 46-year-old resident of the complex on Shoreham Court, near Jane St. and Steeles Ave. W.

"They have to learn that the answer isn't to shoot people in broad daylight near where all the kids are playing."

C'mon lady... we're just "keepin' it real".

Technorati Tags: Jane and Finch, Shoreham Court, Toronto gangs

Enlightened Europa

There is, on the one hand, accommodation... and on the other, total, abject capitulation...

Every year the authorities in Brussels, the capital of Belgium and of the European Union (EU), receive between 500 and 600 applications for permission to demonstrate or hold protest marches. With very few exceptions permission is always granted. In the past five years only six applications were turned down – an average of one a year.

Last week another request was turned down. Freddy Thielemans, the Mayor of Brussels, prohibited a demonstration against the Islamization of Europe, planned to be held next September 11 in front of the European Parliament buildings.

Now Freddy, who apparently has a bit of a hard-on for Catholics is general and the Pope very specifically... has decided to step on free speech.

Well, he may have just stepped on his dick as well.

Up until last week the Belgian press had made no mention of the march. Last Thursday, however, Mayor Thielemans banned the demonstration. A local joke has it that the mayor cannot allow a demonstration on his 63rd birthday (Thielemans was born on Sept. 11, 1944) because he fears that if the pope dies on his birthday it will cost him a fortune to offer “champagne for everyone.”

Oh yeah... that Freddy is such a card. At an official function in 2005, upon learning of the death of Pope John Paul II, Funster Freddy apparently ordered "champagne for everyone".

Meanwhile an online petition, which everyone is invited to sign, asks the mayor to reconsider his decision. Thielemans’ ban has turned the anti-Sharia demonstration into a huge publicity stunt, even if only a few people show up. The press will be there and the world will be watching – if not a mass demonstration, Filip Dewinter celebrating his 45th birthday with a bottle of champagne.

Sign the online petition.

(via reader Alistair)

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RELATED: Secular no more

This oughta fix up all Turkey's EU issues.

-- ANKARA -- A devout Muslim with a background in political Islam won the Turkish presidency on Tuesday, in a major triumph for the Islamic-rooted government after months of confrontation with the secular establishment.

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LAST WORD: On the good news front...

France grows a pair...

-- Paris -- Speaking to 180 French ambassadors, Mr Sarkozy said a nuclear-armed Iran would be "unacceptable" and that the only response was to tighten sanctions while being open to talks if Iran suspended nuclear activities.

"This initiative is the only one that can enable us to escape an alternative that I say is catastrophic: the Iranian bomb or the bombing of Iran," he said, adding that it was the worst crisis facing the world.

Technorati Tags: Freddy Thielemans, Islamization of Europe, Pope John Paul II

If you're really set on murder...

My guess is, no amount of multicultural festivals, debates or telephone hotlines is gonna change your mind.

-- AMSTERDAM -- The Dutch government will spend $38-million (U.S.) over the next four years to prevent both the growth of Islamic fundamentalism and right-wing nationalism, an official said Monday.

Interior Affairs Minister Guusje ter Horst described a mix of “soft measures,” like sponsoring multicultural debates and creating job internships, and “hard measures,” including cracking down on truancy.

So hey, all you would be murderers... watch out for the truant officer.

And that's not the entire package, by any means.

A teacher who notices students voicing racist or fundamentalist notions should be able to call a hotline for advice, for example, Ms. Ter Horst said.

No wonder we had to liberate these dopes in WWII.

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RELATED: While politicians fiddle...

Cops decide to go with "Plan B".

-- THE HAGUE, Netherlands -- A Philippine communist leader accused of commanding a rebel uprising for more than 20 years from his home in exile was arrested by Dutch police Tuesday, suspected of ordering the murder of two former allies in his home country, prosecutors said.

Thank goodness for the thin blue line.

Let's not get too excited

Maybe Siva Yogi Shanmugadhasan belongs to the local machinegun club...

Several of the guns were inoperable but the majority were machine-guns such as AK-47s, Uzis, MP-5s, Stens, semi-automatic handguns and several high-powered long guns with bipods.

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UPDATE: Apparently Mr. Shanmugadhasan has issues

Police located the firearms after Gatineau police launched an investigation into accusations of a domestic-related incident between Mr. Shanmugadhasan, 48, and a woman with whom he had been in a relationship.

I mean, we're talkin' bitter, alcoholic doper...

Mr. Shanmugadhasan, who filed a $2-million lawsuit against his former employer and two insurance companies in May following a dispute over disability benefits, claimed in court documents supporting the lawsuit that he suffers from "psychological conditions" and "longstanding substance dependence" to alcohol and, in the years leading up to 2004, cocaine.

He also isn't anyone's idea of a model citizen.

Prior to his arrest this week, Mr. Shanmugadhasan was not known to police.

However, the Citizen has learned he once served about three years in a California prison in the early 1980s, following a drug conviction.

Funny... the 2 billion dollar Farmer Bob Rifle Registry seems to have missed all that.

Thank goodness he tripped himself up.

Technorati Tags: Siva Yogi Shanmugadhasan, machinegun, Farmer Bob Rifle Registry

Ok, ok... I get it

We have to wait until the area is actually littered with shredded body parts.

-- SEATTLE -- Earlier this summer a concerned crew member of a Washington State ferry boat snapped pictures of two men who had raised suspicions on several ferry rides by asking questions about structural details and entering areas of the boats that are off-limits.

Now, after the FBI released two photographs of the men to the public with the goal of identifying them, a debate has erupted over alleged racial profiling...

Muslim groups have said the release of the photographs amounted to profiling because the men could be perceived as Middle Eastern.

Forgive me for pointing this out, but... that didn't work out so great last time.

Technorati Tags: racial profiling, Washington State ferry boat, suckass political correctness

Hey Jack, what'cha gonna negotiate...

A Canada-Afghanistan free trade agreement?

-- KABUL (Reuters) -- Opium production has soared to "frightening record levels" in Afghanistan, which now has more land producing drugs than Columbia, Bolivia and Peru combined, the United Nations said on Monday.

The southern province of Helmand, where mostly British troops are engaged in almost clashes with Taliban rebels, produced more than half of Afghanistan's opium crop.

"Helmand has single-handedly become the world's biggest source of illicit drugs, surpassing the output of entire countries like Colombia (coca), Morocco (cannabis), and Myanmar (opium) which have populations up to 20 times larger," said the UNODC.

Who says the Religion of Peace is an inflexible institution?

Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar drastically reduced opium production in Afghanistan during his last year in power, issuing a religious edict banning the crop and threatening harsh punishments in areas the movement held under its strict control.

Now, the report said, the Taliban had reversed its policy.

"What used to be considered a sin is now being encouraged," UNODC Executive Director Antonio Maria Costa said.

**********

RELATED: Like shooting fish in a barrel

File this one under "Jihadis just wanna have fun."

A sniper killed a Shiite pilgrim on a Baghdad bridge Monday while another was killed and a dozen injured in other attacks as tens of thousands of faithful made their way to the southern city of Karbala for a major religious commemoration.

Isn't God great?

Technorati Tags: opium production, heroin, Mullah Mohammad Omar

No Gun, One More Funeral

Maybe Attorney General Michael Bryant should have gone with, "No Scum, No Funeral"...

As police investigated the stabbing death of a man in the Pharmacy Ave. and Danforth Rd. area yesterday, residents complained how drug dealers, hookers, and pimps are becoming a common sight in their neighbourhood.

"I wish I could pick up my house and move it somewhere else," Smillie said.

**********

RELATED: How about No Scam, No Liberals?

Apparently the real problem here...

Is draconian North American standards regarding lead, formaldehyde and insecticide content in things like, well... you know, childrens toys.

-- BEIJING -- China strongly defended the quality of its exports Monday, saying some problems were a result of varying global product standards and that a mass recall of toys was largely a result of faulty U.S. designs not Chinese workmanship.

Yeah, I can just see the guys who designed Thomas the Tank Engine saying, "Hey, why don't we save a few bucks here and use that inexpensive lead paint instead?"

But continuing discoveries of high levels of chemicals and toxins in Chinese goods — from toothpaste and clothes to fish and juice — have made salvaging its reputation an uphill task.

**********

RELATED: Of course, it's not just North America

Technorati Tags: lead paint, diethylene glycol, insecticide

Great 'cosmic nothingness' found

Another thing I just can't get my head around...

"If you were to travel at the speed of light, it would take you several years to get to the nearest stars in our own Milky Way galaxy; but if you were to go to this hole and enter one side, you'd have to travel for a billion years before you would get to the other side."

**********

EXPLANATORY NOTE:

Before any more of you dopey leftbots jump all over me for being a "Jesus Freak", I should probably explain, for perhaps the tenth time... I'm actually an atheist.

That doesn't mean I'm immune to wonder.

"Explanation separates us from astonishment, which is the only gateway to the incomprehensible."

Technorati Tags: cosmic nothingness, sense of wonder, Eugene Ionesco

Top predator, my ass

You're being outwitted by a troop of monkeys... I'd say it's time to move on anyway.

-- Nachu, Kenya -- "For God's sake, the government should take pity on us and move these monkeys away because we do not want to abandon our farms," he said.

"I beg you, please come and take these animals away from here so that we can farm in peace."

Seems there's never a Liberal around when you need one.

**********

SOMEWHAT RELATED: Mrs Neo is much more sympathetic

As someone who assumed primary responsibility for transforming a monkey-like creature into a fine young man, my wife feels for these beleagured villagers.

"You have absolutely no idea how relentless a small, determined primate can be", she points out. "You assume discipline is like setting a VCR... you don't realise how much effort and utter repetition is involved."

It's true... I remember when he learned how to open the fridge.

Oh, c'mon you guys...

Has Dalton McGuinty ever lied to us before?

Premier Dalton McGuinty denies Progressive Conservative charges that the union-funded Working Families Coalition is a Liberal front being used to attack the Tories, skirting campaign spending laws.

McGuinty said he's not concerned about the appearance created by a $1.98 million provincial grant to Local 793 of the International Union of Operating Engineers, whose president heads the coalition.

Nothing to see here folks... move along now.

Technorati Tags: Dalton McGuinty, Working Families Coalition, International Union of Operating Engineers

You can have it...

Fast, good or cheap... pick any two.

-- TORONTO -- Canadian health department has advised people against using a Neem toothpaste from India, claiming that it contains high levels of harmful bacteria apart from a chemical found in antifreeze which was discovered earlier.

Neem Active Toothpaste with Calcium, made by Calcutta Chemical Co. Ltd. in India, should not be used, Health Canada warned.

Speaking of India, I recently went three rounds with a totally clueless minion from Sympatico's outsourced IT helpline... and let me tell you, we're talkin' "special with an R".

The person "assisting" me absolutely refused to diferentiate between Belleville and Brockville, Ontario... and I had to insist on talking to his manager to try make any sort of progress... which incidentally... we didn't.

I was fortunate enough the problem went away on its own.

The moral of this particular story is... if it's made in India... it ain't goin' in my mouth.

Technorati Tags: Health Canada, Calcutta Chemical Co., Neem Active Toothpaste

A Wuss in Chief's clothing

When even Uber-Pinko David Miller was forced to back down on the decal issue, I assumed this hot potato was cooked and served...

Toronto city council endorsed outfitting its emergency vehicles with supportive stickers in June, but Chief Bill Blair has decided they won't go on police cars.

Apparently Chief Bill Blair, despite having a "Support the Troops" decal on his personal vehicle, won't allow the same for police cruisers.

Apart from the obvious hypocrisy here, this decision ignores the will of city council, the people of Toronto and the police officers themselves.

Let the Chief know how you feel.

Email Police Chief Bill Blair

Or contact him at...

Toronto Police Service
40 College Street
Toronto, Ontario
Canada
M5G 2J3
Telephone 416 808-2222

Technorati Tags: Support the Troops, Chief Bill Blair, Toronto Police Service

She's back

I'd like to thank Wonder Woman for allowing me to house sit Paradise Island while she was on vacation.

You should drop by and see what the Lasso of Truth will be snaring this week.

Saudi Arabia suffers double-whammy

Roughly analogous to North America losing NASCAR and McDonalds at the same time...

Nearly 2,000 camels have died in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia due to suspected poisoned animal feed.

The animals began dying in the Dawasir Valley south of the capital Riyadh but other camel deaths have been recorded from Mecca to the border of Yemen.

Camels are traded by Bedouin tribes for thousands of dollars each. The animals are used for racing and are also eaten.

**********

AF'STAN UPDATE: Hey Mirwais, get over yourself

"To have a verse of the Koran on something you kick with your foot would be an insult in any Muslim country around the world."

Good grief.

I'm just not seein' it

"Hey doc... I'm feelin' kinda blue today... I was wondering if you could cut off my genitals and turn me into a really freakish approximation of a woman."

"Crazy?"

"Whaddaya mean, crazy"?

(via Jaeger at SDA)

Toronto troublemakers and agitators...

Are talking out their asses... yet again.

The committee is comprised of many members of the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty, which also hosts the Free Shawn Brant web page.

"Shawn really fits the profile of a political prisoner," he said, adding that Torontonians he has talked with seem to support Brant's release.

Nobody I've talked to considers Brant a political prisoner. They use words like thug and terrorist. The phrase "tarred and feathered" has come up on more than one occasion.

And while that may be how they see things down at OCAP HQ... the locals beg to differ.

Residents of Deseronto, where Brant's group has occupied a quarry since March 22, feel differently, said Mayor Norm Clark.

Many residents of the frustrated town, 60 per cent of which is encompassed in the Culbertson Tract land claim currently under negotiation, had a renewed faith in the justice system when Brant was denied bail, he said.

"I would even go so far as to say that if Mr. Brant was let out, a lot of people would lose faith in the system as we know it," he said.

So OCAP may just wanna steer clear of Deseronto for a while.

Their big city "agitprop" isn't gonna sell down here.

Technorati Tags: Shawn Brant, Ontario Coalition Against Poverty, Deseronto

Your money, their friends - PQ Edition

Apparently Premier Jean Charest is not that hard "to impress".

-- KUUJJUAQ, QUE. -- “What is happening today is a gesture of respect,” he said. “If you are experiencing problems in regards to drug abuse or alcohol abuse, if you feel these problems are bigger than you are, you now know that a call for help was expressed here.

"I was impressed by the ability of your community to say, ‘We need help.'"

See, here's an important difference...

A Conservative would be impressed by the ability of the community to help themselves... and thoroughly appalled by $170-million dollars worth of nanny-state compassion.

Gotta love those lefties.

Igor, get me some...

Glucuronolactone...

Internet rumors claimed this was a Vietnam-era experimental drug that causes brain tumors.

Luckily, that's not true.

But don't crumple up your tinfoil hat yet — hardly anyone has looked into exactly what this stuff does.

Better living through chemistry, I always say.

(via Mitchieville)

Reaping what you sow

I don't understand it... China's been doing so well with everything else lately...

The gender imbalance in China has reached alarming levels far exceeding UN recommendations, says China's Family Planning Association (CFPA).

There were 163.5 boys for every 100 girls aged up to four in the eastern city of Lianyungang, it said.

Abortions of female foetuses were the main cause of the imbalance, CFPA said.

**********

RELATED: The Politburo can't be wrong, can they?

Even if you don't have a problem with abortion... there's still a huge problem here.

The babies first born 25 years ago under China's government enforced one-child policy are now of marrying age.

Some say that as many as 40 million young Chinese men might be unable to find a wife and will spend their lives as bachelors.

**********

FROM THE COMMENTS: I missed the geopolitical aspect

"The Mongolians, Russians and Vietnamese should harden their borders. Within the next 10-20 years, China will conduct a war of conquest to use up its excess males usefully before they destroy the state."

Technorati Tags: one child policy, made in China, Monkey Mao

No Gun, TWO funerals

Maybe Liberal Attorney General Michael Bryant had better start shopping around for a new website...

Homicide detectives are on the hunt for yet another killer after a 20-year-old man was slain at an Etobicoke park late Wednesday, the second brutal stabbing death in the GTA in less than 24 hours.

The victim, whose name was not immediately released, was pronounced dead in hospital soon after. He was known to police.

Earlier in the day, around 7 a.m., Engin Yilmaz, 34, was found fatally stabbed in his chest in the parking lot of an East York lowrise.

Darn, I thought the Fiberals had it solved.

Technorati Tags: handgun ban, No Gun, No Funeral, Attorney General Michael Bryant

I'm thinking "eyebrow plucking..."

May not be their biggest problem here.

-- Tehran -- Iranian police have closed more than 20 barbers' shops in the capital Tehran.

The authorities say the barbers were encouraging un-Islamic behaviour by offering Western hairstyles, tattooing and also eyebrow-plucking for men.

The move is part of an annual campaign against what is known locally as bad hijab, or un-Islamic clothing, that this year is also targeting men.

The mullahs may find that, not everybody is overly enthusiastic about turning the historical clock back to, say... the middle-ages.

Damned if you do...

Damned if you don't.

-- OMAHA, Nebraska -- Meatpacking plant officials accused of discriminating against dozens of Somali Muslim workers have offered to tweak break times to help accommodate the workers' prayer demands.

And in the end, there's a pretty good chance you piss off way more people than you appease.

But the president of the local United Food and Commercial Workers Union said Thursday that changing the breaks might not be feasible for other workers in the plant.

"I don't know that I can agree to that because I have 1,700 other people to worry about," said Dan Hoppes, Local 22 union president. "I have to look and see what they've got in mind."

Ah yes... the Circle of Life.

**********

UPDATE: That "break thing" may be a moot point

-- WASHINGTON -- More than 1,200 people were arrested for alleged immigration violations in Tuesday's six-state raid on meat processing plants and about 65 of them face criminal charges, including identity theft, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said today.

Federal officials said Operation Wagon Train netted 1,282 individuals, the largest such crackdown on illegal immigration at a single worksite.

(via BloggingBlue)

Technorati Tags: maghrib prayer, Swift & Co., CAIR

One minute they're crappin'...

All over the mission... the next minute they're trying to buy votes, with the dead soldiers bodies...

A section of Canada's busiest highway might be renamed the Highway of Heroes to honour the path fallen soldiers take from Canadian Forces Base Trenton to the coroner's office in Toronto.

Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty said he will consider an online petition asking the Ministry of Transportation to change Highway 401's name.

Another cheap publicity stunt... like the Farmer Bob Rifle Registry.

Technorati Tags: Dalton McGuinty, Highway of Heroes, Fiberal smoke and mirrors

Your money, their friends... BC Edition

The former president and CEO of the B.C. Lottery Corporation has been awarded $603,362.70 in severance pay, the company announced Wednesday.

Vic Poleschuk was fired in June after the release of a tough report by the province's ombudsman raised questions about the management of the lottery system, pointedly noting that there was too little policing of ticket retailers.

Kim Carter said lottery officials had failed to protect consumers, and the system was open to abuse.

Does that sound familiar?

It should.

**********

RELATED: Your money... their members

If you thought Jack Layton...

Was the only slimeball low enough to play politics with the tragic deaths of our brave soldiers... you'd be wrong.

Bloc Québécois Leader Gilles Duceppe says he's ready to bring down Prime Minister Stephen Harper's government this fall if there's no firm commitment to withdraw Canadian troops from Afghanistan by February 2009.

Mr. Duceppe is also asking for an emergency debate on Canada's military role in Afghanistan when Parliament resumes on Sept. 17.

It seems "Ghoul Duceppe" is ready and willing, to piss on as many graves as is necessary, to advance his political career.

And it makes me sick.

**********

UPDATE: Two dead soldiers identified

Master Warrant Officer Mario Mercier, a member of 2nd Bataillon, Royal 22nd Regiment and Master Cpl. Christian Duchesne, of the 5th Field Ambulance, were both killed in Wednesday's incident -- which occurred at 6:19 a.m. local time.

They will be remembered.

**********

LAST WORD: Jack and Gilles admire their will...

Here's the guys that Taliban Jack and Ghoul Duceppe want to negotiate with...

-- KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN -- The operation that saw two Canadian soldiers and their interpreter killed in a mine strike Wednesday had its roots in a brazen attack last week on an Afghan district leader in front of his house.

It was the savage attack on Haji Kheerbin, the 48-year-old district chief of the volatile Zhari area about 30 kilometres west of Kandahar, that led to the mission.

Mr. Kheerbin was preparing for prayers with his three young children at his side here last Friday when a suicide bomber approached and blew himself up.

The youngsters, two sons aged 6 and 12 and a three-year-old daughter, died with their father in the blast.

It's like the love affair all the old lefties had with Stalin.

See No Evil.

Technorati Tags: Gilles Duceppe, Bloc Québécois, dishonour and disrespect

Surprise... a little political backbone

Can you imagine the shitstorm if this happened here in Canada?

A Palestinian football team has been banned from playing in Britain, because officials apparently believe they will not return to Gaza.

The team's visa applications were rejected after every member failed to meet entry criteria, said a spokesman for the British consulate in Jerusalem.

Some of the stiffest gun laws...

In the world... and the gangbangers don't even blink...

Local residents said the shots were fired by a teenage boy who rode past the Fir Tree pub in Croxteth on a BMX bike, with his face obscured by a hood.

The suspects arrested by the police are aged 14 and 18.

Paramedics worked to try to save Rhys, who had been playing football with friends, and he was said to be in a critical condition when he arrived at Alder Hey hospital. He was later confirmed dead.

Where is your "gun ban" now?

**********

RELATED: Can we ban knives too?

A man is facing a murder charge after a brutal stabbing yesterday morning claimed the life of a 35-year-old man and left residents of an East York apartment building shaken.

Tenants of 6 Milepost Pl., near Don Mills Rd. and Overlea Blvd., were awakened in their apartments by screams just after 7 a.m. and ran outside to find Engin Yilmaz lying lifeless in a pool of blood with several stab wounds to his chest.

Charged with second-degree murder is Hikmet Dasdemir, 35.

Profile the offenders... not the tools they use.

As much as it pains me to say this...

I'm with the Green Party on public funding of Roman Catholic schools...

“It's not fair to fund only one religion, and so the status quo is untenable and it has to change,” Mr. de Jong said.

“Either we go to funding all religions — which of course is a can of worms — or we go like Quebec, Manitoba and Newfoundland and switch to just funding one school system for each language.”

The Taliban may be fanatics...

But they're certainly not stupid... they realise they need to capitalise, right now, on all the vehement opposition to the war that's coming, in the largest measure, from Quebec.

-- VANCOUVER, British Columbia (Reuters) -- Two Canadian soldiers and an interpreter were killed and two journalists injured on Wednesday during an attack in southern Afghanistan, the Canadian military said.

What the surrender-monkeys have accomplished, in essence, is to paint big red targets on our soldiers backs.

I hope they're proud of themselves tonight.

**********

RELATED: That's why they call it war

So enough of this shit...

In addition, the grim appearance and destructive power of up to 15 Leopard tanks has the potential to further alienate Afghans already suspicious of foreign troops.

Hey Pierre, it's not some sort of boozy fete... it's about breakin' stuff and killing people.

And it's past time to choose sides.

**********

LAST WORD: A point of view...

From the man who buried Captain Matthew Dawe.

There was something distasteful in the many media commentaries about last week's Cabinet shuffle, arguing as it did the that the task of the new Minister of Defence, Peter MacKay, was to communicate the Afghan policy better than his predecessor, Gordon O'Connor.

The sense that this is simply a matter of better public relations is to understate the gravity of the issue.

In order to make an educated decision about a war, it is necessary to have some sense of the victories as well as the cost to be paid in blood and treasure.

Technorati Tags: Canadian casualties, 3e Bataillon du Royal 22e Regiment, Quebec

Gotta get my broker on the phone...

So I can buy 50,000 shares in the bold new enterprise that's curing cancer.

**********

LAST WORD: Hey Doc, is it okay if I...

Have a "sacred beer" with that?

Sacred Tobacco can be used as medicine alone or in combination with other plants/herbs to treat some illnesses.

Technorati Tags: Sacred Tobacco, Cancer Care Ontario, suckass political correctness

Setting the record straight

"What are you talking about?" cry the Fiberals... "We've got bags of money just laying around doin' nothing."

-- TORONTO -- Attorney General Michael Bryant says opposition to paying three-quarters of a million dollars to put Crown lawyers and judges up in luxury resorts is just “boneheaded.”

Turns out, it's those scary neo-cons you should really be pissed off at.

He says Conservative criticism of those professional development meetings is an attack on local jobs and the party owes the cottage country communities an apology.

So Michael... the justice system isn't so "overburdened" that it can't go on luxurious Liberal-sponsored junkets?

That's good to know.

Technorati Tags: Attorney General Michael Bryant, luxury resort, Liberal largesse

Quick and Dirty

Well, it's a start... I guess.

-- BEIJING, Aug 22 (Reuters) -- A Beijing factory sold up to 100,000 pairs of disposable chopsticks a day without any form of disinfection, a newspaper said on Wednesday, the latest in a string of food and product safety scares.

Officials raided the factory and seized about half a million pairs of disposable bamboo chopsticks and a packaging machine, the Beijing News said in a story headlined "Dirty Chopsticks".

**********

RELATED: One step forward, two steps back

-- WELLINGTON, NEW ZEALAND -- Chinese-made blankets containing high levels of formaldehyde have been recalled across Australia and New Zealand, the distributor said Wednesday, amid rising global concern over the safety of products from China.

Formaldehyde — a chemical preservative that gives a permanent press effect to clothes and is also used as an embalming fluid — can cause problems ranging from skin rashes to cancer.

Manufacturing Consensus

For the record, Stephen Harper’s cabinet has seven women out of twenty-six members, which makes for 27% women.

Let's consider that against, say, representation of women in the media...

You've gotta love the sheer hypocrisy.

Star quality

They've got us over a barrel here... we're obviously dealing with the Gretzkys of garbage...

Vancouver's striking outside workers will not be heading back to the job without a signing bonus, the union representing its 1,800 members said.

Here's a war...

That could actually affect you personally...

US job website Monster.com has suffered an online attack with the personal data of hundreds of thousands of users stolen, says a security firm.

"This remote server held over 1.6 million entries with personal information belonging to several hundred thousands of candidates, mainly based in the US, who had posted their resumes to the Monster.com website," reported Symantec.

It appears as though anybody who has ever used Ebay, or done any type of online shopping could be similarly exploited.

Symantec said it had seen reports of phishing e-mails sent out to Monster.com users which were "very realistic" and contained "personal information of the victims".

The e-mail encouraged users to download a Monster Job Seeker Tool, which was in fact a program that encrypted files in their computer and left a ransom note demanding money for their decryption.

The "double edged sword" of technology.

Technorati Tags: Monster.com, phishing, Monster Job Seeker Tool

My Canada includes Simon Longtin...

And the 3e Bataillon du Royal 22e Regiment...

Longtin's comrades bristled when asked about the lack of support for the war in their home province.

"They should inform themselves better. We're not here for nothing," said Auclair.

Derrick Farnham, a lieutenant with Quebec's Black Watch regiment who is stationed in Kandahar, agreed.

If there's a message soldiers in Afghanistan would like to convey, Farnham said in an e-mail, "it's that we want to be here and we want to finish the job we have come to do."

**********

RELATED: A statement from the Longtin family

"It is never easy for parents to lose one of their children. We are devastated by the death of our Simon, who left us in dignity while proudly serving his country with tremendous honor, amongst his brothers in arms in Afghanistan."

He will be remembered.

Technorati Tags: Simon Longtin, 3e Bataillon du Royal 22e Regiment, Quebec

WARNING!!!

Giving five dollar blowjobs to complete strangers in deserted back alleys so you can score your next shitload of heroin... CAN BE STRESSFUL!!!

Not to mention tough on the ol' tastebuds...

Falle and Jessica Lourenco, a fellow survivor of post-traumatic stress disorder, are eager to speak out about the trauma they experienced in their former profession.

They say they are among countless numbers of women who acquire the disorder while working as prostitutes.

And leave it to the Red Star to equate selling yourself to strangers... to the proud, dedicated and disciplined life of a soldier.

A 2003 study by California researcher Melissa Farley says about 68 per cent of sex workers surveyed in nine countries, including some from British Columbia, reported post-traumatic stress disorder on the same level as those who served in military combat.

Oh, by the way, it's not the clientele that make prostitution dangerous... it's the government... and by extension, I suppose... that damned Stephen Harper.

Scott, whose group is launching one of the lawsuits, says, "there's nothing inherently dangerous about prostitution. What makes it dangerous is the way the laws are set up in this country."

I thought I'd heard it all.

I was wrong.

Technorati Tags: five dollar blowjob, prostitution, post-traumatic stress disorder

Spinning straw into gold

They're not welfare moms... they're champions of social justice...

Yesterday, the Toronto Star reported on a hidden crisis of single mothers, mostly black, mostly in public housing and routinely living with fear and violence.

This could only be a "hidden crisis" to the heavily blinkered bolsheviks at the Red Star.

Okay Johnny... let's bring down our first contestant.

Gail Jordan is a revolutionary disguised as a bespectacled black woman in her 30s, pretty enough, but unprepossessing in a crowd.

C'mon, you shining hero of the leftbot media sponsored, painstakingly manufactured welfare mom revolution... sock it to me.

"The cycle of pain and despair has to be broken ... and I believe that personal responsibility is part of it."

See... that's where you're wrong lady.

"Personal responsibility is all of it."

And maybe if you actually believed part of what you're vomiting up for Suckass Central... you wouldn't be a single mother of four boys living in welfare hell.

But don't tell that to the Toronto Star.

**********

RELATED: Thank God he went after a cop...

And not somebody's kids...

He was a sweet-natured guy and an amazingly talented animator, super-smart and very thoughtful.

"His death was horrible -- it was a terrible misfortune," Boyd's animation colleague Bruce Alcock said Sunday. "He was not a violent person."

Well, that is... until he was.

Technorati Tags: Toronto Star, leftwing media bias, suckass political correctness

It ain't Toronto... but we're trying

Call me a wuss... but at 7:30 on a Saturday morning, I'll usually settle for an "Egg McMuffin".

Belleville police have charged a 47-year-old female with prostitution after she was seen "soliciting herself in front of a convenience store" early Saturday morning.

Don't worry... things will probably get a little more "metropolitan", once we get that casino.

Little new information has been provided by Baymount Incorporated surrounding the development of the new Quinte Exhibition and Raceway.

Hey, I'm just as happy with the Coe Hill Ag Fair.

Technorati Tags: Belleville, Ontario, coffee and hookers, Coe Hill Agricultural Fair

Thirty pieces of silver

Never one to just sit around while there are votes yet to be bought... the shameless Fiberal Bribe-O-Rama juggernaut continues its lightning advance.

-- OTTAWA -- Premier Dalton McGuinty will announce a four-year plan Monday to have the province take over social service costs now being paid by Ontario municipalities.

The Canadian Press has confirmed Mr. McGuinty will issue a pre-election pledge to upload $935-million in costs at an Ottawa meeting of the Association of Municipalities of Ontario.

The uploading plan would start Jan 1, if the McGuinty Liberals win re-election, and cover costs downloaded to municipalities by the previous Conservative government.

**********

RELATED: Just to be perfectly clear...

That's $935 million dollars for (cough, cough) social services.

-- TORONTO -- Toronto police have opened fire on fleeing vehicles in two separate incidents in the city's east end.

**********

LAST WORD: Who didn't make "The List"?

If we have money for every Tom, Vlad and Nouri, let's find some for that MRI machine at Sick Kids and fix the damn thing.

Technorati Tags: Dalton McGuinty, Hospital for Sick Children, fiberal smoke and mirrors

How long before Taliban Jack...

Starts laying more of his parasitical, treasonous eggs in this open wound?

-- KANDAHAR, Afghanistan -- A Canadian soldier was killed early Sunday by a roadside bomb, becoming the first member of Quebec's storied Van Doos regiment to die while serving in Afghanistan.

The solider has been identified as Pte. Simon Longtin from Longueuil, Quebec. Pte Longtin was a member of 3e Bataillon du Royal 22e Regiment, based out of Valcartier, Que.

Political observers will watch to see how the news reverberates in Quebec, where support for the war is the lowest of any province.

Now before TJ and Steffi go absolutely apeshit here, let's look at the actual numbers.

Sixty-seven Canadian soldiers and one diplomat have now died in Afghanistan since 2002.

That works out to roughly 11 deaths per year.

And while that is a tragedy for the families and friends of our fallen soldiers... I have just one question...

When are we gonna be surrendering Toronto?

In 2005 and 2006, over 100 people died at the hands of others in the Greater Toronto Area. Our interactive maps show where and when each of these deaths happened, as well as homicides in 2007 to date.

Perhaps Jack Layton should do a little more analysis before he pisses all over another brave soldier's grave.

I salute you Pte. Simon Longtin. You will be remembered.

**********

RELATED: Even so, our soldiers "stand and deliver"

Neither the death nor divided support at home in Quebec won't diminish the Van Doos' resolve, deputy commanding officer, Colonel Christian Juneau, said today.

"Though we are very saddened by this incident, Canadian troops remain committed" to the mission here, he said, adding that while Parliament may debate the merits of the operation, the "important thing for us soldiers" is that "we know the Canadian public is behind us."

Support the troops.

**********

LASTWORD: Not content to just report a death...

CBC has to try remind everybody that war is not nice.

Technorati Tags: Pte. Simon Longtin, Royal 22e Regiment, Afghanistan casualties

They say courage is...

Grace under pressure... here's a guy who managed to keep it together and save his own life.

-- GRANDE PRAIRIE, ALTA. -- A man armed with a machete-style hunting knife suffered serious injuries as he fought off and killed an angry mother grizzly bear.

Looks like this fortunate fellow has a story he can trot out and impress the grandkids with, somewhere down the road.

The man had bite marks and scratches and appeared to have at least one broken limb.

"That's good condition, considering," Const. Beattie said. "He ended up unintentionally cutting between the mom and the cubs, and as a result mom got a little upset and went after him."

I've gotta say though, I can't wait for PETA to get all over his ass about not carrying bear spray.

But I bet they don't do it in person.

**********

FROM THE COMMENTS: Bear's eye-view

The grizzly rammed into his stomach and then grabbed his left arm with its jaws. As the two went down, McLellan plunged the knife into its back between the shoulder and neck.

“I sunk it right to the end and instantly I could still see the blood spraying,” he said. “I must have hit an artery because I was covered head to toe with warmth instantly.”

The bear then bit him on his torso and his right arm but McLellan managed to stab it again twice in the neck. The grizzly then turned around and walked way, allowing McLellan to get up and walk away even though his left arm was now broken.

“I didn’t even look at her at all,” he said. “I didn’t even know I had killed it until the following day.”

No word yet on whether this guy's asshole will ever unpucker.

Technorati Tags: grizzly bear, Alberta Sustainable Resource Development, Grande Prairie

Noble stewards of Mother Earth...

Say, "Screw it... I want mine."

-- VANCOUVER -- Native fishermen are vowing to head out onto the lower Fraser River this weekend to fish for sockeye salmon – defying a federal ban – in part to protest against the continuing recreational fishery.

So, today or tomorrow, according to Mr. Crey, natives in fishing boats will cast nets into the Fraser, partly as a gesture of protest and partly as a way to stock their freezers for the winter.

No sense worrying about the future, huh guys? Maybe the Great Spirit can work a little "fish and loaves" magic of his own.

It sure sounds like we're gonna need a miracle.

At the root of the dispute is a stunning collapse in the size of this year's runs of sockeye on the Fraser, and the resulting plummet in the size of the allowable catch.

**********

FROM THE COMMENTS: The standard progressive retort...

From one of Red Tory's buddies.

"Hey Stalker? Suck my fat cock. :)"

Posted by Ti-Guy to halls of macadamia at 4:49 AM, August 19, 2007

Looks like Ti-Guy's having a little trouble getting to sleep.

Technorati Tags: Sto:lo, sockeye salmon, Fraser River

High def... dumb and blind

Cable TV has yet to make its way out to our rural neighbourhood... we only have two viewing options... satellite or ye olde antenna...

When Canada pulls the plug on analog signals in 2011, viewers who still rely on antenna will be forced to shell out for new technology or see their broadcasts fade to black.

Analog TV owners will need to replace their televisions with sets capable of receiving high-definition signals, or install converters that now cost $200 U.S.

It seems we're not alone, about three million Canadians still use rabbit ears or antennas for their TV signals. And that raises the spectre of a huge problem for the Canadian television indistry.

Canada is scrambling to end over-the-air analog TV signals to minimize repercussions from the U.S. shutdown in 2009. With nothing but high-definition TV signals coming from American broadcasters in 2009, the CRTC expressed concerns that Canadians may migrate to free U.S. stations for their TV -- especially in border towns such as Windsor, where at least 25 per cent of residents use antenna.

A similar problem occurred in the 1950s and '60s when American broadcasters began sending out TV signals in colour.

Canada's colour broadcasts lagged by about five years, and many people chose to watch U.S. channels on their new colour televisions.

Anybody else out there still living in the past?

Technorati Tags: high-definition, analog TV, CRTC

It makes as much sense...

As the rest of that Gore sponsored "enviro-malarkey".

Nearly 600 men and women volunteers have stripped naked to pose for US photographer Spencer Tunick on the slope of a melting Swiss glacier.

The photo shoot on the Aletsch glacier was commissioned by environmental group Greenpeace as part of a campaign to raise awareness about global warming.

I've always said there's nothing like naked, weathered ex-flower child ass... to raise the collective consciousness.

Somebody get me a drink.

Technorati Tags: Greenpeace, Spencer Tunick, Aletsch glacier

Don't worry Scarborough Southwest...

Comrade Dion knows what's best for you.

-- OTTAWA -- Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion has invoked his contentious power of appointment, naming veteran party activist Michelle Simson as the next Liberal candidate in Scarborough Southwest.

Mr. Dion defended his use of the rarely used appointment power on the grounds that it will help him meet his commitment of running at least one-third female candidates in the next election.

There are doubts, even within the Liberal Party, about Dion stepping all over democratic process.

One long-time Toronto Liberal who did not want to be identified said the decision not to have an open nomination race will hurt the party's support in the multicultural riding.

“The people of Scarborough Southwest might take revenge on the Liberal Party and not vote for her,” the Liberal said. “Here you have one of the highest ethnically diverse ridings in the country, [and] a Caucasian woman being appointed.”

The people have King has spoken.

**********

RELATED: It's not about democracy...

It's about the Fiberals "nanny state" mentality.

I don't profess to know Michelle Simson, but in a quick scan of her bio, she looks like a very strong candidate, with DEEP roots in the party.

In this instance, it begs the question - does Simson really need Dion intervening, is she not capable of winning the nomination outright?

Obviously Stéphane Dion doesn't think so.

Technorati Tags: Michelle Simson, Scarborough Southwest, Stéphane Dion

Think of it as another "Long March"

If the Chinese weren't already a nation of atheists, they'd be thinking God was out to get them.

-- THE HAGUE, Netherlands -- A chain of Dutch bed stores said it is recalling more than 1,300 Chinese-made foam mattresses amid fears they were sprayed with toxic insecticide.

Beter Bed Holding announced the recall after tests on a shipping container holding more than 700 mattresses found they contained poison, possibly as a result of being sprayed to kill insects in wooden packaging.

And who exactly is in charge of Quality Control... the Red Army?

"You can do that with solid stuff, but not of course with food, textiles, stuff people sleep on," Beter Bed spokesman Richard Neve said. "If you put a chemical compound on a (foam) sleeping mattress, like a sponge it fills itself up."

Sometimes you just can't win for losing.

Ironically, the spraying may have been part of a Chinese move to ensure exports were not infected.

**********

RELATED: Poison, theft... what's the big deal?

When a friend complimented Niagara winemaker Allan Schmidt for successfully cracking the icewine market in mainland China, Schmidt dismissed it: He wasn't selling his wine in China, he said.

Then the friend gave him a link to a website. Schmidt was stunned.

There, a Chinese company was selling a product called Vineland icewine, boasting of a joint venture with a Canadian partner and, to top it all off, using a panoramic view of Schmidt's own winery on its Web page.

"They'd taken it right off our website," Schmidt says in a telephone interview. "I was upset."

Technorati Tags: Beter Bed Holding, BeddenReus, made in China

Don't worry, it was probably I-Koran

A Muslim juror accused of listening to an MP3 player under her headscarf during a murder trial will face no further action.

Ruhela Khanom, 20, was serving on jury panel when she was accused of secretly listening to music during the trial of pensioner Alan Wicks, who was later jailed for life for bludgeoning his wife to death.

(via Theo Spark)

Remember, "I won't raise your taxes"?

Whaddaya figure McGuinty's gonna lie about next?

-- TORONTO -- The Ontario government had a surplus of $2.3-billion in the 2006-07 fiscal year but used it to pay off some of the provincial debt, and never considered reducing or eliminating the province's controversial health tax, Finance Minister Greg Sorbara said Friday.

Has anybody added up the cost of all the Fiberals pre-election bribery?

“Every time this guy who claims to be a finance minister puts on a new pair of pants he seems to find $2-billion,” said Mr. Tory, a former president of Rogers Cable.

“I can assure you, having run a large organization before, you don't just find $2-billion.”

C'mon Dalton... gimme back my money.

Whaddaya say...

We figure out how to deliver affordable, adequate heath care to law-abiding, tax paying citizens... before we try to save all the scum-sucking junkies from themselves.

-- VANCOUVER -- Two drug addicts and a group that runs Canada's only safe-injection site have launched court action in an effort to pre-empt any federal effort to close the place.

They argue Insite provides a health service under provincial jurisdiction so the federal government shouldn't play any role in its future. And they say its closure would violate addicts' Charter rights to “security of the person.”

And, by the way, it'd better not be my tax dollars that's paying the freight here.

**********

RELATED: C'mon over here, ya freakin parasites... I'll inject you with something

**********

LAST WORD: It's a mad, mad world

This slays me. A camera on every telephone pole and fence post, parents buying their kids kevlar lined school uniforms, but I'M the crazy one for wanting to keep a gun at home.

Technorati Tags: safe injection site, Insite, junkie trash

Steffi keeps forgetting...

That he barely even got elected Liberal Leader... never mind Prime Minister of Canada...

-- OTTAWA -- Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion has issued a list of demands that he says Prime Minister Harper should make when he meets next week with U.S. President George W. Bush.

He'd be way further ahead demanding Michael Ignatieff stop haunting his screaming, fitful dreams.

FROM THE COMMENTS: Canadi-anna said...

The Liberals were in power for six of George's years in power. I guess they just forgot to submit their demands back then, brave, brave people that they are.

**********

LAST WORD: Time for another "emergency treatment"?

Technorati Tags: Stéphane Dion, George W. Bush, Prime Minister Harper

Another Aboriginal Triumph

Well, there's one thing they're good at... screwing over the "Great White Mother".

-- WINNIPEG -- A Manitoba native group misspent more than $6 million in federal health-care funds on exotic trips and unjustified payments to the organization's CEO, a federal audit has revealed.

The audit revealed several examples of questionable spending, including insufficiently supported payments to chiefs and councils, questionable travel claims and professional fees for third-party firms that were paid to the group's CEO.

Just one question here...

If the government has enough accountants and computing power to suck regular taxpayers dry... why can't they track this larceny?

Health Minister Tony Clement blamed the mismanagement of funds on the former Liberal government, and said Health Canada is taking steps to ensure the government has more control over future funding agreements.

"I think when the Liberals were in power and this occurred, political oversight and accountability wasn't something they were terribly interested in."

Ah yes, the Fiberals...

"Your money, their friends."

**********

RELATED: Who failed Adam Keeper?

Nancy Keeper, the addictions worker on the dry Pauingassi First nation reserve (former home of murdered six-year-old Adam Keeper) who was caught with 161 bottles of whisky has caught the eye of the federal government.

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LAST WORD: And Jesus wept...

Technorati Tags: Anishinaabe Mino-Ayaawin, Health Canada, Pauingassi First Nation

Hey, all you big city snob-holes...

We've got culture and diversity... coming out our asses.

-- MAYNOOTH -- The Shot & Bottle Lounge at the old Arlington Hotel will be hopping tonight, and not because the deer hunt has somehow come early and the strippers have made their annual migration from Toronto to entertain the orange blaze crowd north of the Madoc-Dixon Line.

Icarus

The closest I ever came to doing this was back in the eighties, (probably don't have to mention it was before I was married), when I had a subscription to Kitplanes magazine.

Ranging from what resemble go-karts with wings to stand-ins for military spy planes, ultralight aircraft represent the fastest-growing segment of aviation in Canada - despite a steady stream of high-profile accidents.

Devotees can spend as little as $1,500 on a flying machine that looks like something Wile E. Coyote would order from the Acme Corporation, or the equivalent of a down payment on a lightweight factory-built plane.

It's still tempting, I tell you.

What's life without a dream?

***********

RELATED: Mrs. Neo begs to differ...

Although I have often said that if we were to win a million dollars in the lottery, (which would be quite an accomplishment, considering we don't buy tickets) I would rush out and buy a bulldozer... my wife retains a decidedly female suspicion of powered machinery.

She threatened last night to post a comment on the blog... pointing out that I had once again accidentally altered the lines of another pair of heavy-duty workpants with the chainsaw.

Now, it's true there is the occasional glitch, in what I portray as "life in paradise."

There was a moment there, when I felt the whirring carbon steel teeth nuzzling at my knee, that I thought, "Oh shit, you've really done it now"... but after a quick check to confirm the absence of arterial spray and securing a wad of paper towel (reminder to self, get a proper first-aid kit) to the affected area with a bungee cord... it was back to deforestation.

And despite a few inevitable trade-offs... all the poor corporate serfs mired in misery down there at Castlefrank and Bloor can still kiss my rural rectum... cos' I'm never going back.

Technorati Tags: ultralight, living the dream, still a few bugs in the system

I can't wait to see the counter-suit...

For diaper changes, clothing and twenty years of room & board.

-- SURREY, B.C. -- A middle-aged Surrey man who alleges his father beat him and made him hand over his paycheques, including what he earned as a newspaper delivery boy, is suing his dad for $56,588.

You've just gotta love the retroactivity built into the Canadian legal system. If I'd known about this while my father was still alive, I could have sued him for all the pain and suffering he inflicted on me while he was teaching me to drive.

The son, now a construction worker, alleges his father started demanding the money he earned as a 16-year-old newspaper delivery boy in 1973. He says the demands continued when he took a part-time job at a restaurant while in school, after dropping out of school and when he worked at a boat plant.

This is certainly one way to announce to the world that you're a whiney, little suckass who never grew up.

Good luck with the rest of your life.

Technorati Tags: Peter Kalashnikoff, theatre of the absurd, sucky little baby

Paying Peter to subvert Paul

Trust me, I'm from the government... I'm here to save you.

-- WASHINGTON -- The Census Bureau wants immigration agents to suspend enforcement raids during the 2010 census so the government can obtain an accurate count of illegal immigrants.

Supporters of stricter immigration laws said the whole discussion of suspending raids shows that the immigration system is broken.

"If you don't enforce your laws, this is what you are going to get, one agency asking another agency to subvert the law," said Steven Camarota of the Center for Immigration Studies, which advocates stricter enforcement of immigration laws.

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RELATED: Meanwhile, Canada takes a reciprocal bearing

-- OTTAWA -- While the United States Congress turns up its nose at immigration reform, Canada is poised to start negotiations that would bring even more Mexican workers into this country.

An agreement to strike a commission into increased labour mobility is expected to be among the key accomplishments connected with next week's summit of North American leaders in Montebello, Que.

Mexico's ambassador to Canada, Emilio Goicoechea, said in an interview that the idea is to expand an already successful program that brings in thousands of Mexican agricultural workers every year.

Technorati Tags: illegal immigration, Census Bureau, tale of two countries

C'mon... don't be unreasonable

It's not like she was a high school student... I think.

-- MONTREAL -- Montreal's largest school board may appeal an order to rehire a teacher who failed to mention in his job application that he served seven years in prison for killing his wife.

An arbitrator ruled the Quebec charter of rights says there is no reason to fire a person if he has been convicted of a crime that's not linked to his job.

Lemme see if I follow the logic here.

If this guy had been convicted of groping a teenage girl, he'd be out on his ass... no question.

Now... because he only killed his wife, he gets a pass?

Oh, no Canada.

**********

RELATED: Human Rights or human wrongs?

"Freedom of speech is an American concept, so I don't give it any value."

Technorati Tags: Quebec charter of rights, Jean-Alix Miguel, Quebec Superior Court

A sociopathic, bloodthirsty deity...

By any other name... would smell just as sweet.

-- AMSTERDAM -- A Roman Catholic Bishop in the Netherlands has proposed people of all faiths refer to God as Allah to foster understanding, stoking an already heated debate on religious tolerance in a country with one million Muslims.

Boy... that sure isn't the "fierce, fanatical nuns kicking Catholic schoolboy ass" church I remember.

(via SDA)

Ethnic-cleansing update

Ah yes, that age-old question... if your god wants you to do it, is it really a sin?

-- BAGHDAD -- The Interior Ministry said Thursday that at least 400 people were killed in a string of suicide bombings targeting an ancient religious sect in northwestern Iraq earlier this week.

Ministry spokesman Brig. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf said that 2 tons of explosives were used in the blasts, which crumbled buildings, trapping entire families beneath mud bricks and other wreckage as entire neighborhoods were flattened near the Syrian border.

That special time of year

Yessiree... time to bring back that diesel suckin', carbon spewing dozer of death... to finish razing my own little stump-strewn rural route to nowhere.

Out back again yesterday afternoon... slangin' firewood and cleaning up the slash along the margins of the bush road running through our 20 acres of mixed woods. A few scary moments bringing down a hundred plus foot poplar that had fallen over slightly onto its neighbour and was looming over my "fight-of-way".

Anyway, it's finally all dried up back there and the bugs have almost disappeared... so I guess it's that time of year when men's thoughts turn to the finer things in life.

Just the thought of it makes me inordinately happy... as I wrote last year at the start of the project...

NEWSFLASH for Guys

For just today, forget politics, forget the Islamic bomb, forget the real world runs on a sea of grease.

If you don't love bulldozers, you'd better drop what you're doing and go straight to the nearest sex-change clinic... because you ARE officially a woman.

Technorati Tags: country life, politically incorrect, diesel suckin', carbon spewing dozer of death

I wouldn't have thought it possible...

But, believe it or not... "Magic Bullet Lady" makes "Green Helmet Guy" look like a freakin' genius.

**********

RELATED: And there's more

*

A little stab'll do ya

I don't think I'll be heading down to Queen St. West, anytime in the near future...

A Queen St. W. safety audit released by the Toronto Association of Business Improvement Areas cited graffiti on storefronts, assaults on business owners, break-ins, vagrants sleeping on doorsteps and open drug and alcohol abuse.

"The laneways we examined were `no-go' areas, completely taken over by vandalism and evidence of drinking, drug use and other inappropriate activities. Business owners who rely on access to their establishments through the rear laneway face potential risk any time they open their back door," the report said.

The association also places the blame on four nearby social service agencies, including St. Christopher House. Patrons acted aggressively and harassed passersby.

Denial ain't just a river in Egypt.

Deputy Mayor Joe Pantalone, who represents the area, said one shouldn't let the complaints of a few residents give a skewed perspective of the street, which has the highest concentration of art galleries and artists in the city.

"It's one of the safest neighbourhoods in the city of Toronto. It is now and is continuing to be."

Yeah sure Joe... tell that to Ross Hammond.

Technorati Tags: Ross Hammond, Toronto homicide, Miller's Metrosexual Mecca

Befehl ist Befehl

Chuck Guite trots out the Nuremburg Defense.

-- QUEBEC CITY -- Charles (Chuck) Guite says he was just following orders when he doled out millions of taxpayers' dollars to ad agencies in return for little or no work on the sponsorship program.

I'm not really sure why Chuckie thought this would work... it seems about as persuasive as the infamous, "But mom, all the other guys are doing it" gambit I used to use when I was twelve years old. Significantly, like a small boy, he's also pointing fingers at uber-fiberals Alfie Gags and Teflon Jean.

Guite lays the blame for the scandal directly on his higher-ups -- former minister of public works Alfonso Gagliano and former prime minister Jean Chretien. He says the suit against him should be dropped and those in power at the time should be sued instead.

Funny how a 30 million dollar lawsuit can lubricate even a bureaucratic bagmans' conscience. He certainly was a little less willing to give it up at his original trial...

Guite showed little emotion during the sentencing and had nothing to say before Quebec Superior Court Justice Fraser Martin handed down the sentence.

"Perhaps the most disappointing aspect of this case is Mr.Guite's studied and persistent lack of remorse," Martin said.

"A studied and persistent lack of remorse."

Which really sums up this whole dirty, distasteful business.

Remember, "Friends don't let friends vote Liberal".

**********

RELATED: More "Entitled to his entitlements"

-- OTTAWA -- The RCMP laid charges of fraud, breach of trust and obstruction of justice yesterday against Senator Raymond Lavigne, a Chrétien-era patronage appointee who is suspended from the Liberal caucus but continues to receive his salary.

The obstruction of justice charge stems from Mr. Lavigne's conduct when the Senate started investigating his activities in 2006.

"It is alleged that he asked his employees to make false statements before and after the Senate started its investigation," RCMP Sergeant Monique Beauchamp said.

Mr. Lavigne has recently been on medical leave, but senators asked to hire a doctor to check whether he actually underwent hemorrhoid surgery.

Well... something certainly smells here.

Technorati Tags: Chuck Guite, Alfonso Gagliano, Jean Chretien

Now, everybody just calm down

I'm sure Allah had a perfectly good reason for willing the slaughter of a couple of hundred Kurds.

-- Mosul, Iraq -- At least 175 people have been killed in a series of suicide bomb attacks in northern Iraq, Iraq's military says.

The blasts apparently targeted a Kurdish religious minority, the Yazidi sect, near Mosul. At least four blasts hit areas which house the community.

Just a bunch of filthy infidels, right?

What a brilliant plan too. Unlike going after soldiers, these poor villagers don't have weapons and can't shoot back.

Local emergency services officials tell NPR — unofficially — that as many as 500 could be wounded and that the toll could rise.

"This is a terrorist act and the people targeted are poor Yazidis who have nothing to do with the armed conflict," said Dhakil Qassim, mayor of Sinjar, a town near where the attacks occurred.

Onward brave jihadis.

Technorati Tags: Yazidi, Mosul, will of Allah

Make up your mind

Do you wanna be a mullah... or a cop?

Tahmourpour, 35, began his second hearing in front of the commission yesterday by painting a bleak picture of an RCMP unwilling to accept diversity within its academy.

Oh puh-leeese... not another "incredibly qualified, but rejected by racist anglo-saxon society" fairy tale. Everybody knows Canadian police forces are bending over backward to recruit and hire visible minorities.

He described his first fitness class, where cadets were ordered to remove all jewellery. Tahmourpour asked a sergeant if he could keep wearing his religious pendant. The sergeant agreed but then mocked him in class for wanting to wear it.

"It ostracized me. It singled me out," he said. "It was the first destructive moment in my training."

No, you dickhead... you ostracized yourself.

And, affirmative action notwithstanding, there's a weeding out process... you don't get to qualify just because you show up.

I hope.

Technorati Tags: Ali Tahmourpour, RCMP, suckass political correctness

You have the right...

To be put down like the mad dog you obviously are.

-- VANCOUVER -- Police shot and killed a chain-wielding man after he attacked two officers in Vancouver's south Granville district.

“As they got out of their vehicle a man attacked them with a chain, striking one of our members in the head, the second one in the face,” Const. Chow said Tuesday.

“This man was shot by the third member. He's dead. One of our members that was hit in the head was rushed to hospital.”

You can take your "root causes" and bury them with this piece of shit.

Good riddance to bad rubbish.

The future is our, uh...

Any parent will tell you, here's nothing worse than having a sick child... unless it's having a critically ill child...

The Hospital for Sick Children may be one of the best in the world, but right now there are children in need of diagnoses on waiting lists because it is operating with one functional MRI machine.

Now, with all the Fiberal jibber-jabber from the McGuinty government about how they're improving healthcare for Ontarians... you'd think this one would be a no brainer...

It's the province's shame that this has created an extensive backlog of kids -- who may be critically ill and in need of fast medical intervention -- waiting in line.

Normally, Sick Kids has just two MRI machines, which is already problematic enough for the overworked staff and under-serviced patients.

It seems that, with an election looming, this just isn't on the Fiberal's radar... even at this critical juncture, at what is arguably the finest children's hospital in this part of the world.

George Smitherman and Dalton McGuinty are too busy trying to get re-elected to deal with this critical issue.

They actually need a third one. But first things first. They need to get their second one, closed for upgrading, up and running again first.

It's funny though, Dalton's apparently got plenty of cashola to spread around on the scorching hot, high profile topic of the environment.

-- OAKVILLE -- Ontario is setting an ambitious example for the rest of the world by committing $79 million to plant 50 million trees to fight climate change and create a greener landscape for future generations, Premier Dalton McGuinty said yesterday.

This Liberal government just doesn't care about screwing over our sick kids... now there's an "inconvenient truth."

**********

RELATED: More McGuinty pre-election bribery

Whaddaya know... Dalton found 300 million dollars under the cushions on the sofa.

Technorati Tags: Dalton McGuinty, Hospital for Sick Children, fiberal smoke and mirrors

Diversity is good... right?

I mean, everybody says so... hell, it's all over tv, it's a political no-brainer, it's even embedded in our kids' school curriculum...

And, now, along comes Robert Putnam, an influential social scientist from Harvard who has done the biggest study yet on diversity and its impact.

Mr. Putnam isn't all that thrilled with what he's found. He checked and cross-checked his data for years before publishing his findings. By inclination, he is liberal-minded, and he knows his work will be used by racists and nativists to prove they were right all along.

Unfortunately, unlike Al Gore and the "Global Sky is Warming" crowd... Putnam isn't willing to skew his data to arrive at some warm fuzzy-bunny conclusion.

This is awkward stuff. Mr. Putnam's work is a sharp rebuke to the brand of feel-good multiculturalism that has ruled Canada for decades - the sunny belief that says diversity is good for its own sake and that, if we all hold hands and teach our children the right lessons about celebrating difference, all will be well. Better than well, in fact.

The official version is that difference makes us stronger. We have no idea what to do if the opposite turns out to be the case.

In any case, there's no putting the genie back in the bottle at this stage of the game.

Hang on, it should be an interesting ride.

(via Daimnation)

**********

RELATED: "An Inconvenient Correction"

While we're on the topic of hard science...

In his enviro-propaganda flick, An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore claims nine of the 10 hottest years on record have occurred in the last decade.

That's been a common refrain for environmentalists, too, and one of the centrepieces of global warming hysteria: It's been really hot lately -- abnormally hot -- so we all need to be afraid, very afraid.

The trouble is, it's no longer true.

Technorati Tags: Robert Putnam, multiculturalism, suckass political correctness

Deja vu... all over again

It really doesn't matter what toy exactly is being recalled here... the relevant fact is that if you haven't gone through your children's toys and dumped anything that was made in China -- you're a dope.

-- NEW YORK -- Mattel Inc. is set to announce the recall of a Chinese-made toy as early as Tuesday because it may contain excessive amounts of lead paint. The expected announcement would mark the second recall involving lead paint by the world's largest toy maker within two weeks.

The latest recall, whose details could not be immediately learned, involves a different Chinese supplier, according to three people close to the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation.

**********

RELATED: Wall Street Journal explores in depth

Prof. Johnson at Dartmouth said buyers may be able to thoroughly enforce outside standards in China only by having their own people working and living at facilities -- not by simply conducting the periodic audits that many smaller toymakers have come to rely on.

"You flip on the lights and the cockroaches disappear," he said. "And the factories often know that the lights are getting switched on beforehand."

**********

LAST WORD: Pearly whites vs. Pearly Gates

-- Indianapolis -- A leading supplier of toiletries for luxury hotels has recalled complimentary tubes of Chinese-made toothpaste worldwide after tests showed some contain a potentially toxic chemical.

The toothpaste was made in China by Ming Fai Enterprises International Co. Ltd.

Technorati Tags: Mattel Inc, lead paint, Merchant of Death

I love Lebanon and I love Hezbollah

Hussein Dabaja is no wallflower, he lets you know just where he stands...

"I love Canada, I love Lebanon and I love Hezbollah," Hussein said sitting in his Windsor living room, a Hezbollah flag hanging on the wall. "What I say, most Lebanese feel, but they're scared. I'm not scared because I didn't do anything wrong."

"I have nothing to hide."

Well, that's a pretty bold statement... most of us have at least one thing in our lives we aren't especially proud of.

I've gotta wonder, though... how many Hussein Dabajas' do you suppose there are... living in Windsor, Ontario?

The reason I ask is, one of them likes to write hot cheques...

This Hearing arises out of a Notice of Proposal issued by the Registrar on April 6, 2006 seeking to revoke the registrations of the Hameed Al-Tai o/a GMB Auto Sale Shoppe as a Dealer and the individual Applicant, Hussein Dabaja as a salesperson under Section 6 of the Motor Vehicle Dealers Act.

The reason for the Registrar‘s Proposal is that the past conduct of the Registrants is inconsistent with the intention and objective of the Act, namely that the business they are engaged in be carried on in accordance with the law and with integrity and honesty.

Now... it'd just defy reason for anyone who indulges in this type of criminal behaviour, to want to plaster his face all over the newspapers, pledging his undying support for a terrorist group... wouldn't it?

It must be some other Hussein Dabaja.

Technorati Tags: Hezbollah, Hussein Dabaja, Windsor, Ontario

Bright lights, big city

I've got an idea -- let's go find a really kind, really old lady... and beat her to death.

-- MONTREAL (CP) -- An 81-year-old nun who cared for addicts and mental patients was beaten to death Monday in the convent where she worked.

Montreal police arrested a 31-year-old man who was a resident at the convent's transition centre for drug addicts and psychiatric patients.

I know what kind of "safe injection" I'd like to give this sociopath.

Wind in the willows

Kept the boy up late last night so we could lie out in the back yard, eat caramel corn and gawk at the Perseid meteor shower. Nothing like staring out into the speckled void of eternity to really put things into perspective.

Obviously, human beings are a flea on the ass of the universe. The boy just asked if we could do it again tonight... a perfect dad moment.

This afternoon I grabbed up the Stihl and trekked out back for a little "chainsaw therapy". Lots of sun and birdsong... the bugs are on the wane.

A couple of hours bucking firewood into lengths and another trailer load of winter warmth is ready for the splitter.

Rounded out the day with canneloni and a Corona. The word superlative comes to mind.

Now, this may sound a little smug, but I just can't help wondering how all that stacks up, against whatever the Bay St. boys and other assorted urban serfs felt they actually accomplished over the last 24 hours.

It isn't too late... get out while you can.

"Red Star" paints a pretty picture...

Of the homicidal, knife-wielding vagrants...

"We had all eaten really well that night ... we all had money, so it wasn't like we were desperate," MacPhee said, as he sat under an awning at the corner of Queen St. W. and Bathurst St., sheltering from the rain yesterday afternoon.

"There was nothing crazy going on. I don't really see how shit turned so sour."

They weren't hungry and they had money... so they killed this guy, for what... just to see the look on his face?

The Star however, skips over inconvenient stuff like the victim.

The dead guy?

He's just another piece of meat.

Technorati Tags: Ross Hammond, Toronto homicide, Miller's Metrosexual Mecca

Hezbollah go home

I don't believe it... instead of falling to their knees in front of every carping, self-involved, special-interest group extant, the city of Windsor, Ontario actually faces down supporters of a declared terrorist organisation...

The billboard depicting Hezbollah's controversial leader, which caused an uproar across Windsor, was quietly replaced Monday morning with an advertisement for a car dealership.

The sign was erected Friday morning at the corner of Wyandotte Street East and Marion Avenue, and immediately drew fire from the Windsor Jewish Community Centre, the Lebanese Christian political group Kataeb and others.

Let Mayor Eddie Francis know how you feel.

Mayors Office
350 City Hall Square West
P.O. Box 1607
Windsor, Ontario
Canada
N9A6S1

Tel. (519) 255-6315
Fax. (519) 255-7796

I'm guessing Mayor Francis didn't stop to ask himself, "What would David Miller do?"

Technorati Tags: Hezbollah, Windsor, Ontario, Hassan Nasrallah

Even old hippies have a price

Yeah man... it's all about peace and love... and let's not forget, the eight million dollars...

-- BETHEL, N.Y., Aug. 9 -- Inside an old wood-beamed farmhouse with picture windows on a hillside here, the chirp of the telephone pierced the air roughly every five minutes Thursday morning with another inquiry about the sale of “Yasgur’s Farm,” a house and a piece of land that the 1969 Woodstock music festival made famous, at least among members of the scattered tribe of a certain time.

"We are stardust... we are golden..."

Technorati Tags: Woodstock, Yasgur’s Farm, cashing in

Has anybody told Jack Layton?

No "foreign white devils" need apply.

-- KHARTOUM, Sudan -- The Sudanese government is adamantly opposed to non-Africans playing any major role in the hybrid U.N.-African Union operation that was authorized by the U.N. Security Council on July 31 and will be made up of 20,000 peacekeepers and 6,000 civilian police.

What's the big rush here anyway? It's not like anybody's, well... wait a minute...

Disagreements over the composition of the mission were a major reason the authorization was delayed for months despite mounting pressure for Sudan to accept help end nearly four years of internal conflict in which more than 200,000 people have died and 2.5 million have been displaced.

Alpha Oumar Konare fiddles... while Darfur burns.

Technorati Tags: Darfur, African Union, United Nations

Go BIG, or go home

Canada consistently punches well above its political and military weight on the international scene... and these planes will allow us to do even more.

-- Abbotsford, BC -- The first of four Boeing C-17s that will eventually be delivered to the Canadian military soared past a mountain backdrop to land at the Abbotsford, B.C. airport as the star attraction of the annual air show.

It even works out for the demented lefties who want to take away our soldiers' guns and replace them with rakes and shovels.

Among the soldiers who will most feel the effects of having the new planes are members of Canada's Disaster Assistance Response Team. Loads that took 24 flights in a Hercules to deploy to the tsunami disaster zone in southeast Asia in 2004 will now take just one trip.

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RELATED: Pay me now... or pay me later

Technorati Tags: Boeing C-17, Disaster Assistance Response Team, Canadian Forces Base Trenton

A little unclear on the concept

It's like having a bit of war-torn Lebanon... right here in Canada.Good idea... that oughta calm things down.

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UPDATE: It's Stephen Harper's fault anyway

"The reason for the problems, the responsibility is the Canadian government," he said. "The Canadian government made the Lebanese feel the government is against them. Canada needs to fix the mistake it made and take Hezbollah off the terrorist list."

"They labelled Hezbollah as a terrorist without having respect for the Muslim people."

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LAST WORD: I can feel the love already

The Lebanese Canadian Coordinating Council views publicly advocating or promoting Hezbollah's party leader as an abuse of freedom of expression; rather, it is a blatant assault directed towards all those Canadians who believe in human rights, peace, democracy and tolerance .

Therefore, we call on the Canadian judiciary, security authorities, and Parliament to look thoroughly into this unacceptable conduct and take immediate action to put an end to such an underhanded attempt, as simple as it might look, that might threaten Canada's stability and peace.

Technorati Tags: Nasrullah, cross-cultural pollination, You Only Have God to Count On

Canadian Bar Association forever cements...

Their unsavoury reputation in the eyes of Canadian citizens.

-- Calgary -- Lawyers for a Canadian terror suspect imprisoned in Guantanamo Bay – Omar Khadr – reacted in shocked disbelief Saturday after their call for the Canadian Bar Association to pressure the federal government to help Mr. Khadr drew a standing ovation and a promise of action from CBA president Parker MacCarthy.

"Shocked disbelief" doesn't begin to cover it.

Right about the time the Bar Association was cheering on the enemy... Canadian soldiers are injured by Khadr's comrades-in-arms.

I can't imagine what our troops in Afghanistan, will make of this shameful betrayal.

Oh... Canada.

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RELATED: Time to overhaul broken legal system

-- EDMONTON -- A teenage gang member wanted in a cold-blooded slaying of a Nashville market owner has been granted refugee status by a Canadian judge, delaying efforts to have him returned to Tennessee to face charges.

Technorati Tags: Omar Khadr, Guantanamo Bay, Canadian Bar Association

Toronto... as violent as it gets

"Spare change, got any spare change... c'mon now, don't make me kill you".

-- Toronto -- Police said 32-year-old Ross Hammond, who was stabbed Thursday after an argument escalated into violence, succumbed to his wounds early Saturday morning.

Four panhandlers, all in their early 20s, currently face charges of aggravated assault and weapons offences, but Giroux said he expected the charges to be upgraded in light of Hammond's death.

Surprise... more murder at Loony Left Central.

Maybe they heard David Miller was gonna cut out extra dessert at the local homeless shelter.

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RELATED: As far as Mayor Miller's concerned...

This one doesn't really count.

Panhandlers aggressively approaching Toronto citizens has been a sensitive and controversial issue.

On June 1, the city launched a pilot project to probe aggressive panhandling.

Hammond's slaying fell within the project's timeline – which runs until Sept. 30 – but outside its boundaries. The test area runs east from Spadina Ave. to Jarvis St., and from Yorkville Ave. to Queen's Quay.

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FROM THE COMMENTS: Hey, Mr Attorney-General

Joanne wants to know...

What happened to, "No Gun, No Funeral"?

Technorati Tags: Ross Hammond, Toronto homicide, Miller's Metrosexual Mecca

The thrill of the chase

Blogging will be light today, as Mrs. Neo remains firmly convinced we don't have nearly enough expensive, esoteric stuff manufactured before the turn of the century.

The Odessa Antique Show has become a popular summer tradition so don’t miss it this weekend as it kicks off Saturday.

Antique dealers from all over Ontario and Quebec will meet for the two-day event to display a wide range of antiques and collectables.

Anybody with a matched set of vintage cast iron rabbits for sale... could save me a whole lot of grief, not to mention gas money...

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UPDATE:

No cast iron rabbits... but there was a reasonable specimen of a Martini-Henry rifle at one table.

Think "Battle of Rourke's Drift".

Technorati Tags: Odessa Antique Show, Martini-Henry, Battle of Rourke's Drift

Sorry Spencer, McGuinty's Magic Moolah...

Isn't for people who were born in this country...

Spencer Miller is not interested in politics or who did what. He just needs his wheelchair. If anybody should be handed provincial funding without a lot of red tape it should be our disabled.

Way to go, bureaucrats. Stick it to the guy in a wheelchair. Too bad Spencer didn't know somebody in the cricket club, eh.

Maybe they could lend him some of the cool $1 million they got without the same hoops.

In Dalton McGuinty's Ontario... you need the right pedigree, to get those "Pennies from Heaven".

Technorati Tags: Dalton McGuinty, bribing the vote, Spencer Miller

Don't mess with mom

-- CHESHIRE, Connecticut -- "I had to stay there until it was dead because if I let go of it, it would've chased after them or bit me."

"So I strangled it to death."

Instead of soothing hurt feelings...

Maybe they should be focusing on throwing some mad-dog gangbanger ass in jail...

"We have our specialty members, like in our gang crime unit and in our criminal investigations section, who are very much focused on doing what they can to reduce tensions out there," he said.

Just a suggestion.

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UPDATE: Police refusing to release any details

But the word on the street says this is inter-racial gang warfare.

Witnesses say there was an earlier fight at the same restaurant between a group of Asians and a gang of Indo-Canadians calling themselves the Independent Soldiers.

The truth is, for some time now, the cops have seen it coming.

The RCMP's annual report on organized crime this year ranks the Indo-Canadian groups third after outlaw bikers and Asians in terms of their strength and organization in B.C.'s hierarchy of criminal organizations.

Technorati Tags: gang warfare, Vancouver, Independent Soldiers

No bail for Brant

Aboriginal spokes-celebrity Shawn Brant will be spending a little more time at Her Majesty's "Crowbar Motel" pending trial this fall.

-- NAPANEE -- Aboriginal activist Shawn Brant has been denied bail after a court hearing today in Napanee, Ont.

Brant's lawyers had said his respect for his mother would keep him from breaching his bail conditions and engaging in unlawful protest.

That's funny... where was all Brant's respect the last couple of times he got turned loose?

Brant, 43, had been granted bail twice before in recent months, but breached conditions of his release when he took part in protests on the Canada Day weekend.

And did anyone really think this tactic was gonna carry the day?

Though Brant had signed a May 3 court order prohibiting him from participating or encouraging any type of unlawful protest that could disrupt road, rail or waterway traffic, he had not given his word to the judge, lawyer Peter Rosenthal said.

Maybe they should have gone with the venerable "had my fingers crossed" defense instead.

You also have to wonder if having supporters show up in court looking like a Hamas murder squad, might have effected the proceedings.

I've never been on trial myself, but I'm guessing judges don't respond well to threats... implied or otherwise.

All in all... a good day for justice.

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UPDATE: Meet the new left... "because we said so"

Dustin Brant, the new spokesman for the quarry protesters, said the group is feeling "frustration and anger and sadness.

But when reporters asked for reasons why Shawn Brant should be released, the younger spokesman appeared to be looking for answers from his fellow activists.

"I don't know," he said, laughing nervously.

Unbelievable.

Technorati Tags: Shawn Brant, Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte, homegrown terrorist

Damn you, scary Stephen Harper

The unemployment rate for July dropped to 6 per cent, the lowest level in 33 years, compared with both the forecast and June level of 6.1 per cent, the agency said.

Wages pushed up again, according to Statscan, with the average Canadian employee being paid 3.7 per cent more an hour than in July of last year.

KKKANADA COMMITS GENOCIDE

Funny... can't seem to find any mention of this at all... at CTV or CBC.

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LAST WORD: It's more like a cultural death spiral

Killing themselves, killing each other... maybe aboriginal communities should be looking for solutions a little closer to home.

-- PAUINGASSI FIRST NATION, Man. -- A Manitoba community is in shock after learning three young children are responsible for the drowning of a 6-year-old boy.

"The investigation revealed that the child was in the company of three youths, aged 7, 8 and 9," says a recording on the Manitoba RCMP's media line.

"It was determined that the victim had been bullied into removing his clothes and was then pushed into the lake by one of the youths. The child was unable to swim and consequently drowned."

Song of Steffi

"IT'S NOT FAIR" -- now where have I heard that before?

-- MONCTON -- Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty says it's not fair of the Canadian premiers to expect his province to shoulder the burden of implementing California-style emission standards in its already struggling auto industry.

And, uh... it's Stephen Harper's fault anyway.

Mr. McGuinty said Ontario would also need the federal government to ante up $650-million to help the auto industry cope with an emission adjustment.

He said he has yet to hear from federal officials on that idea.

Yessiree... that Dalton continues to dazzle.

Technorati Tags: Dalton McGuinty, emission standards, Liberal Party of Ontario

From Surrey to Sadr City

It's not as far as you might think...

Hazem al-Araji, top aide to firebrand anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, survived an assassination attempt Sunday in Baghdad.

So how is that news, you ask... these guys blast away at each other like we go to Tim Hortons.

Turns out there's a Canadian connection.

Al-Araji, who lived in Canada from 1999 to 2004, was imam at the Al-Kawther Islamic Association in Surrey and paid regular visits to Victoria as spiritual leader of the half-dozen families who make up the Greater Victoria Shiite community.

Apparently Imam Al-Araji has hooked up with Murderin' Mookie and his madcap Mahdi Army...

The Mahdi Army, the militia group loyal to Sadr, has battled with coalition forces in Baghdad and Basra and has been blamed for a series of revenge killings, torture and mutilation of Sunni Muslims. The militia, with its distinctive black uniforms, is blamed for some of the worst sectarian violence in Iraq.

That, of course, doesn't mean al-Araji isn't a man of peace... in some people's minds.

Even though al-Araji wants an end to the American occupation of Iraq, he is a peace-loving man, said his friend Mamdoh Ashir, a director of the Ansar Al-Hussain Islamic Association of Vancouver Island.

Sure, Mamdoh... you keep telling yourself that.

Technorati Tags: Hazem al-Araji, Al-Kawther Islamic Association, Mahdi Army

To Sue and Reject

Another proud moment in First Nations history...

Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory’s police chief is suing the province for what he alleges was improper procedure in suspending him for comments attributed to him in a college newspaper.

Hay came under fire in April when in a Loyalist College article, he is quoted as calling the Royal Canadian Mounted Police "a racist organization" and that he "came here to learn the OPP and the SQ (Surete de Quebec) are no different."

It's apparently less important here to "Serve and Protect" than to line up with the home team.

"It’s deep-seated racism, and they will do all kinds of things to show that it isn’t so, but we know better."

**********

FROM PREVIOUS COMMENTS:

Say, Daniel... what's that you were saying about, "willing to paint us all with one brush"?

Technorati Tags: Larry Hay, Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory, Tyendinaga First Nation Police Service

Hey Mikey...

Could you maybe ban kidnapping while you're at it?

The hunt is on for a suspect after a man smashed out the window of a taxi cab and dragged away a teenaged girl, police say.

Tamar Lindsay, 17, was sitting in the cab near Kennedy Rd. and Eglinton Ave. just after 10 p.m. Wednesday when she was allegedly yanked out.

Technorati Tags: handgun ban, loony left, Attorney General Michael Bryant

Obviously, we need to ban...

Those dangerous all-night restaurants...

Two people are dead and six wounded after a multiple shooting in east Vancouver that police believe is likely a targeted hit, Vancouver police say.

Police started receiving 911 calls just after 4:20 a.m. after two masked men walked into the Fortune Happiness restaurant, a late-night Chinese restaurant at 654 Broadway East near Fraser Street, and opened fire.

Local cops aren't that surprised...

Late-night Vancouver restaurants and clubs and the streets around them have been deadly in recent years with incidents police often link to gang violence.

A patron at the Kwong Chow Congee and Noodle House in east Vancouver was shot dead last year when he confronted a gun-toting robber around 1:30 a.m.

In November 2005, as many as six men stormed into a suburban Burnaby nightclub, pulled handguns and wounded two young men in what police believe was an attack related to Indo-Canadian gangs.

A month before, two suspected Indo-Canadian gangsters were shot and wounded at a Vietnamese noodle restaurant in east Vancouver.

And in 2004, an Indo-Canadian man was killed execution-style in a 5 a.m. shooting at an east Vancouver restaurant.

A January 2004 dispute in a nightclub that erupted onto the street led to the shooting death of one man and a young woman who tried to intervene. Four other people were wounded.

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RELATED: What's that Mikey... speak up

For mysterious reasons apparently unknown to the crack minds in the Ontario Attorney-General's office, criminals don't register guns, nor will they hand them over if they're "banned."

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LAST WORD: Still waiting for National Steak Knife Registry

One man is in critical condition and four people are in custody after an early Thursday morning stabbing on Queen Street West.

The victim was stabbed multiple times in the chest area, Toronto police Det. Gord Scott said.

Technorati Tags: handgun ban, loony left, Attorney General Michael Bryant

Not ready for prime time

Everything you need to know about the situation in the Palestinian Territories...

The Palestinian Authority has accidentally paid the salaries of 3,000 members of Hamas's main security force.

A Hamas official in Gaza told the Reuters news agency that members of the Executive Force were contacted on Wednesday and told their salaries had been paid.

"To their surprise, they got phone calls telling them to collect their salaries. They rushed to the bank," the official said.

One minute they're tossing their enemies off tall buildings... the next minute they're handing them payola.

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RELATED: It's a massive, inbred problem

The World Bank has been stressing that structural reform of the Palestinian economy is an essential factor in order to pull away extensive layers of poverty.

The bank's recent report showed how vast elements of international aid had never reached its target population, presumably through poor management and fraud.

Even the Al-Jazeera news agency refers to the large reserves accumulated by the Arafat family or hidden in the coffers of the Palestinian Authority itself.

Technorati Tags: Palestinian Authority, World Bank, fraud and corruption

It probably wouldn't be...

The first thing on my list, but hey... that is how democracy works.

-- Baghdad -- More than one million Shiite faithful — some flogging themselves with iron chains or cutting their foreheads with swords — are expected to walk Thursday toward the mosque, the shrine of an 8th century saint, Imam al-Kadhim, in the northern Kazimiyah neighborhood.

The self-flagellation is a grieving ritual banned under Saddam Hussein. Since his ouster in the 2003 U.S. invasion, Shiite political parties have encouraged huge turnouts at such religious festivals to display their power in the new Iraq.

Of course, there have been glitches in the past

-- BAGHDAD (Reuters) -- At least 20 people died and 300 were hurt in Baghdad on Sunday after insurgents, including roof-top snipers, ambushed pilgrims gathering in their hundreds of thousands for a sacred Shi'ite festival.

Merely the fear of violence — with a rumor that a suicide bomber had been seen — sparked a stampede last year in which 1,000 people died.

Police had set up protected corridors to the shrine and urged people to stick to these designated routes. But with huge numbers cramming the roads, many tried to find short cuts and got ambushed instead.

Technorati Tags: Imam al-Kadhim, Shiite, self-flagellation

If you don't like it...

In violent, irretrievably racist Toronto, you could always head back to pastoral, peaceful Somalia...

Ali's family, who emigrated from Somalia in 1988, believe racism has led to the police not putting the same resources into the investigation of Ali's murder.

"Is it because Ali was a young, black man?

Well, lemme think... is there anything else that could factor into the equation here?

While police say co-operation from the community is improving, this is not so in the case of Kimel Foster, 21, who was shot to death outside a Vaughan and Oakwood Avenue bar on July 21.

Detective Terry Browne said there were many people around, but most have not been helpful.

“If the community wanted to put its collective heads together, this one could have and should have been solved,” Det. Browne said. Mr. Foster was not a known gangster, but police have dealt with him before.

No sense getting pissed at the members of "the community" and their asshat "code of silence", huh?

Let's just blame those racist cops.

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RELATED: Police service replies to charges by family

Toronto Police Service spokesperson Mark Pugash said no comparison can be made between the Ali and Creba case.

Creba was killed on the busiest street in Toronto on Boxing Day, the street's busiest day of the year. "I can't think of a homicide which occurred in an area where there were more potential witnesses, more security cameras," he said.

Oh yeah... that'd be witnesses who were actually willing to talk to police.

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LAST WORD: "If only we'd have stayed in Mogadishu"

Somalia's capital, Mogadishu, has been rocked by the sound of fierce fighting during a two-hour gun battle between insurgents and government forces.

Somalia has not had a functioning national government for 16 years.

Go back to Somalia... I dare you.

Technorati Tags: Ali Mahamud Ali, Loyan Ahmed Gilao, Kimel Foster

Shaking the evolutionary tree

It would be incredible hubris to think we've totally figured this thing out... but this latest theory seems to make way more sense.

-- WASHINGTON -- Surprising fossils dug up in Africa are creating messy kinks in the iconic straight line of human evolution with its knuckle-dragging ape and briefcase-carrying man.

The new research by famed paleontologist Meave Leakey in Kenya shows that the human family tree is more like a wayward bush with stubby branches, calling into question the evolution of our ancestors.

As much as we'd like a neat, tidy definitive solution... it just ain't gonna happen.

All the changes to human evolutionary thought should not be considered a weakness in the theory of evolution, Dr. Kimbel said. Rather, those are the predictable results of getting more evidence, asking smarter questions and forming better theories, he said.

The usual suspects

Calling all restless, unemployed troublemakers...

Supporters for local Mohawk activist Shawn Brant will rally at the Napanee courthouse Friday when Brant faces a bail review.

Poverty and aboriginal activists will gather at the Superior Court of Justice court house on Thomas Street East to support Brant and demonstrate on Prisoner Justice Day, say messages sent out on aboriginal and anti-poverty mailing lists.

Isn't the internet wonderful?

And how is being a "poverty or aboriginal activist" now considered to be a job?

Closing down public venues, seizing private property and screaming at bystanders... has to rank somewhere close to "squeegee kid" on any self-respecting adult's resume.

One last small jurisprudential note...

Brant was already out on bail during the aboriginal day of action.

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RELATED: Remember Shawn Brant's sad tale...

Of how his wife miscarried, fetching water from a contaminated well?

Well, why aren't the Mohawks dealing with that problem, before pounding money into recreation?

Funding for the Tyendinaga Fitness Centre includes $92,000 from the Ontario Trillium Foundation, a grant officially announced at the new fitness centre Tuesday.

It is the largest Trillium grant for the area, said MPP Leona Dombrowsky. The province recently increased the Trillium Foundation total grant amount from $100 million to $120 million.

Heck, I guess it's not that big a deal... if you don't have have uncontaminated water, you can always stock up on Coca-Cola, right?

The fitness centre contributes to a solution to the diabetes epidemic in native communities, where an estimated 27 per cent of people have it, said Carol Loft, a regional diabetes worker with the Southern Ontario Aboriginal Diabetes Initiative.

Newsflash folks... playing ping-pong doesn't cure diabetes.

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FROM THE COMMENTS: Daniel Erasmus replies...

As a member of Canada's First Nation, I find it disturbing that you are willing to paint us all with one brush.

Geez, Daniel... you mean like Shawn Brant blaming all his problems on "racist white society."

Technorati Tags: Shawn Brant, Napanee, Ontario, homegrown terrorism

The good news is...

The monkey wasn't armed...

A man has been questioned by police at LaGuardia airport in New York after smuggling a monkey onto a flight from Florida by hiding it under his hat.

Passengers spotted the animal when it climbed out and perched on the man's ponytail, Spirit Airlines spokeswoman Alison Russell told reporters.

Sounds like someone's career in security is about to come to a screeching halt.

Ms Russell said the monkey - a marmoset - spent the remainder of the flight in the man's seat and was well-behaved.

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RELATED: In "less cute" critter news

-- STEVENSVILLE, Ont. -- Police in the Niagara Region community of Stevensville, Ont., are searching Wednesday for a grizzly bear that escaped from a zoo.

Police were called about midnight by residents who saw the 300-kilogram bear from the Zooz Nature Park.

Darlene Crosby told CHCH television she had let her dogs out and saw the bear when she looked around to see why her dogs were barking. “I was on the porch going down the stairs and turned to the side because the dogs were barking, and there was a big bear.”

Technorati Tags: Spirit Airlines, Stevensville, Ontario, grizzly bear

Unholy Alliance

It's true, necessity IS the the mother of creative jihad...

Islamic extremists embedded in the United States posing as Hispanic nationals are partnering with violent Mexican drug gangs to finance terror networks in the Middle East, according to a Drug Enforcement Administration report.

I guess if you're involved in holy war, you do whatever it is you have to do... to get the job done.

Lending credence to Mr. Brown's concern, an El Paso, Texas, law-enforcement report documents the influx of "approximately 20 Arab persons a week utilizing the Travis County Court in Austin to change their names and driver's licenses from Arabic to Hispanic surnames."

And you thought Islam wasn't very flexible.

Technorati Tags: holy war, Mexican drug gangs, Drug Enforcement Administration

He makes at least as much sense...

As Stumblin' Steffi Dion...

Mr. Salmi says he will run under the Rhino banner in a federal by-election in Montreal's Outremont riding, slated for Sept. 17.

Mr. Salmi promises to rename the country Nantucket, if elected.

Visit the Rhinoceros Party Website.

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RELATED: A list of Rhinoceros Party promises.

My favourite...

"Abolishing the environment because it's too hard to keep clean and it takes up so much space."

Technorati Tags: Rhinoceros Party, politics, Canada

My beads are holier...

Than your beads...

When it comes to Scientology, there's a hunger for the negative.

I suspect that's because Scientology evinces an acute case of what Freud called the narcissism of small differences: We're made most uncomfortable by that which is most like us.

I wonder if Taliban Jack...

Gets to put the flowers on his NDP expense account?

-- KABUL, Aug 7 (Reuters) -- Several dozen Taliban fighters were killed in two separate clashes with Western-led troops in Afghanistan on Tuesday, Afghan and coalition forces said.

Almost two dozen of more than 75 insurgents were killed in a battle after they attacked a heavily-defended coalition base with small and heavy arms fire in the southern province of Uruzgan, the U.S. military said in a statement.

Looks like this one was a two-fer.

In another clash in neighbouring Kandahar province, 15 Taliban were killed after they attacked a police post, provincial police chief Sayed Agha Saqib said.

C'mon Jack... what about another press conference?

Technorati Tags: Uruzgan, NATO, leftwing media bias

Bin-Laden may have a point...

About decadent western society...

His company passed on selling Humping Dog, but it did recently come up with another joke product that seems right at home among its USB office gadget brethren.

The company launched the Fundue, a desktop USB fondue set. For $29.99 (U.S.), it promises to turn you into the “MacDaddiest, most svelte lemming in the office come lunchtime.”

Wouldn't you know it, the Fundue garnered a serious mention in PC Magazine. But the Fundue only ranked as No. 7 on the magazine's list of the "10 Weirdest USB Devices."

Technorati Tags: Humping Dog, Fundue, Osama Bin-Laden

The family that slays together...

Stays together... hopefully in maximum security.

A bizarre and sad story became even more tragic after 22-year-old Tyler McGill died on Friday. McGill was stabbed in the chest while standing in the drive-thru of a McDonald's restaurant in Scarborough.

Azard Mohammed, 45, and his son Danny Mohammed, 19, both from Toronto, were arrested that night and charged with aggravated assault and weapons-related offenses.

No word yet on what triggered the butchery.

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UPDATE: CTV now pointing finger... at the deceased

Police said Tyler McGill, 22, was in the drive-thru lane with his girlfriend around 3:30 a.m. when Danny Mohammad, 19, and Azard Mohammad, 45, allegedly struck McGill's car.

He apparently got out to confront them and was stabbed in the chest, police said.

Sounds a little like a, "victim was brutally raped, after choosing to wear a strapless dress" kind of story.

Remember now... if someone hits you with their car in Scarborough, you're supposed to just ignore it... or run away.

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RELATED: It wouldn't be a T.O. weekend...

Without a young offender looking to slit somebody's gizzard.

A 16-year-old male was arrested today after another teenage male was stabbed in the city's east end late yesterday evening.

Police responded to reports of two teenagers fighting near Dundas St. E. and Brooklyn Ave. around 11:30 p.m. and found a 17-year-old male with stab wounds to the stomach area, Toronto police said.

He was rushed to St. Michael's hospital with life threatening injuries but is expected to survive.

No word yet on specifics of the Liberal's "National Sharp Object Registry".

Technorati Tags: Tyler McGill, leftwing media bias, Toronto homicide

Allah must be really pissed...

With the people of Tal Afar.

-- BAGHDAD, Aug 6 -- A suicide bomber killed at least 28 people, including at least 19 children, by blowing up his truck this morning in a Shiite area of Tal Afar, a city in northwestern Iraq.

The blast brought down houses in the densely populated residential neighborhood just as many families were preparing to go to work, and as boys and girls were playing hopscotch and marbles in the street.

Many of the casualties were women and children, Iraqi officials said.

Hey, infidel lovers... that's just the way the family unit crumbles. There's no place for sentimentality in this kind of holy war.

A jihadi's gotta do, what a jihadi's gotta do.

Sometimes more than once...

One of the deadliest suicide bombings in the conflict so far struck Tal Afar in March of this year, when a truck blew up in a Shiite neighborhood, killing 152 people and wounded 347.

It ain't no big deal. Right, Jack?

Technorati Tags: Tal Afar, jihad, the will of Allah

Say, whatever happened...

To the son of the "Last King of Scotland".

Got Petaflops?

The new computer is to be the first supercomputer capable of one thousand trillion mathematical operations a second — a computing benchmark known as a petaflop.

“This will be a rather special machine,” said Jack Dongarra, a computer scientist at the University of Tennessee, who is one of the researchers who has helped rank the world’s fastest supercomputers.

“It’s like the Hubble telescope.”

Gushing Toronto Star looking for a...

Gay pride-Caribana "feel the love" tie-in... which may just be a bit of a reach.

Now, even the city's gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community is getting in on the action.

"Busy, busy, busy; I'm going crazy," said Mykel Hall a.k.a. DJ Blackcat as he dashed about a few days ago organizing the three-day Toronto Splash, billed as "The Only Official Gay Caribana Events."

Official?!? Maybe in his dreams...

The thing is, if you go to Toronto's Xtra Magazine, you get the same guy, Blackcat... talking about how threatened he would feel as a gay man at Caribana events.

Blackcat shares Junior's reluctance. "I would feel comfortable as a gay man going down there but I probably wouldn't proclaim my homosexuality," he says.

"I'm not going to a place that's known for gun violence and violence in general and proclaiming my homosexuality."

"You're just looking for trouble doing that."

Which is precisely why Blackcat has created his very own version of "Official (cough, cough) Gay Caribana Events."

It just makes me wonder how everybody in the Star's editorial boardroom, even in their seemingly permanent state of warm, fuzzy-bunny, politically correct zealotry... could have missed this piece in Time Magazine...

"The Most Homophobic Place on Earth?"

Just another conveniently misplaced perspective, I guess.

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RELATED: On being gay and black in Toronto

Another angle you'll never see in the Star.

Many have suggested I'd be doing so at my own risk, but, undaunted, I enter Castries Barbershop on Eglinton West, where other Canadians may think the men are arguing, but I know they're just having a debate, albeit a 10-decibel one.

As usual, it's packed, and I patiently wait for the right moment to ask some tough questions. A swirl of Jamaican patois surrounds me, and I hear the word "batty man" (the Jamaican equivalent of faggot, except 10 times worse) repeated again and again: "Him some kind of a batty man, yah know," "She's dating a sort of batty man," "Twaaa! You a batty man or what?"

I'm not sure where the Red Star gets all it's implied "love and acceptance" for gay involvement at Caribana... it's certainly not from Caribana spokespeople, participants, or gays themselves.

After 15 minutes, I'm certain my right moment is never going to come, at least not with this crowd, and I leave.

While a gay man can get his head bashed in just about anywhere, attitudes such as those in the barbershop seem out of step in a city with the largest gay population in Canada.

An exercise in myth and reality... courtesy of the Toronto Star.

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FROM THE COMMENTS:

Part of the problem is the Canadian gay community itself - I've met gay men in Toronto who refuse to travel to the US because it's run by "homophobic Republicans" but regularly vacation in places like Jamaica & Cuba.

Technorati Tags: Caribana, politically correct, Time Magazine

There are more people who believe...

In UFO's... than say the Farmer Bob Rifle Registry is reducing gun crime in Canada.

Don't take my word for it... ask Angus Reid.

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RELATED: Unlucky number 50 identified

Toronto police have identified the man shot to death in the stairwell of a Regent Park apartment building this weekend.

Kevon Hall, 19, of Toronto, was found unconscious and suffering from a gunshot wound to the chest in a third-floor stairwell of the building on Gerrard St. E., just west of River St., at around 1 p.m. Saturday.

He was, as they say, known to police.

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LAST WORD: There always seems to be...

A very different picture, after the bullets stop flying.

The woman said she knew Hall well, and that he was a "big brother" to the smaller kids in Regent Park. He had gone there to visit his nephews on Saturday before he was chased and gunned down in the stairwell.

"He used to take kids to the park and watch them play basketball," she said of Hall, whose home address wasn't known.

She said he wasn't into drugs or the gang culture. "He didn't like to socialize. He just hung out with his family," she said.

Technorati Tags: Kevon Hall, Regent Park, Farmer Bob Rifle Registry

Disappearing democracy

"Mullah Milla" purges the inner circle.

David Miller has kicked the maverick councillor who foiled his tax plan out of his Cabinet-like executive committee, a decision the Mayor's opponents say proves he will not tolerate dissent.

Critics of the Mayor say Mr. Ashton's departure suggests Mr. Miller prefers to surround himself with yes-men.

"He expects absolute and total obedience from his executive committee and this is a reflection of that expectation," said Councillor Case Ootes, who served as deputy mayor under Mel Lastman.

What happened to the hug-a-bunny, concensus building, Toronto left of yore?

It's beginning to smell a little like Tehran.

Technorati Tags: David Miller, Brian Ashton, Millergrad

Dying for a doob

How many more of our children must die... before the government gets around to setting up "safe inhalation sites"?

-- CALGARY -- Before he was pushed into the path of an oncoming transit train in Calgary, 17-year-old Gage Jeffrey Prevost was arguing over $10 worth of marijuana, say friends.

And according to a witness, Prevost appeared to be fighting with a woman before he fell between two moving trains on Wednesday.

The woman had black curly hair with highlights and was wearing red sweatpants. She looked like a drug addict, he said.

Police say they are looking for a dark-skinned woman, possibly native, in her 20s with facial scars.

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UPDATE: Eight dead in nine days

With the spike of highly visible crimes, there's certain to be unease amongst residents and some "pretty significant questions placed at the doorstep of people who can make change," Mount Royal College criminologist Doug King said.

The important thing is not to move from concern to panic, he said.

See Dave, I'm thinking the most important thing here, is to take back the streets from the criminals... but hey, I'm not a talkin' head with a degree in criminology.

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RELATED: In other drug-related news...

“The RCMP informs us that Afghan heroin is increasingly ending up on, or is destined for Canadian streets,” say Foreign Affairs and Defence Department briefings, obtained separately by The Canadian Press under the Access to Information Act.

Roughly 92 per cent of the world's heroin comes from opium poppies grown in Afghanistan, according to the 2007 World Drug Report, released in June by the United Nations Office on Drugs.

What's Taliban Jack gonna negotiate with these guys... a free trade agreement?

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LAST WORD: While we're on Jack Layton...

While it's old news Jack wants to sit and negotiate with the heroin-dealing Taliban, I bet you didn't know he also wants to go mano-a-mano with the Russkies.

“The Russian mission to place its flag on the ocean floor at the North Pole demonstrates a troubling reality for Northern communities and all Canadians concerning Arctic sovereignty,” Mr. Layton said in a letter sent to Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

Hey... settle down comrade.

Technorati Tags: Gage Jeffrey Prevost, marijuana, safe injection sites

Calling Dr. HAL

Once you get past the initial pit of your stomach fear... generated, no doubt, by the ubiquitous science-fiction theme of technology gone apeshit... this just seems like an idea whose time has arrived...

Powered by state-of-the-art robotic technology, the surgeon’s hand movements are scaled, filtered and seamlessly translated into precise movements of the EndoWrist Instruments.

The net result: an intuitive interface with breakthrough surgical capabilities.

Technorati Tags: da Vinci Surgical System, robotics, Minimally Invasive Surgery