Self-celebrated Liberal party operative...

...entering final phase of "Operation Bigger Dick Than You"...

"Finally, as far as the LPC goes, if I(sic) asked for my advice - and I am all the time - I will say that CIC has utterly marginalized itself."

From your lips to Iggy's ear... you obnoxious bully.

**********

RELATED: "The calliope crashed to the ground"

Meanwhile, apparently the crew on the now ditched Israel junket included Dr. Dawg, Jason Cherniak, Kate McMillian, Kathy Shaidle and Terry Glavin.

Obviously the CIC was planning a new “reality” show. The video would have been priceless.

Kate: Jeez Louise, that rocket nearly hit the bus.
Dawg: Fluke, it was homemade, no bigger than a firecracker.
Jason: Rockets fall from heaven upon the wicked.
Kathy: Turn the bus around.
Terry: My pal Amir said they’d land one a couple of hundred meters short for a photo-op.
Dawg: You know Amir!

**********

LAST WORD: Special K's a lawyer? Seriously?

"I'm trying to figure out which thought is making me smile more: the total self-destruction of Kinsella's case in his nuisance suit against me, or the prospect that he will remain as Michael Ignatieff's war room boss, with his increasingly bizarre, emotional judgment calls."

Apparently, there's also a little more dick-waving going on tonight...

"Oh, and when I told folks what I'm doing with a certain Conservative cabinet minister - details of which to be revealed tomorrow - the news practically got a Standing O!"

*

Hope, Change and...

...Crawford, Texas...

The Obama administration, like the Bush administration before it, claimed national security would be compromised if a lawsuit brought by the Oregon chapter of the charity, Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation, were allowed to proceed.

Now, civil libertarians hope the case will become the first chance for a court to rule on whether the warrantless wiretapping program was legal. It cited the so-called state secrets privilege as a defence against the lawsuit.

"All we wanted was our day in court, and it looks like we're finally going to get our day in court," said Al-Haramain's lawyer, Steven Goldberg. "This case is all about challenging an assertion of power by the executive branch, which is extraordinary."

Of course... unlike evil Oiljesus Bush-Hitler... "The One" can do no wrong...
(image via sc&a)

**********

LAST WORD: It's true... "the sun never sets..."

“We are now involved in a kind of surreal mini-British civil war a few thousand miles away.”

*

Don't look at me...

...I didn't vote for him...

-- AMHERSTBURG -- Premier Dalton McGuinty is keeping a tight lid on just how deep Ontario will sink into red ink, despite alarming predictions that the deficit could climb as high as $18 billion over two years.

McGuinty vowed his government will "do our part" to stimulate the economy.

Yeah... that's exactly what we're afraid of.

And yes... it could be worse.

*

Getting tough on crime

-- "Do you support the Conservative government's legislation to toughen anti-gang laws?" --

And somewhere... an angel weeps.

**********

RELATED: And... right on cue...

Toronto police are investigating an overnight shooting near Kennedy Road and Lawrence Avenue East that has claimed the life of a man in his 20s.

Sgt. Jason Shankaran told ctvtoronto.ca that he could confirm that two people were shot around 3 a.m. on Saturday, but had no further details that he could release.

**********

LAST WORD: Two more body bags

-- AJAX -- By late morning today, two teens who had been hit by a car and ditched on the pavement after a vicious brawl in a quiet Ajax park were dead.

The fight spilled out onto the street as a 17-year-old Scarborough boy was chased by a knife-wielding suspect before the blade caught up with him on the corner of Griffiths Dr. and Leah Cres.

Seconds after he was stabbed, as some jumped in cars and others fled on foot, two other Scarborough boys -- 15 and 17 -- were run down by a car allegedly driven by a teen fleeing from the park.

The force of the car was enough to knock down a tree in front of one house on the street where residents aren’t accustomed to police tape draped every which way, as it was Friday.

As the boys lay injured on the road, everyone, including the stabbing victim, took off.

*

Say Iggy, maybe puffins...

...aren't that great at hiding their excrement after all...

"We are very disappointed by the outcome of the court's decision. And we are outraged that we are forced, because of a legal agreement negotiated by the previous Liberal government, to return this dangerous individual to Canada."

"The agreement made under the previous Liberal government was not required by law and is very unusual; however they made it anyway and, sadly, we are bound by it."

**********

RELATED: Oh good gawd, somebody actually...

...had the balls to mention the Emperor's new clothes...

“You cannot leave combat troops in a foreign country to conduct combat operations and call it the end of the war."

"You can't be in and out at the same time.”

*

The third time around...

...is the charm.
[*]

RELATED: "Blogging bigot, Dr. Dawg..."

"...is on one of his tears against the evil Jooooos. He's uset that Carleton and the University of Ottawa have banned disturbing posters which blatantly accuse the IDF of targeting Gaza school children. (These were to be a feature of Hate Israel Week)."

"He still has no problem with official persecution of U. of Calgary pro-life students for their disturbing posters because "that's different."

Damned old hypocrite.

Posted by: Realist at February 28, 2009 12:11 AM

**********

LAST WORD: The rope to hang ourselves...

The CAF is a prominent sponsor of anti-Israel demonstrations, which feature people waving Hamas and Hezbollah flags, and people calling for the state of Israel to be wiped off the planet. One video shows a woman pointing toward the camera and declaring: "Jewish child, you're going to fucking die. Hamas is coming for you."

On top of the money it gets from Ottawa, the CAF also gets money from Ontario, Quebec and even the cash-strapped city of Toronto, which recently gave it $25,000 for a public media campaign to address the "misrepresentation" of Arabs and Muslims in the media.

It got another $75,000 from Ontario's government to help victims of crime and to conduct a survey on discrimination against Arabs and Muslims.

Like other groups that purport to speak for immigrants and minorities, the CAF is highly skilled at grantsmanship. The grant proposals from these groups are full of jargon such as "racialized," "ethnocultural youth" and "marginalized neighbourhoods."

Most would not exist at all without the government.

The people who run them go to one another's conferences, serve on one another's boards, and approve one another's grants.

*

Just another day...

...in paradise...

There has been yet another shooting on Toronto streets, although thankfully the outcome wasn't as serious as Thursday night's homicide.

A man said to be about 28 years old was shot twice in the leg in an apartment building at 615 The East Mall Friday afternoon.

*

You mean Stephen Harper...

...doesn't actually eat pagan babies?

"When I see a headline about somebody fighting off wolves, I want to see a story that actually contains wolf fighting."

*

The Farmer Bob Rifle Registry

It's time to drive a stake through this "Two Billion Dollar" Monster's heart...

This is a non-partisan issue and I hope Bill C-301 will be supported by all federal parties. There are MPs in all parties who firmly believe hunters, farmers and sport shooters have been forced to comply with an onerous and costly registration process that makes no sense.

I would encourage all hunters, sport shooters and fiscally responsible Canadians to let your MP know that you want this bill passed.

Let’s all help Parliament switch its focus to opposing the bad guys.

**********

RELATED: Some database is GONNA FIX THIS???

SERIOUSLY?

The group heard one Somali community leader speak of the "snitch factor." If one wounded man would testify, the trial could go forward, said Abdurahman Jibril, a community development worker and chair of the Somali Canadian National Congress chair.

"Kids are kids," he said of their response to efforts to encourage them to do so. "They say they won't snitch. This is a culture we never had back (in Somalia)."

And the Red Star is quick to dispense total absolution to everyone involved...

"Tough questions were raised. Had authorities offered the families the support they needed? The victims must be traumatized. They must be scared."

The lunatics are truly running the asylum.

Thank goodness we got out in time.

**********

LAST WORD: Apparently... it's safer in Somalia

"Canada is nothing. ... The Canadian government is nothing," Ahmed Abdikarim Mohammed told the Toronto Sun in front of his modest bungalow.

"I go," said Mohammed, a 58-year-old Toronto cab driver. "My plan is this week to go, all together."

"I die in Somalia," Abdikarim's father told the Sun. "That's the end for me."

*

Socialist Campfire Songbook

"When the moon is in the seventh house... and Barbara Hall aligns with Mars"...

"John Fulton has co-sponsored the annual St Catharines Aids walk for years. Does that sound like some foaming Steynian homophobe?"

"Well, a fat lot of good it did him come the day the Ontario "human rights" enforcers showed up to ruin his life."

(via ffof)

**********

LATEST "CHICKS WITH DICKS" UPDATE:

"'I will be a homeless person, living in the street and eating out of a gutter, before they get a penny out of me,' Mr. Fulton said after yesterday's fruitless (note: no pun intended, I'm sure) mediation, which ended short of its scheduled three hours."

*

What's flat, black and glows in the dark?

Here's a hint... it ain't gonna be Tel-Aviv...

Binyamin Netanyahu has just become prime minister of Israel. He is determined to take action before - not after - Iran achieves its nuclear potential. This creates a volatile, hair-trigger situation that could explode at any moment.

Hence, the endgame is now vastly closer than it was in mid-January, when many believed Israel might take action during the lame-duck interregnum.

**********

RELATED: Some unlikely "bloody brothers"

Iran and Iraq fought a bloody, eight-year war between 1980 and 1988, in which a half a million Iraqi and Iranian soldiers as well as civilians are believed to have died and many more injured and wounded.

Mr. Talabani will also reportedly met with Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and the head of Iran's Expediency Council Aly Akbar Hashemi Rafsandjani.

Easy come, easy go, huh?

*

Rebranding "British" Columbia

For me personally... it's a tossup between "Moonbattia" and "Oz"...

"The consonant-vowel pattern is readily manageable by speakers of language with clustered consonants, such as English, but also easily accessible for languages, such as Japanese, that do not have consonant clusters."

"It also does not have "r" and "l" (I think linguists call these "liquids") which are not easily moved from one language to another. Given the linguist plurality of British Columbia and of its Pacific neighbours, I think some thought should be given to how interlingual the name is."

"I am also very partial to Aboriginal words because they evoke this place in a way that no Latin or English word can."

Get your licks in... while you still can.

**********

FROM THE COMMENTS:

"How do you say, 'the government spent all our money on the Olympics' in Chinook?"

*

Okay Dawg... wind up the squirrels...

...'cos I just wanna hear how this is gonna be a bad thing for Canada.

**********

FROM THE COMMENTS: Don't bogart that joint...

"Zorpheus says... Under this new law, is Neo guilty of First Degree Murder? Well on the surface I would have to say yes?"

Geez, Zorph... is that what they're teaching at "imaginary law school" these days?

P.S. -- Take heart, Zee... the good news is that Hedy Fry is completely on board... in her own inimitable, totally made-up way.

[*]

UPDATE: Bad news, Zorph...

...apparently your fuzzy-bunny socialist pals want to bring back "flogging & keel-hauling"...

The NDP and the Liberals charged that the Conservatives are not going far enough by promising to elevate all gang-killings to first-degree murder, to create a criminal offence for drive-by shootings, and to introduce new penalties for attacks on police.

Oh, the huge manatee!

**********

LAST WORD: "Oops there goes another..."

A man was killed on Thursday night in a shooting outside the York Civic Centre in the city’s west end.

Authorities were called to the scene at 2700 Eglinton Ave. W. between Keele Street and Black Creek Drive, at about 7 p.m. after reports of gunshots being fired. The man was found dead inside an SUV outside of the building, police said.

*

Ask a Harvard educated academic...

"Obama can see Canada from his house!"

**********

RELATED: Idiots, explosives & falling anvils...

"You know why nobody messes with Joe? Because picking on a retard is wrong."

*

See, Peace Moonbeam...

...the thing is... I heard they already tried asking him... "pretty please"...

Some experts fear the move by the International Criminal Court could unleash a new wave of violence in Darfur, destroying a fragile peace process that has just begun to make some early progress.

*

I hear the deluxe model...

...comes with big, hairy testicles...
**********

RELATED: Metaphor overload

Yeeeeouuuch!!! That's gonna leave a mark.

*

Chalk up another victory...

...for Toronto's infamous "code of silence"...

It was one of the most brazen, shocking execution-style murders this city has ever seen.

And now it looks like both suspects are about to walk free.

**********

UPDATE: Who's actually to blame here?

Cuff's lawyer, John Struthers, praised the Crown's "courage" for withdrawing the charges.

"They were having difficulty with the witnesses ... There is fear and people live by the code, not co-operating with police," Struthers said. "They did the right thing."

The shooter was black... the victim was black... the recalcitrant witnesses were black... but apparently it's all about scary, racist Canada....

Outside court, Mohamed Gilao, spokesman for the victim's family, said "we feel unsafe in Canada," alleged racism against blacks and vowed the Somalian community is "going to fight back."

Well that's great news... I guess we're gonna get to see the Somali version of the Hatfields & the McCoys.

**********

RELATED: Fortunately... not everybody believes...

...in enabling murder...

Reza Talebi and Francisco Gellibert, who operated the club at 1806 Weston Rd., were the two witnesses who testified. They said they knew Badiru and saw him pull the trigger in the early morning of June 3, 2006. Their evidence was the basis of the Crown's case against the accused.

Homicide Det.—Sgt. Gary Giroux said the two witnesses were strangers to the victim, but still testified.

*

Uh, Mr President, sir...

...before you crap all over Alberta again... how about you fix this stuff first.

*

Paging Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

Uh, Mahmoud, buddy... Lesson #1... Israel doesn't bluff.

Speaking to reporters Tuesday, Othman rejected an IAEA report last week about particles of man-made uranium found at the al-Kibar facility. Syria maintains the uranium, which can be used in a nuclear reactor, came from the Israeli weapons used to destroy the site.

The IAEA said that was "not likely."

And, by the way... the word you wanna be focusing on here isn't "uranium"... it's "destroy."

**********

POSTSCRIPT: Iran needs to pay attention...

...'cos it ain't braggin'... if you can do it.

Notice how far away Dayr az-Zawr is from Israel. An F15/16 attack there is not a tiptoe across the border, but a deep, deep penetration of Syrian airspace.

And guess what happened with the Russian super hyper sophisticated cutting edge antiaircraft missile batteries when that penetration took place on September 6th.

Nothing.

**********

LAST WORD: Ten thousand chimps, no typewriter

"Our plan to install and run centrifuges is not based on political conditions," he said. "We have a plan and we will go ahead with it."

He said Iran would install more than 50,000 centrifuges at Natanz over the next five years.

*

You think I'm dark...

...get a load of Niall Ferguson...

“There will be blood, in the sense that a crisis of this magnitude is bound to increase political as well as economic conflict. It is bound to destabilize some countries."

"It will cause civil wars to break out, that have been dormant. It will topple governments that were moderate and bring in governments that are extreme."

"These things are pretty predictable."

"The question is whether the general destabilization, the return of, if you like, political risk, ultimately leads to something really big in the realm of geopolitics."

*

Swatting "Bugz"

Here's an urban survival tip... if the guy standing next to you at the bus stop has a "street name"... you might wanna take a few steps to the side.

"Peter Joel Bowen, known as "Bugz," died in hospital shortly after the Sunday night ambush that began in the lobby of his Driftwood Ave. complex."

Don't take my word for it. Just ask "Scruffles"... or "Tactix"... or "Stackz".

Oh yeah... it also helps if... unlike "Spooky"... you skate around what the media Biblically refers to as... "violence-plagued neighbourhoods".

*

Oh c'mon Hillary... Iggy said what!?!?

...that man is such a kidder...
I mean, seriously... don't you remember the last time they tried to pull this shit?

**********

FROM THE COMMENTS:

"Clicking on Blogging Tories to this post (or Stephen Taylor's, I clicked both), got me locked out of the University of Western wireless internet system for 'malicious use'."

*

UNBALANCING THE UNIVERSE

That "WAS THEN"... this, and let's not be too gleeful... "IS NOW".

[*]

Here comes the science...

Talkin' DNA and Suicide...

But when the rat moms were neglectful, the promoter gene was silenced. Result: fewer receptors, and a hair-trigger response to stress. These neglected rats grew up to be fearful, neurotic messes because this gene had a silencer sitting on it.

Ever since that study, the obvious question has hung in the air: Are people like rats? Do childhood experiences re-set the genome, turning some genes on and others off, or turning some to “high production” and some to “low”?

*

Remember when you were a kid...

...and people would bust a cap on babies at public celebrations?

-- NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- An infant and at least five other people were shot Tuesday along a parade route packed with Mardi Gras revelers, police said. Two suspects were in custody and the victims were recovering.

Yeah... me neither.

**********

UPDATE: Meanwhile... closer to home

Police have recovered the handgun they believe was used in a shooting on a TTC bus -- a fight they also believe stemmed from an earlier fight downtown.

Besides this latest incident, an alleged swarming occurred aboard a TTC bus in the area of Flemington Road and Varna Drive.

Four suspects surrounded a 19-year-old male, taking an iPod from the victim's pocket.

*

President McDreamy goes to Defcon 2

Oh my gawd... he's pullin' out the big gun.
**********

FROM THE COMMENTS:

Who's on deck... Celine Dion?

And...

I think you forget that Clooney played a CIA agent in Syrianna, a soldier in Three Kings, and a colonel in Peacemaker, of course his advice is important.

He is far more knowledgeable than most in the new Whitehouse.

You sure won't get any argument from me.

**********

RELATED: It must be "a liberal thing"

"Indeed. Over here at PMO we're still reeling from the Liberal "coup" of paying a newswire company to put a picture up in Times Square."

"The best we could do on short notice is line up the UN Sec Gen, business leaders, and five media interviews in NYC."

"Must. Work. Harder. To. Keep. Up. With. Genius. Ignatieff."

(via blue like you)

Well, heck... maybe Gawd does...

...play dice with the universe...

-- VANDENBERG AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. -- A rocket carrying a NASA global warming satellite splashed into the ocean near Antarctica early today after a failed launch.

The Taurus XL rocket carrying the Orbiting Carbon Observatory blasted off just before 2 a.m., from California's Vandenberg Air Force Base. But minutes later, the fairing on the rocket failed to separate, a preliminary investigation found. The fairing is a clamshell cover protecting the satellite as it is blasted through the atmosphere.

The project was nine years in the making.

So... nine years... hundreds of scientists... clean rooms... one rocket later... that's a lotta btu's.

Oh, well.

**********

FROM THE COMMENTS:

This was the best of all worlds for Hansen et. al.

They get to spend millions of dollars on their pet project (AGW), and at the end of the day, they're not burdened my any pesky empirical data that they have to waste time falsifying!

Win-Win!

*

Craig Munro isn't aboriginal...

...he just plays one in prison...

Thursday's hearing will take place at his minimum-security prison, Kwikwexwelhp Healing Village, which puts aboriginal spirituality at the centre of its rehabilitation program. Munro is not aboriginal but has converted to native teachings.

The hearing will be conducted in a circle formation and will begin with a smudging ceremony. "Mr. Munro has requested an elder-assisted hearing," said National Parole Board spokesperson Patrick Storey.

And what sins will Munro be smudging away? Well, the cold-blooded murder of Constable Michael Sweet for one.

When Sweet went inside to investigate, he was blasted once in the chest with a shotgun. The father of three was left to bleed to death on the floor for more than an hour as the Emergency Task Force tried to negotiate with the Munro brothers, who reportedly taunted the dying officer, drank and took heroin.

I have a friend who knew the Munro brothers back in the day.

If Craig Munro is released... we should all be very, very afraid. There isn't enough sweetgrass in the world to put a dent in this guy's sociopathy.

If we ever turn this guy loose, it will be a very dark day for somebody.

**********

AFTERTHOUGHT: Special prisons for "Special" people

So this is the first I've heard of Kwikwexwelhp Healing Village. i guess it's... what... an Abo-Centric prison?

This certainly seems like preferential treatment to me. Is there a special facility that caters to the unique needs of other apparently self-selecting groups? Is there an Emerald Isle Alcohol Abuse Centre... or a special facility to acclimatise Russian mobsters to a new and perplexing life in a non-police state?

And exactly what does it cost to cater to the broad strata of our modern criminal world?

Just wonderin'.

**********

UPDATE: Parole Board gets one right

*

Premier McSlippery and his gang...

...sure talk a good game... just don't ask them to actually do anything...

Their reign of terror began with taunts about her nice clothes -- outfits she'd bought herself after long hours at her part-time job. Then it was derogatory names because she dared to excel at their vocational school and shunned drugs and alcohol.

They called her a slut; they spread rumours about her at school. They went on Facebook and MSN and told her friends to ditch her.

"It should have been dealt with right away when I was first seeking help," she insists earnestly. "People just talk (about bullying) but there's no action."

"A lot of things I went through are happening to a lot of people and nobody's doing anything about it. I thought someone would reach out and help me but nobody did."

What would you do if a wolfpack was terrorising your child?

More than Dalton and Education Minister Kathleen Wynne... would be my guess...

-- TORONTO -- Delinquent Ontario students are going to be supported -- and not automatically suspended or expelled from school -- this fall after the province abolishes zero-tolerance policies that have prompted appeals to the province's human-rights commission, Education Minister Kathleen Wynne said yesterday.

So we actually had a zero-tolerance policy in place to cover exactly this type of situation... but the Liberals killed it back in 2007. And the little thugs who are making this girl's life a living hell... are gonna be "supported"?!?

The McSlippery regime then spent a further 2 million taxpayer dollars trying to justify their irrational fuzzy-bunny policies.

Where is the "support" for poor Lindsay Hyde.

Funny how that works.

*

TTC contemplating getting rid of...

...all too suggestive "Red" Rocket slogan...

A brazen daylight shooting aboard a TTC bus Monday afternoon sent passengers stampeding off the bus and left one person in hospital with injuries to his hip.

The shooting took place on a bus near St. Clair and Oakwood Avenues shortly after 1 p.m. Monday, says Toronto police Const. Wendy Drummond.

*

C'mon... give yourself a shake

This is fuzzy-bunny politically-correct Canuckistan. You can turn babies into popsicles and still be a victim... if you have the right "cultural credentials".

The only surprise here is that this guy was ever tried in the first place.

**********

RELATED: CUPE... and all their friends

"Here we have a situation where a once-proud union has sunk so low as to have a small group put forward a motion that is, on its face, bigoted and discriminatory and anti-Jewish," said Bernie M. Farber, chief executive officer of the Canadian Jewish Congress, who argues that the motion is discriminatory because it targets a single country.

He notes that the union isn't, for instance, calling for a boycott of Sudan over alleged human rights abuses in Darfur.

"The sole target is Jews, is Israel."

*

Remember all those guys...

...who were stalling the Conservative's "Tough on Crime" bill?

Well... it looks like they've been put on notice...

Liberals may still dominate the Senate, but the appointment of 18 senators has Conservatives predicting an end to the gridlock that has stalled their agenda.

Just as importantly... it looks like more of them are bothering to show up for work...

If nothing else, the appointments appear to have improved attendance. Media reports last summer suggested 33% of all senators had an attendance rate below 75%. But a review of attendance records since the arrival of the new senators shows only 20% of senators failed to meet the 75% threshold.

Help me out here... if 20% of the folks at your work failed to show up 75% of the time... would you consider that a win?

There's obviously still plenty of work to do here.

Or you could... fire... them... all.

*

Further to Agenda-quiddick

"We know Kinsella hates it when people mention his involvement in Adscam. He threatened to sue the National Post’s Andrew Coyne over it. He threatened to sue the Globe’s Normal Spector over it. He once called Justice Gomery’s inquiry a “pile of judicial garbage” – classy, coming from a lawyer."

"But for some reason Kinsella never did the one thing you’d expect someone to do who actually believed that Justice Gomery was wrong: he never appealed his findings."

Wait a minute... he's suing somebody... for what... LIBEL????

You mean like saying stuff that destroys somebody's reputation?

Seriously?

*

The Chicken Little World...

...of Paul Hellyer...

*

Lead-painted baby toys...

...melamine in baby formula... I've gotta confess, I remain less than impressed with that Chinese "economic miracle"...

-- BEIJING, China (CNN) -- At least 70 people in one Chinese province have suffered food poisoning in recent days after eating pig organs contaminated by a banned food additive, state-run media reported Monday.

Clenbuterol can prevent pigs from accumulating fat but is harmful to humans and can be fatal.

And, of course, this being China... it ain't the first time...

One of the largest food poisoning cases involving clenbuterol happened in Shanghai in September 2006, when 336 people were hospitalized after eating pig meat or organs contaminated with the additive, China Daily said.

Some miracle, huh?

**********

RELATED: So what's any of this to you?

If you have any type of foodstuff in your house (and, chances are, whether you know it, or not... you do) that contains any type of ingredient made in China... it's like sticking a loaded gun in your mouth.

*

So I'm sitting here...

...waiting for the 11 o'clock news, which has been pre-empted by the Oscars... and after listening to just minutes of this uber-saccharine, mutual admiration society... composed mostly of otherwise unemployable multi-millionaire dilettantes... I have an uncontrollable urge to throw up.

No wonder so many of these "hollow shells" end up killing themselves with alcohol and drugs.

Who really enjoys watching this ostentatious, unashamed sybarite's circle jerk?

And more to the point... why?

And that's not a rhetorical question.

**********

RELATED: Please... say it isn't so

*

Must be the weekend

A man was clinging to life Sunday night after being shot, possibly numerous times, in a violence-plagued neighbourhood in the northwestern part of Toronto.

Toronto Police officers responded to a gun call at 245 Driftwood Ave. — northeast of Jane St. and Finch Ave. W. — around 7:10 p.m. and found the victim with life-threatening injuries.

The young man, believed to be about 19, was whisked away to the trauma centre at Sunnybrook hospital in critical condition.

Here's the obligatory affirmation of innate goodness from the Toronto Red Star...

"'It's usually a pretty safe neighbourhood. It's getting better. But people come here and cause trouble,' said Gord, who lives across the street from the apartment building and would not provide his last name."

Good grief.

**********

UPDATE: Latest victim identified

The body of Peter Bowen, 20, was found in the driveway of a Driftwood Avenue apartment building on Sunday.

The murder is the city's eighth homicide of the year.

And yes, there's more...

Peel police confirmed today that the body of a man found in a high-end SUV in Brampton yesterday is that of missing Toronto restaurateur George Koutroubis.

English said there were obvious signs of trauma.

Koutroubis was part owner of trendy downtown restaurant Six Steps. Police had suggested Koutroubis may also be a bookie.

*

Muslim Brotherhood launches...

..."Operation Shoot Myself in the Face"...

-- CAIRO -- An attacker threw a grenade into a famed bazaar in medieval Cairo on Sunday, killing a Frenchwoman and wounding at least 17 others — most of them foreign tourists, officials said.

Don't worry, though... this was an inclusive multi-cultural deal...

The wounded included three Saudis, 10 French, a German and three Egyptians, said Health Minister Hatem al-Gibali. He told the state news agency that the wounds were largely superficial, though one French victim needed surgery.

And here's the schizophrenic punchline...

Tourism is one Egypt's major sources of foreign income.

**********

UPDATE: Another stunning victory for Allah

"The tourist killed was identified as a 17-year-old girl by French authorities."

**********

LAST WORD: In other breaking news...

...unbelievably... some Canadians, er... take a stand.

Again.

*

Lovely Lotus Land...

...where taking someone's life... can get you grounded...

A Burnaby, B.C., man convicted of manslaughter in the 2005 death of a popular Afghan singer will not face any jail time.

Ahmad Froogh, 22, was handed a two-year conditional sentence on Friday that will be served in his parents’ home. He was also sentenced to three years probation.

**********

RELATED: Who ya gonna call?

Eileen Mohan, whose son Chris was an innocent victim of the Surrey six slayings, said gangsters are making a mockery of the justice system.

"They can use our Charter rights — our sacred Charter rights — to set them free," she said to cheers from the crowd.

She said politicians have only paid lip service to the problem plaguing the region. "They go to Ottawa and they look after themselves instead of us.”

*

In these tough economic times...

We have to be prepared to make some sacrifices...

Even before the economic crash last fall, government figures show the CBC had already rung up another $59 million in red ink for the year ending Aug. 31, 2008 -- on top of its usual handout that was 8% higher last year than 2007.

Stephen Taylor has the inside scoop.

"Is the CBC trimming the fat, or do they need some central planning from the government to help them do so? Months ago, it was reported that the executive VP for French-services expensed over $80,000 for travel, meals, and theatre tickets."

"If any of this is making you sick, the next fact won’t make you feel any better. The CBC lost $15 million in 2006-2007 paying for 68,000 sick days for its employees."

Time to get out that big axe.

**********

FROM THE COMMENTS:

"How the Hell can the CBC "lose" money. They don't make any. They just spend all the money they are "given".

I guess what they are trying to say without saying it is that they overspent their budget by $59,000,000.00."

*

Yeah... that's what i thought

Should the National Battlefields Commission have bowed to the threat of violence and cancelled plans for a 250th anniversary re-enactment of the battle on the Plains of Abraham?

Yup... threaten people with violence... AND YOU WIN!!!

There's a message we wanna be sending out to the general populace.

**********

RELATED: You say unique... I say ungrateful

Sure, Pauline... you pay off your share of the national debt... and btw, we're gonna be needing all those tanks & planes back too.

*

The Minister of Business Class

I bet all those folks losing their asses back in Windsor, will be thrilled to hear the news...

Opposition politicians accuse International Trade Minister Sandra Pupatello of living the high life on taxpayers' money, something they say she used to condemn when she was in opposition.

The Conservatives say Pupatello ran up a $128,000 travel bill in just one year, even though in the past she had severely criticized a Tory minister who had spent less than that in two years on the job.

Ah... but now we're playin' by McSlippery Rules.

*

Dear Dumbass Steve Paikin

I bet you wish you were as smart as me... yours truly, Warren.

[*]<<<<<<<<<<

UPDATE: Jonathan Kay weighs in...

"Now, it turns out there's another reason to respect Paikin: He stands up to windbag bullies who attempt to censor his show — even windbag bullies who work for Michael Ignatieff and try to pull strings with higher-up in the Ontario government."

**********

LAST WORD: Steve Paikin spanks the K-Man

"Later that same day, I received another email from Warren informing me that he was emailing the Minister of Education to ask her to pressure us to “unbook” Kathy Shaidle, and that if we didn’t, there would be significant consequences for TVO and The Agenda. He did, indeed, email the Minister."

"Well, now we’ve got a different story, right? Now, it’s no longer a story about the appropriateness of our choosing Kathy to appear on the program."

"Now it’s a story about a well known Liberal Party operative threatening us (with what? We didn’t know) unless we did what he said."

*

Come for "the deals"...

...stay for the penetrating cranial trauma...

When officers arrived on the scene they found the victim lying on the floor in the XSITE Cell Phones store on the lower level and he was suffering from a life-threatening gunshot wound. The dead man has now been identified Kit Chun Cheong, also known as Daniel, a Toronto resident.

No arrests were made and the shooter remains on the loose.

The gunman is described as black or brown, about 6-feet-tall, with a thin build and some facial hair.

**********

RELATED: Yeah, yeah... we're shocked

Police were also busy in North York on Friday night, where they spent the evening searching for suspects after an 18-year-old man was shot near Jane Street and Finch Avenue.

*

Hope and Change and...

...gulag...what gulag???

-- BEIJING -- Co-operation between the US and China on global issues such as the economy and climate change was "imperative", said Mrs Clinton in Beijing.

She said that these would take precedence over points of friction between the two governments, such as human rights and Tibet.

"Our pressing on those issues (human rights, Taiwan and Tibet) can't interfere with the global economic crisis, the global climate change crisis and the security crises," she said.

Yeah... those pesky "points of friction", huh?

Amnesty International said Clinton had sent the wrong signal to the Chinese regime because the US was one of the few countries strong enough to stand up to China on human rights.

“Half a million people are currently in labour camps.

Thus, "The One" reveals himself... yet again.

**********

RELATED: Hope, Change and...

...I hope he brought his kneepads.

*

Montcalm and Wolfe

Sovereigntist politicians feigned victory smiles when the event was cancelled. But they were actually disappointed by their adversaries' hasty decampment.

History has taught them that their fortunes are directly proportional to the duration of the indignation they can stir up among their compatriots.

This time, it was all over almost as quickly as the 1759 battle itself.

*

I'm not the Prime Minister...

...I just play one in New York & Las Vegas...

New York City residents could have been forgiven for thinking that Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff was Canada’s prime minister Thursday night after the Liberal Party arranged to have an official photo of Ignatieff and U.S. President Barack Obama beamed to Times Square - one of the most famous intersections in the world.

The image of the two Harvard graduates standing side by side with a backdrop of Canadian and U.S. flags was simultaneously shown on a similar electronic billboard nearly 3,500 kilometers away on Las Vegas’s famous Strip.

The photo is expected to be shown about eight times over the course of 36 hours.

Conservatives contacted by the media confessed to being less than impressed...

“I guess Mr. Ignatieff is still more pre-occupied with getting coverage in the United States rather than in Canada where he has actually come back after 36 long years of being absent.”

Hey Iggy... not to burst your bubble... but, I'm pretty sure those guys don't get to vote up here.

**********

FROM THE COMMENTS:

"Imagine the liberals stimulating the US economy instead of ours. Did they buy carbon offsets for all that power they used."

**********

RELATED: Hey... it's a Liberal thing

So after almost unanimous public and media consensus that yesterday was a good day for Prime Minister Harper and President Obama, one Liberal has launched a silly line of attack to rain on the parade.

I was just on CTV's Power Play with the chief architect of Iggy Infatuation Corner, Warren Kinsella. Warren, being the talented peddler of fantasy and folly that he is, threw out some line - grounded in nothing but Liberal envy of the PM's success of yesterday - that Stephen Harper would have voted for John McCain in the last U.S. election.

Well, as a Canadian, Stephen Harper doesn't get to vote in U.S. elections.

Unfortunately, my conversation with Warren was cut short by our moderator, Graham Richardson. Graham apologized for having to preempt us, but he did have an interview with the PM to air. Certainly a pretty acceptable reason to kick us to the curb.

But in the interest of accuracy and authenticity, I'd like to point out to Warren that it was his dearly beloved Michael Ignatieff who lived in the U.S. for 30 years, and voted proudly with his pen from his public pedestal for former President Bush's foreign policy on the war in Iraq and coercive torture techniques against enemy combatants. Sadly, it wasn't just one x. Many a letter was used by Ignatieff to celebrate the Bush doctrine.

When the PM does well, facts aren't available for criticism - so why not use fantasy to score points? It is the Liberal way, after all. I am still waiting to see those soldiers in the streets with guns.

Now Iggy actually split his time abroad between England and the United States... but you take the point here.

**********

LAST WORD: Iggy says... "that wasn't my idea"

*

Freaky Friday

So today I crossed paths with the delightful young man, who... among his many other unorthodox accomplishments... spat on the Belleville war memorial during last year's Remembrance Day services.

This individual was just careening around downtown Belleville, screaming at passing automobiles, pedestrians... and whatever other demons were in his immediate orbit... when he decided, to the absolute dismay of non-psychotic folk in the immediate area... to pick up a sandwich board and start doing his A-Rod imitation.

At this point, the police were summoned... and to make a long story short, despite his colourful personal history... nothing, apart from, apparently, a cautionary word to said delusional person... was done.

See, explained the cop, the Ontario Mental Health Act notwithstanding... he didn't actually hit anyone... so we're just gonna let this one slide. Now, this will likely be of very small consolation to the person that "Mr Plan 9 from Outer Space" eventually lobotomises with street signage... but hey... that's simply how the cookie crumbles.

Silly me... I had thought that police were authorised, under the MHA, to detain anyone who was deemed to be a threat to themselves, or others... but I guess I was mistaken. We wouldn't want to force anyone to, say... take their meds.

Not to worry... there will be other opportunities to render assistance here. This unfortunate drifter will, no doubt, soon be back in the public spotlight... hopefully without some innocent bystander's blood on his hands.

**********

RELATED: Yeah, sure... let's just wait...

...until somebody's under the train...

-- TORONTO -- The man accused of trying to kill three Toronto teenagers at a subway station last week was suffering “auditory hallucinations” directing him to kill people, a judge heard Friday before ordering him to undergo a 30-day psychiatric assessment.

*

The further adventures of...

President "You can't get there from here" Obama...

-- NEW YORK -- A global sell-off set in motion by losses on Wall Street came back home on Friday morning, sending markets in New York sharply lower.

The Dow burrowed even lower, a day after it recorded at its lowest close in six years. Gold prices flirted with $1,000 an ounce. And markets from Hong Kong to London fell sharply on more glum economic data and a round of disappointing corporate news, including the bankruptcy filing of the automaker Saab.

"You can look at everybody's trading screen and see nothing but red," said Tim Smalls, head of United States stock trading at Execution LLC in Greenwich, Conn.

Hey... who cares about all that numbers crap... he's so dreamy.

**********

RELATED: Down the Rabbit Hole...

Have we all taken leave of our senses?

The CBC interviewed some lunatic woman who gravely informed us that, with the election of Barack Obama, she now knew that “everything was going to be okay.”

A sign in the crowd read “First God, then Obama,” which was positively restrained compared to some of the comments one overheard.

And I don’t just mean from the reporters.

**********

FROM THE COMMENTS:

When I catch a co-worker mooning about Obama (hard to miss, with the t-shirts and all...), I ask a simple question: which policy of his do you find most attractive?

They can't tell me.

Moral of the story, don't worship idols.

*

Shaidle says let's free Chris Selley...

...so he can find the "real killers"...

Chris Selley is madder at Pamela Geller for wanting to buy Asqa Parvez a gravestone than he is at the guy who put her in the ground.

He also compares Parvez's murder to an airplane accident. Yes, her father's "engine failed" and he accidentally fell upon her from a great height."

Says the furious one...

"Personally, I blame some Canada geese."

My personal favourite was Lloyd Robertson doing oratorical backflips... to avoid using the word "strangled."

"Her neck was compressed, to the point she couldn't breathe."

**********

RELATED: Hey Chris... wave that magic wand...

...and make this one better too...

-- ISLAMABAD -- Police say a bomb has killed at least six mourners at a funeral in northwestern Pakistan for a slain Shiite Muslim leader.

City police official Miran Shah says at least six people have died and that others wounded by the explosion have been rushed to a hospital.

**********

CORRECTION: Oops... those figures were wrong

A suicide bomber killed 27 people and wounded 65 Friday in an attack on a funeral procession.

Alright... carry on.

*

Mission Accomplished

So Iggy got to talk to "the One"... and this is what he decides to go with?

-- OTTAWA -- Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff said Thursday he raised the case of Canadian Omar Khadr in his meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama at Ottawa International Airport.

Ignatieff told CBC News that Obama was "glad to know" 'Canadian parties' were concerned about Khadr, the only Westerner remaining in detention at the U.S. Naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Canadian parties, huh? Who exactly is Michael Ignatieff speaking for here?

Hang on... did Iggy really say "parties"? Maybe not...

The president indicated he "was glad to know that 'the Canadian party' is concerned about Mr. Khadr," Ignatieff said.

Sure, the uh... Canadian party.

You know... the party that wants Omar Khadr back.

**********

TALKING TO ACTUAL CANADIANS: You know, the ones...

...who haven't been outta the country for decades.

"Should the prime minister seek Omar Khadr's return to Canada?"

**********

LAST WORD: The Roots of Liberal Condescension

"I should sooner live in a society governed by the first two thousand names in the Boston telephone directory than in a society governed by the two thousand faculty members of Harvard University."

*

I guess I was wrong

Up until very recently, I tended to think of British Columbia as the natural breeding grounds of the infamous soft-shelled socialist... but recent events are revealing La-la Land to actually be the Wild, Wild West...

Police in Metro Vancouver say they rescued an 18-year-old Chinese student, who was kidnapped on Saturday, in a dramatic early morning takedown.

"Members of the VPD … executed numerous takedowns on multiple vehicles and the hostage was rescued uninjured," Deputy Chief Doug Lepard said in a news release.

I'm thinking this has to have something to do with the "target rich environment". Remember when infamous bank robber Willie Sutton was asked why he robbed banks?

Sutton's answer... "That's where the money is."

**********

RELATED: Coming soon: National Hi-Rise Registry

**********

LAST WORD: The long wait is over

Finally... a story about someone having a "good hair day".

*

When Harry met Sally

My guess is Iggy's "meet & greet Obamagasm"... is gonna blow Meg Ryan's celebrated on-screen fakery right into the method-acting ditch...

On Thursday, the Liberal Leader's image crafting gets a giant boost. TV coverage and media photos of him shaking hands with the popular and powerful Mr. Obama should help Mr. Ignatieff favourably present himself to voters.

“That's the money shot,” said Antonia Maioni, director of the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada.

“It puts him on an equal level, at least in a visual sense, with an American president, and therefore makes him look like a stand-in for the head of government."

The Liberals hope the visit will cause some of "Mr. Obama's celebrity stardust" to rub off on Mr. Ignatieff.

Yup... "stardust & mirrors."

Of course, that's not the way Iggy's trying to spin it...

Speaking to reporters in Quebec, the Liberal Leader took a swipe at Mr. Harper over the scheduling of the Obama visit, saying he would not let the “Prime Minister's political interests spoil an important opportunity” to talk to the U.S. President.

**********

RELATED: Who is the real Ignatieff?

...he doesn't just LOOK like a smarmy Vulcan... he talks like one too!

“Nothing is personal in politics, because politics is theater. It is part of the job to pretend to have emotions that you do not actually feel.”

**********

POSTSCRIPT:

Of course it occurs to me... after the fact... this should have been titled "When Barry met Silly"... damn.

**********

LAST WORD: Even the Wabbits at CTV...

...are asking Iggy to turn down the noise...

"Should Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff and U.S. President Barack Obama meet for at least 20 minutes?"

Fuzzy-Bunny Belleville Leftoid...

...has terrifying encounter with "real world"...

"He didn't hear any of that," Quinlan said of the man she encountered. "He got upset and began mumbling that he would have to rob a gas station so he could get food."

Quinlan said she approached the man and told him there was no need to make such a statement and tried to explain to him that he and his wife would indeed get food but, she said, he did not seem to hear the explanation. Though the man was "irritated" he took a seat in the food bank's entranceway with other clients, she said.

Yeah... that's what I do when I get irritated... threaten to commit a violent felony.

Another client's attempts to lighten the tension with some jokes only further infuriated the man, she said, and he again began to berate staff members and called Quinlan a "bitch." Staff told the man he would have to wait outside as his wife would be served and he again launched into a tirade, Quinlan said.

"I can't even repeat all the filth he said," said the shaken food bank manager.

Apparently... this is a family affair... a multi-generational army of societal leeches. And note, if you will... HE STILL GOT HIS FREE FOOD.

At that point, police were contacted and the man agreed to wait outside. However, before police arrived, the man's son entered the building to help his mother carry the basket of food out and he too threatened Quinlan and other staff members.

The family left before police arrived.

One has to wonder why Quinlan is so surprised though... this sort of thing appears to be the order of the day. And don't call them "crazy-ass grifters"... these folks are "clients."

Tense moments are becoming more and more common at Gleaners due to an increase in demand, Quinlan said. Clients regularly become upset with one another, creating angry encounters with the possibility of violence, she said.

"It gets like this when we're busy. We understand people can get frustrated, but it's like everything else around here, sometimes it just spirals out of control."

Stewart, who had been called to the front of the building during Wednesday's incident, said he has witnessed similar moments in the past.

"I wouldn't say they're uncommon," he said. "Some of them defuse a little quicker, but it happens here."

So this family drives in from out of town to score free food. I sure hope Ms. Quinlan gave this poor man gas money to defray some of his expenses. Or, better yet... maybe they could courier him his free food every week.

Yessirree... build it and they will come... and come... and come...

*

dEAr fR. $¢,

"I GotZ dA PhONe. yOO gOTz da $TaKe. If yoo W@Nt 2 seE yr iPH0ne aGaiN, Put da meAt in MY b0WL anD doNt call dA PolEE$, OK?
@nonYmOuS"

[*]

Need a new car?

You might wanna start thinkin' about a KIA...

The federal government has slapped a $500-million charge against Chrysler Canada Inc. as part of a high-stakes tax battle that is complicating government bailout negotiations for the troubled auto maker.

According to Federal Court documents obtained by The Globe and Mail, the Canada Revenue Agency began notifying Chrysler Canada in 2002 that it had been reassessed and owed “substantial increases” in taxes for three years starting in 1996.

Apparently the bailout's been in operation for the better part of the last decade.

*

Tonight's CTV Moonbat Moment

Have to admit I'm a little torn here... my first impulse was to go with Lloyd Robertson's simpering... "Nice to have a weatherwise President coming to Canada"... but I've gotta go with the Ottawa affiliate's... "On Obama Eve..."

Yes... blessed be HIS name.

**********

RELATED: "Uh... Dalton's not here man"

A McGuinty-commissioned report called "Ontario in the Creative Age" was recently delivered to the premier by Roger Martin, the dean of the University of Toronto's business school, and Richard Florida, the "creative class" guru who has written a series of best-selling books.

"Ontario in the Creative Age" says the jobs of the future will be creative so Ontario needs to go big on education and creativity. The premier could have learned this by buying one of Florida's books for $24.95 at Chapters.

Instead, he paid $2.2 million for a 35-page report.

**********

FROM THE COMMENTS:

"That's the 'health premiums' of 3,667 Ontario taxpayers."

*

Corruption deja vu... all over again

Maybe there's a reason 3 of the last 7 Illinois governors have ended up in the "Crowbar Motel"...

-- CHICAGO (AP) -- At a City Club of Chicago luncheon Wednesday, a fiery Burris asked guests to stop the rush to judgment.

"If I had done the things I been accused of, I would be too embarrassed to stand up here in front of you because you all are my friends," Burris said, adding that during his decades of public service there was "never a hint of a scandal."

Burris then said he would no longer speak with the media.

**********

UPDATE: Legislators investigate Burris "perjury"

-- CHICAGO -- State and local records show that at least 10 names are missing from a list of lobbying clients U.S. Sen. Roland Burris has given to Illinois legislators.

But a review by The (Springfield) State Journal-Register found that Burris' list doesn't match records kept by the Illinois secretary of state, the Cook County clerk or the Chicago Board of Ethics.

Under oath last month, Burris, through Wright, said he'd give a complete list of his lobbying firm's clients.

Yeah... nominated by the guy you just impeached.

Who could have seen that coming, huh?

*

The 15 minute man

Leave it to the Mother Corp. to showcase Michael Ignatieff claiming that he can set things right in Afghanistan... simply by whispering sweet nothings in President McDreamy's perfect cockleshell ear.

And you've just gotta wonder what nonsense the Igster would have had on his "wish list"... if the infamous Coalition of the Swilling hadn't died a horrible ignoble death. Can't you just hear Taliban Jack demanding that Omar Khadr replace Hamid Karzai?

What Ignatieff doesn't choose to admit here is that his 15 minutes is simply a diplomatic courtesy, political theatre if you will... extended to a man who doesn't have a car... never mind a passing acquaintance with the driver's seat.

The reality here is... I've spent more time than this... just takin' a crap.

But hey, pal... it's more than enough time for you and "The One" to go over your resume.

**********

FROM THE COMMENTS: Oh, my gawd...

...he doesn't just LOOK like a smarmy Vulcan... he talks like one too!

“Nothing is personal in politics, because politics is theater. It is part of the job to pretend to have emotions that you do not actually feel.”

Hey Liblogs... where is your god now?

(via blue like you)

"Not my problem", says McSlippery

Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty says he won’t call a public inquiry into an aboriginal land dispute in Caledonia, Ont., that’s dragged on for nearly three years.

McGuinty says it’s a matter of federal jurisdiction, but the province will try to keep the two sides together to help settle the dispute.

After all of his shameful sucking up to the cultural grievance industry and his string of handsomely rewarded, but totally ineffective Liberal "troubleshooters"... it's no wonder McGuinty is looking to kick dirt over this stinking corpse.

Looks like it's up to the Conservatives to shine a light on this disgraceful matter.

The Opposition is tabling a private member’s bill today calling for a public inquiry into the occupation, which began Feb. 28, 2006, and its impact on the southern Ontario community.

Say Dalton... what are you gonna do about Caledonia Part II... or III, or IV...

Look out Ontario... 'cos this ain't over.

**********

RELATED: Gotta have priorities, huh?

Funny how some things just get lost in the shuffle.

*

Who needs the auto sector?

Our business is blood... and business is booming...

York Region police say they discovered numerous dead and live roosters and rounded up 70 people at the home. Police returned the following day and found six dead roosters and 74 live birds, which were euthanized by a veterinarian.

Hugh Coghill, the chief inspector for the Ontario SPCA, says cockfighting is a “truly heinous crime, involving unimaginable cruelty.”

Police allege Danilo Patawaran, 52 and Deanna Patawaran, 46, organized the cockfights and the charges against them include causing unnecessary suffering, keeping a cockpit and keeping a betting house.

*

So Dawg, Stooge et al...

...you've gotta help me out here...
Why is it okay for President McDreamy to make the children and grandchildren of American taxpayers buy houses... for people who were too stupid to realise they should have stuck to renting in the first place?

Yes, yes, by all means... let the outraged howls of racism commence!

**********

RELATED: But, but, but... Barack promised

“This bailout is likely to simply delay a day of reckoning for the banks, at great cost to taxpayers and little obvious benefit to homeowners,” warned Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington.

*

When we first moved out here...

...to the country, Mrs. Neo had but one request... there MUST be a working dishwasher. Mrs. N, and rightly so, regards dishwashing as a sort of cosmic punishment akin to endlessly rolling an enormous rock up a steep hill. (There had been a dishwasher installed when the house was built... but alas, no water softener... which had rendered said machine into a pile of mineral-constipated junk.)

So, to that end we went out to Sears and surveyed the field. We ended up buying a slick, shiny, totally cool, totally black contraption, which was... if not the Mercedes Benz... certainly the Cadillac of dish-cleansing apparatus. It had enough buttons & lights to resemble the control panel of a nuclear missile silo and would be classified, by my standards anyway, as a "smart machine."

Of course, it ended up demonstrating just how smart it was, by committing seppuku, shortly after the warranty expired.

So, as we had called in a repair guy to minister to our stove... also Sears, btw... which had apparently started to have a sympathetic nervous breakdown... we also had him scope out the ailing dishwasher. The tech, who could have made a shitpile of money replacing the innards of said machine, informed us that it would be far cheaper to simply buy another dishwasher. He advised us to buy a low-end Moffat, a very simple and reliable machine that, he assured us, would last forever. So we did.

Now almost a year later, the Moffat, being a distinctly "less smart" variant of the species... decided to give up the ghost while still under warranty.

The repair guy this time, has informed us that the bearings in the pump are kaput. He also removed some gunk from the pump itself, admitting that the filter in these machines is not as effective as one might wish.

So anyway... there'll be a week or two wait for the new pump... but at least Mrs. Neo won't be leaving on an extended vacation.

Now, if I can only find someone to fix the washing machine.

**********

RELATED: Not the "Mike Holmes" show

"I am also, surprisingly, for once... for all my contorted wrenching on sharpish metal objects... not covered in blood."

*

Sad news for British jihadis

Another small pothole in the bloody road to Sharia Law...

-- LONDON -- The Law Lords have ruled that radical cleric Abu Qatada can be deported from the UK to Jordan where he faces jail for terrorism.

Qatada, 48, who is one of Europe's most influential extremists, had alleged that his conviction in Jordan was based on evidence extracted by torture.

But wait... there's more...

The five Law Lords who unanimously backed Qatada's removal also supported the deportation of two Algerian terrorism suspects, know as RB and U, whose cases covered similar grounds.

Maybe the battle isn't over after all.

*

Objects in the mirror...

...may be closer than you think...

Writing as Ashraf from his home in central Quebec, Mr. Namouh submitted 1,075 postings to the site about a year.

Ms. Katz said he was responsible for distributing hundreds of videos of terrorist propaganda through direct copies and Internet links.

The productions included instructions for making a suicide bomber's vest, a kidnapping video of BBC journalist Alan Johnston and a threat directed at Germany and Austria warning them of terrorist attacks if they failed to withdraw from Afghanistan.

**********

RELATED: The New Entrepreneurs

"We are glad to bring good tidings to our Islamic nation about the success of the mujahedeen in carrying out two quality operations in Niger," a Maghreb Qaida spokesman said on an audio recording aired by the pan-Arab Al-Jazeera television.

To analysts, the al-Qaida reference to applying Shariah law is tantamount to a threat the hostages will be killed if the group's conditions are not met.

*

POP QUIZ: Which federal political party...

..has pledged to bring violent, irredeemable killers back to Canada?

-- ANSWER: It ain't Stephen Harper and the Conservatives.

-- VANCOUVER -- Canada's public safety minister is calling on the Opposition to stop preventing his government's efforts to get tough on gang-related crime.

"What we really need is for the people of British Columbia and Canadians to send a clear message to other parties that the time has come to rebalance our justice system and support our agenda on tackling violent crime," Conservative MP Peter Van Loan told a news conference in Langley, B.C.

"I'm not trying to cast blame, I'm trying to get everybody to work together."

**********

BREAKING: Another one bites the dust

Vancouver MP Ujjal Dosanjh was five blocks away when gunfire erupted. He raced to the scene.

"This is completely out of control," Dosanjh said. "Whatever we are doing now to stop gangs is not working."

Hey... maybe Ujjal can have a word with the Liberal Senators who were blocking the Conservative crime bill.

*

More social workers my ass

Who goes out gunnin' for a woman and a 4 year old child?

-- METRO VANCOUVER -- RCMP Cpl. Dale Carr identified the woman slain Monday in Surrey as 23-year-old Nicole Marie Alemy of White Rock.

The Cadillac she was driving was registered in the name of her husband, who is cooperating with police.

*

Watch PETA turn around...

...and start campaigning FOR tasers...

The victim, Charla Nash, 55, was in critical condition from the biting and mauling attack Monday, said Captain Richard Conklin, a spokesman for police in Stamford, Connecticut, a New York City suburb. Her injuries were life threatening, he said Tuesday.

The chimp’s owner Sandra Herold, 70, tried to stop her rampaging pet, Travis, by stabbing him with a butcher knife and hitting him with a shovel, but the chimpanzee fended off the attack and then stormed a police car that had responded to the scene, Conklin said.

The ape ripped off the side-view mirror of the police car, banged on the car and opened the driver’s side door, leading the officer to shoot the chimp several times with his pistol, Conklin said.

*

So, now we're just gonna...

...hand over the gavel to every cultural "shoe thrower" that comes along?...

-- QUEBEC -- Commission head Andre Juneau says there are too many safety and security issues to take a chance on holding the event.

Quebec sovereigntists promised to protest outside the re-enactment and there had been threats against organizers.

How do you say... "Bend over & grab your ankles"... in French?

**********

FROM THE COMMENTS:

"Someone on Chucker's blog suggested we scrap the re-enactment and go for the best two out of three."

I remember back in the 90's I was at Ryerson, at a book reading by P.J. O'Rourke and someone asked him what he would do about the Separatistes.

P.J., never at a loss for words said... "Sure, you wanna go... go. But first... you pay your share of the national debt... and by the way, we're gonna need all those tanks, planes and guns back too."

**********

LAST WORD: But wait... all is not lost

*

From the voluminous...

..."Shouting at the TV" files...

"Apparently I'm looking forward to Obama's visit!"

"I didn't even know I was looking forward to Obama's visit until the CBC and CTV told me. What would I do without them?"

"Yesterday I was worried about the radiation from the two subs that collided and I didn't know it either. I'm sure glad they are here to tell me what I think and what I'm worried about."

"Thank God for the nanny state and the MSM!"

Posted by: Stan at February 17, 2009 10:22 AM

And please... Lloyd, Peter... if I really wanna know about the inner workings of the exciting life of Pop Princess Mandy Moore... trust me, I'll just google it.

*

Finally, someone has the smarts...

...and more to the point... the stones... to stop funding the revolution.

**********

RELATED: La Shaidle weighs in...

"A group that gets government funding insults members of the government that funds it. The government turns around and threatens to slash their funding because the group said something mean about the government."

"Then the same group and groups like them, meanwhile, use another government agency -- the Human Rights Commission -- to take others to court for saying mean things about them."

"And this name-calling & "I'm gonna beat you up after school" circle jerk is funded by your hard earned tax dollars in the middle of an economic meltdown."

As usual, Kathy manages to distill the whole thing into two short sentences...

"Canada shouldn't have 'communities'."

"It should have Canadians."

**********

LAST WORD: Enough is enough

Last year, the National Post editorial board hosted Mouammar and a CAF colleague for an editorial board meeting.

To our collective shock, they laid blame for virtually every problem the world faces on Israel — including the alienation of Arab-Canadian children in Canada's public school system.

*

How big a financial crisis is it...

...if people have money to burn on this sort of crap?

*

Turning back the clock

To, say... the 13th century.

While no reasonable person is going to try and make a case for returning a military-backed regime a la early Musharraf... it appears as though Pakistan is poised at the top of a very slippery slope...

"This means you have surrendered to a handful of extremists," said Athar Minallah, a leader of a lawyers' movement that has campaigned for an independent judiciary.

"The state is under attack; instead of dealing with them as aggressors, the government has abdicated."

Shuja Nawaz, the author of "Crossed Swords," a book on the Pakistani military, said that with the accord, "the government is ceding a great deal of space" to the militants.

This could get ugly.

*

Remember when you were a kid...

...and folks were always tryin' to bust a cap on your ass?

-- BRITISH COLUMBIA -- Surrey RCMP are investigating a gang-style shooting near Green Timbers Park.

At least 20 shots were fired at a four-door white luxury car between 10 and 11 a.m. Monday near 96 Avenue and 148 Street.

A woman has been shot dead. A four-year-old boy who was also in the car was not physically hurt and has been taken into government care.

Yeah... me neither.

**********

ASK A PROFESSIONAL TALKING HEAD:

On the CTV news tonight, Lloyd Robertson yammers on about an "execution style hit"... you know... as opposed to the non-execution variety.

**********

RELATED: Wait a minute... here's a thought...

...maybe the shooters were traumatised...

-- WINNIPEG -- A Manitoba truck driver who had a first-hand look at the beheading of a man on a greyhound bus last year is citing the gruesome incident as the cause of his own legal problems.

Christopher Alguire, 29, is facing charges of break-and-enter and failing to appear in court stemming from an incident last fall in which he allegedly got drunk and broke into a fenced compound after a night of drinking at a rural Manitoba bar.

*

Not a sparrow falls

I guess I just wonder... if you actually believe everything that happens in this world, is truly the "Will of Allah"... what do you do with something like this?

A joint military statement Monday said the airstrike in Darya-ye-Morghab in Badghis province late Sunday killed Taliban regional commander Ghulam Dastagir and eight of his associates, when it destroyed the building where they had gathered.

I guess that's part of why I'm an atheist.

*

Better living through chemistry?

Call me wacky... but I'm stickin' with the under-hyped cow-based stuff...

Now all of a sudden it's only about women. Women of all ages - all shapely, with great bone structure and gorgeously coiffed - staring beatifically at the camera, as if they'd all just spent the day feeding the homeless or saving a suicidal friend from taking the pipe.

*

Let your love light shine

The population of the Gaza Strip increased by almost 40% between 1997 and 2007, according to the results of a Palestinian census.

The UN estimates the world's current average population growth at 1.17%.

Nice to know that even the relentlessly violent, fanatical residents of the worlds oldest and largest UN supported welfare state... are good at something.

**********

RELATED: Yup... more cradle to grave...

...nanny-state overwatch... that's the solution.

The two confirmed claims are likely to fuel further debate about an epidemic of sexual promiscuity and rates of pregnancy among teens in Britain.

Despite the government's long-term strategy, which aims to halve the under-18 conception rate by 2010 (from the 1998 baseline), Britain has the second-highest rate in the developed world with 40.4 conceptions for each 1,000 girls aged 15 to 17.

**********

WELCOME READERS OF UBER-HUMANITARIAN STOOGELEFT

Stooge, using that impeccable fuzzy-bunny leftbot logic... says I'm the "absolute bottom of the cesspool New Hate Movement".

He's put me in the august company of Mark Steyn & Kathy Shaidle... but claims I'm the best, er... worst of the worst.

Funny... Stooge always seems to skip over guys like this. How exactly does that work, huh? I think he's still pissed about being outed as a Wikipedia addict.

And rather than take issue on actual facts, Stooge mounts another impressive example of the "you're a big poopyhead" school of debate.

And Stooge... you might be able to fool yourself... but you ARE part of the problem...

"Pressured by Islamic advocacy groups and the prevailing winds of political correctness, authorities and news organizations remain remarkably mute."

"And, in doing so, these naïve multi-cultists only pave the way for more victims of 'domestic violence' at the hands of followers of Sharia, not local, law."

**********

LAST WORD: You find out your girlfriend...

...was a third-world "stripper"... you might wanna reconsider your romantic options.

Unless, of course, like the Stooge... you think that would be racist.

*

Las Vegas Roll

Apparently, the costliest Congressional legislation... EVER... is a total crap shoot...

"We believe that the three to four million number is an, an accurate number, a good guess. But this is--this--it's--you know, there are some unknowns here."

"Let's give this a try."

David, buddy... Japan... lost decade... that ring any bells?

*

Life is so much simpler...

...when you use that good ol' "Liberal Math"...

"In order to have gathered together $44,175.00 in donations from 76 people, the average size of the donation would have to be $581.25, well in excess of $200."

"In fact, 76 people donating $200 each could only have donated a total of $15,200."

Suddenly... that whole Ad-Scam thing is starting to come into focus.

**********

UPDATE: You know what's really scary?

Occupation: Certified management accountant, financial analyst

*

Hope, Change and...

..."Who's your Daddy?"...

There's an old joke about the loosey-goosey ethical climate of Chicago and Illinois politics:

The devil promises boundless fortune and perpetual re-election to a prominent local officeholder.

"The only thing is that you must give your immortal soul for all time," the devil warns.

"What's the catch?" the politician asks.

**********

FROM THE COMMENTS:

"You are SO NOT IMPORTANT to me."

Shhshhh, shshhh, baby... it'll be alright.

*

Better Living through Chemistry

[*]

UPDATE: Whew... that was close

*

Hope, Change and...

..."I'd like to buy the world a Coke"...

The Obama administration said late Saturday it would participate in planning for a UN conference on racism dubbed 'Durban 2' despite concerns the meeting will be used by Arab nations and others to demonize Israel.

Canada has already said it will not participate, maintaining the meeting will promote racism and not combat it.

I say we pass the hat... and buy a one-way ticket for Dr Dawg...

"We are tempted to compare the first World Conference Against Racism (WCAR) -- organized by the United Nations in Durban, South Africa in 2001 -- to a circus. But that would be unfair to circuses."

"Far from a forum promoting tolerance among peoples and nations, as it was billed, the WCAR became a festival for hateful screeds against Israel and the West by some of the most repressive regimes in the world, cheered on by NGOs from Europe and North America."

**********

RELATED: You know you're tanking...

...in the "Hope and Change" department... when the Saudis start to make you look like a piker...

King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia has sacked two powerful religious officials in a wide ranging shake-up of the cabinet and other government posts.

One of the dismissed men was the head of the controversial religious police force. The other was the country's most senior judge.

The king also appointed the country's first-ever female minister and replaced the head of the central bank.

*

But Pierre... somebody always loses

That's why it's called "War"... and not "Circle of Friends"...

-- MONTREAL -- The controversial re-enactment of the 1759 defeat of French forces on Quebec City's Plains of Abraham has been cancelled, Montreal media reports say.

Planned for August, the re-enactment struck a raw nerve with Quebec sovereigntists, who denounced it as an insulting reminder of their ancestors' defeat 250 years ago.

They threatened to protest the event, political commentators criticized it and even Premier Jean Charest threatened to stay away.

**********

FROM THE COMMENTS:

"Over on AT Home in Hespeler, we are planning a day of re-enactment - everybody does one, big or small, serious or humorous and post it on YouTube."

"Details are not worked out yet, but I'm thinking English guys in tweed and umbrellas beat the hell out of a bunch of goalies."

*

Meanwhile... over at Canadian Cynic...

...they're getting ready to break out the nuts, berries & champagne.

*

Can't Gitmo Satisfaction

Hey, Omar... I hope you haven't packed your bags just yet...

Have we “promised to treat them like the German General Staff?” an apparent reference to the high command officers prosecuted at the 1940s Nuremberg War Crimes Trials. “I don’t think we have,” Justice Antonin Scalia told a recent legal conference in Ottawa.

“War is war, and it has never been the case that when you captured a combatant you have to give them a jury trial in your civil courts. Give me a break.”

*

Hope, Change and...

"...oops, there goes another rubber tree plant..."

At least 27 militants have been killed in a suspected US missile attack in north-west Pakistan, officials say.

The missile strike hit a house in the South Waziristan area, near the Afghan border, which officials said was used as a hide-out for Taleban militants.

*

I'm from the government...

...I'm here to save you...

-- VANCOUVER -- It has been nearly a decade since three levels of government signed a landmark agreement designed to transform Vancouver's notorious Downtown Eastside, but the neighbourhood remains a vortex that sucks in junkies, the mentally ill and other desperate souls from across the country.

The result: More than $1.4-billion later, the Downtown Eastside is hardly better off.

Lemme see... the health-care system is falling apart, CPP may be heading down the toilet... and we just piss away money to absolutely no effect.

How about we shift resources over to people who actually care whether they live or die?

**********

RELATED: Yeah... I'm just shocked

Funding these places is like finding out your child has an insane compulsion to speed through red lights... and then, instead of ripping the car keys out of their hands, you go out and buy a Volvo stationwagon.

**********

LAST WORD: "Save us... oh wonderful Dalton!"

*

Mayor's office strangely silent...

...on which gun club the shooter belonged to...

It was an extremely violent day in the GTA Friday, on the eve of the Family Day long weekend.

The latest incident took place around 7pm, after a man was shot outside a pizza restaurant at Yonge and Gloucester, not far from Bloor St. The victim, believed to be in his 20s, suffered serious gunshot wounds and has been rushed to hospital.

Looks like Mayor Super Dave is gonna have to start cracking down on fencing clubs as well...

Two hours earlier police were called to another bloody scene at the Cloverdale Mall near Highway 427 and Dundas St. W., after two people were hurt in a confrontation.

I think we'll just stay out here in Hastings Cty.

*

So Muzzammil... does this mean...

...you're gonna be looking for a new "Mission statement"?

-- BUFFALO, NY -- Orchard Park police are investigating a particularly gruesome killing, the beheading of a woman, after her husband -- an influential member of the local Muslim community -- reported her death to police Thursday.

Muzzammil Hassan is the founder and chief executive officer of Bridges TV, which he launched in 2004, amid hopes that it would help portray Muslims in a more positive light.

"She had an order of protection that had him out of the home as of Friday the 6th [of February]," Benz said.

(h/t reader scott)

Oh, alright then...

...problem solved...

"He could have shrugged his shoulders and sat at home on his Playstation."

"But he has been at the hospital every day."

**********

UPDATE: The thing about a "Welfare State" is...

...if you build it, they will, er... come.

-- LONDON (AP) -- A DNA test will be performed to determine if a 13-year-old boy fathered a baby with his 15-year-old girlfriend, his spokesman said Monday.

The test comes after a Sunday tabloid newspaper reported that other teenage boys have come forward claiming to be the father of the newborn baby girl.

The local council where the teenagers live said it would offer them support and that they will continue to be monitored by social workers to determine what help they might need.

*

Fumbling towards Ecstasy

Perhaps the "King Midas Touch" is not all it's cracked up to be, huh?

"Gregg is not the first nominee to withdraw."

*

How pathetic have we become...

...when we have to apologise for correcting somebody's mistakes?

In an interview yesterday, Ms. Greene apologized for correcting Ms. Jean, who represents the Crown as Canada's head of state.

"I feel very badly that I might have embarrassed her." Ms. Greene said.

I'm simply speechless.

My question is... "If you put Nancy Greene... or more to the point, Warren Kinsella... and Kathy Shaidle in the same room... would the universe explode?"

**********

RELATED: Speaking of pathetic...

...my own personal troll begins his nightly spamming of the comment threads to tell me... again & again... how unimportant I am to him...
Don't worry sweetie... I'm sure your mummy will be home soon.

*

Call me wacky...

...but how many "non-agitated" people do you suppose the police have to taser every year?P.S. -- For the record, it was a political appointee, a career bureaucrat with no police experience whatsoever... who wants to back off on using tasers.

Actual line cops are just shaking their heads in disbelief.

**********

RELATED: Never a taser around...

...when you need one...

Two young people were injured after they were apparently pushed in front of a train at a downtown subway station, police say. Emergency crews were called to Dufferin station where the "young men" were found on the tracks around 4:45 p.m., Toronto Police Sgt. John Dubreuil said.

A 50-year-old man has been taken into custody for questioning, according to police.

*

Tonight's CTV Moonbat Moment

So I'm sitting there on the computer, not really paying that much attention to the CTV Ottawa affiliate... when I hear... "My son is not a killer. My son is just a accident. It could have happened to anybody."Which just doesn't sound right. I mean, I have to check to make sure I heard it right.

But sure enough, this woman is right there on television... defending the indefensible.

"Everybody deserves a second chance in their life and he didn't get one," said Dionne Pearson.

Hey, Dionne, maybe you mean... like Michael Oatway... the man your son murdered?

"He put the knife to Michael Oatway, said, 'Give me that iPod. Michael, frightened, outnumbered, said, 'I can't do that.'"

"It was his girlfriend's iPod," Mr. McDermott said, as if by way of explanation. "He'd borrowed it."

S.M. then upped the ante, the prosecutor said: "Give me that iPod or you're going to get cut."

Mr. Oatway died of a stab wound to the heart.

Hey, Shawn, buddy... love the warmup jacket.

**********

RELATED: Christie Blatchford weighs in

-- OTTAWA -- On Sept. 21, 2006, a young man who can be identified only as S.M. fatally stabbed a remarkably well-loved and gentle fellow named Michael Oatway, who, until the moment of his encounter with S.M., had been sitting quietly at the very back of an Ottawa-Carleton Transpo bus, listening to music, looking out the window and minding his own business.

Mr. Oatway's mistake was not to cower properly before S.M. and his three friends as they effectively surrounded him in the narrow rear confines of the bus, S.M. smartly directing him, at knifepoint, to hand over his iPod.

For this solitary and magnificent act of defiance, Mr. Oatway, all of 23, died.

Now... I imagine Deputy Dawg & his fellow traveller Canadian Cynic are gonna go apeshit... yet again... about what a racist I am.

Maybe they should try that tactic out on these guys... or better yet, the family of Michael Oatway.

Sitemeter tells me I'm getting all kinds of hits originating from old articles at Kathy Shaidles blog. Looks like there's gonna be another mammoth linky love-fest from the lunatic left.

**********

POSTSCRIPT: CJOH-TV in Ottawa...

...has to be the most ridiculous media operation in all of Canada.

Talking Head Max Keeping does stuff with the English language that make Stephane Dion sound like Winston Churchill. I'm sure there are drinking games at U of Ottawa... where you have to chug your beer... every time Max mangles a sentence, or steps on someone else's words.

Oh yeah, apparently there's an upcoming... and I shit you not... series on headlice.

I'm just itchin' to see that.

*

"Warren Hears a Who"

Maybe TVO will cancel the show and air 100 Ways to Wok Your Dog instead. Or maybe air a Barney the Dinosaur episode.

BTW, does anyone know how many tax dollars, federal and provincial, Warren's been paid over the years?

Posted by: andycanuck at February 12, 2009 2:39 PM

[*]

FROM THE COMMENTS: Special K rouses the faithful

"Its hilarious. Go over to the TVO blogs and read the comments. Both of them! (Seriously, there is one wimp whining about Shaidle, another apparently agreeing, and that's about it.)"

**********

UPDATE: It's getting busier at the TVO blog

Read Special K's letter to the Agenda... and their response.

Funny how you never hear Warren et al... ranting about "Religious Supremacists".

*

So, apparently... cultural relativism...

...DOES trump basic human decency... at the University of Guelph, anyway...

Traversy and Geller aren't giving up. They have $4,000 collected and are determined to make sure it somehow goes to mark and celebrate the life of Aqsa Parvez.

"Maybe we will do something for her in Israel," Geller said. "Although, it would be a shame there is not some sort of memorial for this girl in Canada, the country in which she lived."

And the country where she was allegedly murdered for wanting to be Canadian.

**********

RELATED: Islamic community rallies 'round...

...wait a freakin' minute...

"Mohammad, buddy, here's what you and your friends seem to be missing... this is not some primitive village in the tribal hinterlands of Pakistan."

"This is Canada. We don't even execute people like Clifford Olsen, or Paul Bernardo... never mind defiant teenage girls."

**********

FROM THE COMMENTS:

"Write to the president of the University of Guelph to protest this decision by the Arboretum of the Univ. of Guelph."

Better yet... you could email Chancellor Pamela Wallin.

*

The Obama-fication of Iggy

Looks like the MSM wants to find out... if they can elect the leader of OUR country as well...

Michael Ignatieff is just weeks into his leadership, enjoying a honeymoon period, holding parties to make nice with Liberals still in recovery from the Dion era and fighting off American news media clamouring for interviews about his strong connections to Barack Obama.

And Hanoi Jane is quick to do her part...

Meanwhile, national opinion polls continue to put Mr. Ignatieff in a favourable light and the Conservatives under Prime Minister Stephen Harper are shying away from attacking him in the way they attacked Mr. Dion through a series of negative ads.

Jane... as usual... is full of prunes...
And what exactly is Iggy's "signal achievement" thus far?

Oh... right.

**********

FROM THE COMMENTS:

"What did Iggy do again? Oh yeah, he was another member of the opportunistic brain drain."

*

Please, please, please...

...somebody tell me this one is a joke.

*

Oh... my... gawd...

What the hell are we gonna do... if he isn't "The One"?

"What they did is over-promise and under-deliver," the head of a private investment firm tells the Washington Post. "They said there was going to be a plan, so everybody expected a plan."

"And there was nothing."

*

You can just smell the science

"The exciting news is that with more powerful computers and drugs, we believe we are on the verge of discovering an even larger number, which we refer to as a 'stimulusconferencebill,'" said Xiao.

"Speaker Pelosi has already promised us the funding."

*

Mission: Welcome Back, Khadr

Emperor Iggy's infamous "Coalition"... rises from the dead, to make plea for Canada's "first family of terror"...

-- OTTAWA -- The three political opposition leaders have taken their campaign to repatriate Omar Khadr directly to U.S. President Barack Obama, urging him to recognize the Canadian detainee as a child soldier and release him immediately from the U.S. prison camp at Guantanamo Bay.

"We call upon President Obama to acknowledge Omar Khadr's status as a child soldier... promptly release him from Guantanamo Bay and repatriate him to Canada,"

There's some yip-yap about forwarding evidence, so that Khadr can be tried in Canada... but that's simply a fiction the "Three Stooges" have concocted to reassure the fence-sitters.

Legal experts in Canada say it's unlikely Khadr would face prosecution in Canada, considering he was a child soldier at the time of his alleged crime. Rather, he would likely face rehabilitation and mandatory supervision, they say.

Funny though... it sure wasn't a priority when the Fiberals were in power.

**********

UPDATE: Nah... I think we'll take a pass

He was in the wrong place at the wrong time as a young man,” said Dennis Edney, Mr. Khadr's lead lawyer.

“He is just a wounded young boy who needs to come home and be cared for.”

Hey, Dennis... I guess you missed that episode of "60 Minutes", huh? You know... the one where your client was shown "wiring up an IED"?

You wanna take that home to YOUR wife and kids?

Knock yourself out.

**********

FROM THE COMMENTS:

"Imagine if, say, a teenage skinhead joined his neo-nazi father in an attempt to overthrow Mugabe.

How many leftits (new intentional mispelling) would be calling for such white trash to be pulled out of an African prison?"

**********

LAST WORD: "GO IGGY GO!!!"

Today's Hot Stock Tip

Cash outta "high tech"... and plunge it all into "select" automotive accessories...

-- METRO VANCOUVER -- The president of a car-leasing company said Tuesday the notorious Bacon brothers sent two of his cars across the country to be outfitted with armour without his permission or knowledge.

“They are taking the cars to Toronto and getting the metal put into them and getting the glass bulletproof, everything, secret compartments,” said Erich Schmidt, president of Coquitlam’s Four Star Auto Lease.

**********

RELATED: Toronto cops playing "catch-up"

"Authorities arrested a 20-year-old man on Jan. 11. Anderson Nop was charged with first-degree murder.

Police arrested a second suspect on Feb. 11. Augusto Charlery, a 22-year-old Toronto resident, is charged with first-degree murder. He made a brief appearance in court Thursday morning.

An arrest warrant has been issued for 21-year-old Ali Raza. Raza, who also faces a first-degree murder charge, is believed to be in Pakistan."

*

"There may also come a time..."

"...when science makes it possible for humans to have prehensile tails grafted to their coccyges. When that happy day arrives, if it has always been a dream of yours to swing from the branches of that big elm in the backyard, go for it, monkey boy."

"On your own dime."

*

"Cat Out Of Hell..."

"...or whatever they're called..."

My mind might be playing tricks, but isn't that the title of a song from Warren Kinsella's band?

*

Taliban love note

Did anybody see President Hamid Karzai playing kissy-face with the jihadis the other day?

"We will invite all those Taliban, who are not part of al-Qaida, who are not part of terrorist networks, who want to return to their country, who want to live by the constitution of Afghanistan, and who want to have peace in the country and live a normal life to participate, to come back to their country."

I guess he meant the guys who only joined up for the Friday night bowling league.

Well... it looks like they've decided to take a pass on his offer to bring them back into the fold...

-- KABUL -- A spokesman for Afghanistan's Defence Ministry says 19 people were killed and 46 wounded in multiple attacks on government building attacks in Kabul.

General Mohammad Zahir Azimi says that eight attackers also died in the attacks outside the Justice Ministry and other government buildings on Wednesday.

Karzai might forgive... looks like the Taliban have other plans.

The BBC has pix.

*

Annoying little Fiberal gnome...

...gets publicly drawn & quartered...

"We don't do optimism; we don't do pessimism," Carney countered.

"We don't do spin."

*

Lucky Number 7

A woman who was being interviewed by police said she was in the hallway of the ground floor when she saw two men bolt out of the apartment where the shooting took place. They ran out the building's north side door, while a third suspect fled towards the lobby and out the front door.

The man is Toronto's seventh homicide of 2009.

**********

UPDATE: Latest victim id'd

"Alexis Eraculeous was shot in the chest. Police say the victim was known to them."

**********

RELATED: Remember when you were young...

...and your friends settled scores... by stabbing each other in the face?

Yeah... me neither.

**********

LAST WORD: Homicide Squad stymied...

...release video from 2006 murder.

[*]

Scratch a socialist...

...find an irredeemable nut job...

-- NEW YORK -- An animal rights group has accused the American Kennel Club of trying to create a doggie "master race."

**********

UPDATE: Barbara Hall makes PETA look sane...

It was her response to Steyn's criticism of OHRC's silence on honour killings that shocked me. "There are thousands of things that happen in the province of Ontario on a daily basis and we don't comment on all of them," she said.

But, I spluttered, women are being murdered.

"There are many problematic things that happen in our community and we have to make choices because we can't respond to everything," Hall said.

So honour killings are merely "problematic"?

(via ffof)

"Hope, Change and..."

"...good gawd... get out from under those window ledges!!!"

**********

FROM THE COMMENTS:

"Who'd of thunk the US would become a socialist state before Canada?"

*

One small step for Dan McTeague...

...one giant leap for "Canadians of Convenience"...

The Liberal Party of Canada... making lifelong friends wherever they go.

*

I think I know where Nadya...

...should be getting child support...

California's Medical Board is investigating why the doctor provided the treatment to an unemployed single mother of six who lives with her parents.

This doctor, even disregarding the all too apparent mental (not to mention marital & financial) deficits of his "client"... broke existing laws to make this happen.

Now, obviously... that's not gonna happen. Some intervention, however, is immediately required here.

Angela Suleman says she has struggled to pay her bills as she cares for Nadya's six older children.

A reporter who went to the three-bedroom home described it as cramped and filthy.

You wouldn't leave these kids in a destitute, filthy, cramped environment with anyone else.

Time to call in Childrens Aid.

**********

RELATED: That sounds so familiar...

Appearing on The Rush Limbaugh Show last week, I got a little muddled over two adjoining newspaper clippings—one on the stimulus, the other on those octuplets in California—and for a brief moment the two stories converged.

Everyone’s hammering that mom — she’s divorced, unemployed, living in a small house with parents who have a million bucks’ worth of debt, and she’s already got six kids. So she has in vitro fertilization to have eight more. But isn’t that exactly what the Feds have done?

Last fall, they gave birth to an $850 billion bailout they couldn’t afford and didn’t have enough time to keep an eye on, and now four months later they’re going to do it all over again, but this time they want trillionuplets. Barney and Nancy represent the in vitro fertilization of the federal budget.

And it’s the taxpayers who’ll get stuck with the diapers.

(via mark peters)

**********

LAST WORD: Once again... the taxpayer dime

-- LOS ANGELES -- The Southern California mother of octuplets receives $490 a month in food stamps and three of her first six children are disabled and receiving federal assistance, her publicist confirmed Monday evening.

Spokesman Michael Furtney said Nadya Suleman did not want to disclose the nature of the disabilities, or the type or sum of the payments.

Angela Suleman said she and Nadya's father pleaded with her first fertility doctor not to treat their daughter again. She said her daughter went to another doctor.

*

Sure... the 50 million dollar lawsuit...

...that comes later...

Mr. Edney recently said in an interview that the thing Mr. Khadr needs most of all, given everything he has been through, is "peace."

**********

UPDATE: More fuzzy-bunny "Wag the Dog"

Mr. Edney was adamant he would not agree to severe restrictions on Mr. Khadr's freedoms.

“I want to bring this boy back and give him a chance. I don't want him hobbled like some threat to national security,” he said. “He needs to heal.”

“It's kind of sad when you realize this young man has given up on asking our prime minister for representation,” Mr. Marston said.

Yeah sure, you politically-correct quisling... we feel your pain.

*

The double-edged sword...

...that is technology...

-- AMSTERDAM -- Nighttime was the right time to get tanked Friday in the Dutch town of Genderen.

An unmanned gas station began offering customers gas for 1 euro cent per litre, or about 1.5 cents Cdn per litre, due to a software glitch that occurred around midnight.

*

Paging Elizabeth May

Erstwhile "Greener" zealot discovers revolution is far from over...

"I received probably over 2,000 emails, most of them hurling abuse at me, saying everything that I should be at the end of a bayonet, I should be shipped out of the country, I should be put on the front lines with the Taliban," he said in a broadcast interview with CBC today.

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Bullwinkle Stew

Step one... tenderising.

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Crime-fighting NDP government...

...goes with the ol' "cross my heart and hope to die" initiative...

In what may be the first mention of bear spray in a Throne Speech, the NDP government recently vowed to "limit access to animal repellants, which in the past have been used in burglaries and assaults."

I guess there's a more honourable class of criminals out west... if this is actually an effective solution.

And as of Jan. 1, the province mandated all bear-spray vendors to acquire a licence and record each customer who buys the substance. Most retailers had already required customers to sign a declaration saying they would only use the spray in case of a dog or bear attack.

We've had bear spray around "the halls" since we moved up here in 2001.

Of course... we also have an actual bear denned up at the back of our property. And PETA be damned... if they do actually prohibit access to this stuff here... we'll just break out the pump gun and get us a rug outta the deal.

Funny... the word "taser" just jumped into my head.

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FROM THE COMMENTS:

"That's interesting. The word 'taser' pops into my head whenever someone mentions 'NDP'."

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RELATED: Mayor's office strangely silent...

...on which gun club they belonged to...

Two Toronto high school students are facing charges after police found a loaded gun near a school property in East York. Authorities allege one of the accused was in possession of a loaded revolver while the other student was found in breach of court-imposed conditions.

The 14-year-old boys can't be named under the Youth Criminal Justice Act but both are scheduled to appear at a Jarvis Street youth court Tuesday morning.

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LAST WORD: Okay... everybody just settle down...

...it's not like they tasered him.

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In these tough economic times...

...Canadians are willing, er... reluctant to do... "whatever it takes"... to get by...

"While one might expect hordes of auto workers massing outside local recruitment centres, a scenario that has been reported in the United States, the military says it hasn't seen any such trends and doesn't expect to."

Yeah... we're all shocked.

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RELATED: Paging Michael Moore

The Canadian system is based upon rationing. The system's hope is that you'll die before needing treatment, thus shortening that darn "queue."

Queue maintenance, not healing, not the individual's pain and suffering, is the focus of the system.

But hey... don't worry about Dalton McSlippery... he gets by with a little help from his friends.

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LAST WORD: FIRE... THEM... ALL

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Life, liberty & the pursuit of...

...good press...

The Obama administration is unlikely to continue the press for democracy and freedom in the Middle East that was a mainstay of the Bush administration's policy in the region, a former senior US administration official said on Sunday.

"There is a danger that under the general guise of not wanting to be like the previous administration, there is going to be significantly less emphasis on a freedom agenda and the promotion of democracy."

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RELATED: The "Hurtful Words" Police

If you're just a fellow who happens to own a restaurant in Burlington, the Ontario Human Rights regime will destroy your savings, your business, your life, for no good reason. The verdict's irrelevant.

The process is the punishment.

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Let's run the numbers

Get that? $985 million through INAC and CMHC for 7,700 new houses, 4,800 renos and 5,400 new lots.

So where does the money go and why do most reserves look like third-world shitholes?

I'll bet it's whitey's fault.

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The scales of journalistic "fairness...

...and light" are briefly brought into balance.

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"Thinning the Herd"

It's true... nature abhors a vacuum...

“What happened here today was just idiotic. I don't know how else to put it.”

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Sure, Peter...

...we could just call it a series of "non-industrial accidents"...

"We don't want to be alarmist," said Cpl. Thiessen. "I don't want to characterize it as a gang war."

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UPDATE: Maybe he's just really unlucky

I guess it ain't just BC or Ontario...

-- CALGARY -- Shot two nights in a row, a man in his mid-20s has survived both attacks.

Homicide detectives are now involved in the shootings because the same man was targeted two nights in a row and sustained gunshot wounds in both attacks.

Police say they have yet to determine a motive for the attack.

They also have not said whether the shootings are gang-related.

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LAST WORD: Paging Mayor "Super Dave" Miller

Maybe going after perfectly legal gun clubs shouldn't be your first line of defense after all, huh?

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Drugs... the victimless crime

One for the good guys...

After stopping the vehicle, police found 817 grams of marijuana, with an estimated street value of $16,000, and a loaded Smith & Wesson handgun, the press release said.

Barrington Robinson, 37, and Paul McLymont, 47, both of Toronto face a slew of firearm and drug-related charges.

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FROM THE COMMENTS: "Leave these poor guys alone"

Like any business they had to have means to defend their property against theft and they could hardly have gone to the police for protection.

And...

The War on Drugs is the real cause of the violence and guns.

Hell, yes... maybe these young entrepreneurs should get a tax deduction for the purchase as a business expense, huh? And just think of all the money we'd save when we could finally disband all our police forces.

Thank you Cheech & Chong.

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"The general killed the Viet Cong..."

"...I killed the general with my camera."

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RELATED: So... you can stand on principle...

...or a pile of rubble?

"If on Sept. 10, 2001, we had captured Mohammed Atta and knew he was the mastermind [behind the 9/11 attacks], are we really saying now: 'We wouldn't have held his head under water for 20 seconds?'"

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Sorry folks, that IS the punch-line

"So... a man walks into a chaotic, deeply divided, nuclear armed quasi-theocracy that's on the verge of societal collapse..."

-- ISLAMABAD -- Almost a year after elections were held in Pakistan, which restored democracy after more than eight years of military rule, growing Islamist violence, a crisis of governance and an economy in a tailspin threatens this key Western ally with collapse.

Critics say the Pakistani government is gripped with paralysis, as patronage, not policy, occupies Islamabad under President Asif Zardari. Some see echoes of the last period of civilian rule in Pakistan, between 1988 and 1999, when a series of floundering governments were repeatedly toppled by the army amid allegations of massive corruption and misrule.

There's even a lesson in here for King Iggy and his erstwhile pals...

A coalition central government led by Mr. Zardari's Pakistan People's Party is made up of an unwieldy 70 ministers from four different political parties – ranging from the secular to reputed Taliban sympathizers.

Yeah... who could have possibly seen this coming?

Obviously not the "Canadian Broadcast Standards Council".

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LAST WORD: Shutting down the debate...

...no, not in some third world backwater... at Canadian universities.

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You take care of your reptile crap...

...it'll take care of you...

-- LONDON -- A British university has apologized to a Ph.D. student for throwing away his treasured collection of lizard excrement.

He says the dung represented seven years' field work, and its loss “left me reeling.”

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Even the hippy-freaks...

...at Socialism Central are aghast...

"Should a 60-year-old woman have children?"

Obama initiative becoming clearer

Apparently... he'd "like to buy the world a Coke"...

In a way, the President tied his administration's own hands, requiring the dropping of the charges.

The executive order President Obama signed on closing the Guantanamo Detention Facilities states that "all proceedings" in the US Military Commissions must be "halted".

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UPDATE: So... Mr President... your new buddies...

...how do you like them now?

UN body suspends aid after Hamas steals 200 tons of supplies, including flour, basic commodities.

It was the second time this week that Hamas stole UN supplies transferred to the Gaza Strip for impoverished Palestinians.

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LAST WORD: Obama's head spook...

...admits he lied about Bush/Cheney torture allegations...

-- WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- President Barack Obama's pick to head the CIA retreated on Friday from a charge that the United States sent terrorism suspects to other countries so they could be tortured under questioning.

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No word yet, on which gun club...

...he belonged to...

Police say a boy arrived in class Thursday morning armed with a knife and a deactivated firearm. Police say the boy dropped the weapons when requested by a teacher.

The boy is charged with two counts of weapons dangerous, possession prohibited weapon, unauthorized possession of a firearm, careless storage of a firearm and pointing a firearm.

Oh yeah... he's 12 years old.

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What's the big deal here?

It's not as if he was proliferating... wait a minute...

In other nasty, repressive police state news...

"The brother and sister of serial killer Robert Pickton are suing the government of British Columbia because they disturbed the wonderful oasis of Robert Pickton's pig farm while they were rooting around in the dirt looking for body parts of up to 40 different women..."

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Just because it's possible...

...doesn't make it a good idea...

The CBC says Ranjit Hayer's two boys were delivered seven weeks prematurely by caesarean section at Calgary's Foothills Hospital on Tuesday.

The network quotes the woman's obstetrician, Colin Birch, as saying there are social and ethical considerations beyond the medical ones.

He says he can't imagine being 65 and having two five-year-olds running around.

Chances are... mom's gonna be battling osteoporosis, or even dealing with the onset of dementia before these kids are out of high school.

Is there even another parent involved here?

Absolute insanity.

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Mark Steyn's "crystal ball"

Welcome to the Islamic Republic of Sweden...

Twenty minutes into the lecture, a red shoe was hurled at Dagan, followed by cries of "murderer!" and "intifada!" Subsequently the ambassador was hit by a notepad and two books.

The man and woman who threw the objects were detained for assault and creating a public disturbance.

The ambassador returned to his lecture soon after the incident and was heckled by the audience during the remainder of his speech.

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Let's shut down Gitmo...

...so we can go after the "real terrorists"...

"I don't know if that quotation is accurate, but I believe it and I support it," said Mr. Kennedy, who has been involved in a vigorous legal effort against the meat industry for some years, arguing that manure and other products associated with large livestock producers emit toxic wastes that threaten the environment.

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RELATED: Continuing a family tradition...

So Teddy... I guess the answer isn't actually... "blowin' in the wind"...

But like a lot of well-to-do Cape and Islands landowners and sailing enthusiasts, Kennedy doesn't want to share his Atlantic playground with an energy facility, no matter how clean, green, and nearly unseen.

Last month he secretly arranged for a poison-pill amendment, never debated in either house of Congress, to be slipped into an unrelated Coast Guard bill. It would give the governor of Massachusetts, who just happens to be a wind farm opponent, unilateral authority to veto the Cape Wind project.

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LAST WORD: Hope, Change and... "Howdy-Doody time"

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Headline of the Day... bar none

"THE PROFESSOR, THE MILLIONAIRE, OR GILLIGAN?
WHO'S RUNNING THIS PARTY?"

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"C'mon, baby... who ya gonna believe..."

"...Stephanie Payne... OR... your lyin eyes?"

Some schools, moreover, wanted no part of the program, including North York's C.W. Jefferys Collegiate, site of the fatal 2007 shooting of 15-year-old Jordan Manners that was the genesis of that school-safety report. By a narrow margin, parents decided a police presence might create more problems than it solved.

But data from the 22 public schools where officers were placed show a 17-per-cent decline in student suspensions during the past semester, compared with a year earlier, and a 16-per-cent drop in criminal charges.

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Okay, it's official...

...the McSlippery government finally got one right.

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RELATED: Whaddaya know... it's a twofer

Justice Michael Phelan of Federal Court agreed, in a 2007 decision, that regulations enacted by the former Liberal government to give legal effect to the deal should be declared invalid. Judge Phelan concluded the federal cabinet had exceeded its authority and breached the Charter of Rights.

The refugee pact was part of wider “Smart Border” negotiations undertaken with the U.S. in the wake of the 9/11 attacks to ensure border security.

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It's about time...

...somebody decided to peel back all that apology-encrusted political correctness...

If the veil is merely an accoutrement of certain cultures, we have every right to expect our authorities to declare that we are not one of those cultures, and we can oblige its removal at certain times — at an electoral poll, in a driver’s-licence photo, in a courtroom and in other contexts where the wearing of a mask would be regarded as unacceptable.

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RELATED: Mayor Miller's office has yet to identify...

...which gun club the shooters belonged to...

Billed as a sports bar and West Indian restaurant, Whispers, this night at least, functioned as an after-hours cage for an aimless and hostile crowd. The club is sprawling and attractive; the dance hall at one end is huge. There was music and you could get a beer; indeed, about 13 minutes before he was killed, Mr. Lewis was seen on the tape having one.

Yet in all the tape the jurors saw, no one was dancing. No one seemed to be having fun. Small knots of chippy young men prowled from room to room and back again. Young women in summer clothes often followed.

There were countless near-fights and shoving matches.

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Jacko dives in...

...where Saint Obama fears to tread...

NDP Leader Jack Layton urged the House of Commons to adopt a "Buy Canadian" strategy in response to the "Buy American" clause included in the proposed U.S. stimulus package,

Layton sees a "golden opportunity" to boost slumping domestic sales with a "perfectly legal and appropriately designed 'Buy Canadian' strategy."

Fortunately for us, Layton's dream of 6 cabinet seats has died a horrible death... and cooler heads will prevail...

"The leader of the NDP asked the question, 'What would be wrong with policies that have us just buy here?' What's wrong with it is we are a world trading leader," Harper said. "We can compete with the best in the world; we can sell around the world. We want to sell around the world, and that's what our policy is designed to have us do."

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UPDATE: Good news for Canada

-- WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Senate has defanged the "Buy American" provision contained in a huge economic recovery bill, watering down the controversial measure that threatened to ignite a cross-border trade war just two weeks before President Barack Obama's visit to Canada.

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LAST WORD: Yes, yes, "Red" Star... we get it

Fiberal publicity whore...

...finally gets his 15 minutes of infamy...

"Watching Kinsella come to terms with what he said is fascinating, but it wouldn’t be of national (or international) importance if Kinsella weren’t attached to Michael Ignatieff."

"And in that sense, it’s been an education, too – can Ignatieff manage a team? How does he handle crises? Is he more afraid of Kinsella being inside his tent, or outside of it?"

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UPDATE: Another kick at the cat

A number of readers have e-mailed me asking why this story is important, and whether or not my criticisms of Kinsella's conduct are in conflict with my belief in freedom of speech.

Let me answer.

Kinsella's comments were an insult to the Chinese community in a way that stung them – it was an implication that Chinese are uncivilized, and trick their customers. That’s a particular implication that hurts.

It would be like saying all Irish are drunks, or all Jews are stingy, or all Italians are mafia.

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LAST WORD: Special K clears the air...

...er, uh... tries to change the channel...

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Hope and Change...

...you can take to the bank...*

CTV and Lloyd Robertson...

...round out the nightly "news" (and I use the word loosely)...with a riveting report on... wait for it... "poutine".

An insipid commercial assures me that my fellow citizens (and presumably myself) will sleep much more soundly if we use licensed insurance brokers. The government feels strangely obliged to tout the Canadian Deposit Insurance Corporation... to no discernable purpose.

The lame-stream media makes yet another attempt to manipulate my emotions by bearing down on the two Canadian soldiers killed in Afghanistan since the start of 2009... but would have me ignore the half dozen murders in Toronto during the same period..

I don't know why I even turn on the television anymore.

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RELATED: That can't possibly be right!

There's not a single mention of those dastardly tasers.

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Yeah, sure... just like he "allowed"...

...the sun to rise this morning...
Don't worry, Puffin-Boy... I've heard it gets easier each time you do it.

Of course, there are always a few nay-sayers...

“It looks bad on Ignatieff and his control over his caucus,” said one long-time Liberal. The optics of going against a leader in a budget vote are not good, which is why MPs are usually disciplined.

In 2007, former Liberal MP Joe Comuzzi was kicked out of Stéphane Dion's caucus for pledging to support the Conservative budget.

In 1996, John Nunziata was kicked out of Jean Chrétien's Liberal caucus for voting against the government's budget over what he considered a broken promise not to rescind the GST.

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RELATED: Hope, Change and...

...entitled to "their entitlements".

Obama ran as the candidate who will break the influence of corporate lobbyists, and Daschle wrote a finger-wagging book about how special interests have too much control over how government runs the health care sector.

Then we find that after Daschle left the Senate he, um, earned some $5.3 million over two years from those very special interests, who are already demanding favors.

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