University of Toronto offers weak response to concerns about institutional anti-Israel bias at OISE

The University of Toronto has responded, but not really responded, to concerns about a Master's Thesis submitted in the Sociology and Equity Studies in Education program at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) by one Jenny Peto, that alleges "Jewish Racism" is part of "Hegemonic Holocaust Education" and suggests a Jewish/Zionist conspiracy to exploit Holocaust guilt.

According to the Canadian Jewish News:

Responding to a request for an interview, the University of Toronto issued a written statement by vice-president and provost Cheryl Misak: “Due to our privacy obligations to students, I cannot discuss an individual student’s academic work or his or her performance. What I can, say, however, is that freedom of expression issues are ever-present in our society, especially on a university campus. The University of Toronto’s Statement on Freedom of Speech makes it clear that freedom of inquiry lies at the very heart of our institution: ‘all members of the University must have as a prerequisite freedom of speech and expression, which means the right to examine, question, investigate, speculate and comment on any issue without reference to prescribed doctrine, as well as the right to criticize the University and society at large.’ 

“Of the thousands of MA theses written at the University of Toronto in partial fulfilment of degree requirements, it is inevitable that some will have elements that offend various individuals and groups."

It is commendable that the University of Toronto values free speech. But there are issues that remain unaddressed, like the perception that the culture at OISE has become so virulently anti-Israel and anti-Zionist that theses which have the appearance of anti-Semitism have become acceptable there.

And there is the question of whether the anti-Israel attitude at OISE has become so politically rancid that anti-Zionism has become more important there than basic scholarship.


Werner Cohn, Professor Emeritus of Sociology at the University of British Columbia, and one of the first people to draw attention to the thesis, The Victimhood of the Powerful: White Jews, Zionism and the Racism of Hegemonic Holocaust Education" wrote of the author's scholarship:

"..she is an autodidact who knows how to quote from others, whenever that seems to serve the cause, and thus to give her thesis the sheen of formal scholarship.The only problem is that the footnotes and references to the literature in no way support her contentions, and that she does not muster facts or data of any kind to give her thesis the weight of an academic argument."

"..she makes assertions, but it can’t be called an advancement of knowledge as she doesn’t test it in any way."

Ms Peto's thesis characterized the March of the Living, a prestigious Holocaust education program, as an "abuse of Holocaust memory for Zionist and racist purposes" (pg 108).


An indictment of Ms Peto comes from March of the Living national director Eli Rubenstein. “She hasn’t been on a trip where you see a Holocaust survivor holding the hand of someone who survived the Rwandan genocide or the Sudanese genocide, that it’s comforting and helps them to heal.

“How can you write a master’s thesis and not speak to a single survivor, educator or student in the program, and how can the university accept that?” he asked.

“We have survivors who rebuilt their lives and want to share their stories of survival and make sure that it doesn’t happen to anybody, and here you have someone criticizing us for that… it’s very sad.”

In fact, the only first hand research on the March of the Living Ms Peto is able to cite in her 2010 Thesis comes from her viewing of the March of the Living website in 2006!

This addresses Professor Cohn's principle concern by critics of the thesis and by extension, the culture at OISE in the assertion that "the thesis was devoid of scholarship."

U of T Provost Misak said,  "the university is committed to allowing and encouraging a full range of debate. The best way for controversy to unfold is for members of our community to engage with the perspectives and arguments they dispute. It is intelligent argument, not censorship, that lies at the heart of our democratic society and its institutions.”

These are commendable sentiments. But the question remains, where is the debate at OISE?

At a meeting of the OISE Graduate Student Association to discuss whether they should involve themselves with  the bigoted "Israeli Apartheid Week," the minutes don't indicate any debate. They indicate a universal acceptance of the notion that the Zionist entity must be oppressive. The only expressed concern is about how to imply that they are not anti-Semitic.

And who is the person they had to address that concern?

None other than guest speaker Jenny Peto! Well, with expert advice like that, how could they go wrong?

Ms Peto's thesis advisor is Sheryl Nestel. Ms Nestel has made the conference presentation: "Mapping Jewish Dissent: Jewish Anti-occupation Activism in Toronto." The Department Chair, Rinaldo Walcott, is a signatory to at least two anti-Israel petitions.

Where is the debate at OISE?

For U of T Provost Misak to say that the “university is committed to allowing and encouraging a full range of debate” is most welcome. Perhaps she can let us know when that policy is put into practice at OISE.

Today is Boris Karloff's Birthday

One of the legends from the annals of horror

Obama's impotence

An open disagreement between Israel and the Pentagon in recent weeks has highlighted the dilemma President Barack Obama faces in making progress on Iran. Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Tuesday poured cold water on last week's suggestion by Israeli Prime Minister that the only way Iran can be stopped from acquiring nuclear weapons is for the U.S. to threaten military action. Military action, Gates warned, would solve nothing; in fact it would be more likely to drive Iran to acquire nuclear weapons.

Netanyahu had warned, during a visit to the U.S., that "economic sanctions are making it difficult for Iran, but there is no sign that the Ayatullah regime plans to stop its nuclear program because of them." The Israeli media reported that Netanyahu had told Vice-President Joe Biden, "The only way to ensure that Iran will not go nuclear is to create a credible threat of military action against it if it doesn't cease its race for a nuclear weapon."

More at Time

Fascist uniform then..Fascist uniform now

The story of Jesus - told by the brilliant John Turturro

One of cinema's most memorable brief performances and the story behind it

Evidence points to Iran/Syria backed Hezbollah as murderers of former Lebanese Prime Minister

The fuhrer of terror-group Hezbollah, Hassan Nassrallah, made the laughable allegation that Israel, for no apparent reason, was behind the assassination that he evidently gave his consent to or ordered.

CBC News has learned that:

•Evidence gathered by Lebanese police and, much later, the UN, points overwhelmingly to the fact that the assassins were from Hezbollah, the militant Party of God that is largely sponsored by Syria and Iran. CBC News has obtained cellphone and other telecommunications evidence that is at the core of the case.

•UN investigators came to believe their inquiry was penetrated early by Hezbollah and that that the commission's lax security likely led to the murder of a young, dedicated Lebanese policeman who had largely cracked the case on his own and was co-operating with the international inquiry.

•UN commission insiders also suspected Hariri's own chief of protocol at the time, a man who now heads Lebanon's intelligence service, of colluding with Hezbollah. But those suspicions, laid out in an extensive internal memo, were not pursued, basically for diplomatic reasons.

Read the rest at cbc.ca

Roxana Saberi: My Life and Captivity in Iran

The anniversary of TV's first interracial kiss

Like much great science fiction, Star Trek was often also social allegory. It predicted science and influenced  generations of scientists, in effect becoming self-fulfilling prophesy.

In 1968, television networks were afraid to depict interracial relationships. The very first time a kiss between a white and black person happened on a TV show was on Star Trek, who in this case certainly did boldly go where no TV show had gone before. In the episode in question, Captain Kirk and Lieutenant Uhura were compelled to kiss by the telekinetic powers of aliens.

Today is the anniversary of the day that kiss was broadcast.

Nichelle Nichols, who played Lt. Uhura, was incredibly hot back then. If I were Captain Kirk, I would have sent a thank you note to the aliens.

That's some menorah!

Blazing Cat Fur: JDL Chanukah Party To Support Blazingcatfur

A classic treat: Paddle to the Sea

A classic great from the National Film Board of Canada

Is Ontario Minister of Citizenship Eric Hoskins as clueless as he appears in this video?

Below is a video of Steve Clark, the MPP for Leeds-Grenville, asking Ontario Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, Eric Hoskins, why Ontario is pursuing increased relations with Syria, a terror-supporting dictatorship.

Hoskin's non-sequitur response is to praise the Syrian-Canadian community, obfuscate, and avoid answering the question.

What?!

No one has an issue with the majority of Syrian-Canadians, who are fine citizens who came to Canada to escape from a totalitarian regime that Hoskins seemingly wants to embrace.

But the question was why is Ontario possibly moving towards increased relations with a terror-supporting state that was behind the murder of a Lebanese Prime Minister?

As much as I have issue with his introduction of the HST and his less-than-vigorous approach to keeping campaign promises, Dalton McGuinty's government has an excellent relationship with Israel, so I have no concerns the provincial Liberal leadership has gone over to The Dark Side in that regard.

Hoskins is new on the job, having won his seat in a bi-election in the provincial riding vacated by McGuinty-rival Michael Bryant, prior to the unfortunate incident where he killed an enraged bicyclist in self-defense.

Judging from what I see here, it makes me wonder whether Hoskins was put into cabinet way, way too soon, or if he should be there at all.

Regressive billionaire George Soros says it may be time to stop supporting Obama

According to The Huffington Post, regressive billionaire George Soros "voiced blunt criticism of the Obama administration, going so far as to suggest that Democratic donors direct their support somewhere other than the president.

The Hungarian-American financier was speaking to a small side gathering of donors who had convened in Washington D.C. for the annual gathering of the Democracy Alliance -- a formal community of well-funded, progressive-minded individuals and activists.

According to multiple sources with knowledge of his remarks, Soros told those in attendance that he is "used to fighting losing battles but doesn't like to lose without fighting."

"We have just lost this election, we need to draw a line," he said, according to several Democratic sources. "And if this president can't do what we need, it is time to start looking somewhere else."

Read the rest here at The Huffington Post 

Ezra Levant loses libel case to Giacomo "Serenity Now" Vigna

Ezra Levant was sued for libel and defamation for calling Human Rights Commission lawyer Giacomo Vigna a "fibber" when Vigna claimed he needed an adjournment before a Human Rights Commission hearing because he wasn't feeling "serene."

The judge ruled that Vigna was defamed because there was no proof Vigna was lying, or "fibbing" when he made the claim.

Vigma also claimed "defamation" for mocking comments Levant made about Vigna, referring to him as "Serenity Now" Vigna and comparing him to George Costanza's father on Seinfeld.

The judge ruled that while the comments were mocking, they were not defamatory.

So do NOT call "Serenity Now" Vigna a fibber. He isn't a fibber, he just wasn't serene.

Hamas-supporting Galloway fans plan insult to Jewish community

As if the Toronto presence of Gerorge Galloway, the supporter of Hamas terror, wasn't enough of an insult to the local Jewish community, his fanatical supporters have decided that the best place in all of downtown to assemble is right beside the Jewish Community Centre.

Galloway is going to speak at the Islamic Society of York Region tomorrow at 5:30 and his supporters who are travelling from downtown have been told:

"Assemble at 720 Spadina Avenue (west side of Spadina, south of Bloor) at 4:30 p.m.
Bus will depart downtown Toronto at 4:45 p.m. Bus will return to same location at 10:00 p.m."

That address is on the same block and only about a dozen yards south of the Miles Nadal Jewish Community Centre at Bloor and Spadina. Of all the places in the many square miles of downtown Toronto, they chose the same block as the largest Jewish centre in the old city of Toronto.

The insulting selection of assembly point re-inforces the idea that Galloway's supporters are not just opposed to the idea of Israel, but want to seek every opportunity  to insult as many Jews as they can.

Professor Werner Cohn: Prolegomena to the Study of Jews who hate Israel - Not to Weep or to Laugh, but to Understand

Professor Cohn is Professor Emeritus of Sociology at the University of British Columbia

"Broadly speaking, Jews who hate Israel fall into three categories: a) the famous, of which Noam Chomsky is about the only one; b) the well-known, like Norman Finkelstein and Tony Judt, and c) others who are not known beyond their immediate circles but who do lurk in various crevices of the Internet. Altogether, as I will explain below, it is not likely that there are more than a few thousand of these haters active worldwide, say fewer than 10,000 and probably no more than half that number. Considering that there are more than 13 million Jews in the world at the moment, the proportion of those who actively hate Israel, about 0.04 of one percent, might well be considered to be modest indeed. "

In Canada, we have one or two in the locally "well-known" category, such as non-credible players like Naomi Klein and her husband, what's-his-name, and Judy Rebick.

For more about this very interesting look at a sad phenomenon, read Professor Cohn's entire piece here.

97.38% of North Americans don't know today is George Gallup's Birthday

Okay, I just made that figure up, but it wouldn't surprise me if the number was even higher.

George Gallup (November 18, 1901 – July 26, 1984) was an American pioneer of survey sampling techniques and inventor of the Gallup poll, a successful statistical method of survey sampling for measuring public opinion.


More info about Gallup here.

Marxist/Islamo-fascist alliance to attempt to disrupt the Blair-Hitchens debate

Canada's supporters of terror are upset that Saddam Hussein is no longer in power in Iraq, murdering Kurds by the tens of thousands, having prisons being used as sex-slave dungeons for his friends and private army, playing cat and mouse with the US and British Air Forces in the no-fly zone, and trying to acquire more and more dangerous means of posing a threat to the world.

These people support terror groups like Hamas and Hezbollah and want to enact policies that would give the Taliban a free rein to repress women in Afghanistan while hiding behind deceptive names like "Toronto Coalition to Stop the War." Their idea of "stopping the war" apparently is a combination of surrender to al Qaida and launching missiles at Israeli civilians.

And they're really, really mad at Tony Blair because he's one of the guys responsible for there being one less bastion of terrorism in the world in Iraq. So they plan to protest his appearance at the Munk Debate in Toronto next week where Blair will be debating Christopher Hitchens on the resolution "religion is a force for good in the world".

Some of them think they might get close enough to actually lay hands on Blair to make a citizen's arrest for "war crimes." According to their facebook group, they even consider Hitchens an accessory to "war crimes" for "humanizing" the Iraq war.

Psychiatric assessments aside, these people are not only deluded but potentially dangerous, and I hope security is tight at the event.

It's too bad things have come to this, but there are a lot of nuts in the world.

Featured comment from reader Hortensio: "A debate between Hitchens and Blair must be particularly insulting to them, seeing the anti-Galloway and the toppler of Saddam sharing the same stage. Hitchens once said of this sort of faux pacifist that they aren't anti-war, but pro-war for the other side. They probably haven't got over the stinging accuracy of that comment yet."

UPDATE: "Toronto Coalition to Stop the War" isn't a very accurate description of James Clark's supporters of anti-western terrorists and warmongers. Feel free to post your suggestions for a better name in the comments section.

"Coalition to stop the war unless it kills Canadians, Americans, Brits and Jews"  is more accurate but less catchy. Let's see what we can come up with.

Bob Woodward discusses Iraq, Afghanistan, Bush and journalism

Bob Woodward discusses the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Bush presidency and the state of contemporary journalism with Justine Rosenthal of The National Interest

York University Prez Mamdouche Shoukri Attacks Rabbi Hoch

From blogger Blazing Cat Fur: York University Prez Mamdouche Shoukri Attacks Rabbi Hoch

It's Gordo's Birthday!!!

Today's Gordon Lightfoot's Birthday.

Here's to the man Eye on a Crazy Planet readers voted as one of the two best Canadian musical acts ever!




And as an extra treat, the SCTV spoof, "Gordon Lightfoot sings every song ever written":

Skippy Stalin on Olbermann, Koppel & the Death of News

A good post from Skippy

Police thuggery?

Most police are good guys doing a tough job.

If this report is accurate, the Ottawa P.D. is doing itself and its reputation a huge disservice by allowing these perpetrators to keep their badges:

Two years ago a young woman named Stacy Bonds was walking along an Ottawa sidewalk on her way to a friend’s house. Bonds is 27, just five feet tall, weighs barely 100 pounds. She’s not a trouble-maker, has no criminal history, no record of causing problems for police. She had — horrors — enjoyed a few drinks, though a judge ruled later that she was not drunk. Two police officers stopped her, checked her out, discovered she was harmless and told her to be on her way. She took a few steps, then stopped and asked them why they’d stopped her in the first place. 

That got her handcuffed, thrown in the back of a cruiser and spirited off to the police station, where police pulled her hair, kneed her in the back a couple of times, slammed her to the ground with a riot shield, cut off her clothes and bra while a few male officers watched, and strip-searched her.

That done, they threw her in a cell, half-naked, for three hours. They charged her with public drunkenness — though she wasn’t — and with aggressive behaviour, though a video showed that wasn’t true either. 

Now, how big a moron do you have to be to pull a stunt like this?

The rest is here at The National Post

Why the "Progressive" movement is actually a "Regressive" movement

Don't let socialists get away with calling themselves "progressive." They are anything but that.

The "Progressive" movement never really was about progress. Not in the way most people in a liberal democracy would define social progress. They have a vision of a socialist, non-racist society, which they undermine at every turn by defining everything in terms of race. And despite their claims to the desire of a society without class differentiation, they believe very religiously in class. The class of the ruling and the ruled. And guess which class they aspire to?

What is progress?

Technological progress is very easily defined. While there may be negative environmental ramifications to some technologies, innovations which improve the speed and efficiency of performing tasks qualify. Why is it that capitalist societies have always been more advanced and produced more technological innovations than non-capitalist ones?

Simple.

Less government interference and more incentive for individual creativity.

But that doesn't line up with a "Progressive" socialist world-view which implicitly creates disincentives for individual achievement in the form of fewer rewards for more work than a capitalist culture. So as far as technology goes, "progressives" are actually regressive.

What about social policy?

In an ideal world, all people would be treated and thought of as equal regardless of their skin color, race, or ethnicity. In our world, the people who are arguing for racial preference, who are suggesting racial conspiracies and ethnic guilt are none other than the "progressives."

Judging a person on the basis of race, whatever your motive, is racism. Racism is regressive behavior.

Which leads to cultural relativism and equivalence - the ideas that all cultures are equal.

Some cultures suppress women's rights. Some cultures persecute Gays and minorities. Some cultures do not allow press freedom and some will execute you for blasphemy.

These are all manifestations that a liberal democracy would consider backward. But cultural relativists say that those cultures are equal to ours.

Who are the cultural relativists in our society?  You guessed it. The self described "progressives".

Lots of self-described "progressives" are adherents of Marxism. Yup, the same Marxism that is responsible for millions of deaths under Lenin, Stalin, Mao, and the repression of free speech and civil rights in the Soviet Union, Cuba, North Korea, and more.

So the next time one of these buffoons tries to call themselves a "progressive," consider reminding them: "No. You're not progressive.  You're a follower of a regressive socialist ideology. The rest of us have already progressed beyond you."

Assassin's Creed Brotherhood hits the shevles today

The two predecessor games were fantastic in detail, graphics and play. The new one promises to be even better

An addendum to yesterday's post on academic Jew hate

Yesterday's post regarding OISE has got a fair bit of attention due to its being picked up by The National Post, so there are some points I'd like to add.

Regarding academic freedom. It may seem paradoxical to follow up a post that was highly critical of the premises of two theses based on their abstracts with a post insisting on the right to academic freedom, but I'm going to do that nonetheless.

Because my concern was not based on a desire to censor Ms Peto's or Mr Epstein's positions or their right to hold or write them. Let me make this explicitly clear. They have every right to do so, just as those who disagree have the right to criticize them.

But those premises, as far as I inferred from the abstracts, suggested that Jews bore some special moral guilt on the basis of ethnicity, or responsibility on the basis of pigmentation and there was an organized community effort to mislead and manipulate and those are suggestions that I feel merit the most extreme criticism.

They have the right to their opinions.

But it seems to me that the natural extension of their ideas is that a particular race can be either inferior or  superior, that some races merit special privilege or punishment. These are ideas that most of us in liberal democracies have hoped were abandoned a long time ago. If these ideas can be applied to Jews, they can be applied, in some form, to anyone. And one doesn't have to look too far in history to see where that kind of thinking leads.

But again, my concern is not about the ideas of two or three individuals whose ideas, I don't think, merit great consideration. My concern is what appears to me to be a pervasive attitude at OISE and to some extent at the University of Toronto. It is an outgrowth of an academic anti-Zionism that is at its substance exactly what the Prime Minister of Canada warned against at the international conference on anti-Semistism last week.

It is the way that this form of racism has insinuated itself into some academic institutions that needs to be examined and exposed.

When fanatical anti-Zionism extends to Jews in general and the notion of collective Jewish guilt, it is something that should be alarming to any thinking person.

OISE has played host to conferences whose purpose was the boycotting and sanctioning of Israel, part of the campaign to assign the false label of "apartheid" and, in effect, the deligitimization of that country.

The Prime Minister, the leader of the Opposition, federal ministers and civic leaders of all stripes have spoken out against that in the most forceful terms and have suggested it is a new form of anti-Semitism.

Is it?

Zionism is the belief that Jews should have a homeland in Israel. If the anti-Zionists were against the idea of any people having a national homeland with a religious component, and put equal energies into the condemnation of all, then their standing would have more credibility. But I am yet to find an "anti-Zionist" call for the end of the Islamic republics of Iran and Pakistan and the Islamic rule in other countries where religion and state are not distinct. The call for an end to such systems throughout the world is in no way significant among the anti-Zionist movement. The focus in those cases on one people and one religion appears to me to be highly suggestive of bigotry.

It is this and the anti-Israel politicization of academic programs that I believe requires serious examination.

UPDATE: let me reiterate this to anyone who thinks this post is a "softening" of my position. It isn't. The theses in question are repugnant in their respective suggestions that Jews are conspiring to exploit Holocaust guilt for ulterior motives and that anyone bears some sort of "accountability through genealogy."

But what I also want to make abundantly clear is that these theses are being used as examples of a greater problem. Presumably they were approved by a thesis committee at OISE. It is the institutional politicization and bias that is concerning, not individuals of questionable significance. That is always what the issue has been, for those who missed the point.

The University of Toronto's Department of Jew Hate and Psychobabble

The spread of anti-Semitism on Canadian university campuses is an alarming and obvious phenomenon. The University of Toronto is making a shocking contribution to the spread of hate. It is the birthplace of the odious so-called "Israel Apartheid Week" which has best been described as, "the week in which the Western campus Hitlerjugend, Marxist-Leninists, and Islamo-fascists unite to demonstrate against and call for the destruction of the only Middle East country that is NOT an apartheid regime."

The Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) is the home of some of the most appalling of The University of Toronto's extremist radicals. It's no coincidence that OISE, the home of suspect programs of dubious academic value like 'Diversity Studies', is host to a number of anti-Israel lectures during the bigotfest of "Israeli Apartheid Week."

But to what extent has Jew hate permeated the academic programs at University of Toronto? Judging by some of the theses that are being granted a form of legitimacy, alarm bells should be going off and an investigation may be merited.

Take a look at two theses being guided at OISE's Department of Sociology and Equity Studies. One is a Master's Thesis from a Jenny Peto, one of the individuals behind the self-described "Queers Against Israeli Apartheid."

Her Master's thesis is titled, "The Victimhood of the Powerful: White Jews, Zionism and the Racism of Hegemonic Holocaust Education"

She describes her thesis in the following terms:

This paper focuses on issues of Jewish identity, whiteness and victimhood within hegemonic Holocaust education. I argue that today, Jewish people of European descent enjoy white privilege and are among the most socio-economically advantaged groups in the West. Despite this privilege, the organized Jewish community makes claims about Jewish victimhood that are widely accepted within that community and within popular discourse in the West. I propose that these claims to victimhood are no longer based in a reality of oppression, but continue to be propagated because a victimized Jewish identity can produce certain effects that are beneficial to the organized Jewish community and the Israeli nation-state. I focus on two related Holocaust education projects – the March of the Living and the March of Remembrance and Hope – to show how Jewish victimhood is instrumentalized in ways that obscure Jewish privilege, deny Jewish racism and promote the interests of the Israeli nation-state.

Why is Ms. Peto, who ostensibly is concerned about "Jewish racism," discounting the many Jews, both Israeli and not, who are not "white" but are of varied backgrounds other than European who are also part of the "organized Jewish community"? Does she think they don't count, just because they aren't "white"?

Let's take a closer look at part of her thesis:

"Jewish people of European descent enjoy white privilege and are among the most socio-economically advantaged groups in the West. Despite this privilege, the organized Jewish community makes claims about Jewish victimhood"

In other words, the rich Jews who control the world are pretending to be victims. If Ms Peto were a little more insightful, she might realize that the "organized Jewish community" is ensuring that the dangers of anti-Semitism are not ignored, which is somewhat different from claiming "victimhood."  The fact that anti-Semitic crimes are by far the greatest type of religious-based hate crime around and are on the increase doesn't seem to have permeated Ms. Peto's obviously limited grasp of things. Anti-Jewish crimes number about 10 times the amount of anti-Muslim crimes. And those statistics aren't from B'nai Brith but the FBI.

Ms. Peto's academic advisor for her thesis is one Sheryl Nestel. Let's see if Ms Nestel has any other interesting thesis that she's "advising."

Yep! She does!

Here's one from a Griffin Epstein. It's called, "Extension: Towards a Genealogical Accountability: (The Critical [E]Race[ing] of Mad Jewish Identity" (author's parentheticals - ed.) and is described as:

Can we be accountable to privilege? Can we find a space for coherent anti-racist secular Ashkenazi Jewish identity in North America, where Jews have been deeply implicated in structural violence? Can we be agents of both complicity and change? This auto-ethnography describes a haunting; focusing on the ghostly presences of my deceased uncle Larry Treiman and Bruno Bettelheim, child psychologist and director of the residential treatment facility where Larry was institutionalized as a child, it creates a deeply personal explanation for how the whitening of Ashkenazi North American Jewish identity, the shifts in discourses of madness and major sociological and economic change in Chicago and New York over the second half of the 20th century constituted my subjectivity and my privilege. This text proposes accountability through genealogy, teasing out the possibility for ethical thought and action through cultivating a deeply personal relationship to the ghosts that make us.

Now this is very interesting. "This text proposes accountability through genealogy." Epstein seems to be arguing that Jews somehow bear a kind of 'race guilt' as if being Jewish is of itself a crime. There are precedents for this kind of thought. The Spanish Inquisition comes immediately to mind, and so does Hitler's Germany.

I particularly liked Epstein's description, "This auto-ethnography describes a haunting; focusing on the ghostly presences of my deceased uncle Larry Treiman and Bruno Bettelheim"

Well, if the ghosts are telling Epstein this is what's going on, it must be true. I'm surprised they're not listed as academic advisors along with Ms Nestel. Perhaps Epstein will do the right thing and list them as co-authors. Maybe the ghosts are the ones that said "Jews have been deeply implicated in structural violence ."  As to what other issues Epstein may or may not have, I can only speculate.

What's really alarming is that this is what passes for academic discourse at OISE. 

And what is shocking to me is that one of the courses that Sheryl Nestel taught at OISE is "Jews, Identity, and Difference". Maybe someone figures that academic Jew hate is okay as long as it's coming from someone who identifies as a Jew. It isn't.

What is happening at the University of Toronto and OISE needs to be exposed and investigated.

Here is the email address of John Milloy, the Ontario Minister of Colleges and Universities:

jmilloy.mpp.co@liberal.ola.org

Let him know what you think.

UPDATE: An addendum

UPDATE 2:  Today, I spoke to a director of The March of The Living , one of the organized events Ms Peto claims perpetuates  "how Jewish victimhood is instrumentalized in ways that obscure Jewish privilege, deny Jewish racism and promote the interests of the Israeli nation-state." and comprises a third of her Master's paper. According to him, he has no knowledge of Ms Peto having ever participated in The March of the Living, nor interviewing a single one of its staff or directors or participants. The only first hand research of The March of the Living Ms Peto references in her paper is from its website.


What that says about academic standards at OISE's sociology program is self-explanatory.

Professor Werner Cohn, Professor Emeritus of Sociology at the University of British Columbia, had a very interesting analysis of the quality of Ms Peto's and by extension, OISE's Sociology Department's academic research standards.

If this is a matter of concern to you, in addition to Mr. Milloy, you should copy Tim Hudak, the leader of the provincial opposition at: tim.hudakco@pc.ola.org and Jim Wilson, the Critic for the Ministry of Colleges and Universities at jim.wilson@pc.ola.org

UPDATE 3: David Hornik at Pajamas Media did an interesting deconstruction of Peto's "thesis" today (Nov. 19) in a front page piece called, "U. of Toronto Posts Anti-Semitic Tripe"

UPDATE 4: Nov. 23- U of Toronto's weak response and more on the culture of bias at OISE

Atheist Palestinian Blogger arrested by Palestinian Authority for heresy - Radical Leftists have mental meltdown trying to figure out how to blame Israel

From the Canadian Press:

QALQILYAH, Palestinian Territories — A mysterious blogger who set off an uproar in the Arab world by claiming he was God and hurling insults at the Prophet Muhammad is now behind bars — caught in a sting that used Facebook to track him down.

The case of the unlikely apostate, a shy barber from this backwater West Bank town, is highlighting the limits of tolerance in the Western-backed Palestinian Authority — and illustrating a new trend by authorities in the Arab world to mine social media for evidence.

Residents of Qalqiliya say they had no idea that Walid Husayin — the 26-year-old son of a Muslim scholar — was leading a double life.

Known as a quiet man who prayed with his family each Friday and spent his evenings working in his father's barbershop, Husayin was secretly his anti-religious opinions on the Internet during his free time.

The media in the Palestinian Authority, as in the Arab world in general, are largely government-controlled, driving dissenting voices to the relative freedom of the Internet. The blogger's arrest showed a willingness on the part of the Palestinian government to clamp down on freedom of speech on the Web as well. He now faces a potential life prison sentence on heresy charges for "insulting the divine essence."

You can read the rest of the story here.

And for a laugh, read the discussion thread at rabble.ca, the online clearing house for neo-Marxist nitwits, as they have a meltdown trying to figure out a way to condemn this without breaking solidarity with the anti-Zionist struggle.

Happy Birthday Wendy Carlos

Wendy (nee Walter) Carlos is the genius performer and composer who developed the Moog synthesiser with Dr. Robert Moog.

She is responsible for the groundbreaking Switched-on Bach and was one of Stanley Kubrick's favorites, using Walter's music in A Clockwork Orange and after Carlos' sex change operation, as Wendy she did the Music for The Shining.

Today is Wendy Carlos' birthday. Thanks for the wonderful music you've given us and many happy returns!

Something you need to see

Melanie Phillips discusses among other things, the threat of extremist Islam to western civilization and how their enablers, the ideologues of the secular radical left, have adopted attitudes and tactics that mimic the fanaticism of Joseph McCarthy.










h/t Blazing Cat Fur

Win front row tickets to see Christopher Hitchens debate Tony Blair on November 26

The semi-annual Munk Debates series is featuring its most high profile event ever.

On Friday, November 26, Tony Blair and Christopher Hitchens will be debating the proposition,

"Be it resolved, religion is a force for good in the world."


I'm sure you can guess who is taking the pro and who the con.

This event, which will occur at Roy Thomson Hall in Toronto, was sold out immediately upon becoming available and tickets are very, very highly sought after.

But you and a friend could end up in the front row. If you have a friend (or enemy) with whom you want to debate the same proposition, go to the Munk Debates website and you can create your own head-to-head debate using the website's technology.

Each week, between now and November 25, one debate will be selected to win front row seats to the Blair/Hitchens debate. You can enter the contest through this link.

There's a neighbour Eye on a Crazy Planet readers would like even less than Omar Khadr

The last Eye on a Crazy Planet poll asked:

Who would you least like to have as your next door neighbour?

The choices were:
 
Karla Homolka, Omar Khadr, Roman Polanski, Kristen Wong-Tam, and Avi Lewis.
 
I thought home-grown convicted and self-confessed terrorist and murderer, Omar Khadr, would be a hands-down winner.
 
But I was wrong. I forgot to take families into account. While the Khadr clan are generally considered to be Canada's most reprehensible family, Omar Khadr's parole conditions are expected to prohibit contact with the rest of Canada's "first family of terrorism."
 
Whereas, with Avi Lewis, you'd also get, in between bouts of camp-following protests, his wife Naomi Klein. All things considered, Khadr's not looking so bad after all.

Is this one of the Republicans who could defeat Obama in 2012?

Recently elected congressman for Florida's 22nd district, Allen West has a fascinating history.

According to Wikipedia:

West is a graduate of the University of Tennessee and obtained his master's degree in political science at Kansas State University. He also holds a Master of Military Arts and Sciences from the U.S. Army Command and General Staff Officer College in political theory and military history and operations.

West's awards and decorations include the Bronze Star; Meritorious Service Medal; (two Oak Leaf Clusters); Army Commendation Medal (two Oak Leaf Clusters, one Valor Device); Army Achievement Medal (one Oak Leaf Cluster); Valorous Unit Award; Air Assault Badge and the Parachutist Badge.

In addition, West has been awarded the following service medals and ribbons: National Defense Service Medal (with bronze star device); Southwest Asia Service Medal; Army Service Ribbon; Army Overseas Service Ribbon (multiple awards); Saudi Arabia Kuwait Liberation Medal W/Palm Tree and Kuwait Liberation Medal.

What is particularly interesting about West is the way his military career ended:

While serving in Taji, Iraq, on August 20, 2003, as commander of the 2d Battalion, 20th Field Artillery Regiment, Lieutenant Colonel West was in charge of an interrogation of a civilian Iraqi police officer who was suspected of having pertinent information regarding attacks on American soldiers in the area. Interrogators had learned that the detainee had information about a planned ambush. When the interrogators were unable to extract the needed important information for some time, LTC West was asked to come try to obtain the important information. As the detainee continued to hold back the information, LTC West fired his pistol past the detainee's head into a clearing barrel, frightening (but not physically harming) the detainee and getting him to finally give the information. According to Lt. Col. West's sworn statement, the detainee informed West that:



“ [The attack] was to occur Friday morning in Saba al Boor vicinity of the police station by positioned snipers supposedly being brought in from Fallujah. [The detainee] was to ID my vehicle and myself for these rooftop firers. We took this information and the following day established flask CPs and used AH-64s overhead. There was no attack and no further attacks have emanated from the town since the apprehension of [the detainee] and his named associates. ”


At least one man was apprehended as a result of the information obtained through the detainee's interrogation. His home was searched, but no plans for attacks on Americans or weapons were found. Colonel West testified that he did not know whether "any corroboration" of a plot was ever found, adding: "At the time I had to base my decision on the intelligence I received. It's possible that I was wrong about [the detainee,] Mr. Hamoodi."


West, who at the time was just short of having 20 years of service, was charged with violating articles 128 (assault) and 134 (general article) of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. West was processed through an Article 32 hearing in November 2003, where he admitted wrongdoing, was fined $5,000 over two months for misconduct and assault. He then submitted his resignation, and was allowed to retire with full benefits in the summer of 2004.


At a hearing, West was asked by his defense attorney if he would do it again. "If it's about the lives of my men and their safety, I'd go through hell with a gasoline can," he said. Apparently not knowing West's gun was aimed into a barrel, "Hamoodi cracked and gave information about the planned ambush on West's convoy, thwarting the attack." West said there were no further ambushes on U.S. forces in Taji until he was relieved of his leadership post on October 4." "After West's resignation was brought to public attention the next fall, he received over two thousand letters and e-mails from the American public offering him moral support. In addition, a letter was drafted to the Secretary of the Army, its signatories being ninety-five members of Congress in West's support.

This interview with Congressman-elect West is worth watching. In it, he makes the cogent point that the "War on Terror" is not only not over but the term itself is a misnomer. He accurately observes that terror is not an enemy, but a tactic and uses the example that World War 2 was not a war on "Blitzkrieg" but a war against fascism. The "War on Terror" is nothing other than a war on extremist Islam, even though few in the White House want to say that out loud.

 

h/t stubble jumping redneck

An intimate Adam Cohen concert

Last night, Adam Cohen held a small, intimate private concert for about 200 people at the St. Paul's Centre on Bloor Street East in Toronto. Somehow I managed to get on the guest list. I guess someone must have mistakenly assumed I'm related to that other Voltaire (or maybe this one?).

Adam is the son of Canadian living legend, Leonard Cohen and between songs, he spoke openly and revealingly about his coming-of-age, his relationship with his famous father, and the relationships which were the inspiration for the songs he performed, most of which were from his upcoming album (cd?..itunes release?..I don't even know what to call recorded music anymore).

He also told a funny story about playing an LA club a few years back, having Paul McCartney and his then wife talk with him after the set, and being unable to stop staring at Heather Mills' leg.

The concert was organized by the brilliant Paul Koidis of The Centre for Creative Communications at Centennial College and it was both an opportunity for Adam to unveil some new music and for the Centennial students to get hands-on experience at filming and producing a concert for a bona fide Canadian Star.

What was remarkable to me was what a warm, humble and thoughtful person Adam is, onstage and off. I've met a few offspring of famous people over the years and the pressure, as often as not, can lead to some maladjusted personalities. And the privilege almost always leads to a spoiled smugness (not that I blame them, I'd probably be the same way in their shoes) , but nothing could be further from the case with Adam.

I have to say, I wasn't the only person who observed that almost all the songs he performed last night were about women with whom he'd had relationships.If the songs weren't so heartfelt, I'd almost think the guy was bragging.

He performed his own songs and a highlight of the evening was when Adam performed, for what he said was only the second time ever, his father's signature tune, Maryanne.


The videos of the new material aren't out yet, so here's a video of Adam's hit, Happiness:

Blazing Cat Fur: Edmonton Grievance Mongers Remove Racist "White Privilege" Rant From Alleged "Anti-Racism" Hate Site

Blazing Cat Fur: Edmonton Grievance Mongers Remove Racist "White Privilege" Rant From Alleged "Anti-Racism" Hate Site

Stephen Fry gets in trouble for telling the truth about women's attitude towards sex and relationships

English writer, actor, director, thinker Renaissance Man, Stephen Fry is in hot water with English women and the Looney Left these days for saying that women use sex in order to get relationships.

Duh.

As far as I'm concerned, that's about the equivalent of getting in trouble with Jack Daniels for saying drinking a bottle of their whiskey makes you drunk.

Fry, who is Gay, was being a bit tongue-in-cheek in his interview with Attitude magazine when he suggested he felt sorry for straight men because women only want sex in order to have a relationship.

He said: “I think most straight men feel they disgust women. They find it difficult to believe that women are as interested in sex as they are. For good reason. If women liked sex as much as men there would be straight cruising areas in the way there are gay cruising areas. 

“I feel sorry for straight men. The only reason women will have sex with them is that sex is the price they are willing to pay for a relationship with a man, which is what they want. They want a boyfriend and then they want commitment.

“Of course a lot of women will deny this and say, ‘Oh, no, but I love sex, I love it!’ But do they go around having it the way that gay men do?

Now for anyone who's dated more than three women, you'd figure most of what he's saying is somewhat obvious, but even so, it's riled up the leftist British sisterhood.

The Guardian has published a flurry of letters from women who have chosen to ignore both the humor of his comments or their context or the substance of womens' preference for relationships over meaningless sex, and fixate on the "cruising" aspect such as:

"Can you honestly say that it is frigidity rather than the very real threat of violence, coercion and assault that prevents women from stalking parks looking for a sexual liaison? I find the idea of walking across a park after dark extremely risky (not risqué), let alone trusting that I could engage in a sexual encounter there that I knew would be pleasurable rather than abusive.

Surely the idea of sex without consequences is contingent upon the likelihood of not actually having to face any consequences. There are very few women who have grown up without experiencing some form of verbal assault, unwanted sexual attention, or much worse, that has sharpened their awareness of the need to acknowledge their own vulnerability.

These experiences mean that there is a difficult line to walk between consensual sex and coercion which makes it difficult to relate to Fry's glib comments"

It also inspired a Guardian column from someone named Hephzibah Anderson. She is the author of  something called, "Chastened: My Modern Adventure in Old-Fashioned Romance."  In her outrage, Ms Anderson graces us with the information that  "A while ago, I did actually elect to go a year without sex. It wasn't easy, Mr Fry, but it was rewarding."  She also provides:

"There have always been women who've used sex to barter with (and that doesn't mean they didn't also enjoy it), but if it's mistakenly used today to secure emotional engagement, that's because it's become downright eccentric to insist on commitment before hopping into bed with someone. Men have long sought to control female sexuality and, despite endless talk of G-spots and foreplay, the sex that surrounds us today is of a decidedly masculine sensibility. According to Fry, a woman may only prove that she's not a frigid man-hater – that she's enlightened enough to be fully in touch with her female sexuality – by catering to male peccadilloes. Gay male peccadilloes at that."

The Telegraph described this tempest in a teapot as "Stephen Fry angers feminists by claiming women do not enjoy sex" and characterized his humorous comments as a "bizarre outburst in which he claimed that women are incapable of enjoying sex."

What I find bizarre is the twisting of his words and the overblown reaction to all of this.

The Telegraph reported,  "Fry’s remarks have been branded “rubbish” and "madness" by feminists who have questioned his qualifications for making pronouncements on female sexuality."

Fry has close to 2 million twitter followers and on the subject he tweeted: "So some f------- paper misquotes a humorous interview I gave, which itself misquoted me and now I'm the Antichrist. I give up."

Don't give up, Stephen. If you do, the bad people win.

You can use this link to read what Fry has to say, in his own words, about the silly "controversy" and the distortions that have claimed that he said women don't enjoy sex.

Edmonton's racist anti-racism campaign

If one hasn't already learned not to be shocked by the incomprehensibly stupid acts of municipal governments, this would seem unbelievable. Sadly it isn't. Blazing Cat Fur's post is about an officially sanctioned campaign by the City of Edmonton, evidently designed by bigots, that doesn't say that racism in all its forms is wrong, but singles out Caucasians as the primary group of racists who are instructed to be more conscious of their "white privilege."


Read about it here: Blazing Cat Fur: Being white is now a hate crime

The idiots at rabble.ca contemplate whether the radical left should start killing politicians and bombing banks

It was really just a question of time.

The imbeciles who frequent the discussion forums at Rabble.ca, the radical leftist website founded by Judy Rebick and published by NDP MP Libby Davies' spouse, are currently mulling over the prospect for violent revolution.

Their absolute failure to convince the bulk of the public of the merits of their socialist vision with its command structure which would place them at the top was inevitably going to lead to this sort of frustration.

The thread started with the proposition: Given the lefts failure to effect any positive change in the past few decades when exactly should the left advocate for violent revolution?

Some of the comments in the thread include:

"I think 9/11 was just a test run. The people failed with flying colours. And I think it's an example of what's in store for the future if fascists back themselves into another corner."

"Perhaps the reason the ballot box isn't working is because the ballot box isn't the way to the solution. Or it's not perceived to be the way. Which I agree with."

"There is such a huge wedge between the left and the right,that it looks like it's all going to inevitably come to a head. The shit will hit the fan in the next couple years if this trend continues and there may well be a class war in the near future.Whatever ends up taking place in Quebec in 2013 will influence what will happen in the ROC.This could be good news for progressives or the kiss of death.But clearly,there's no room for compromise...It's these conditions continue it will drive this country into a conflict that will ultimately culminate into revolution."

"When is the time for a revolution? Whether or not, or to what extent, it becomes "violent", depends on lots of factors - primarily, how far the rulers want to go in resisting the change."


"I was wondering when it would be ok to overthrow a government, violently if need be."

Here's one of my favorite in that it betrays the totalitarian tendencies of these Marxist halfwits: "How many more decades should we wait? It appears that Canadians arent catching on, so should we suffer in silence for 30 more years? maybe a generation or three? Dont the better people of our society have a responsibility to the stupid?" (my emphasis)

"Are we talking about fire bombing police stations,banks,Quebecor or 24 Sussex Drive? Would the targets be political figures? Are we talking about old fashioned assassinations? I'm all for a revolt but I'd like to know if this revolt would be a bloody coup,an organized mass vote against the status quo (unlikely unfortunately)"

"my answer to the initial question posed by ArghMonkey is yes, now is the time, why? because the crisis we are facing is entirely new, if we wait for the inevitable climatic catastrophes which are coming it will be too late to stop them, possibly ever, this is a paradigm shift in crises I would say, the mother of all &etc. ... but what kind of violence should this revolution undertake exactly? well, that's what I'm not sure about and I have been following this thread hoping that someone might shed some light"



There's lots more. It doesn't get any smarter, but it sure gets crazier. These people are the same radical leftists who think that by aligning themselves with radical Islamists who have no respect for women's or Gay rights, they are somehow making a statement against American imperialism.

These people have always been imbeciles, but now they are revealing that they are potentially dangerous imbeciles.

  

Bill Kristol on MSNBC's ludicrous suspension of Keith Olbermann

From Kristol's blog in the latest Weekly Standard:

MSNBC’s suspension of Keith Olbermann is ludicrous.

First, he donated money to candidates he liked. He didn’t take money, or favors, in a way that influenced his reporting. 

Second, he’s not a reporter. It’s an opinion show. If Olbermann wants to put his money where his mouth is, more power to him. 

Third, GE, the corporate parent of MSNBC, gives money to political organizations. GE executives and, I’m sure, NBC executives give money. Why can’t Olbermann? 

Perhaps Olbermann violated NBC News “policy and standards.” But NBC doesn’t have real news standards for MSNBC—otherwise the channel wouldn’t exist. It’s a little strange to get all high and mighty now.

But there’s now a Republican House, and perhaps GE is trying to curry favor by dumping Olbermann?

Republicans of the world, show you believe in the free expression of opinion! Tell the crony corporatists at NBC—keep Keith!

Happy Birthday Johnny Rivers! And Joni Mitchell!

Today is Johnny Rivers' Birthday. He's 68.

Rivers is known for the theme to 60's TV spy show, Secret Agent. The groundbreaking show, which starred Patrick McGoohan, was known as Danger Man and became one of the first British TV shows to be broadcast on primetime network TV. It's repackaging with Rivers' twangy guitar based theme is considered one of the reasons for the show's great success.



And our Joni is 67 today!

Today in History

On this date in 1931, Chinese People's Republic was proclaimed by Mao Tse Tung.

The result was millions of deaths and oppressive rule.

It's probably safe to assume that Norman Finkelstein is throwing a celebratory party for himself today.

Mr. & Mrs. Gravy Train do Ottawa (and the world) in style

Jack and Olivia have shown that they, like the leadership of Canada's most appalling, self-interested unions such as CUPE and CUPW, whose support they enjoy, know how to live the high life on other people's hard earned money.


From The Toronto Star:

Toronto's Jack Layton and Olivia Chow are Ottawa's million-dollar couple.

According to recently released House of Commons records, the NDP leader and his long-time wife, Chow, who is MP for Trinity Spadina, charged Canadian taxpayers about $1.16 million in MP expenses last year for running their offices, living in Ottawa and paying for associated travel costs...


Chow's expenses tallied $530,304.73 and Layton's was $628,913.68.

The NDP's power couple lives in a $2,000-a-month apartment just steps from Parliament Hill.

To stay in their home away from home, they charged a total of $42,478 for accommodation and per diem expenses.

Chow was reimbursed $17,010.20, while Layton charged the maximum of $25,468.

“It's within the law,” Chow snapped when asked why they both bill for accommodation while in Ottawa, later explaining they split the rent, about $12,000 each, depending on how much time they spend in Ottawa.

Chow refused to break out how much of her $17,010.20 was for rent and for per diem expenses.

On an amusing note, the Stalinist thought police at rabble.ca, the nutcase radical leftist website founded by Judy Rebick and published by NDP MP Libby Davies' spouse, Kim Elliott were so disturbed that this news would cause dissent among the unwashed er..rabble that frequent the site that they shut down not just one but two discussion threads on this subject.

War with Iran draws closer

South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham yesterday  "sent ripples through an international audience Saturday saying his country should be prepared to launch a military attack on Iran that would "neuter" the hard line regime " according to CTV News.

As the Iranian regime has, by most estimates reached the capacity for constructing a nuclear weapon, Graham said "his party would support military action against Iran that would destroy its ability to fight back while allowing its people to rise up."

"So my view of military force would be not to just neutralize their nuclear program, which are probably dispersed and hardened, but to sink their navy, destroy their air force and deliver a decisive blow to the Revolutionary Guard," Graham told a panel.

"In other words, neuter that regime."

In response, Iranian President Ahmadinejad has decided to practice the neutered look:

 

This isn't the first time Sen. Graham has forcefully suggested that the military option for Iran should be used. He made very similar comments to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in March.

Post-Election Analysis with Mark Steyn, Fred Thompson and Howard Dean

Penn Jillette on the "disappearing" of Everybody Draw Mohammed cartoonist Molly Norris

Penn Jillette: "I wish the President of the United States of America didn't apologize for people exercising their free speech, but rather I wish the President of the United States of America would come out on the side of free speech."




Related: Penn on why Sarah Silverman won't make fun of Islam

Persichilli on the failure of Canadian multiculturalism

Forty years ago, then prime minister Pierre Trudeau created a policy — multiculturalism — that allowed immigrants to become Canadians by integrating into our culture without abandoning their own. He was trying to differentiate between Canadian integration and American assimilation (the melting pot).

Without question, integration is more appealing to newcomers than assimilation. But is it working for everyone?

In reality, the origin of multiculturalism predates the 1970s. It all started when the first Canadian prime minister, John A. Macdonald, said: “A British subject I was born and a British subject I will die.” While Thomas Jefferson decided to create America and Americans, Macdonald decided to create Canada but not Canadians...

Did it work? In my opinion, no. In fact, I would argue that the current system penalizes new and old immigrants.

But multiculturalism became a mantra for the Liberals to secure votes from the “ethnics” and is now wielded by multicultural prophets who muzzle debate in order to protect their own interests. 

They have erected a media and political firewall around the concept of multiculturalism (and immigration) that blocks any criticism of international criminals, dishonest consultants and sneaky individuals who take advantage of our generosity at the expense of those in real need of help or who are willing to come into our country to work and prosper with us.

This intransigence is forcing Canadians, who in general have supported the policies of multiculturalism and immigration, to take a second look at them because they want to make sure that our country remains a destination for people in need of help, not a cow to milk.

This is an important read that you can see in its entirety here.

And in other news from the midterms, Gay support for Republicans nearly doubles from 2008

Republicans made significant inroads among gay and lesbian voters in the midterm elections, with national exit polls for the House races showing that the GOP captured 31 percent of the vote of this group this year, compared to 19 percent in 2008... 

The Log Cabin Republicans have also been taking on a more visible role, bringing the suit arguing that Don't Ask, Don't Tell is unconstitutional. R. Clarke Cooper, executive director of the Log Cabin Republicans, is proud of the fact that 12 of the 17 candidates the group endorsed went on to win their races.

read the article here at The Huffington Post

William Shatner sings F-you on the George Lopez Show

University of New Hampshire awarded a $700,000 U.S. Department of Agriculture grant to study cow burps

"Cows emit most of their methane through belching, only a small fraction from flatulence" 
 
 You can read about the study here.

Eye on a Crazy Planet readers overwhelmingly oppose mandatory voting laws

Some countries have mandatory voting laws and whenever we have an election in North America, someone always brings up the subject of whether we should follow the example of countries such as Australia, Chile, Paraguay, Peru and about eight others that actually enforce such laws.

Canadians and Americans have so far shown no significant interest in passing mandatory voting laws. The suggestion is usually an extreme reaction by those who have some inordinate concern about the lack of voter participation.

The most recent Eye on a Crazy Planet poll shows readers are opposed to mandatory voting laws by a 2.5 to 1 ratio.

As the recent municipal election in Toronto has taught us, when the election is interesting, voters will turn out. Although even in a very contentious, controversial election such as that, there was still less than 60% voter turnout.

But the fact remains that while voting is a citizen's right in a free country, so is not voting. It's a statement, and it shouldn't require citizens to be forced by the state to inconvenience themselves by appearing at a polling station to declare their lack of interest in voting in a particular election.

There are elections in which I haven't voted. It was my way of saying "all these candidates are a bunch of jerks and I don't want to participate in any of them getting power."

And frankly, low voter participation never bothered me. Why is it that some people derive some sense of satisfaction knowing that people who have no interest and little knowledge of public affairs or current events have selected those who make the choices that will affect society at large?

We're probably better off that lots of people aren't interested enough in the political system to vote. What would happen if these people who lack either the interest, knowledge, or motivation to exercise their right to their democratic franchise were compelled to use it. Would we have better leaders, or leaders chosen by an even less informed segment of society?

As far as I'm concerned, our system is working fine. I may not agree with the outcome of every election, but I am comfortable in knowing that people are voting out of choice and not compulsion.

Tony Blair's strange middle-aged sister-in-law takes up the veil, or hijab, or something and finally finds a way (so far) to stop drinking alcohol

Lauren Booth, half-sister to Cheri Blair, which makes her a half-sister-in-law to former British PM Tony Blair, has recently converted to Islam and wrote about the experience, where else, but in The Guardian?

One is left to wonder whether her conversion is based on religious conviction, or is her version of an extreme form of AA after a number of failed efforts when she writes, "In the past my attempts to give up alcohol have come to nothing; since my conversion I can't even imagine drinking again." (ed. OK, We'll see how long that lasts.)

Her new found warmth in the sisterhood has led her to the employ of Iranian fuhrer, Mahmood Ahmadinejad, where she works at Press TV, the Iranian state-controlled media organ that also employs bellicose ex-British MP George Galloway.

Evidently there is some history of mental instability in Ms. Booth's family. She is related to John Wikes Booth.

The Science of Libertarian Morality: A new social psychology study explores the moral formation of the libertarian personality

When it comes to morality, libertarians are often typecast as immoral calculating rationalists who also have a somewhat unseemly hedonistic bent. Now new social science research shows that libertarians are quite moral, just not in the same way that conservatives and liberals are.

University of Virginia social psychologist Jonathan Haidt has done considerable previous work probing the moral differences between American liberals and conservatives, but came to recognize that a significant proportion of Americans did not fit the simplistic left/right ideological dichotomy that dominates so much of our political and social discourse. Instead of ignoring outliers, Haidt and his colleagues chose instead to dig deeper. The result: A fascinating new study, “Understanding Libertarian Morality: The psychological roots of an individualist morality,” to be published in a forthcoming issue of The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. In probing the moral thinking of libertarians, the study uses the “largest dataset of psychological measures ever compiled on libertarians,” involving moral surveys of more than 10,000 self-identified libertarians gathered online at the website yourmorals.org, run by Haidt and colleagues.

So what did the study find to be the basis of libertarian moral thinking? It will not surprise Reason readers that the study found that libertarians show (1) stronger endorsement of individual liberty as their foremost guiding principle and correspondingly weaker endorsement of other moral principles, (2) a relatively cerebral as opposed to emotional intellectual style, and (3) lower interdependence and social relatedness.

read the rest here at reason.com

Obama’s Mad Message: Don’t go back to the failed policies of the Bush-Obama Era

No-longer chic spoof mag desperately tries to regain relevance with soft anti-Semitism

If you hear a discussion about the spoof magazine Adbusters, the thing people would find most surprising is that it's still around.

The magazine, founded in 1989, garnered attention for itself with irreverent ad spoofs in its early days. Their alleged point is something that they call "culture jamming," a term that has failed to enter the popular lexicon and would leave anyone who hasn't committed the collected works of Naomi Klein to memory scratching their heads. The term is a description of altering something (i.e. an advertisement) and spoofing it in a near identical form to reverse its meaning. It may have eluded the geniuses at Adbusters that the word "irony" already covers most of what they intend to do, but it's so much cooler when you can take credit for originating a catch-phrase. In this case, as in so much else, they failed. Cowabunga, ad dudes!

If there's anything media hates more than being despised, it's being ignored. Right now, Adbusters is trying to promote a worldwide boycott of Starbucks. I wasn't even aware of that until I checked their website today, which is an indication of what global reach Adbusters has.

So in that vein, one sure-fire and acceptable way to get admiration for yourself from the radical leftist community, while incurring contempt from the mainstream, is to engage in soft anti-Semitism. Then, when reasonable people express outrage, you can say how your free speech is being denied, even though it isn't. If the Adbusters geniuses wanted to find out about real attempts at the denial of free speech in Canada, they could ask Ezra Levant or Mark Steyn, who were hauled before our kangaroo-court "Human Rights" commissions at great expense because of respectively publishing cartoons depicting a dead middle eastern warlord and for critiquing the influence of Islam on Western culture. Both cases were dismissed after considerable cost and inconvenience to the defendants.

But back to Adbusters. In 2006, they decided to identify supporters of the Iraq war and put down 50 names with special indicators of the Jewish ones. I didn't see the issue, so I can't say whether they used little yellow stars of David for that or not.

But in keeping with the Nazi theme, this time, the sad, irrelevant characters at Adbusters have now decided to use a motif that radical, discredited Islamists and anti-Semites have attempted for quite some time by comparing the Gaza strip to the Warsaw ghetto. Only the most puerile minds who are either moral imbeciles or have a less-than-superficial understanding of the history and circumstances of the Warsaw Ghetto would suggest any similarity to Israel's reaction to attacks from Gaza. The contradictions are too innumerable to list, but the most basic and obvious is that unlike Hamas re: Israel, the Jews of Europe had not pledged to eliminate Germany. They were not launching rockets at German civilians, there weren't luxury malls and hotels and vacation beaches in the Warsaw Ghetto. The people of Gaza were not relocated there from conquered areas, but are the indicginous population, and the Warsaw Ghetto saw its population annihilated, whereas the population of Gaza has at least tripled due to births since 1967.

But the people at Adbusters either aren't interested in facts or are too stupid to process them correctly.

Which accounts for their current spurious complaint about "censorship" regarding the Canadian Jewish Congress's call to have people alert outlets that are selling Adbusters that their content is anti-Semitic.

What the CJC has asked is for  "community members to take a moment to see if their local bookstore or newsstand sells the magazine, to show the clerk or the owner the offensive material and to tell them that “this is anti-Semitic and shameful.”

Based on this, Shoppers Drug Mart has decided to pull its distribution of Adbusters. That's not censorship, it's using economic influence to express oneself. No one is denying Adbusters the right to publish. The CJC hasn't pulled Adbusters in front of an HRC, although they have as much grounds to do so as those who were offended by Mohammed cartoons.

What is very funny about this situation is that the dimwits at Adbusters who are advocating the "worldwide boycott of Starbucks" are decrying a boycott directed at them. I guess they missed the irony of that, or should I say, "culture jamming?"

No, "culture jamming" sounds like a term only an idiot would use. Let's stick to "irony".