Christie Blatchford: Ice storm reawakens Toronto’s inner wimp

...during this week, there was an undeclared war among the three putative mayors for control of the helm (and to be seen as “the face” of the ice storm) and a raging debate about whether Mr. Ford should have formally declared a state of emergency in the city, and whether it would have made a whit of difference in how the blackout was handled.

Myself, I’m of the view that Mr. Ford won this battle and rather handily: He seemed clear-eyed, sober, un-cracked, in charge and in control throughout, while Mr. Kelly mostly stood about looking rugged in a ball jacket and Ms. Wynne mostly pronounced that her heart ached for all the victims. Ms. Wynne’s heart aches a great deal, it should be noted.

In any case, now that it’s all over but the whingeing (which will go on for years, trust me), Mr. Kelly is apparently thinking of calling in the army to help with the cleanup of all the damaged trees...

Hey Look! After Sun Media and bloggers have been doing it for 2 months, the mainstream media finally gets around to telling the truth about fanatics Greyson & Loubani

Margaret Wente in the Globe and Mail:

John Greyson and Tarek Loubani have been portrayed as innocents abroad, humanitarian do-gooders who were caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. This picture is inaccurate and incomplete. The two are hard-core anti-Israel activists who’ve been mixed up in Middle East politics for years. They should have known what they were getting into.

When they were arrested, the two were on their way to deliver medical equipment to a hospital in Hamas-controlled Gaza. The whole world knew that the situation in Egypt was highly volatile. The government was determined to shut down the Muslim Brotherhood (an ally of Hamas) and unlikely to look kindly on a couple of foreigners who decided to film a bloody crackdown.

Jon Kay in the National Post:

Egyptian military authorities have been co-operating with Israel in controlling the flow of weapons and militants to and from Gaza for years. But till now, Western pro-Palestinian activists generally have preferred to play down this fact. The case against Israel works best when it is presented as a simple morality play about indigenous Arabs battling neo-colonialist Jews. And so the fact that many Arab leaders in the region (including not only those in Egypt, but also Lebanon and Jordan) share Israel’s fear of Palestinian militancy is seen as an embarrassment to the conceit of anti-Zionist solidarity. 

(to be fair to John and the NP, they did do a couple of articles touching on the radical fanaticism of Greyson and Loubani before.)

I think Jon's article is overly optimistic in its assessment that the Greyson/Loubani saga will refocus the Canadian radical left away from its anti-Israel depravity onto real human rights crises, but he does make some very valid observations about the other facets of this episode. 

Sun News, as its viewers are aware, has been providing the complete story on Greyson and Loubani from the start:

More on the Ford pandemonium

Gawker editor John Cook is jonesing for his crack dealer..apparently they haven`t been able to reach the lowlife blackmailer lately...  

UPDATE: If the video does surface, your tax dollars will have paid for part of it

Plus this is a good read: Jonathan Kay on why

Rob Ford will never ever, ever give the Toronto Star the pleasure of his resignation

A very good piece, though I think Jon misses one point. It`s not just keeping taxes down that makes Ford so appealing to his base, but his overall respect for and interest in his constituents, of which making sure taxes are spent appropriately is a critical, but not the sole part.

Beyond that, as another blogger put it:

`Blind love doesn't guide his supporters, disgust with his opposition does`

Toronto Star's "Mad Dog" Siddiqui upset about a rabies shot

The Toronto Star's resident Islamist (as Tarek Fatah refers to him), Haroon Siddiqui, is upset with Robert Fulford for pointing out the obvious.

A Siddiqui column described Stephen Harper's support for Israel as being "rabid." Fulford noted that the simple-minded fanaticism of the anti-Israel horde merits that description far better than anything suggested by the Canadian Prime Minister.

Employing what might be described as Taqiyya, as form of lying permitted by Islam to further Islamic goals, Siddiqui, in a letter to the National Post, protests he "is a supporter of Israel." If by supporter, Siddiqui means he has not outright called for the elimination of Israel and the death of all Jews, he may have an obtuse point.

But for someone who has unrelentingly taken the side of Israel's enemies in virtually every instance, "Mad Dog" Siddiqui's howl of protest sounds a bit hollow.

Kelly McParland: The Star’s war on Rob Ford is a deceitful vendetta based on journalistic hypocrisy

Kelly McParland at the National Post is making some of the same points I have recently.

Good on him!

Ford hasn’t broken any laws, pilfered any money, abused any old ladies or cheated any constituents. He remains popular with a significant portion of the population despite his failings. The Star has resorted to character assassination because it has nothing else left.

Kelly McParland: Rob Ford’s victory deals second bitter blow to Ford-hating elite

...the record isn’t what perturbs Ford’s opponents. Never has. What matters is his style and his conservative views. The suburban voters who elected him may be satisfied – many analysts suspect he’d be quickly re-elected if given the chance — but the downtown core is embarrassed. He doesn’t have David Miller’s hair or his political correctness. He doesn’t pledge fealty to unaffordable projects that make them feel good about themselves. He’s a bit bumptious. He says stuff on the radio that offends them. They maintain this is an embarrassment to Toronto, although in reality the embarrassment stems from the chronically childish culture that emanates from city council as a whole, where partisanship reigns, fiscal irresponsibility runs rampant and left-wingers feel free to throw around tax dollars on whatever personal agenda suits them. 

Toronto - the city where stupid leftists' self-esteem is tied to municipal politics

Does your sense of self-esteem fluctuate depending on whom is your municipal councilor or mayor?

Do you feel better or worse about yourself and your ability to hold your head high depending on whether you have a socialist or a conservative being called "Your Honor" at City Hall?

If the answer is no, then you're obviously not a "progressive" Torontonian.

It's a fascinating phenomenon that only affects one type of political class  I've heard it in conversations, seen it on facebook postings and the National Post's Chris Selley noted in a tweet that the Toronto Star's dunce columnist Christopher Hume is feeling personally humiliated because Rob Ford is the mayor of Toronto.

When the pompous, inept David Miller ruled Toronto for two previous terms and imposed a preposterous agenda while sending taxes skyrocketing, I don't remember a single conservative whining about how they were personally embarrassed. Have I missed something where socialist websites have been offering a discount on those online genealogy packages and a bunch of them have discovered they are related to Rob Ford though their bloodlines?

When David Miller utterly capitulated to civic employees unions after leaving the city with six weeks worth of stinking garbage piled high in the height of the summer, was anyone on the right ashamed to be a Torontonian because of him?  Again, a resounding nyet.

To understand this, one has to know a little about the "progressive" mindset. They are hopelessly insecure and see their entire value as human beings being based on what others think of them. By that extension, being in a city where a boisterous fiscal conservative won the last civic election by an enormous margin over all his rivals must come as a painful personal blow. It must be so shameful for them to have to explain that to their enlightened friends who live in places like Vancouver.

They must hang their heads low when they travel and go to diner parties with friends from other locales.  Sitting at tables with flowing chardonnay and Joan Baez' singing playing on the sound system to remind them of their youth, while their comrades can talk about how much progress they have made, the Toronto progressive must have to cower in shame. It must be incomprehensible for such a gathering to grasp how a modern Canadian city chose to be governed by someone who believes government shouldn't spend more than it can afford.

Clearly this sort of personal affront must have been caused by the progressives not being progressive enough. If only they had raised taxes even further, incurred more civic debt while doling out public funds to  any grievance-monger capable of filling out a form and found new laws to restrict personal liberties, more people would see things their way.

Oh, the sorrow and humiliation. And the worst part is, when they create a performance art interpretive dance piece to express their dismay, it might be a little harder to get that tax-funded arts grant so that a total of 14 people in an audience can experience their plight.

"Ford must go," declares Christopher Hume. bit.ly/TbBMje Replaces former slogan, "Ford won't win." thestar.com/news/gta/toron…
— Chris Selley (@cselley) November 19, 2012

"Thank goodness the United States exist to give proper Canadian comedians an opportunity not to suck"

It’s not very good at all. It’s certainly not politically correct.  But I have to agree with some of the commenters cited in a follow-up CBC article noting the fevered online reaction to the original piece: The skit sounds like nothing so much as a terrible CBC comedy program. Maybe funnier.  

CBC-approved comedian Shaun Majumder disagrees. “When you are in the workplace — and especially if it is the military — it’s like you’ve got to have some kind of sensitivity to the current world that we live in,” he told the network.   

Right, right. In the workplace. Your local bank branch, for example, or florist or fishmonger, or … military base full of people relatively near the front lines of a war against, broadly speaking, Osama bin Laden and his followers. It’s totally the same thing!

Chris Selley in the National Post sums up why the CBC and it's lame-ass alleged comedians like Shaun Majumder should stop pretending they produce competent news or comedy programming.

Canadian Federal Court Says No Copyright Infringement For Linking, Posting Several Paragraphs

The Federal Court of Canada has issued an important decision involving copyright and posting content online. The case involves a lawsuit launched by Richard Warman and the National Post against Mark and Constance Fournier, who run the FreeDominion website. Warman and the National Post sued the site over the appearance of two articles and an inline link to photograph that appeared on the forum. The court dismissed all three claims. 

While the first claim (Warman's article) was dismissed on the basis that it took too long to file the lawsuit, the legal analysis on the National Post claim involving an article by Jonathan Kay assesses the copyright implications of posting several paragraphs from an article online. In this case, the article was 11 paragraphs long.  The reproduction on the Free Dominion site included the headline, three complete paragraphs and part of a fourth. The court ruled that this amount of copying did not constitute a "substantial part" of the work and therefore there was no infringement. The court added that in the alternative, the reproduction of the work was covered by fair dealing, concluding that a large and liberal interpretation of news reporting would include posts to the discussion forum.  The decision then includes an analysis of the six factor test and concludes that the use was fair.

More at Michael Geist's Blog

At U of Victoria, Social Justice = admiration for mass murderers and a love-in for terror enablers

Michael Ross' article in the National Post discusses another example of how on campuses, the term "social justice" has become a euphemism for radical, anti-Western socialism.

Feel free to contact the University of Victoria and let them know what you think about them.

Michael Ross describes the Fatuous Fooltilla 2: Hamas apologists denounce Israel from sunny Greece

Only anti-Israel activists would be blind to the glaring irony of Hamas condemning Greece for blocking the departure of the ridiculous “Freedom Flotilla II” from its ports. The supreme irony isn’t that these “peace activists” are in bed with Hamas, an internationally recognized terrorist organization that made suicide bombing a staple of Islamist terror; it’s that Hamas issued its communiqué from its headquarters in that Mecca of social justice and human rights, Damascus. Yes, Damascus the capital of the Allawite regime that has no problem shooting its own citizenry while it tortures children and arrests thousands for merely hinting at government reform. You have to wonder if the superannuated blockade runners even know that there are refugee camps in Turkey bursting at the seams with Syrians fleeing death and terror at the hands of their own government.

If anyone actually ever thought these naïve anti-Israel activists are anything but the authors of their own satire, surely the fact that their comrades in Damascus are calling Greece’s anti-flotilla measures “inhuman” would convince them otherwise. Of course the activist’s counter-argument is that they do not support terrorism but are only there to “help Palestinians”. I wonder how they feel about sharing their boats with Amin Abu Rashad, former head of a Hamas “charitable foundation” that was shut down following the Dutch authorities’ probe into its involvement in funding terror activities, or Mohammed Ahmed Hanon, a financier of Hamas’ Izz-al-Din-al-Qassam terrorist brigades.

Read the rest at The National Post

She's old, but she's not THAT old

A reader pointed out a slip up in a Royal Wedding story by our friends at The National Post

Queen Elizabeth II was crowned about 6 decades ago. They only multiplied it by a factor of 10, although time does seem to go by very slowly at formal events.

(hat tip to Doug for this)

UPDATE: I emailed my friends at The Nat Post about the error and they corrected it. Now my friends who got such a laugh at the error are mad at me!

Bloggers SassyWire and Blazing Cat Fur expose neo-Nazi ideology of Iranian-linked Muslim group

Sassy Wire first noticed that a Shia Muslim group that acts as a mouthpiece for the Khomeneist regime, was posting videos by former Ku Klux Klan Grand Poobah David Duke.

The head of the fanatical Shite group has been courted by the likes of NDP Leader Jack Layton, as well as Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair and Ontario Provincial Liberal Cabinet Ministers.

It's interesting stuff and you can read about it through the following links:

Blazing Cat Fur's first post on it and the follow-up.

The National Post picked it up.

Mark Steyn's take on it has some interesting points, particularly about the Canadian Jewish Congress' sleepwaking mode for dealing with everything.

Twitter “opens a window into journalists’ minds and, often times, the view ain’t pretty”

Fun piece from Scott Stinson in The National Post about twitter and how it exposes what journalists really think and the rivalry between them.

Christopher Hitchens: Taliban reality finally dawns on human rights camp

Even in a week that concentrated all eyes on the magnificent courage and maturity of the people of Cairo, a report from Kabul began with what must surely be the most jaw-dropping opening paragraph of the year. Under the byline of the excellent Rod Nordland, The New York Times reported: “International and local human rights groups working in Afghanistan have shifted their focus toward condemning abuses committed by the Taliban insurgents, rather than those attributed to the American military and its allies.” 

The story went on to point out that the Taliban was culpable for “more than three-fourths of all civilian casualties” and informed us that some human-rights groups are now so concerned that they are thinking of indicting the Taliban for war crimes. “The activists’ concern,” Nordland went on, “would have been unheard-of a year ago,” when all the outcry was directed at casualties inflicted by NATO contingents.

The story became more mind-boggling as it unfolded. One had to ask oneself what had taken the human-rights “community” so long.

Read the rest at The National Post

Toronto Mayor Ford delivers on another promise

The National Post reports that The City of Toronto "intends to recommend seeking competitive bids for curb-side pick up west of Yonge Street, to the Etobicoke border, plus privatize more of the litter vacuum operations and litter and recycling pick up in parks. The written notice meets the city’s obligations, under the collective agreement, to provide three month notice of its intention to put the recommendation before City Council for consideration."

During last fall's campaign, Ford promised to examine the privatization of garbage collection, which will result in savings plus ensure reliability of service. Etobicoke, the western borough of Toronto, which contracts out garbage pick-up, was the only area  not affected by the last municipal garbage strike.

Many people speculate that the next great social justice battle in Canada will be against the corrupt civic unions. Employees who want civil service jobs are compelled to join unions which then turn around and use union dues to support terror sympathizers and foreign communist regimes.

While theoretically democratic, civic unions are not infrequently headed by people who make Hosni Mubarak look like Thomas Jefferson.

Most civil servants want to serve the public and get paid for an honest days work while not breaking the backs of the citizenry of which they are a part. But the people who campaign for and devote excessive amount of time to union activities are often interested in the type of power they are not able to attain through career advancement.

Whether civic unions are serving the interests of the nation or even their own membership are questions that will be looked at as the backlash against them appears to be growing.

Do citizens have an interest in discussing the politicization and radicalization of publicly funded academia?

The academic supervisor of the OISE Hate Thesis gave an interview to the radical  leftist website rabble.ca that was published today. In it, Sheryl Nestel makes the predictable accusation that criticism of the paper that alleges a Jewish conspiracy to "obscure Jewish privilege, deny Jewish racism and promote the interests of the Israeli nation-state" is part of a larger "neo-con" conspiracy.

Ms Nestel told rabble:

"The National Post is Canada's premier neo-conservative newspaper and it's pretty clear that neo-con politics demand unconditional support of Israel as a key ally in the "Clash of Civilizations." I think the attack on OISE is simply an attack on progressive academia and on burgeoning student activism against Israeli human rights violations."

The larger issue that escapes Ms Nestel's analysis is the right of the public to be aware of and have input into issues that directly affect them.

One may legitimately ask, 'how does a radicalized program in some obscure area of study affect me?" The answer is:  more than you may think.

The University of Toronto, of which the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education's Sociology and Equity Studies in Education is a part is, in large measure, publicly funded.

Its graduates go on to teach and influence generations of impressionable students in high schools and universities throughout Canada.

Universities are supposed to foster critical thought; the ability to hold, balance and reason among many competing ideas and ideologies. Sociology and Equity Studies in Education department at OISE appears to foster a very narrow approach to the acceptance of ideas.

Ms Nestel's mentoring, which is typical of the overall philosophy of her program, has recently produced theses which allege the collective accountability of Jews, a Jewish conspiracy to manipulate Holocaust education in order to allay Jewish racism, and most recently, one that alleges western feminists who oppose female circumcision are motivated by racism and genital obsession.

Is there no public interest in questioning whether Canadian students should be taught and influenced by teachers who advance those types of ideas? Or if we should be collectively funding a program that blindly accepts such assertions without providing alternatives from more mainstream perspectives?

In her interview, Ms Nestel stated:

The scholarship of all the students and faculty of the Department of Sociology and Equity Studies has been deemed to be tainted because much of it is seen as somehow less than "objective." 

..The demonization of work that has contributed in innumerable ways to efforts to eliminate gender, racial and class inequality in Canada is ignorant and unconscionable.

While asserting her "academic freedom," to which she of course has a right, Ms Nestel ignores some other democratic principles. What of the right of the public as a whole to intellectual freedom? Is it "ignorant and unconscionable" for the public to express concern about how their children may be influenced and how public funds are being spent and to what end?

The failure to recognize those larger issues says a great deal about academic freedom and the level of intellectual discourse at OISE.

Why is rabble.ca obsessed with The National Post's Jonathan Kay being "obsessed" with lesbians?

Our favorite online Marxists today ask the question, Why is Jonathan Kay Obsessed With Lesbians?

On the surface, it seems a rather dimwitted question to which the answer is rather obvious. Kay is a reporter and he is reporting about subjects who frequently, almost incessantly, self-identify as lesbians. In fact, one of the things neither Kay (nor I until now) reported about last night's evening of hate that rabble references, was Jenny Peto's bizarre claim that criticism of her looney tunes, academically inept anti-Jew/anti-Israel screed was based on "homophobia."

One would think the amateur sociologists at rabble, who seem to conform to the official OISE doctrine of collective guilt for "privileged classes", should be asking the question: why is western society obsessed with lesbians? 
 
After all, in every heterosexual porno film, there seems to be at least one lesbian scene, but never a guy-on-guy scene.

Or at least, that’s what I’ve heard about porno, having (ahem) never seen one myself..cough..cough..

Barbara Kay invents the word for dimwitted Israel bashers: Peto-philes

"To understand birthright-bashing Jews such as Peto and company, you have to understand the leftist contribution to modern anti-Semitism, a contribution that would be anathema to the grandparents of any living Jew, including Peto’s. That is the bogus notion that Zionism produces anti-Semitism; rather than the truth, which is that Zionism is a response to anti-Semitism.

The Left is a conduit for the self-pitying Arabist narrative, and that is what the credulous Peto has internalized. If you have been brainwashed to believe that Zionism causes anti-Semitism and Zionism is oppressive, then you may even believe anti-Semitism is justified if it hastens Israel’s redemption (read: dissolution).

I disagree with other commentators on one score: Peto is not a self-hating Jew. She is full of admiration for herself. She is unaware that her thoughts are unoriginal, that she speaks in predictable clichés, and that she is lending herself to anti-Semitism laundering on a grand scale. You’ll find ample evidence of her intellectual vacuity in a YouTube Israel-bashing address to her small audience of Peto-philes. It’s particularly sad to witness her excitement that al-Jazeera gave her thesis its stamp of approval. (Bubbie! You didn’t fight the Nazis in vain! They love me in Saudi Arabia!).

Of course, Peto herself is a sideshow in the educational scheme of things. The larger issue surrounding Peto’s unworthy thesis is the obvious flight from integrity in her degree-bestowing institution. An embarrassed OISE administration is spinning Peto’s rant as “academic freedom.” But academic freedom is only credible when bounded by academic standards, here demonstrably absent."

The entire column is in The National Post

UPDATE: An analysis that details the failure of the University of Toronto to maintain academic standards by accepting Peto's opinion piece as a "thesis."

Jonathan Kay: The Jenny Peto scandal shows that it’s time to clean house at OISE

Read the rest at The National Post

"Peto is a small fish. The bigger problem here is OISE — the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, AKA UToronto’s teacher’s college — itself. For years, I’ve been hearing tales of political correctness gone amok at OISE, including radical anti-Israeli events. But it took the Peto case to really get me probing around to see what else is going on at OISE."

UPDATE: here's an interesting blog post describing why the Peto thesis isn't really a thesis.