Self-celebrated Liberal party operative...

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

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

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

RELATED:   "The calliope crashed to the ground"

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

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

Kate: Jeez Louise, that rocket nearly hit the bus.

Dawg: Fluke, it was homemade, no bigger than a firecracker.

Jason: Rockets fall from heaven upon the wicked.

Kathy: Turn the bus around.

Terry: My pal Amir said they’d land one a couple of hundred meters short for a photo-op.

Dawg: You know Amir!

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

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

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

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

Hope, Change and...

...Crawford, Texas...

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

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

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

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

**********

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

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

*

Don't look at me...

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

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

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

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

And yes... it could be worse.

*

Getting tough on crime

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

And somewhere... an angel weeps.

**********

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

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

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

**********

LAST WORD: Two more body bags

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

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

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

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

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

*

Say Iggy, maybe puffins...

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

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

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

**********

RELATED: Oh good gawd, somebody actually...

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

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

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

*

The third time around...

...is the charm.
[*]

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

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

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

Damned old hypocrite.

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

**********

LAST WORD: The rope to hang ourselves...

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

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

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

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

Most would not exist at all without the government.

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

*

Just another day...

...in paradise...

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

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

*

You mean Stephen Harper...

...doesn't actually eat pagan babies?

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

*

The Farmer Bob Rifle Registry

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

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

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

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

**********

RELATED: Some database is GONNA FIX THIS???

SERIOUSLY?

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

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

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

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

The lunatics are truly running the asylum.

Thank goodness we got out in time.

**********

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

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

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

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

*

Socialist Campfire Songbook

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

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

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

(via ffof)

**********

LATEST "CHICKS WITH DICKS" UPDATE:

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

*

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

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

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

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

**********

RELATED: Some unlikely "bloody brothers"

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

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

Easy come, easy go, huh?

*

Rebranding "British" Columbia

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

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

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

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

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

**********

FROM THE COMMENTS:

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

*

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

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

**********

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

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

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

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

[*]

UPDATE: Bad news, Zorph...

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

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

Oh, the huge manatee!

**********

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

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

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

*

Ask a Harvard educated academic...

"Obama can see Canada from his house!"

**********

RELATED: Idiots, explosives & falling anvils...

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

*

See, Peace Moonbeam...

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

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

*

I hear the deluxe model...

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

RELATED: Metaphor overload

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

*

Chalk up another victory...

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

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

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

**********

UPDATE: Who's actually to blame here?

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

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

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

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

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

**********

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

...in enabling murder...

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

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

*

Uh, Mr President, sir...

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

*

Paging Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

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

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

The IAEA said that was "not likely."

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

**********

POSTSCRIPT: Iran needs to pay attention...

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

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

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

Nothing.

**********

LAST WORD: Ten thousand chimps, no typewriter

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

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

*

You think I'm dark...

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

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

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

"These things are pretty predictable."

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

*

Swatting "Bugz"

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

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

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

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

*

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

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

**********

FROM THE COMMENTS:

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

*

UNBALANCING THE UNIVERSE

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

[*]

Here comes the science...

Talkin' DNA and Suicide...

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

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

*

Remember when you were a kid...

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

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

Yeah... me neither.

**********

UPDATE: Meanwhile... closer to home

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

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

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

*

President McDreamy goes to Defcon 2

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

FROM THE COMMENTS:

Who's on deck... Celine Dion?

And...

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

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

You sure won't get any argument from me.

**********

RELATED: It must be "a liberal thing"

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

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

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

(via blue like you)

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

...play dice with the universe...

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

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

The project was nine years in the making.

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

Oh, well.

**********

FROM THE COMMENTS:

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

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

Win-Win!

*

Craig Munro isn't aboriginal...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

**********

AFTERTHOUGHT: Special prisons for "Special" people

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

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

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

Just wonderin'.

**********

UPDATE: Parole Board gets one right

*

Premier McSlippery and his gang...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Where is the "support" for poor Lindsay Hyde.

Funny how that works.

*

TTC contemplating getting rid of...

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

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

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

*

C'mon... give yourself a shake

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

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

**********

RELATED: CUPE... and all their friends

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

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

"The sole target is Jews, is Israel."

*

Remember all those guys...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

*

Further to Agenda-quiddick

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

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

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

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

Seriously?

*

The Chicken Little World...

...of Paul Hellyer...

*

Lead-painted baby toys...

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

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

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

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

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

Some miracle, huh?

**********

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

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

*

So I'm sitting here...

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

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

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

And more to the point... why?

And that's not a rhetorical question.

**********

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

*

Must be the weekend

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

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

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

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

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

Good grief.

**********

UPDATE: Latest victim identified

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

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

And yes, there's more...

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

English said there were obvious signs of trauma.

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

*

Muslim Brotherhood launches...

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

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

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

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

And here's the schizophrenic punchline...

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

**********

UPDATE: Another stunning victory for Allah

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

**********

LAST WORD: In other breaking news...

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

Again.

*

Lovely Lotus Land...

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

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

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

**********

RELATED: Who ya gonna call?

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

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

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

*

In these tough economic times...

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

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

Stephen Taylor has the inside scoop.

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

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

Time to get out that big axe.

**********

FROM THE COMMENTS:

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

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

*

Yeah... that's what i thought

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

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

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

**********

RELATED: You say unique... I say ungrateful

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

*

The Minister of Business Class

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

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

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

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

*

Dear Dumbass Steve Paikin

I bet you wish you were as smart as me... 

yours truly, Warren. 

[*]<<<<<<<<<<  

UPDATE: Jonathan Kay weighs in...

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

LAST WORD: Steve Paikin spanks the K-Man

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

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

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

Come for "the deals"...

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

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

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

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

**********

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

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

*

Hope and Change and...

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Half a million people are currently in labour camps.

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

**********

RELATED: Hope, Change and...

...I hope he brought his kneepads.

*

Montcalm and Wolfe

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

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

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

*

I'm not the Prime Minister...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

**********

FROM THE COMMENTS:

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

**********

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

**********

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

*

Freaky Friday

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

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

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

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

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

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

**********

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

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

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

*

The further adventures of...

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

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

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

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

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

**********

RELATED: Down the Rabbit Hole...

Have we all taken leave of our senses?

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

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

And I don’t just mean from the reporters.

**********

FROM THE COMMENTS:

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

They can't tell me.

Moral of the story, don't worship idols.

*

Shaidle says let's free Chris Selley...

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

Chris Selley is madder at Pamela Geller for wanting to buy Asqa Parvez a gravestone than he is at the guy who put her in the ground. He also compares Parvez's murder to an airplane accident. Yes, her father's "engine failed" and he accidentally fell upon her from a great height."

Says the furious one...

"Personally, I blame some Canada geese."

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

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

********** RELATED: Hey Chris... wave that magic wand... ...and make this one better too...

-- ISLAMABAD -- Police say a bomb has killed at least six mourners at a funeral in northwestern Pakistan for a slain Shiite Muslim leader. City police official Miran Shah says at least six people have died and that others wounded by the explosion have been rushed to a hospital.

********** CORRECTION: Oops... those figures were wrong

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

Alright... carry on.

Mission Accomplished

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sure, the uh... Canadian party.

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

**********

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

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

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

**********

LAST WORD: The Roots of Liberal Condescension

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

*