Apparently, we're all gonna die... and the Puffin King knows just who to blame...
Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff is set to accuse the Harper government of lacking leadership on swine flu pandemic preparedness.*
That's a grand total of three people with pre-existing medical conditions, right?
-- In the decade from 1991-2000, there were 5,900 water-related deaths in Canada; of that total, 889 died fishing. --**********
"You might be a little less cavalier. Your brat could get it this fall."Yup... that's just about what I expect from the compassionate, intellectual and invariably anonymous left.
954 — The number of deaths in Canada in 2004 as a result of accidental poisoning."Oh... my... gawd... everybody stop eating!!!"
378 — The number of deaths in Canada in 2004 as a result of a fall involving stairs and steps, a building or structure, or a ladder or a tree.
130 — The number of deaths in Canada in 2004 as a result of a fall involving a bed, chair or other furniture.
100 — The number of deaths in Canada in 2004 as a result of choking on food.*
What is society going to do for Stephanie Rengel's family?
-- TORONTO -- "It's almost like she hit the jackpot," said Joe Wamback, president and founder of the Canadian Crime Victim Foundation.It's a legal system... not a justice system.
"She's not going into the women's pen but a youth facility. She will have her education paid for, just like Karla Homolka did, and she will have free medical and free dental -- all paid for by society. What is society going to do for the Rengel family?"
Nothing. In fact, as taxpayers they'll help pay for the salvaging of their daughter's killer.
-- TORONTO -- Antriksh Singh, 19, who was finishing high school, is charged with first-degree murder and was remanded in custody for a video hearing Aug. 6. Singh, in an orange prison jumper and sporting a thin beard and a mustache, was arrested Wednesday. He is known to police and had been arrested in March for assault and robbery.**********
Co-accused Vikas Dahiya, 21, of Toronto, a door-to-door energy salesman who was arrested for first-degree murder Tuesday, was earlier remanded in custody until Aug. 6.
-- GEORGIA -- An Alpharetta man who for 12 years successfully dodged a Canadian warrant for attempted murder — despite eight arrests tied to a legal Florida driver's license — was nabbed July 29.*
Thomas is now in Fulton County Jail awaiting extradition to Toronto by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
...there's government...
The city of Montreal will be forced to go before Quebec Superior Court to defend its recent ban on the installation of new wood-burning stoves after a lawsuit was filed against the city last Thursday.**********
The lawsuit is being filed by the Association des professionnels du chauffage, which represents 225 Quebec businesses that make, distribute, sell and maintain wood-burning stoves and related products, and Montreal residents Ghyslain Bélanger and Jose Canelho, who want to install or modify wood-burning stoves in their homes.
"If Montreal bans wood stoves, what's gonna happen during the next inevitable ice storm?"*
...President McDreamy and a case of beer... I can see it now...
"Yo mama so fat, she authorized a $700 billion bailout of Dairy Queen."*
Perhaps it's time "His Blondeness" took a look at that other "waste management" issue... unapologetic thuggery...
Residents of a North York housing complex say they are living in fear, convinced they are caught up in an escalating gang war, after their neighbourhood was sprayed with bullets and two young men were injured early yesterday.**********
It's the second time this month that gunfire has erupted at the three community housing lowrises on Neptune Dr., near Bathurst St. and Hwy. 401.
Some residents said they believe yesterday's shooting and another one on Canada Day that also left two men hurt may be connected to recent shootings in nearby Flemington Park.
A loaded handgun was recovered and two people were arrested after a traffic stop in east Toronto.**********
A cache of ammunition was also seized when the car was stopped by Toronto Police in the Danforth and Donlands Aves. area around 2:45 p.m. Tuesday.
Cuong Quoc Luong, 27, of Toronto, is charged with numerous firearms offences, including weapons dangerous, carrying a concealed weapon, possessing a prohibited weapon with ammunition, possessing an unauthorized firearm, careless storage, and possessing a firearm contrary to a prohibition order.
Shandale Johnson, 30, of Toronto, is charged with numerous firearms offences including possession of a firearm in a motor vehicle.
-- NEW YORK -- New York City is buying one-way plane tickets for homeless families to leave the city.*
It's part of a program by Mayor Michael Bloomberg's administration to keep the homeless out of the expensive shelter system, which costs $36,000 a year per family. More than 550 families have left the city since 2007. All it takes is for a relative to agree to take them in.
The city employs a travel agency for domestic travel and the Department of Homeless Services handles international travel. City officials say there are no limits on where a family can be sent and families can reject the offer.
Families have been sent to 24 states and five continents, mostly to Puerto Rico, Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas.
City officials say none of the relocated families have returned to city shelters.
Somewhere... Stephane Dion is pounding his head against a wall and weeping...
“I have always tried to work with the government, trying to put the country first, but it's getting tougher and tougher, and that's all I'll tell you right now,” Mr. Ignatieff told CTV News Channel.C'mon Iggy... be a man.
The Liberal Leader did not say whether he would move a non-confidence motion when Parliament reconvenes in September, but he said it was “not an unreasonable extrapolation.”
*
"What's his black anthem? We shall overeat?"[*]
Wilmore noted that Gates had said "yo mama" during his confrontation with Crowley. "How many decades has he been holding that in?"
"Did he call him a jive turkey, too?"
As an attorney, when a police officer stops you and says, "I smell alcohol on your breath. Have you been drinking?" -- the correct response is never -- "Officer, I see powdered sugar on your chin."*
"Have you been eating jelly donuts?"
...convicts have daughters too...
Lawyer Jean-Claude Dubé tells CJAD News he hasn't spoken to his client yet but prison authorities tell him 18-year-old Hamed Shafia was assaulted by other inmates while they were in the outdoor courtyard in the detention center in Napanee, Ontario.It's not all bad news though, especially for fanatic adherents of Sharia Law. I hear they have "arranged marriages" in prison too.
...I'm shocked...
**********
RELATED: Dalton McSlippery rides again
The new total of $15.3 million is spread among 26 sole-sourced contracts, meaning the agency never sought another bidder.This burns my ass. After moving out to Hastings County it took us six years to get a family doctor.
Approximately $13 million was paid out on the contracts.
Such contracts were issued in part because eHealth was told to get moving on its mandate. Its predecessor, the Smart Systems for Health Agency, burned through $650 million over five years with little to show for its efforts.
"This is scandalous," Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Hudak told CTV Toronto.*
"At a time when you can't get a loved one into a long-term care home, when you have to wait for an MRI, to see the McGuinty government handing out untendered contracts to Liberally-connected consulting firms is absolutely outrageous."
Women... can't live with 'em... can't flog 'em to their knees...
A Sudanese woman facing 40 lashes for wearing trousers in public made her first appearance today in a court packed with supporters, in what her lawyer described as a test case in Sudan's decency laws.*
There were chaotic scenes as Lubna Hussein, a former journalist who works for the United Nations, attended the hearing wearing the same green slacks that got her arrested for immodest dress.
...just something to think about the next time you pay your municipal taxes...
“I'm not prepared to endorse a deal that Mayor David Miller's made if the strike was for naught,” said Councillor Case Ootes (Ward 29, Toronto-Danforth), leader of council's right-leaning minority. “But at this point we don't know for sure what's in there.”*
...Yassir Arafat is smiling...
An Ottawa university professor accused in the deadly terrorist bombing of a French synagogue nearly 30 years ago is expected to resume teaching at Carleton University this week.(h/t reader rich)
Hassan Diab, who is accused of murdering four people in the 1980 bombing, will begin teaching a part-time introductory sociology course at Carleton two days a week between now and the middle of August.
Carleton University today issued the following statement to media:*
In the interest of providing its students with a stable, productive academic environment that is conducive to learning, Carleton University announced today that a full-time faculty member, with direct experience teaching introductory sociology (SOCI 1002), will immediately replace the current instructor, Hassan Diab.
No further comment will be made regarding this issue.
...in fuzzy-bunny Canada, you can still get a semblance of actual justice...
Judge Nordheimer rejected defence arguments that she was less blameworthy because she wasn't present when Ms. Rengel was slain.Don't get me wrong here... there is no way this will ever make up for what this little freak has done to Stephanie Rengel and her family.
“A person who plans and orchestrates and directs another person to take the life of a human being is at least as morally culpable as the person who does the actual act,” the judge wrote in his 23-page decision.
“Put simply,” he said, “the puppermaster is not less blameworthy than the puppet.
As a teenager, Todorovic is too young to diagnose for personality disorders, according to psychiatrists Philip Klassen and Julian Gojer, who assessed her prior to yesterday's sentencing.Hey, Julian... maybe she can come and live at your place, huh?
"Melissa exhibits marked anti-social tendencies in the single domain of intimate relations, while otherwise functioning normally."
"Todorovic's lack of remorse stems from her immaturity. She doesn't pose a risk to the community as long as she undergoes therapy," Gojer added.
...huge heroin sting... er... wait a minute...
Three men from the Toronto-area have been arrested in what the RCMP call one of the largest heroin seizures in Canada. More than 100 kilograms of high-grade heroin and about $650,000 in cash were seized last weekend during several searches at Toronto-area addresses.*
The RCMP says it believes the heroin originated in Afghanistan and was destined for a Toronto address.
Facing a slew of drug charges are two brothers from Brampton, Ont., Ali Murtaza, 35, and Nazma Murtaza, 34, and a Toronto man, Al Saadat, 50.
...couldn't pull this fat outta the fire...
"California's share (32%) of the nation's welfare recipients has been soaring since Democrat legislators severely relaxed welfare rules and eligibility while hiking benefits around 2001. The result was as predictable for welfare as California's high taxes and heavy regulations have been for jobs and business."But hell... that's just part of the problem...
San Francisco, to use a simple example, employs at least 100 unionized workers who earn over $200,000 annually (including a $350,000 a year "Special Nurse").But who really cares, huh? It's just a tiny drop in the whole Democratic Party spend, spend, spend well.
Los Angeles has nearly 300 retirees earning over $100,000 a year.
California is an ominous preview into America's future.(h/t maggies farm)
Perhaps an enterprising progressive (or is that an oxymoron?) could explain why we should follow the Obama-Pelosi-Reid brain-trust into certain oblivion.
...and intellectual superiors...
The real headline here should be... "Local Sociopath... nobody had a clue".
**********
RELATED: Apparently J-School 101 says...
...never let facts get in the way of a good story...
What motivation was there behind torquing over three quarters of the story? Did somebody in Ottawa (or Toronto) pick up the phone and push a more interesting story to the editors instead?*
Some observers will remember that “Wafergate” led CBC’s flagship newscast The National rather than the story about the Prime Minister’s participation in the G8 conference.
...even plenty is never enough...
A TTC ticket-taker who earned $125,000 last year is one of two transit employees collected by cops for allegedly stealing fares. Toronto Police told the Sun yesterday the two men were charged last week following an investigation by TTC special constables.*
Station collector Kiran Sachdev, 56, of Toronto, is charged with four counts of failing to collect a fare and one charge of theft under $5,000. Anthony Alfano, 65, of Whitby, is charged with nine counts of failing to collect a fare and one count of theft under $5,000. Both men, who worked mostly at the Eglinton subway station, will be in College Park court Aug. 31.
Ontario's annual salary disclosure list of provincial and municipal civil servants who earn $100,000 or more shows Sachdev made $125,247.19 last year working for the TTC. Also known as the sunshine list, it shows he also made $2,089.33 in taxable benefits.
A female colleague from the English department recalled a recent incident along the Charles River jogging path during her regular morning run. A confused passer-by rudely interrupted her progress and requested directions, as if my colleague were some sort of lowly campus guide or untenured adjunct.**********
"Where does this street go to?" she demanded. Naturally, my colleague took the opportunity to correct her, noting that "at Harvard we do not end our sentences in prepositions."
"Okay, Where does this street go to, asshole?" barked the interloper. Needless to say, my colleague's daily morning runs have since been replaced with tear-filled visits to the Faculty Asshole Self Esteem Counseling Center.
Gates volunteered that the foundation's second-largest grant, for $6,000, went to his fiancée, Angela DeLeon, who was also on Inkwell's board from 2005 to 2006.Now just ask yourself... "What would a 'Community Organiser' do?"
Gates said he recused himself from the vote on DeLeon's grant, which was for a project translating documents from Spanish and Dutch about the slave trade to Mexico.
CTV mourns for a murderer... and his "HEAVY sentence"...
**********
FROM THE COMMENTS: Ask a doctor...
Well I'm not a lawyer, but I worked on the medical side of forensics psychiatry for a while and saw some of Canada's worst criminals.*
Every time I hear one of these guys talk about longer sentences not having an effect I have to wonder what kind of background work they are doing on their clients because I would often review the case sheets from many of the patients.
One thing I noticed was that these guys often had numerous convictions, often very violent, going back several years before they finally got referred to forensic psychiatry.
No one has yet been able to convince me that locking these guys up forever after their first or second violent offence wouldn't have prevented the third fourth, fifth, sixth rape/violence offence that they commited.
...unless Kabul or Karachi are actually on that court designated "wish list"... you're just dog-paddling in circles...
The lawyer for a member of a Montreal family that has been charged with killing other family members says he is "seriously considering" asking for a change of venue for the case due to the negative press surrounding the case in Kingston and in Montreal.**********
Ferdoussi says the media's talk of the crime as an "honour killing" has effectively poisoned the atmosphere in both in Kingston, where the crime happened, and Montreal, where the family lived in St. Leonard.
"I know what it is," Waice Ferdoussi said when asked if the incident was an honour killing.Yeah... it's a mystery.
"I don't know why they are talking about it in this case. Perhaps because they from Afghanistan, maybe."
Rona, 50, confided to her two siblings that she overheard Mr. Shafia saying he would kill his eldest daughter over her behaviour and the relationship.**********
What a surprise. This lawyer is, ahem, also involved in the immigration business.*
..."Bidet -- or not bidet -- that is the question."
Had to do a little more home repair here at "the Halls" the other day. Despite frantic disinfecting and cleaning, we'd been getting a really bad port-a-potty odor in the upstairs bathroom lately.
After a failed effort at isolating the smell to any one of our drains, I pulled the toilet and installed a new wax seal on the drain.
Strangely enough, the smell got worse the next day.
In a desperation move, I dumped a few pailfuls of water down the never-used bidet... thinking that sewer gas might be meandering up through the empty p-trap.
The problem is... for the moment... fixed... but I'm wondering whether it's actually the bidet, or maybe a plumbing system main vent issue?
Anybody out there ever run into this?
*
Wow... talk about the very definition of "live and don't learn."
Aren't you squirming in your seat right now? Has this news not just made your entire life worth living again?? Don't lie.Yeeeeeeehaw!!! Ezra Levant rides again...
They say there are two ways to really get to know someone: marry them, or go into business with them. I think there's a third: get into a lawsuit against them.*
I know a bit about Awan now; but by the time we're through, I think I'm going to know an awful lot more about him -- and about the bigoted Canadian Islamic Congress for which he acted as their youth president.
...and people used to spring ambushes at wedding parties?
-- Winnipeg -- At least two other people, including Ms. Robert's common-law spouse, were clipped by bullets in the brazen ambush of at least 100 wedding guests.Yeah... me neither.
Investigators and witnesses said that Ms. Robert had been perusing raffle prizes with her spouse when she was shot in the head and he in the back.
A 23-year-old Toronto man is dead after he was gunned down in an alley behind a popular downtown bar early this morning.**********
The victim had been at The Brunswick House, at the corner of Bloor St. W. and Brunswick Ave. in the Annex, when he went to his car to get something around 1 a.m., a friend said.
There is no indication that the victim, whose friend said lives in the Scarlett Rd. and Eglinton Ave. W. area, knew his shooter, Gallant said.
He demanded the necklace; he got the necklace. Then he shot and killed the young man who had been wearing it.*
This is what Toronto cops probing the death of 23-year-old Sebastian Herrera watched unfold on surveillance video of the Annex alley where Herrera met his fate early Saturday morning, Det. Stacy Gallant said yesterday.
"He was shot for no reason," Gallant said. "I would totally agree with that."
The gunman was black, about six feet tall, 180 pounds, and dressed in dark clothes, Gallant said.
...Harvard professor gets "all medieval on yo' ass"...
Gates, 58, a world-renowned scholar and documentary filmmaker on black history, allegedly ranted to police at his Ware Street home, “This is what happens to black men in America!” and “You don’t know who you’re messing with!” in addition to verbally dragging Crowley’s mother into the fray.Hmmm... perhaps channeling Tupac Shakur wasn't the best option here after all...
Curiously... it appears as though Mr. Gates isn't too keen to have those audio tapes made public..."My entire academic career has been based on improving race relations, not exacerbating them," Gates said in an email, adding: "It is time for all of us to move on, and to assess what we can learn from this experience."**********
A black president, a black governor and a black mayor all agree with a black Harvard professor that he was racially profiled by a white-Latino-black police team, headed by a cop who teaches courses in how to avoid racial profiling.[*]
The boundless elasticity of such endemic racism suggests that the "post-racial America" will be living with blowhard grievance-mongers like professor Gates unto the end of time.
...that's funny... I guess there are still some folks out there, who aren't feeling dishonoured...
Offers of help are pouring in for an eight-year-old Liberian girl disowned by her own family in Phoenix, Arizona, after being raped by four boys.A spokesperson for the Liberian community thinks Dad & Mom should get some counselling.
The girl is under the care of the Arizona Child Protective Service (CPS) because her parents said she had shamed them, and they did not want her back.
Phoenix police said calls had come in from all over the US offering money, or even to adopt the young girl.
“She [Zainab] had fallen in love, like all teenagers at a certain point,” Mr. Abdali told CTV News. “The parents didn't like that she should marry a Pakistani boy without money or wealth. They didn't want it to be seen by society, or by other Afghans.”*
Rona, 50, confided to her two siblings that she overheard Mr. Shafia saying he would kill his eldest daughter over her behaviour and the relationship.
Paging David Miller... call up Waste Management and get them to give you a quote.
It's not like they'll have trouble finding people who can throw stuff onto the back of a truck for 20 bucks an hour.
-- TORONTO -- “I am a patient man, but I am close to the end of my rope,” said Canadian Union of Public Employees Local 416 president Mark Ferguson, representing outside workers.Okay Mark... that could work.
“A few minutes ago I told the city negotiators that time is running out. We must have a settlement by midnight Sunday, or we are finished.”
...and his buddy "Skip" Gates... on accusations of racial profiling...
"President Obama said that the actions of the Cambridge Police Department were stupid and linked the event to a history of racial profiling in America," Sgt. Dennis O'Connor, president of the Cambridge Police Superior Officers Association, said at a news conference.And who exactly is the police officer being slandered sight-unseen by Obama?
"The facts of this case suggest that the president used the right adjective but directed it at the wrong party."
Cambridge police Sgt. James Crowley, the cop at the center of a firestorm over the arrest of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., has taught a racial profiling class at the Lowell Police Academy for five years.**********
His academy class, which he teaches with a black police officer, instructs about 60 police cadets per year who spend 12 hours in the classroom, said Lowell Police Academy Director Thomas Fleming.
“He’s a very professional police officer and he’s a good role model,” Fleming said. “Former police commissioner Ronny Watson, who is a person of color, hand-picked Sgt. Crowley. ... I presume because he would be the most qualified and most professional."
-- WASHINGTON -- Trying to tamp down an uproar over race, President Barack Obama said Friday he used an unfortunate choice of words in commenting on the arrest of black scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. and could have “calibrated those words differently.”Funny... not a single word about his telephone conversation with his good buddy, "Skip."
The president said he had telephoned the white policeman who arrested Gates, and he said the conversation confirmed his belief that the officer was a good man and an outstanding officer.
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs refused to say whether Obama had apologized to Crowley.Anybody happen to get a soundbite from Reverend Jeremiah Wright?
Asked repeatedly about that, Gibbs said: "If the president doesn't want to characterize it in a conversation that he hates having with you all, I'm not going to get ahead of him."
Supporters including Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson called the arrest an outrageous act of racial profiling.
For weeks after, we reenacted that "one small step for man" from our backyard tree house, descending the steps in Super-Slo-Mo onto the lunar crabgrass. Then we bounded out in search of our dog Buster's steaming "moon rocks" for "moon rock fights."*
Eventually Dad would yell at us to get out the moon-mower, but it did little to dent our enthusiasm for space exploration.
Maybe it was just the model airplane glue talking, but for that brief moment we actually believed we were Armstrong and Aldrin and Collins.
...strangely silent on which gun club the shooters belonged to...
Bullets flew in Lawrence Heights again yesterday afternoon as gun-toting thugs shot up a house just steps away from where a man was badly wounded in a broad daylight shooting eight days earlier.[*]
But Toronto Police say they don't believe the two shootings are connected.
Officers flooded the area around the home at 47 Flemington Rd. -- northeast of Dufferin St. and Lawrence Ave. W. -- after the 2 p.m. shooting and found the boulevard and street out front littered with empty shell casings.
On July 15, a gunman fired as many as 20 shots at a 38-year-old as he rode a bike through the neighbourhood.
...and scarred for life...
-- PHOENIX -- The boys, ages nine to 14, face charges ranging from sexual assault to kidnapping, police said Thursday. Authorities in Phoenix say it’s one of the most horrific cases they’ve ever seen. All five children are refugees from the West African nation of Liberia....but wait, it gets worse...
The outrage over the allegations has intensified when police said the girl’s parents criticized her after the attack and blamed her for bringing shame on the family.Un-freakin'-believable.
“The father told the case worker and an officer in her presence that he didn’t want her back. He said ‘Take her, I don’t want her,”’ Hill said.
"The parents of the 8 year old rape victim just brought shame on our entire country. 'Take them, I don't want them'."*
"...where, as a friend reminded me yesterday, years ago Greeks celebrated when Greece beat Canada at basketball, where this spring, protesting Tamils blocked a street full of hospitals in Toronto to criticize our country, where a couple of years ago, Toronto Police bragged of not uttering 'the M word' (Muslim) at a press conference held to announce the arrests of a group of young Muslim-Canadian men charged in a terror plot."*
"'Here is the clash that the great Canadian tolerance is faced with,' my friend wrote. 'Here we tolerate a partial and some would say a negligible assimilation or even acceptance of our Canadian norms, beliefs, fundamental principles.'"
...I'm here to save you...
“The Australian blacklist wasn’t written by a court,” adds Levant, himself a lawyer. “There was no hearing where evidence was brought that these sites were criminal sites.”*
...castle back too...
Scottish Conservative Jamie McGrigor has tabled a motion, with cross-party support, calling on the Scottish Parliament to back a petition that demands the Westminster Parliament overturn the Acts of Attainder and clear the names of Jacobite families.*
"...until I came to Canada."**********
Since the incident, Phipps said he has trouble sleeping and has lost weight, affecting his other job as a personal trainer. Medication to help him sleep has damaged his eyesight. He is "teased mercilessly" by co-workers, and his wife and parents fear repercussions from the police.
Phipps, 44, is asking for a financial award in the case; he won't say how much.
"Neo, this isn't about what experiences of racism my children have or have not experienced but ensuring their rights are not violated solely because of the colour of their skin.Hmmm, so Kate... "You had no idea what racism was until..."
"Apparently he now gets stopped by the police when he leaves the house to walk to work in the early hours of the morning. It doesn’t happen every time, but often enough, that I am now seriously considering following him with my camera."Perhaps Mr Phipps should get his mummy to follow him around everywhere as well, huh?
"The Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario handed down a judgement on a case and I couldn’t be happier or more pleased."Just a suggestion... you might wanna read "Shakedown"... by Ezra Levant.
...another fuzzy-bunny poll goes horribly wrong...
**********
RELATED: More McGuinty "rope-a-dope"
Ontario's opposition parties were fuming Wednesday after the Liberal government quietly dropped a promised independent review of scandal-plagued eHealth Ontario.It's why we call him "McSlippery."
EHealth Ontario first came under scrutiny last week for nearly $5 million doled out in untendered contracts, with more than half questioned over personal ties to company executives.
The government had said PriceWaterhouseCoopers would look into procurement practices at the provincial agency, which is working to create electronic health records for Ontario residents.
The Auditor General's report is not due until September, while the PriceWaterhouseCoopers report was supposed to be released earlier.
...make Dubai media...
The grisly discovery of the bodies of four former Dubai women at the bottom of a freshwater boating canal in Canada has led to the arrest of a former Dubai businessman, his wife and their son.It's a little different treatment that the Shafi family initially received in the Canadian papers...
According to media reports, Mohammad Shafi, his wife, and his 18-year-old son were arrested in Montreal where they have lived after moving from Dubai.
A native of Kabul, Afhganistan, Shafi was taken into custody in connection to the unexplained deaths of his three daughters Zainab, 19, Sahar, 17 and Geeti, 13 and a fourth relative Rona Amir Mohammed, all of whom lived in Dubai for 15 years before immigrating to Canada two years ago.
"In a tearful interview at his home shortly after the car was found, Shafee said he couldn't shake the feeling that the crash may have been the result of Zainab taking the family car without permission."Unsurprisingly, the Toronto Star, despite a slew of red flags, was quick to take sides...
They just snapped up the father's story and ran with it...Shafi, who speaks limited English, said he has no idea who's responsible for what he called a "big mistake take car."A mistake... or was it a magic flying car, a la Harry Potter?
"Mistake Zainab? Mistake Sahab?"
The mother's aunt, Zarmina Fazel, told the Star, "It would go around fences, I don't know. I'm in shock."Fresh, and decidedly less uncritical details are just now starting to emerge...
She went on, "Midnight, practice driving by the water is not normal, no? I cannot understand."
The Kingston Whig Standard reported that Kingston police had received an e-mail from Diba Masoomi, a woman living in Niort, France who claims to be the older woman's sister.**********
In the e-mail, sent two weeks ago, she wrote: "We are convinced that this is a crime of honour."
Insp. Brian Begbie said investigators have "cause to believe" the older woman found in the car, Rona Amir Mohammed, was Mohammad Shafia's first wife.*
...and apparently the Warden is sad...
A massive probe into the shocking uprising and riot at Warkworth Institution that left one inmate dead and 13 others in hospital will commence immediately.Perhaps Assistant Warden Ann Anderson should be considering a career change to something more suited to her temperament, say... a daycare centre.
A sad Assistant Warden Ann Anderson confirmed this last night -- as well as how the inmate is believed to have died: the result of a drug overdose.
Nine of the 13 recovering in a Campbellford hospital are believed to have overdosed, too. The frightening fact that more than 200 prisoners would be able to gain access to the health-care centre and pillage its supply of narcotics will be looked at closely.
"For years there was speculation about a riot at the Pen, but it never happened. It's usually a quiet place and the shit disturbers are either 'tuned up' by the peace makers, or are shipped out to Kingston Pen or Millhaven."**********
"I guess the only way to stop this kind of incident is to start shooting and then ask questions after. If this had happened the riot would have been over in about 30 seconds."
"How they broke into the infirmary is a mystery. It's hard enough for staff to get in there legally during regular working hours."
"I agree that something should be done. I would not, however, begin with the justice system. That's a sympton, not a cause."*
"It's like saying there are too many cancer patients, so we're going to cut back on chemotherapy."
...yet again siding with career criminals...
"I have been calling on Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff to do something this summer about the holdup we have in the Canadian Senate.But don't try to get a soundbite from Iggy... he's M.I.A.
I had a hard enough time getting that bill through the House of Commons and then when it got to the Senate at the beginning of June, we found it impossible to even get them to debate it," Nicholson said.
I have no idea what Michael Ignatieff is up to.*
I note that Susan Delacourt reported the other day that he is demanding his staff work harder, which is the classic response of losers who have no idea what their staff does or is supposed to be doing, but perhaps that’s too harsh.
"If you know who did this murder," she said speaking in Tamil, "right away, tell the police. From now on, we don't want this to happen to anyone else."Except, of course, that it already did...
This is the second time in a little over a week, a young Tamil man has been beaten and killed in northern Scarborough.**********
Sources say Kingston police, accompanied by members of the Montreal force, Wednesday morning arrested three people in connection with the deaths.*
Two men and a woman were reportedly taken into custody on their way to Montreal's Pierre Elliott Trudeau airport.
...in Farsi...
The operation appears to be "no more risky" than the attack in June 1981 on the Osirak reactor in Iraq, which was destroyed by Israel to prevent Saddam Hussein getting nuclear weapons.*
A similar attack on Iran "provides at least as much benefit in terms of delaying Iranian development of nuclear weapons," said researchers Whitney Raas and Austin Long.
...strangely silent on which gun club they belonged to...
Around that same time, "multiple confidential sources" told Canadian police an Asian drug and gun trafficking organization had obtained a large cache of firearms from Yildiz, the memorandum says.**********
Ontario Provincial Police launched an investigation called Project Blackhawk that, two years later, resulted in the arrests of 36 people on more than 400 charges.
...these guys were geniuses...
-- BRIGHTON TOWNSHIP -- As many as one-third of the inmates at Warkworth penitentiary have taken control of a portion of the prison – including its infirmary – after an uprising overnight.Thus commences "Operation Kick Myself in the Nuts."
"They are burning anything they can get their hands on," a firefighter on scene said, adding he understands the inmates' recreation centre may have been torched.
The detailed service records of 250,000 medieval soldiers - including archers who served with Henry V at the Battle of Agincourt - have gone online.*
The database of those who fought in the Hundred Years War reveals salaries, sickness records and who was knighted.
The full profiles of soldiers from 1369 to 1453 will allow researchers to piece together details of their lives.
After Homolka... would they dare?
-- Woodstock -- The lawyer representing the 19-year-old woman charged in the death of eight-year-old Tori Stafford said a plea bargain may be suitable in this case because she says her client, Terri-Lynne McClintic, assisted police in their investigation.*
...of the fuzzy-bunny socialist "Red Star"... then I truly do fear for my country...
This story is so pathetically Canadian and would never have been written except by someone living in a micromanaged, socialist country like this one.**********
"Oh, whatever will we do?? We are paralyzed by indecision and helplessness until all-knowing Big Brother tells us what to do with our kitty."
Before the ascent of Big Government, people actually used that thing between their ears to make personal decisions. Why didn't they just bury the cat and call it a day?
Submitted by mallory5 at 9:02 AM Tuesday, July 21 2009
"Put kitty in the fridge & invite Warren Kinsella over for supper."*
"...for Islamic Thought says its purpose is to teach young Muslims how to apply Islamic ideas to Canada’s pluralistic society and 'prepare young minds that will take up the mantle of the Muslim community'.”Heck... don't take this guy's word for it... go visit their website...
But Tamimi has loudly renounced democracy, explicitly praises suicide bombers, and he’s said he’d even be happy to blow himself up in Israel: “It’s the straight way to pleasing my God and I would do it if I had the opportunity.”
Tamimi distinguishes good Muslims from their adversaries this way: "We love death. They love life."
Al-Fauz Institute takes an activist's approach to Islamic education: where knowledge must be directly linked to activism geared towards the upliftment of the community.**********
Omar Shaban, who lives in Vancouver, BC made these comments on his Facebook page, declaring, “It’s finally Canada Day ... Couldn't be more ashamed to be Canadian.”*
"...enables you to explore lunar imagery as well as informational content about the Apollo landing sites, panoramic images shot by the Apollo astronauts, narrated tours and much more," she explains.*
"I believe that this educational tool is a critical step into the future, a way to both develop the dreams of young people globally, and inspire new audacious goals.
"...has this been goin' on?"
Well your friends with their fancy persuasions...**********
Can't admit that it's part of the scene...
But I can't help but have my suspicions...
'Cos I ain't quite as dumb as I seem.
Police are asking Scarborough residents to check their lawns and sidewalks for weapons investigators believe may have been dumped after a Sri Lankan male was killed in an afternoon swarming yesterday. Around 12:30 p.m., the victim, who has since been identified as 19-year-old Annushath Indrakanthan, was attacked outside a Daisy Mart in a strip plaza on Bonis Ave., near Birchmount Rd. and Sheppard Ave. E.*
This is the second time in a little over a week, a young Tamil man has been beaten and killed in northern Scarborough. Less than three kilometres away from the site of yesterday's slaying, Kristian Thanapalan, 22, was beaten to death by a group of Tamil youths and men, armed with baseball or cricket bats, in the early-morning hours of July 11.
Police are still trying to determine the identity of the assailants in the first attack and whether the beating deaths are linked.
...gutted like a deer...
-- SCARBOROUGH -- A man, believed to be in his 20s, was killed in a noon-hour swarming in the city's east end today.**********
The man was rushed to hospital around 12:30 p.m., after he was found on Bonis Ave. – in the Sheppard Ave. and Birchmount Rd. area – suffering from stab wounds, police said. He was rushed to hospital where he was later pronounced dead.
He was reportedly attacked by several people. There are unconfirmed reports one of the attackers wielded a hammer.
The cab driver picked up a fare at around 9:30 p.m. at Cather Court and Varna Drive, located near Lawrence Avenue and the Allen Expressway. As a man got into the backseat of the vehicle, a group of men approached the car and immediately began arguing with the passenger.*
One of the men standing on the street pulled out a gun and fired at the passenger.
"...step outta the car and put your hands... eeeeeeeeeuwwwww...."
-- PORT HOPE, Ont. -- Ontario Provincial Police say a driver who was pulled over for speeding on the weekend was watching an adult film at the time.**********
Police say they pulled over the car on Hwy. 401 near Port Hope early Saturday morning and noticed the male driver was watching pornography on a portable DVD player sitting on the passenger seat.
Efe Osemwegie, 32, of Mississauga is charged with speeding and operating a motor vehicle with a television visible to the driver.
..."holy shit... how did that happen?"
-- WASHINGTON -- The White House is being forced to acknowledge the wide gap between its once-upbeat predictions about the economy and today's bleak landscape.**********
The release of the update — usually scheduled for mid-July — has been put off until the middle of next month, giving rise to speculation the White House is delaying the bad news at least until Congress leaves town on its August 7 summer recess.
That was the "winner" of a sealed bid. Yup, I want these guys "negotiating" my health care premiums.....**********
Posted by: RFC at July 20, 2009 2:38 PM
Officials with the Obama administration say they will miss a self-imposed deadline for completing a detailed plan on dealing with terrorist suspects detained at a military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.*
The officials said the deadline for the report by a Justice Department-led task force, set for Tuesday, has been extended for another six months.
...of the all-too-frequent "inhumanity of man"...
The area where the remains were found has been cordoned as police working with the Ontario Chief Coroner's Office and the Centre of Forensic Sciences to try to identify the remains.**********
-- Mount Forest -- Human remains found in southwestern Ontario are almost certainly those of Victoria Stafford, a Woodstock schoolgirl who has been missing for three months, according to the head of the provincial police.*
...Yankee Doodle Dalton...
Why would Ontario taxpayers want to subsidize the purchase of a car that is manufactured in the United States? What's that do for jobs in our own auto industry?*
Making the batteries for electric cars will be a growth industry, but the Volt's battery pack is made in the U.S., too.
The transformation of developed societies - either into old folks' homes (like Japan) or semi-Islamized dystopias (like Amsterdam, Brussels, etc) - will lead, in fact, to emigration(via ghost)
"In 2055, people will come to work when they have time off from long-term care," said Kiyoaki Fujiwara, director of economic policy at the Japan Business Federation.
...must be Sunday...
-- TORONTO -- An 18-year-old man was shot and killed at a house party in the east end of Toronto early Sunday morning, police said.**********
Staff Sgt. Jim Mackrell confirmed that the male was shot in the stomach around 2 a.m. Sunday. He was found collapsed on a driveway in the West Rouge neighbourhood on the eastern fringe of Toronto.
Insp. Randy Carter said Toronto police were called to the house at around 2 a.m., where they found Tevon Mitchell, 18, suffering from gunshot wounds. He was rushed to Sunnybrook hospital, where he died.*
Give 'em an inch... they'll take the box the tape measure came in...
Mohawks on the Akwesasne reserve plan to follow up their apparent victory in a dispute over the arming of border guards by pushing for sovereignty on Cornwall Island, according to Grand Chief Mike Mitchell.Hey... I say we let 'em all be sovereign... if we can save 10 billion dollars a year...
The international boundary line cutting through the reserve — straddling Ontario, Quebec and New York State — should also be moved, Mitchell told CBC News on Friday.
He said "pulling back" the Canada-U.S. border would bring "the community back as one," but he didn't say where the line should be drawn.
Figures from Indian and Northern Affairs Canada (INAC) show that federal funding for aboriginal communities has increased about five per cent per year in the last three years, from $8.8. billion in 2004-05 to a projected $10.2 billion in 2007-08.Pound that money back into healthcare and education... yup, I'm sold.
...that the Mennonites have been building in Paraguay since 1926 is made up of three main colonies: Menno, Fernheim and Neuland. The million hectares that fall under Mennonite control are nothing like the rest of Paraguay.**********
This inhospitable terrain is home to a vibrant community of 30,000 Mennonites, around 9,000 of them Canadian citizens.
There is no tax, no national service, no political instability, no alcohol. Frivolity is discouraged, abstention ensured, and guns forbidden. The predominant language is Plattdeutsch, an 18th century dialect of low German.
"Gotta be some place in Canada where we could set up the same deal. Except it would allow guns, frivolity, backribs, loose women and hockey."*
"Should garbage collection be outsourced to private businesses?"
**********Note that this weekend poll is curiously absent from the Globe's archive of recent polls.Funny how that works.
Henry Allingham, the world's oldest man and one of the last surviving World War I servicemen, has died at the age of 113, his care home has said.*
Mr Allingham is survived by Harry Patch, who turned 111 last month and is now one of the last two British survivors of WWI.
"Actually, since having them done I’ve become a much happier and nicer person. Before, I hated pretty much everything and everybody."*
"I just wanted to pass out in the gutter and swear at cars as they went by, shit like that."
"I wasn’t a happy person at all."
If you can get out in five years... in what way, shape or form... is this a life sentence?
"Is that what your child's life is worth?"
**********
RELATED: G & M reporter goes with...
...not enough basketball courts makes for bloody homicides theory...
"Aggravating matters, gangs have arrived at an area with no community centre and few social services, and experts on crime say that gangs thrive in a place where young men have nothing else to do."Nothing else to do... but kill people?
"...striking municipal workers in Toronto have made a claim to having a new kind of human right called the right to sick days, which it turns out actually means a right to get extra days off even when they're not sick, in which case they should call them well days."**********
Crossing the picket lines during the OPSEU strike, I carried a neat little piece of paper. On it were some words: "Everyone has the right not to be arbitrarily detained".**********
"When it comes time to storm the castle, I suggest everyone drive instead of walk. Your own vehicle, too... none of this carpooling to save gas."*
"Bonus points if you can crush a Toyota Pious on the way."
...reach for the sky, podnuh....
-- SCARBOROUGH -- A 22-year-old man was riddled with bullets in what is believed to be an attempted robbery as he sat in a car at a Malvern townhouse complex late last night.Mayor's office... yet again... strangely silent on which gun club the shooters belonged to.
But despite being shot as many as six times in the arms, chest and face, the victim is expected to survive.
A 22-year-old Markham man may have been trying to buy a gun when he was riddled with bullets as he sat in a car at a Malvern townhouse complex Wednesday night.*
The victim, his brother and a friend were sitting in a Honda Accord in the visitor's parking lot at 50 Empringham Dr. -- a notoriously dangerous townhouse complex near Sewells Rd. and McLevin Ave. -- when they were suddenly surrounded by between seven and 10 men on foot, at least one of whom opened fire just after 10 p.m., police say.
Police sources allege the three drove south from York Region to the troubled neighbourhood in the northeast corner of Scarborough in the hopes of purchasing an illegal handgun.
...city near you...
The near-simultaneous bombings ended a four-year lull in terror attacks in the world's most populous Muslim nation. At least 18 foreigners were among the dead and wounded.**********
The blasts at the J.W. Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotels, located side-by-side in an upscale business district in Jakarta, blew out windows and scattered debris and glass across the street, kicking up a thick plume of smoke.
Speaking from the presidential palace in a live television address, the angry and visibly shaken president said the attackers were irresponsible and inhumane.Whoa, buddy... you wanna dial down that spluttering outrage?
-- KANDAHAR, Afghanistan -- A roadside bomb tore through a vehicle in southern Afghanistan on Friday, killing 11 civilians, including five children, a border police official said. A British solider died in another explosion.The Obama administration, meanwhile... offered this reaction.
...take over total responsibility for everyone's healthcare?
I mean... they're so good at everything else.
*
Private Sébastien Courcy, 26, died around 6 a.m. Thursday morning, Kandahar time, while taking part in military operations in the Panjwayi District, about 17 kilometres south-west of Kandahar City.He will be remembered.
The pictures (which I assume some ad agency was paid big bucks to create) are comically bad, and the subject matter ridiculous.And really, this type of thing is all around us these days, isn't it?
I also tend to think that the sort of people they are aimed at are exactly the sort of people least likely to read them.
That's because they are too busy cleaning their ears with a car key, or scratching their sweaty nuts while standing at the urinal and then borrowing your favorite pen during a meeting.
Maybe "global warming" isn't the biggest threat to our existence after all....it's the cover-up...
The order would have been given during this spring's provincial election, in which questions around Mr. Campbell's involvement in the sale of BC Rail – at the centre of the corruption case – was an issue. Mr. Campbell's Liberal Party easily won the May 12 contest.*
The new information would appear to contradict statements made in court last month by government lawyer George Copley, who said that executive branch e-mails from 2001 to 2005 could not be recovered because backup tapes were kept for only 13 months.
France's national holiday, Bastille Day has been overshadowed by a night of rioting in which more than 300 cars were torched on the streets of Paris and other cities.*
Despite a deployment of 10,000 police officers, the number of cars set alight represents a rise of almost seven percent from the previous year. Youths threw home-made explosives and fireworks to set alight bins and cars, before targeting police officers, 13 of whom were wounded in the riots.
A total of 240 arrests were made -- almost double the number recorded in 2008.
...it's a "re-invention"...
The "Alberta Greens" Green Party of Alberta has been de-registered by Elections Alberta as a political entity in the Province of Alberta. De-registration of the party is an administrative opportunity to re-organize and rebuild the party into a viable political organization.And speaking of "values & principles".
The importance and mainstream acceptance of the Green Party’s values and principles are on the rise, and the Green Party's many supporters can now look forward to a fresh start.
Screw health care... McSlippery's got bigger, greener eggs to fry.
-- July 15 (Bloomberg) -- The Ontario government will offer buyers of electric cars incentives of as much as C$10,000 ($8,852), the Globe and Mail reported, citing unidentified people.Heck... it's not like it comes out of his pocket, huh?
The subsidy will be available to consumers beginning next year, the newspaper said. Canada’s most populous province will also make plug-in or electric vehicles account for as much as 20 percent of its government fleet by 2020, the Globe said.
Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty will announce the new program at a General Motors Corp. car dealership in Toronto today, the newspaper said.
"Premier Dalton McGuinty says he doesn't regret giving General Motors $250 million of Ontario taxpayers' money, even though the company is closing its Windsor transmission plant."**********
"Why aren't the rich funding my kid's braces instead of us funding their electric cars?"And...
"I only hope I get to pick the colour of my Government Motors electric car."**********
Industry analyst Dennis DesRosiers echoed Mr. Beatty's concern. "A cynic would say this is just government subsidizing a product that is produced by a company they own. I think that is a bit too cynical."*
"I just think it is bad policy from a variety of perspectives."
A German who tried to fix his leaky air mattress blew up his apartment instead, the fire brigade in the western city of Dusseldorf said on Wednesday.*
The 45-year-old man used tire repair solvent to plug a hole in his airbed and left it overnight.
But it blew up when he went to inflate it the next day. “A spark from the electric air pump ignited it,” a fire brigade spokesman said.
Fire fighters evacuated the 12-apartment building and a neighbouring housing block while they checked for structural damage.
...must be Tuesday...
-- TORONTO -- Police are looking for several suspects following a shooting in Toronto's east end in which a gunman lost his firearm in the road when the car he was firing from hit a speed bump.**********
No one was reported injured after residents heard about a dozen gunshots at a townhouse complex on Walpole Ave., near Gerrard St. E. and Greenwood Ave., just after 8 p.m.
"I love you, Mom. You raised a good kid, you know that," Atkins shouted to his mother."Pithiest comment of the week...
I think he meant, "You raised a good shot."*
"Hey Ms. Obama, this man makes me proud to be an American."**********
"How about you?"
And yet again...
There were a dozen other vile trolls that I simply deleted... but you get the idea....is hang all the lawyers...
While the jury knows about the alleged gang activities, it does not know that Mr. Riley also faces trials on two other counts of first-degree murder and two more counts of attempted murder.Why is it that victims of crime get a mere fraction of the societal care & consideration... offered to predators and perpetrators of crime?
Mr. Atkins is also charged with first-degree murder in another shooting and two additional counts of attempted murder.
...martyrdom deal... unlike studying engineering in Minneapolis... is that sometimes Allah really does require his "pound of flesh"...
Omar Jamal, director of the Somali Justice Advocacy Centre in Minneapolis, told Reuters Bana was one of 18 teenagers who ran away to Somalia last November after attending a youth programme at a local mosque.*
C'mon folks... who's zoomin' who?
Since the visa requirement for Czech nationals was lifted in 2007, nearly 3,000 refugee claims have been filed.Don't miss the part where Toronto immigration lawyer Max Berger implies that new visa measures put the federal government on the side of the Nazis.
In 2006, there were five.
“There are many moral lessons we learn growing up, but none is more primordial than knowing that killing is wrong.**********
“If by 15 years old, that basic moral principle has not been learned, and something so transient and fickle as teenage jealousy can elicit murder, as though this were a crime of little consequence, then no amount of maturing or rehabilitation is going to instill that principle.”
"No opportunity for partisan sniping is lost on you Neo."Well, there's certainly no rebutting a well thought out argument like that.
"Surely the Liberals would have killed this child themselves if they could have."
...those poor children... hey, wait a minute...
“They were obviously terrified to jump. They must have been incredibly terrified in that fall and I don’t think it should just be written off as ‘Oh well.’”Way to go, Toronto Sun... let's not clog up anybody's brain bucket with, you know... actual news...
The written answers produced by the minister's own scientific advisers proved so woolly and full of elementary errors that Fielding's team have now published a 50-page, fully-referenced "Due Diligence" paper tearing them apart.(via sda)
In light of the inadequacy of the Government's reply, the Senator has announced that he will be voting against the bill.
The wider significance of this episode is that it is the first time a Western government has allowed itself to be drawn into debating the science behind the global warming scare with expert scientists representing the "counter consensus" – and the "consensus" lost hands down.
I remember the first word Neophyte ever uttered... not Daddy, or Mummy, or even "no!"... it was "cah"...
Mr. Loewen and the other men in the boat quickly stripped off their own shirts to warm him up, but Demetrius – wearing just a T-shirt, a diaper and sneakers – wasn't concerned about the cold.*
“The first thing he said when they were wrapping him up was ‘Where's the car at?'” said Mr. Loewen, a 54-year-old contractor from Rose Prairie who happened to be staying at the same campground that weekend.
If there really is a god... he'll drag this one out a bit. And maybe throw in a few excruciatingly painful complications.
*
"...to ensure that non-gays claiming to be gay are not taken at their word without having their gay status confirmed by gay-accredited orientation-checkers."*
...hey, that's entertainment...
-- TORONTO -- A man in his 20s is expected to recover after a shooting in the city's Entertainment District early this morning.And the fun doesn't end there...
The victim was found suffering from a gunshot wound to the arm in an underground parking lot, near Richmond and Peter Sts., around 3:15 a.m., according to Toronto Police Const. Wendy Drummond.
Two men have been stabbed during a brawl in the city's west end. Toronto Police said one man is in critical condition in hospital while the second was released after receiving medical attention.**********
Police said the fight at 9:20 p.m. on Saturday took place behind Winona Public School in the St. Clair Ave. W.-Christie St. area.
Police said the victims were unable to provide a description of the attackers.
Toronto Police are investigating two shootings that took place in the early morning hours Monday and have confirmed a link between them.*
Apparently the feds have decided to outsource some critical aspects of border security policy to our uber-patriotic aboriginal brothers...
-- CORNWALL -- Late last week, the Mohawk leadership issued a statement outlining a plan to reopen the border. The first stage of that plan was a temporary customs post in the city of Cornwall where guards would carry sidearms.Rumours of changes to the Canada Health Act that mandate all tobacco products... will only be sold on native reserves... have yet to be confirmed.
They could call it... "Craziest Jackson Ever"...
"I believe Michael was murdered," she said. "I felt that from the start. Not just one person was involved, rather it was a conspiracy of people."**********
"You think Bubbles the Monkey is happier than hell to be outta that troop?"And...
"You mean the people I photographed at last Friday's Dead Sea Scrolls protest were really on to something?"*
...their organ donor cards... more utterly unsurprising news from "The Running of the Idiots"...
-- PAMPLONA, Spain (AFP) -- Ten people were injured, two of them seriously, in the Pamplona bull run on Sunday, two days after a man was gored to death by a bull, according to revised figures issued by organisers.(h/t reader rich)
The two most badly hurt were Spanish men who suffered injuries to the neck, chest and buttocks after being gored, a spokesman said.
He added that doctors were confident their lives would be saved after surgery.
...is being "served and protected"?
-- Matter of public opinion --*
Sun scribe's 3-part series of his daughter's brutal swarming irks Belleville's new police chief, but what other recourse did he really have?
By MARK BONOKOSKI
Last Updated: 12th July 2009, 4:12am
Belleville's new police chief, Cory McMullan, has responded to last week's three-part series of my daughter Erin's swarming and beating in her town, her force's non-response to two 911 calls, as well as the allegations of unprofessional treatment of a victim by two members of her force, by stating that the media is not the way to air a complaint.
This is not a good start for the chief, and does not bode well for her promise of transparency, professionalism and accountability.
"I feel that it's unfortunate that this is the way this individual decided to deal with this situation instead of coming into the station, having his daughter -- who is the victim -- come in a lot sooner than now and deal with this situation," said the chief.
"There is a province-wide procedure for making public complaints and it is not through the media."
The chief is correct. There is such a process.
But what would it accomplish in the end?
The public complaints process, which normally has a six-month window, airs no details to the public. The city of Belleville would have been out of the loop about the details of what happened to my daughter 18 months ago, and therefore totally unaware of what transpired that night, and what the police in their city did not do.
So what would be the point?
This forum exists, and it exists to be used.
Besides, is it not the job of the media to be watchdog of public institutions, police departments included?
As I told more than one news-talk radio station, if any parent had come to me with the same set of circumstances regarding their son or their daughter, I would have been on their story like a dog on a bone -- a fact not lost on long-time readers.
When McMullan took over the force back in April as its first female police chief, coming to Belleville as a 22-year veteran and inspector with the Peterborough Lakefield Community Police, the 46-year-old mother of two teenagers promised an in-depth review of the city's police service.
"Transparency, accountability and professionalism are essential to ensure that the Belleville Police Service reaches its full potential," she told the local Belleville Intelligencer.
Arguing, then, that the media is not the place for anyone to air a legitimate complaint against her force -- whether it is me or persons yet unknown -- is not a good start for a freshly-minted chief, and merely a convenient deflection of the real issue.
McMullan also told the local Belleville Intelligencer that, following her own personal probe into the matter, any potential repercussions for the two particular officers named in the series would be dealt with internally -- and "not through the media."
Where, one might ask, is the "transparency" in this?
Given the publicity already generated, and the concerns expressed online by many Belleville residents (all which is still being seen online at torontosun.com), should the good citizens of Belleville not be made aware of whether the two officers received reprimand, were told to apologize, or even -- if the chief so decides -- given no discipline at all?
Not only that, but the reasons?
And what about the force's plan for dealing with victims in the future, especially those who do not have a public forum such as this?
A police force, after all, is not a private company with no stock holders. Every penny it spends is a penny that comes from the pockets of the public it serves.
The public, therefore, has the right to know.
Chief McMullan also said this.
"When the victim called 911, the accused (assailants) were not present," she said, indicating that the police were already at the scene of a serious stabbing incident elsewhere in the city.
"It was not a case of us not responding -- she (Erin) was told to come to the station."
This is a nice spin, but hardly accurate.
The "victim" -- my 23-year-old daughter -- did not call 911. A witness made the call.
And the 911 call to which Chief McMullan refers when all the assailants had fled the scene, and the "victim" was told to come to the station, was not the first 911 call that was made by the witness.
It was the second.
The first 911 call got no response at all.
The serious stabbing incident, by the way, and it was one which supposedly necessitated the response of every available police unit in the city, thereby leaving no one to respond to my daughter's attack, was never reported to the media.
The question could therefore be asked: Did it even exist?
And, if so, where's the proof?
McMullan told the local Intelligencer that no press release was issued on that supposed stabbing because it was "an ongoing investigation," yet she offered no explanation as to why no report was ever made public when that "ongoing investigation" was concluded.
This hardly serves the Belleville Police Service's motto of being "partners with the community."
One can only presume that Chief McMullan, along with her communications officer, Sgt. Beth Harder, have been monitoring the online comments posted at the end of each of the three-part series (which was also published in the Intelligencer) -- with a great deal of them coming from Belleville residents raising serious concerns about their police department.
McMullan has only been at the helm of the force for three months, and has promised, on her force's own website, to dedicate herself "to promoting a close relationship between the police and the citizens of Belleville."
The assault on my daughter, the non-response by police and the subsequent mistreatment of her as a victim when she attended the police station with witnesses in tow, did not happen on her watch.
She therefore has a fresh broom.
The question now, will she use it?
Or will she blame the media for not playing fair, and airing it all out in public instead of sweeping it from view by using the "official" police complaints process that reveals nothing to the public?
So far, not so good.
MARK.BONOKOSKI@SUNMEDIA.CA OR 416-947-2445
...my knuckle-draggin, neocon patootey...
He's flying high in dazzling hubris. The American economy is not yet fixed. It may get worse. And it is in this parlous and critical context that Mr. Obama has launched history-making expenditures and a reordering of American governance.*
Daring? Daring - if you believe in it. Reckless – to the point of real danger if you do not.
This is the greatest trapeze act in the history of North American politics.
Newly minted teenager Neophyte had a buddy "sleep over" last night. Of course, in a particularly male rite-of-passage... they actually stayed up all night playing video games.
And this morning, it is a point of pride, to not be the first one to crash and burn.
A test of manhood, not unlike jousting.
Now, I'm guessing all the moms out there are just shaking their heads at what they perceive to be male assininity, but it makes perfect sense to me.
I have told Mrs Neo that men and women are actually two different species... from two different planets... who happened, somehow, to end up on Earth together.
And when we don't see eye to eye on something like this, I simply say... "Well, that's how we do it on our planet."
It's as close to explaining things as I can get.
*
...right into the weeds, that is...
On wiretap audio recorded by federal investigators in October, Burris is heard jockeying for the seat with Robert Blagojevich, the former governor’s brother and top fundraiser, and promising to send a personal check by the end of the month.[*]
“Tell Rod to keep me in mind for that seat, would you?” Burris is heard saying.
...uncivil society...
A Burlington teen is dead and another man died following a street fight in Scarborough in separate deaths across the GTA overnight.**********
Kristian Thanapalan, of Vaughan, was pronounced dead at Sunnybrook hospital shortly after the midnight fight in Antrim Park, in the Kennedy Rd.-Hwy. 401 area.**********
"It appears that there were two groups of people," he said. "One group was playing cricket in the field. The second group, which included the deceased, was involved in a pickup volleyball game."
Kyriacou said something happened between the two groups that sparked a dispute, and some left the park only to return a short time later armed with various weapons.
A clash between two groups of young men, comprising mainly of members of Tamil-Canadian community, took the life of one.*
The group got into fight with another group of 15, armed with baseball and cricket bats.
...ya got there, Shawn...
An interesting element of the situation, the judge said, was the fact that two out-of-town men who aren’t aboriginal were protesting in support of native issues — only to injure two aboriginal men — the police officers — in the process.[more]
For his part, VanHooser claimed his mother was a Mohawk and he had a Dutch father, while Kloestra said he was in a relationship with an aboriginal woman.
Given the pair’s lengthy criminal history, Burgess said both require “a significant penalty” for their actions.
Like the gawds decided to drop a house on your "bad witch ass"...
“Here we are in tornado alley and you go to Canada and have this freakish thing happen,” Mr. Kinkaid’s wife, Dayna, told The Tulsa World in a phone interview.*
And hey... thanks for the ride...
A 45-year-old woman driving her car was shot in a suspected ambush -- apparently after she was caught in an exchange of gunfire between her passenger and a gunman in another car in north Etobicoke.The most important thing here though... I sure hope she didn't snitch this poor guy out.
The woman was hit in the left side as the gunman's car pulled up beside her at 11:58 p.m. Wednesday on Four Winds Dr., near John Garland Blvd. and Martin Grove Rd.
Her car was riddled with bullets, police said. Some residents said they heard more than a dozen shots.
Stasiak said the gunman's vehicle pulled beside the victim's car. "There were shots fired, she pulls over to the side of the road and we're not sure whether another occupant of the vehicle fires shots back at the suspect vehicle," Stasiak said.
That man then fled, abandoning the woman, he said.
*
A mother is suing a hotel claiming her teenage daughter fell pregnant simply from using a hotel swimming pool.(h/t reader scott)
Magdalena Kwiatkowska says the 13-year-old conceived after coming into contact with 'stray sperm' in the water of an Egyptian resort.
The Polish tourist board has confirmed they have received a complaint from Mrs Kwiatkowska.
And while we're on disturbing images...
**********
**********
Coming up on "President McDreamy saves the World"... Episode XIV: Robert Mugabe gets a "stern talking to"....can't breathe... got a cramp...
"So far, none of the fine Christians upset at my use of the word 'cracker' have expressed any regret at all over my call to throw journalists from bridges."More...
"What if Harper secretly pocketed the body of Christ with the intention of cloning it?"I think I just peed myself.
"He could be building AN ARMY OF JESUSES."
...on gravity holding shit down...
Clad in white, with a red kerchief, tourists and Spaniards sprint ahead of the charging bulls, which face matadors in the bullring later in the day.I would, of course... be the last person in the world to suggest the government step in and regulate this sort of asinine activity, but please... you run headlong into confined spaces with dozens of angry, frightened, bone-crushing, horned creatures... what did you think was gonna happen?
"When I watch that stupidity on the tube I find myself cheering for the bulls."**********
Never mind that heavily-armed urban drug posse... apparently, in fuzzy-bunny Canada, we can be bested by the crazy old rat lady....
-- MONTREAL -- Montreal animal welfare officials rescued 93 rats and three rabbits earlier this week from a woman the shelter described as a "hoarder," a psychiatric term for people who obsessively collect animals and keep them in squalid conditions.Whether it's Tamil Tiger flash mobs shutting down Toronto... or "Aboriginal warriors" taking over border crossing points... it seems we've pretty much given up really trying to maintain any sort of social cohesion.
But the shelter had to leave behind at least 150 other critters — lizards, hedgehogs, dogs, cats and "too many rats to count" — because the hoarder refused to surrender.
The YWCA is evicting a tenant who complained publicly about assault, death threats, drugs and alleged prostitution in a housing residence run by the agency.The Y gets how many taxpayer dollars every year?
Patricia Huculak, a 39-year-old mother of two living in the YWCA's Riverdale apartment for battered women, received an eviction notice Wednesday afternoon that gives her until Aug. 31 to move out.
Sondergaard wouldn't say what connection the accused women have to the school, so as not to identify students. He said the issue that allegedly motivated the threats involved three staff members and was "trivial" in nature.*
Police estimate at least 150 letters were mailed out in the second incident and around 200 in the third.
Rafat Parsaei, 45, and Carole Tovell, 67, both of Toronto, and Linda Pitney, 62, of Shelburne, were each charged with six counts of threatening death and four counts of intimidation. Tovell was also charged with one count of criminal harassment.
A Toronto woman who'd been missing since Tuesday was found dead Thursday evening in North Toronto, locked in the trunk of her car.Professional journalist Josh Wingrove reveals...
Consuelo “Connie” Valencia-Russo, 44, who is the mother of city councillor Cesar Palacio's 14-year-old son, had been missing since Tuesday morning when she left her North York home, telling her family she was headed for a hair appointment.
"Foul play is suspected."**********
First-degree murder warrants were issued for a couple illegally in Canada for the murder of a North York mom.*
Toronto homicide Det.-Sgt. Terry Brown said Juan Antonio Reyes, 23, and Ana Laura Rodrigues, 19, both of Mexico, are wanted.
Mexican authorities were notified that the two flew back to that country.
Scenario 1: Jack goes quail hunting before school and then pulls into the school parking lot with his shotgun in his truck's gun rack.**********
1957 - Vice Principal comes over, looks at Jack's shotgun, goes to his car and gets his shotgun to show Jack.
2007 - School goes into lock down, FBI called, Jack hauled off to jail and never sees his truck or gun again. Counselors called in for traumatized students and teachers.
Scenario 2: Johnny and Mark get into a fist fight after school.
1957 - Crowd gathers. Mark wins. Johnny and Mark shake hands and end up buddies.
2007 - Police called and SWAT team arrives -- they arrest both Johnny and Mark. They are both charged them with assault and both expelled even though Johnny started it.
Scenario 3: Jeffrey will not be still in class, he disrupts other students.
1957 - Jeffrey sent to the Principal's office and given a good paddling by the Principal. He then returns to class, sits still and does not disrupt class again.
2007 - Jeffrey is given huge doses of Ritalin. He becomes a zombie. He is then tested for ADD. The school gets extra money from the state because Jeffrey has a disability.
Scenario 4: Billy breaks a window in his neighbor's car and his Dad gives him a whipping with his belt.
1957 - Billy is more careful next time, grows up normal, goes to college and becomes a successful businessman.
2007 - Billy's dad is arrested for child abuse. Billy is removed to foster care and joins a gang. The state psychologist is told by Billy's sister that she remembers being abused herself and their dad goes to prison. Billy's mom has an affair with the psychologist.
Scenario 5: Pedro fails high school English.
1957 - Pedro goes to summer school, passes English and goes to college.
2007 - Pedro's cause is taken up by state. Newspaper articles appear nationally explaining that teaching English as a requirement for graduation is racist. ACLU files class action lawsuit against the state school system and Pedro's English teacher. English is then banned from core curriculum. Pedro is given his diploma anyway but ends up mowing lawns for a living because he cannot speak English.
Scenario 6: Johnny takes apart leftover firecrackers from the Fourth of July, puts them in a model airplane paint bottle and blows up a red ant bed.
1957 - Ants die.
2007 - ATF, Homeland Security and the FBI are all called. Johnny is charged with domestic terrorism. The FBI investigates his parents -- and all siblings are removed from their home and all computers are confiscated. Johnny's dad is placed on a terror watch list and is never allowed to fly again.
Scenario 7: Johnny falls while running during recess and scrapes his knee. He is found crying by his teacher, Mary. Mary hugs him to comfort him.
1957 - In a short time, Johnny feels better and goes on playing.
2007 - Mary is accused of being a sexual predator and loses her job. She faces 3 years in State Prison. Johnny undergoes 5 years of therapy.
This is too fun.*
Scenario 8: Billy gets involved in an underground domestic terrorist movement while in high school
1957: Billy is caught and does hard time.
2007: Billy becomes a professor of education and mentors the next Democratic President.
...Will of Allah...
A bomb blast in central Afghanistan killed 25 people including 13 primary school students today, destroying shops and scattering pieces of the vehicle that carried the explosives over a huge area.**********
Where were these protesters when, on Dec. 30, 2005, hundreds of Egyptian riot police stormed through a makeshift refugee camp in central Cairo to clear it of 2,500 Darfuri Muslims, beating to death 28 people, among them women and children?*
Were those lives less valuable than the life of Marwa Sherbini?
...pretty soon you're talkin' real scratch...
The B.C. government is headed for a $100-million shortfall in its welfare budget next year suggesting that the province's deficit will be much worse than promised, the Opposition NDP says.Here's a thought... how about we shift some resources over to people who actually care whether they live or die?
“What it shows is just how badly Premier Gordon Campbell has misjudged the economic situation. It puts the lie to his claims throughout the election and since the election that they are good managers.”
...thank a farmer... before they go out of business...
The group has been lobbying since 2008 to get the provincial and federal governments to address stipulations in the Ontario Cattle Hog and Horticulture Payment (OCHHP), and Agri- Invest programs that they say have left young pork farmers in danger of losing their businesses.Says Ontario Minister of Agriculture Leona Dombrowksy...
"We are pretty well flat broke," said group spokesman Wayne Bartel. "I couldn't even pay my feed bill this month."
"I have been in regular contact with the Ontario Pork Council," she said. "We want them to bring us a plan."A plan, Leona?
Yessirree... bringing a whole other element to the smack-talkin' taunt... "Who's your Daddy now?"...
"Scientists in Newcastle claim to have created human sperm in the laboratory in what they say is a world first."*
Google said late Tuesday that it will launch the Google Chrome operating system, a computer operating system that initially will target netbook computers by offering a faster, better and more secure way for users to access Web-based applications.(h/t reader bob)
Reading between the lines, it appears the top three hardware vendors have little or no relationship with the search and online advertising giant.*
But if Google plans to make inroads into Netbooks and eventually notebooks, that will have to change very soon.
...by secretive "Caramel Corn" lobby...
She said she was approached to star in the ad while her husband was taking classes at Oaksterdam University, an Oakland trade school that trains students to grow medical marijuana.I don't see a problem here... it works for the CBC.
Potheads will save the day because they're all just itching to become taxpayers, it's not like they would do anything illegal to avoid paying taxes.*
...but there sure could be a shitload of change...
-- WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- The top U.S. military officer warned on Tuesday that time is running out for dialogue with Tehran to avoid either a nuclear-armed Iran or a possible military strike against the Islamic Republic.*
Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, said it is critical for diplomatic efforts to reach a solution before Iran develops a nuclear weapon or faces an Israeli or U.S. strike to turn back its nuclear program.
"That window is a very narrow window."
...is hang all the lawyers...
"Mr. Drabinsky and his business partner Myron Gottlieb were found guilty in March of defrauding investors of millions."
*
...but not forgotten...
"It's a long process," said Larry Greer, a spokesman for the Pentagon's POW/MIA Office in Washington.*
Greer said the lab has identified the remains of 100 people, and still has 88,000 sets of remains, including 8,100 from the Korean War, yet to identify.
...packaging, meat and vegetable scraps... behold the mighty Granite Club...
Mr. Fyvie approached the club's regular waste disposal contractor, Wasteco Group, which provides an empty, washed bin every day for the members' refuse. The company takes the garbage to a city dumpsite it is authorized to use.**********
The City of Toronto boasts that its green bin program diverts a third of our garbage and turns it into "black gold" compost. But a Star investigation shows that the program – although nobly conceived – is a sham.(h/t reader rich)
Two Canadian soldiers have been killed along with a coalition soldier in a helicopter crash in Afghanistan.They will be remembered.
The Canadians have been identified as 38-year-old Master Cpl. Pat Audet and 25-year-old Cpl. Martin Joannette.
Military officials say the incident at an American base in Zabul province, about 80 kilometres northeast of Kandahar, was not related to insurgent activity.
...gets brutally bitch-slapped...
**********
FROM THE COMMENTS: Oh gawd... the ignominy...
...once again, I've been bested by the "compassionate, intellectual" left...
And...
"As far as I'm concerned, Michael Jackson died 20 years ago."**********
"The behaviour of Jackson's fans in reaction to his death may be many things, but it is not unprecedented."*
...the next time you're stuck sitting in a hospital emergency room for 10 interminable hours...
"I'm so glad McGuinty has taxed me to the brink of starvation so he can invest my money in a guessing game of market winners."**********
“It is manifestly absurd to imagine that any health-care system can continue to provide all possible health benefits to all people at all times no matter how small the benefit and how great the cost.”*
"...is one of the most important books in the world. Handwritten well over 1600 years ago, the manuscript contains the Christian Bible in Greek, including the oldest complete copy of the New Testament.*
Its heavily corrected text is of outstanding importance for the history of the Bible and the manuscript – the oldest substantial book to survive Antiquity – is of supreme importance for the history of the book."
...laughing their asses off at the Ontario "justice" system...
Her day in court**********
Bono's daughter gets the chance to tell how brutal assault left her scarred physically, emotionally -- and mentally
By MARK BONOKOSKI
Last Updated: 6th July 2009, 8:14am
Second of a three-part series
BELLEVILLE -- Youth court in the "Friendly City" is located on the fourth floor of Century Place, an office building in the town's core with first-floor retail outlets, a coffee shop, as well as a Service Ontario office.
It consists of two courtrooms, and a bank of holding cells hidden behind a windowless door off the waiting room.
No docket is ever posted, of course. Young offenders are protected under the Youth Criminal Justice Act.
No names, therefore, can be publicly displayed.
But they are called out when their cases come up.
"(Name withheld.) Courtroom 2," says the voice on the intercom. "(Name withheld.) Courtroom 2."
A girl in the waiting room finally stands, and makes her way into the courtroom, accompanied by a social worker.
She is blond, and tallish, and looks much older than 16, although she was 15 years old at the time she led a gang of teenagers who were roaming the streets here late one April night, who swarmed my 22-year-old daughter Erin without rhyme or reason, who threw her to the ground, and who put the boots to her so severely that they dislocated her jaw, tore her skin raw, and gave her whiplash.
It was videotaped on a cellphone by one of her gang, of course, all to feed YouTube and Facebook as if the brutal assault they were carrying out were no more than a game.
She is there, as the ringleader and lead player in the unwarranted and unprovoked beating, and is scheduled to be sentenced on this day for assault causing bodily harm.
There has already been a plea-bargain arrangement made between the Crown and the accused's counsel, Peter Girard, his office one floor up -- just like there had been a plea bargain for her lesser co-accused, by now already separately dealt with without my daughter's knowledge, already sentenced to one year's probation and 40 hours of community work, and with her file now forever sealed from public purview.
Crown attorney Jodi Whyte reads out the agreed-upon statement of facts. They sound almost generic now, the graphic violence strangely diminished in the telling.
Defence counsel Peter Girard attempts to transform the multiple kicks to my daughter's head into a singular kick and, even more incredibly, into an accidental one.
"Unfortunately a kick landed on her face," he says.
Crown Whyte immediately puts him straight.
"I saw the video, and they were violent kicks to the face," she says. "The potential for harm was huge, but it was not given a moment's thought."
Judge Wendy Malcolm takes notes, and then asks my daughter if she wishes to read her victim impact statement, or simply have it placed before the court.
Erin says she will read it. She is composed, and prepared. And her voice breaks down only once.
Every word is her own. It is painful to listen to. Yet powerful.
"I believe something must be done to teach these girls a valuable lesson in life," she begins. "What happened that night was more than wrong. It was cruel, vicious, needless -- and yet, to these two girls, it was just a game.
"It would be an understatement to say that night changed me. Physically, emotionally and especially mentally, I have battled to overcome the aftermath of the attack," she says. "And I hope what you hear today will make you consider a sentencing to reflect the trauma that I have endured over the past 10 months.
"Mentally, I completely shut down. At the time of the attack, I was just beginning my final exams for my graduating year at Trent University. I literally went into lockdown.
"Besides going to the hospital, or school for my exams, I did not leave the house. Having extreme whiplash and severe facial trauma, I could not sleep at night, eat at all, or stop crying. Amid exams, finishing my thesis, and writing final papers, I did not know what to do with myself.
"I had vivid nightmares repeating the attack over and over again. It was awful. Once I finished school, that is when the shock of everything set in. I became completely withdrawn -- from my friends, family, and from my boyfriend.
"I could no longer stand being in public places. I started to sink into a depression," she says. "I could not wrap my head around why these girls decided that they wanted to cause this sort of pain. I was angry, short-tempered, emotional, irrational and defensive.
"That night I pleaded with the girls to stop kicking me in the face but they had already made up their minds. The last 10 months have been by far the most challenging of my life. I have yet to come to terms with why these girls did this. Why they thought it would be fun. How could they do this to me? No one deserves to have to go through the pain I have.
"If I did not stand before you today and call these girls out on their irresponsible behaviour I have no doubt they would continue to attack whomever, whenever, they wanted.
"I am somewhat insulted by the agreed sentencing in this case. I would like the trials and tribulations that I have faced to be considered and taken seriously. My injuries are not slight. In fact, I was this close to needing surgery.
"Your Honour, I stand before you today asking you to take into consideration my pain. I am aware that because these girls are technically juveniles that there are guidelines in place. However, I believe now is the time to set a precedent against youth violence.
"I fear that if these girls are not taught a lesson that there will be more victims -- many who may not come forward because these girls enlisted fear in them," she says.
"Please hold them accountable for their actions and my pain and suffering."
Judge Malcolm is moved by Erin's presentation.
"What you did today is a very brave thing," she says.
She then puts off the scheduled sentencing of the young defendant, and orders a full pre-sentence report on the now 16-year-old offender, including a psychological evaluation.
"Maybe this should be hanging over your head for a little longer period of time," the judge tells the accused. "Besides, I want to know a little more about you."
And with that, the case was adjourned for a month.
Tomorrow: An epiphany
MARK.BONOKOSKI@SUNMEDIA.CA OR 416-947-2445
“I feel that it’s unfortunate that this is the way this individual decided to deal with this situation instead of coming into the station, having his daughter — who is the victim — come in a lot sooner than now and deal with this situation."Ah... so now it's Bonokowski who's the bad guy here.
"As for any repercussions for the officers as a consequence of her probe into the matter will be dealt with internally and 'not through the media'.”*
This month the boys of the Budokan release their new album, The Latest, not only in CD and vinyl, but in a long-departed format as fashionable as Tang, bell-bottoms and porn-star mustaches.*
I'll give you a hint... it ain't gonna be Tel Aviv...
The head of Mossad, Israel’s overseas intelligence service, has assured Benjamin Netanyahu, its prime minister, that Saudi Arabia would turn a blind eye to Israeli jets flying over the kingdom during any future raid on Iran’s nuclear sites.**********
Earlier this year Meir Dagan, Mossad’s director since 2002, held secret talks with Saudi officials to discuss the possibility.
The Israeli press has already carried unconfirmed reports that high-ranking officials, including Ehud Olmert, the former prime minister, held meetings with Saudi colleagues. The reports were denied by Saudi officials.
“The Saudis have tacitly agreed to the Israeli air force flying through their airspace on a mission which is supposed to be in the common interests of both Israel and Saudi Arabia,” a diplomatic source said last week.
Vice President Joe Biden refused to condemn a potential Israeli strike on ABC’s This Week. “We cannot dictate to a sovereign nation what it can and cannot do,” Mr. Biden said.*
Pressed further, he added: “Israel has the right to determine what is in its best interests.”
A Quebec-based soldier died Saturday after suffering critical injuries when a land mine detonated while he was on foot patrol last month in Afghanistan.He will be remembered.
Master-Corporal Charles-Philippe Michaud, who served with the Royal 22nd Regiment based at Canadian Forces Base Valcartier, had been patrolling in Panjwayi District, southwest of Kandahar City.
He was airlifted to the Landstuhl Regional Medical Centre in Germany and arrived in Quebec City on June 28. A military spokesman said he never regained consciousness.
MCpl. Michaud is survived by his wife, parents, and brother. He was 28.
...apparently Hastings County isn't immune...
-- BELLEVILLE -- Shortly after midnight on April 6 of last year, here in the "Friendly City," a young woman was randomly attacked by a roaming pack of teenagers, thrown to the ground and kicked repeatedly about the head -- dislocating her jaw, ripping her skin raw, and giving her whiplash.*
It was a planned swarming, the victim inconsequential, with the attack committed by a dozen drinking-and-drugging kids, all under 17, for no other reason than 'for kicks' -- no iPod or cell phone robbery, just 'kicks'.
One of the gang even had his cell phone at the ready, and videotaped most of the incident -- showing the young woman being grabbed from behind and thrown to the sidewalk as she walked past the group, no provocation whatsoever, capturing the young woman's pleas for mercy, and then the profane, expletive-filled response of her attackers, primarily by the two girls putting the boots to her.
The obsessive new worlds of YouTube and Facebook had to be appeased with another video feed.
A witness called 911.
No cop car ever showed.
When the attack ended, and while the victim was still lying on the ground, bruised, bloodied and being consoled, a second 911 call was placed.
This time the caller was told no police car would be showing up, since all police units that night were involved in a "serious assault" that apparently included a stabbing.
"Come to the station," they were told.
Whatever the "serious assault" was that took precedence over two 911 calls, it should be noted that it never made it into the local Belleville Intelligencer, since no press release was ever issued on a major incident that reportedly necessitated the response of every available police unit in this city of 39,000 residents.
The young woman who was attacked, by the way, was my then 22-year-old daughter, Erin.
The trauma of that night changed her life.
With the attack happening in the middle of her final exams of her final year at Trent University, she had to bear down and fight the lost confidence that had invaded her.
And she had to do this with a dislocated jaw, around trips to Ottawa to see a specialist, and enduring treatments that quickly closed in on $5,000 and necessitated her wearing a dental appliance that makes her talk with a lisp -- all the while emotionally pondering the complexities of "why her" when, throughout her young life, she has been so good and so giving.
It was not an easy journey.
After all, it had all begun so innocently. Earlier that evening, she and her Ottawa-based boyfriend, Drew Paulusse, along with another couple, had attended a charity fundraising dinner in Belleville, and had then gone to a bar along Belleville's bar-motel strip to finish off the evening.
When one of their extended party wanted to check out another bar across the street, Erin and another girlfriend went with her for company and, upon their return, that's when the assault occurred.
Erin, still dressed to the nines from the charity dinner, was the smallest of the three -- 5' 3" -- and the only one the swarmers grabbed, this after the three were taunted by the gang as "sluts" as they walked up.
As one of her assailants later said, almost nonchalantly, "If it wasn't her, it would have been the next person."
All her attackers, as it turned out, were young offenders, some "known to police," including the two girls who were her primary attackers, and so it all fell under the protection and privacy offered by the Youth Criminal Justice Act.
Manning the phones at the Belleville police station on the night of the attack was Const. Gina Giouroukous, a veteran officer assigned to the duty desk.
When Erin, her face swollen and her eyes red with tears, arrived at the station with her friends, Gina Giouroukous, the constable who also happened to take the 911 calls that evening, told them to "get the fuck out of here" and come back in the morning when they were "sober."
No denials of this were ever tabled.
Four days later, following my personal involvement, a belatedly written general occurrence report appeared, penned by yet another officer with no first-hand knowledge, that claimed there was no response to the 911 call on "the alleged assault" because it "appeared to be a punchup in front of a bar with no serious injuries and, judging by the conversation, all parties involved had been drinking."
There were five people who showed up to give evidence at the police station that night, by taxi -- Erin, her boyfriend, the young woman who called 911, not once but twice, another male friend and, most importantly, the youth involved in the swarming who had taken the cell phone video and who, in a brief exhibition of remorse, had stayed back, helped Erin off the ground, and then supplied her with the names of the two girls who had been the primary assailants.
When told at the police station to "get the fuck out of here," however, he did just that -- taking the video evidence with him and vowing no more participation.
That, he said, would be the end of his involvement -- with fear of retaliation for being a snitch his prime motivation.
The following morning, Erin shows up at the Belleville police station to formally give her statement.
She is in severe pain, and on her way to the hospital for X-rays once her statement has been taken. Her jaw has now swollen to the point that she can barely open her mouth, impeding her from even brushing her teeth.
She is interviewed by a uniform cop named Bill Madden, a Belleville constable with a couple of decades on the job.
He hands her a piece of gum, noting he could still smell alcohol on her breath.
"You should not have been walking down the street that late at night," Madden tells her.
To which she replied, incredulously, "Pardon me?"
Throughout the interview, Madden continually refers to the assault as being "alleged."
As if.
Erin gives him the names of her "alleged" assailants, as well as the name of the youth from the swarming who had given her those names, who had taken the video, and who had also reluctantly come to the station the night before when he was still feeling a twinge of guilt.
Following being kicked out of the police station, however, he had gone to ground.
He would now have to be tracked down.
Days later, I accompany Erin to Belleville for her second interview with Madden who, in the meantime, has secured the video from the youth whose name Erin had given him.
First time around, he had been dismissive -- to Erin in person, and later to me on the phone.
After seeing the video, however, he is now calling the attack "brutal and obviously unprovoked."
"This happens all the time in Belleville," he says, so matter-of-factly that it caught me off guard.
"Just kids with nothing better to do," he says, shrugging.
When asked about Erin's treatment at the Belleville police station the night of the attack after experiencing no response to two 911 calls, Madden then says this.
"What did you expect when she shows up at the station with her posse in tow?" he asks.
It was an unfortunate choice of words, and out of context with the reality.
"Posse?" I reply. "Did you say posse?"
He doesn't know quite how to respond.
"By posse, do you mean Erin's boyfriend, who happens to be a law-abiding university graduate and a environment technologist in Ottawa? Is he posse?" I say.
"Or how about the female witness? Is she posse?
"Or the other young man with them, who just happened to be a police cadet at the time, and is now a full-fledged member of the OPP?"
"Is he posse? I ask.
Madden has no answer.
The file is eventually turned over to Det. Tom Sweet of the Belleville Police criminal investigation unit.
Weeks pass.
Two girls -- both 15 -- are finally charged with assault causing bodily harm, and ordered to steer clear of each other as conditions for their pre-trial release.
On the very first night, the ringleader messages the other online as if it were all a joke, and is charged with breach of her bail conditions when the other girl's mother contacts police and turns her in.
And so the justice system begins ...
mark.bonokoski@sunmedia.ca or 416-947-2445 --
Looks like somebody just pissed in Ayatollah Ali's khoresh...
-- CAIRO -- The most important group of religious leaders in Iran has called the disputed presidential election and the new government illegitimate, an act of defiance against the country’s supreme leader and the most public sign of a major split in the country’s clerical establishment.*
“This crack in the clerical establishment and the fact they are siding with the people and Moussavi in my view is the most historic crack in the 30 years of the Islamic republic,” said Abbas Milani, director of the Iranian Studies Program at Stanford University.
“Remember they are going against an election verified and sanctified by Khamenei.”
Whatever happened to honour, duty, country?
-- VANCOUVER -- For the second time in less than two years, an employee of the Canada Border Services Agency is accused of misusing his position to help international drug traffickers smuggle cocaine into B.C.And it's not the first incident in recent memory...
An arrest warrant for Jasbir Singh Grewal was issued in a Seattle courtroom two weeks ago, The Vancouver Sun has learned.
Grewal is accused of allowing at least 12 large shipments of cocaine concealed in motor homes to cross into B.C. from Washington state.
Another CBSA border guard, Baljinder Kandola, is due back in Surrey Provincial Court Aug. 19 after being charged in a similar smuggling case.**********
Kandola faces counts of breach of trust and conspiracy to import cocaine and firearms after he was arrested in October 2007 along with others in B.C. and Washington.
"...I did not have sexual relations with that woman..."
Obama is reportedly leaning toward simply issuing an executive order that would let him define the potential "dangerousness" of a suspect – based simply on secret US intelligence.Funny how that works, huh?
That would be the basis for indefinite detention – perhaps with court review every six months.
"...for evil to triumph... is for greedy men to look the other way..."
Chinese authorities said the software is needed to shield children from violent and obscene material online. But experts who examined it said Green Dam also would block material the government deemed politically unacceptable.*
The controversy was sensitive for global computer makers, for which China is both a major market and the production site for up to 80 per cent of the world's PCs.
-- KANDAHAR, Afghanistan -- A Canadian soldier travelling behind the senior commander in Afghanistan’s Kandahar province was killed today when his vehicle struck an improvised explosive device.He will be remembered.
Cpl. Nicholas Bulger, 30, was a member of 3rd Battalion, Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry, based in Edmonton.
The victim of Friday's bombing, Cpl. Bulger, had spoken of his optimism for Afghanistan in a CBC-TV interview on Canada Day.*
"There's a future here," said Cpl. Bulger, who was looking forward to a vacation in Ontario.
"When we're driving down the streets in rural areas, to look down into the eyes of the children that are there, you get a different perspective, I guess, than what I had when I first came here.
...well, you know...
Interestingly, this little shindig is being touted as...
"a combination of awesome intellect, devastating logic and, sometimes, just calling people 'douchebags' when the situation calls for it."Apparently, the recent outing of singularly compassionate, lefty intellectual "Canadian Cesspool" has merely served to propel him to greater heights of narcissism.
Or, how about this stuff...
...and...
Yeah... what's a little anti-semitism among friends, huh?"Like I said Einstein, you people were the worst of anti-Semite's before 9-11. Now you tolerate the Jews because you're hoping they'll nuke all the other brown people for you."Us people?
"i'll take my beer drunk self to bed with dreams of pulling on a raw woolen condom and slipping in to the sulphurous chasm that lurks beneath her christian skirts."Or who could forget the Cynic's magnum opus... wherein he tells Wanda Watkins, the mother of a young Canadian soldier slain in Afghanistan...
"you know what they say, if you can't beat 'em, fuck 'em. i'll feel so dirty in the morning."
"Fuck you and your grief."Yessiree... an evening for all the uber-highbrow denizens of the sanctimonious left-o-sphere.
"More like uber-unibrow. Even before his greasy mug was plastered all over, I KNEW he was a tubby bitch with a shitty haircut."
And..."I sure hope someone you-tubes tonights proceedings at the second coming of the Algonquin Round Table."And the "awesomely intellectual, devastatingly logical" Cynic responds...
C'mon now Bobby... a fine, upstanding young man like yourself... who would ever wanna wish you ill?Someone taped the show last night - not sure who - but Robert didn’t much care for the free publicity.*
Whatever his reasons for wanting to suddenly stay private, he wound up chasing a guy with a camera halfway down the street back from O’Grady’s pub to tell the guy not to post the footage.
Maybe he’s Amish at heart, and doesn’t want his image captured.
... do pretty damn good...
The welfare recipients in the room – outnumbered approximately 10 to 1 by representatives of social agencies, legal aid clinics, homeless shelters and charities – accused their service providers of stealing their voices.*
They lashed out at the public servants who claim to be on their side. "My caseworker (who belongs to CUPE 79, the union representing Toronto's inside workers) gets $33 an hour," said Theresa Shrader.
"Imagine picketing your office for 18 days of paid sick benefits. And you want to restructure Ontario Works? Come on, please."
...Mayor's office strangely silent on which gun club shooters belonged to...
Three men were wounded in two separate shootings at opposite ends of the city yesterday. The first incident of gun violence was sparked by a fight that occurred around 2:45 a.m. inside the Tropical Sunset bar at Kennedy Rd. and Progress Ave., according to Toronto Police.*
Meanwhile, gunfire erupted less than two hours later at an Etobicoke gas station, injuring two men.
The victims were sitting in a car at an Esso station on the southeast corner of Dixon Rd. and Islington Ave. when a gunman opened fire on them just after 4:30 a.m., police said. One man was hit in the leg, and the other in the neck and back.
...that Dr Dawg, Red Tory & Canadian Cesspool are gonna meet down at 52 Division... and taser each other until Chief Blair resigns...
-- PARIS -- A Paris activist pierced her skin with giant fishhooks and hung herself from the ceiling of a boutique Thursday in a radical protest at the threat of extinction facing the world's sharks.You go girl!
Artist and animal rights activist Alice Newstead speared the skin of her shoulderblades with oversized shark fishing hooks, fitting her feet into a harness, to be hoisted up into the air.
She spent 15 minutes suspended in the window of a Lush Cosmetics store in the south of the capital, as passers-by walked along the busy boulevard, her skin stretched upward and streaked with blood.
...do that again...
After his capture, Saddam Hussein told the FBI that he falsely allowed the world to believe Iraq had weapons of mass destruction because he feared revealing his weakness to Iran, the hostile neighbour he considered a bigger threat than the United States.Funny how often these sweaty-balled third world dictators think they can get by on hysterical threats and sheer bluff.
A third round of talks over an embattled joint industrial zone between North and South Korea has produced no progress.*
The North apparently launched several short range missiles into the ocean even as South Korean delegates were making their journey back from the North's territory.
..."rule the waves"...
"Photographs of the defendant showed what looked like a car accident and photos of the scene looked more like a murder scene."*
C'mon Omar... don't hold back... tell us how you really feel...
As the rest of Canada celebrates the nation’s 142nd birthday today, a Vice President of the Canadian Arab Federation has labelled the country a “genocidal state” and the described its national day as “F**k Canada Day.”Let the Canadian Arab Federation know how you feel.
Omar Shaban, who lives in Vancouver, BC made these comments on his Facebook page, declaring, “It’s finally Canada Day ... Couldn't be more ashamed to be Canadian.”
**********
The tirade on Omar Shaban's profile stirred up a firestorm of controversy and put CAF leaders in damage-control mode as they were quick to condemn the posting on the social networking site.**********
Just after 8:30 last night, Shaban, 23, resigned his post as the CAF's executive vice-president for Western Canada, CAF national president Khaled Mouammar confirmed.
"If Mohamed Boudjenane (CAF Executive Director 416-889-6764) really wants to distance the Canadian Arab Federation from Omar Shaban, then why is Omar Shaban still on his facebook friend's list?"*
Ah, yes... the strained peas & carrots of Canadian journalism...
I've gotta say... I've heard some pretty screwed up definitions of what it is to be Canadian... but truly folks, if we're down to "eating seal meat"... it really is time to start looking at mass emigration to Australia.
**********
RELATED: Sadly, in the eternal battle...
...of Penis vs Patriotism...
I know that David Miller isn’t one to provoke a union if he can at all avoid it, but it would have been nice to see at least a glimmer of citizenship from both the government and the unions.*
Surely the one day of the year where we celebrate our nation could have been salvaged? I guess it goes to show you how the unions and the city officials think. We daren't offend the Pride organizers, that would be politically incorrect.
Canadians as a whole, however? Screw 'em.
...wouldn't mind shining a bright light down those parliamentary ratholes......
Canada's 308 MPs received about $127 million in expenses last year but there are no public details into exactly how that money was spent.Who exactly, besides the members themselves, thinks keeping this stuff under wraps is a good idea?
On top of their $157,738 salary, MPs have a $25,500 annual expense allowance, which can be partially assigned to home costs if they have a secondary residence in Ottawa.
"I don't see how the spending of taxpayers' money is a private parliamentary issue," the federal director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation told CTV News.**********
"Quite simply put, it's taxpayers who ought to be able to judge for themselves whether they get value for that money."
"Sunshine is still the best disinfectant."*
