Canadian Union of Postal Workers to sponsor anti-Israel conference featuring speaker found guilty of anti-Semitic hate speech

The Canadian Union of Postal Workers seems primarily interested in two things.

Ensuring the rights and good working conditions of Canadian postal workers and cooperating on providing efficient postal service to Canadians aren't either of them.

Fighting "Globalization" and inserting themselves into "liberation struggles" that have a remarkable tie-in to the interests of the Communist Party and the International Socialist movements seem to be their priorities.

CUPW, as readers of this blog will know, are co-sponsors of "The Sea Hitler" (the boat some Canadian Islamist and Communist groups want to send to interfere with Israel's Gaza blockade) and have allied themselves with some of the most virulent anti-Israel bigots in Canada.

But now the radical leadership of CUPW may have crossed the line into sponsoring outright anti-Semitism.

CUPW is co-sponsor of a conference set to occur in Montreal for October 22-24 called "Montreal BDS Conference". For those unfmiliar, BDS stands for "Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions" and these actions would be directed at Israel. The BDS movement is part of an ongoing campaign by Islamic and leftist radicals to try to deligitimize the middle east's only genuine democracy.

Canadian Liberal Party and parliamentary Opposition leader Michael Ignatieff referred to this phenomenon, when discussing the odious effort called "Israel Apartheid Week" which is closely tied to the is "BDS" movement as a "global campaign of proclamations, boycotts and calls for divestment, which originated in the World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance held in Durban, South Africa, in 2001. Like “Durban I,” IAW singles out one state, its citizens and its supporters for condemnation and exclusion, and it targets institutions and individuals because of what and who they are — Israeli and Jewish.  [It] goes beyond reasonable criticism into demonization."

One of the speakers that CUPW is proud to present at the BDS conference is Bongani Masuku, South African labor union COSATU International Affairs Secretary, who was found guilty by the South African government's Human Rights Commission of anti-Semitic hate speech.

For information on Masuku, we have this from The Canada-Israel Committee's website:

What precisely did Masuku say that got him into so much trouble? Here are a few examples:

"We want to convey a message to the Jews in South Africa that our 1.9-million workers who are affiliated to COSATU are fully behind the people of Palestine… Any business owned by Israel supporters will be a target of workers in South Africa” [Source: Address at COSATU-Palestinian Solidarity Committee rally in Raedene, 6 February 2009].

"COSATU is with you, we will do everything to make sure that whether it’s at Wits University, whether its at Orange Grove, anyone who does not support equality and dignity, who does not support the rights of other people must face the consequences even if it means that we will do something that may necessarily cause what is regarded as harm …" [Source: Address at public meeting on Wits University Campus, 5 March 2009]

The implications of Masuku’s statements were as clear as day, at least according to the South African Human Rights Commission:

In its findings, the SAHRC found that Mr. Masuku “surely intended to incite violence and hatred that was already potentially imminent amongst these two groups.”. The Commission also noted that other comments by Mr. Masuku were “intimidating and threatening” and noted that other comments made by Mr. Masuku could only mean that “unless South Africans agree with his views they should be forced to leave South Africa.”

In sum the SAHRC stated that “the comments and statements are of an extreme nature that advocate and imply that the Jewish and Israeli community are to be despised, scorned and ridiculed and thus subjecting them to ill-treatment on the basis of their religious affiliation. A prima facie case of hate speech is clearly established.”

By sponsoring Masuku, an advocate of  "violent liberation struggle" (read: "terrorism') CUPW is providing yet another example that bears out the truth of Canadian Immigration Minister Jason Kenney's assessment:, "so much of the criticism Israel faces is motivated by a dangerous form of anti-Semitism that tries to hide behind anti-Zionism and is represented by a coalition of the far left in the West with extreme currents of jihadi Islam that seek the destruction of the Jewish nation. They seem to believe that the Jewish people are the only people in the world that don't have a right to a homeland."

The vocal anti-Semite Masuku is the sort of individual that Denis Lemelin, President, Canadian Union of Postal Workers, as a speaker and sponsor of this conference, is willing to be associated with. CUPW leadership and their descent into anti-Semitism is a disgrace and an embarrassment to its membership. They should be held responsible and called out for their bigotry.


h/t Blazing Cat Fur

Hezbollah Boy Scouts: Going for the "martyrdom" merit badge

These people are seriously messed up. The video speaks for itself:

Happy Crappy Canadian Thanksgiving!

Yes, President Bush, America does miss you

From England's The Telegraph:

Several months ago a huge billboard appeared near Wyoming, Minnesota, with a beaming photo of George W. Bush with the caption “Miss me yet?” The answer to that question is clearly yes, according to a new CNN/Opinion Research poll, which shows the former president staging a remarkable political recovery despite having largely disappeared from public life since leaving office:

By 47 to 45 percent, Americans say Obama is a better president than George W. Bush. But that two point margin is down from a 23 point advantage one year ago.

“Democrats may want to think twice about bringing up former President George W. Bush’s name while campaigning this year,” says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland.

This has to be one of the most extraordinary political comebacks in decades.And as this week’s Washington Post/ABC News poll showed, nearly 25 percent of Democrats now believe “a return to Bush’s policies would be good,” a staggeringly high figure

 Read the rest here

George Smitherman's choice to head up "municipal government reform panel" wants to impose municipal sales tax

Graphic from Blazing Cat Fur

It appears a vote for George "Captain eHealth" Smitherman is a vote for instant higher taxes.

George Smitherman recently announced that if he becomes mayor, he would place former one-term Toronto mayor John Sewell as head of a municipal “government reform” panel.

This summer, Sewell wrote that the city should impose its own municipal sales tax.

"The city needs its own sources of tax revenue, like its own sales tax. A one per cent tax on goods and services raises about $700 million in Toronto per year"
John Sewell, prospective Smitherman appointee

Can you feel the cruel chill of Smitherman's hand reaching for your wallet yet?

Not what I expected from The Guardian: "Why I am a black Tea Party patriot opposed to Barack Obama"

There are a lot of people in the Tea Party who aren't white and who are concerned with Obama's taxation policies. But it was still a surprise to see Marcus Garvey's blog in Comment is free in England's leftist The Guardian.

"when I hear politicians, such as Barack Obama, pandering to the so-called poor of America, it turns my stomach. I've witnessed the deterioration of the human spirit, wasted lives and suffering that happens when government becomes "daddy".

Rob Ford's popularity and why city council's big "slush fund" spenders don't like him

Royson James, one of the few columnists at al-Starzeera who hasn't been driven over the edge of sanity by Rob Ford, wrote an astute article on Saturday that points out some of the attraction Ford has for Toronto's voters.

Ford doesn’t have to define himself during this campaign. Over 10 years as a city councillor his message hasn’t deviated: Keep spending in check. He owns the brand.

Starting with his own office budget, Ford famously spent $2 of the allotted $53,000 tax dollars one year, even as many spent near the limit and most spent about $40,000. That created many enemies among the big spenders. Some argued he was using his own money to run his office and tried to force him to use tax dollars.

The result? Now Ford must file the spending amounts with the clerk, even if he uses his own money. But all this has done is reaffirm that Ford spends much less than his counterparts, no matter whose money it is. And the legend grows.

Critics argue that the potential savings from office budgets is so small, the impact on the $9.2 billion budget is negligible. Critics underestimate the value of symbols. If councillors routinely waste thousands of dollars on the purchase of espresso machines, bunny suits, expensive Christmas cards, unwarranted cab rides to Woodbridge late at night — all under the guise of serving constituents — what else are they wasting, constituents wonder.

It sure got me wondering. 

Particularly after seeing Joe Mihevc's overwrought press release in which he abandoned his old ally Joe Pantalone to advocate strategic voting for George "Captain eHealth" Smitherman.

So I took a look at some city councillors' expenses.

Ward 21 Councillor Joe Mihevc has spent $13,800 of tax dollars since 2008 on his website. 

Ward 30 Councillor Paula Fletcher spent over $18,000 on "advertising and promotion" since 2008.

Although that sounds almost paltry compared to Ward 32 Councillor Sandra Bussin's  $27,000 in the "advertising and promotion" budget line. And that doesn't even include her notorious "Bussin Blue Jays" which came out of the approximately $15,000 she charged to "other expenses" since 2008.

 (And "other expenses" isn't all other expenses..oh, no, not by a long shot. It's just stuff that doesn't fit into one of the many other budget lines expensed by city councilors.)

Advertising and promotion of what!!??!!

When Ford spends next to nothing of his $53,000 office budget, and is critical of big spenders on council, among whom Mihevc is one of the biggest, James is right, it 's got to create some resentment.

But that resentment might be on the voters' side and work for Ford. Particularly when one sees where some of the "slush fund" gets spent.






Council expenses can be viewed here.

And Joe, that's some great website we paid for.  I probably could have got you a better deal. Or you could have just gone to blogger.com and set one up for free and saved us that money. Still, who cares if you may have overpaid? It's not like that money came out of your pocket.

Today's Letter of Note: "I would like .. to lose the shits .. but to retain 'fart in your general direction',

A funny memo about what wording would be acceptable for Monty Python and the Holy Grail from Letters of Note.

For an 'A' we would have to:




Lose as many shits as possible


Take Jesus Christ out, if possible


Lose "I fart in your general direction"


Lose "the oral sex"


Lose "oh, fuck off"


Lose "We make castanets out of your testicles"

See the rest here

And in other news, Muammar Gaddafi calls for jihad against Switzerland and Zionism

Libyan dictator and mental patient Muammar Ghaddafi:

"Any Muslim who buys Swiss products is an infidel"

No delicious Lindt chocolate for the faithful!!

Some comedy from the UN "Human Rights" Council

Some of the worst human rights abusers in the world share their thoughts:


IRAN

"It is my honor to represent a country whose respect for women and the dignity of women is rooted in its ideological beliefs and cultural past... [However, there is] persisting and rife discrimination and violence against women, in particular, in France, Norway, Slovakia, Sweden, Luxembourg and Ireland."


SYRIA

"There are certain situations where women's physical make-up must be taken into consideration when enacting laws. Women, [it] must not be imposed on them certain heavy work, such as working in mines and other hard labor."


SAUDI ARABIA

"Islamic Sharia has granted women the same rights as men on the basis of principle."






From UN Watch

P.S. This is my favorite memo ever

P.S. This is my favorite memo ever

Check out the link above. It's a memo from Matt Stone regarding the censorship of the South Park movie

Christine O'Donnell is me!

Or so she tells us in her new ad.





Okay, she's me in that we both hate taxes. But Christine O'Donnell,  the Republican Party nominee in Delaware's 2010 U.S. Senate special election, does dabble in witchcraft and doesn't believe in pre-marital sex, so in those regards, she's the opposite of me.

Council of Canadians' media partner rabble.ca waxes nostalgic for the inventor of concentration camps for political "crimes"

Nobel laureate Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, in his Gulag Archipelago trilogy, a history of Communist Russia's internal political prison system, informed us that the modern concentration camp for political opponents was invented by Vladimir Lenin.

Look! It's Kevin Neish..No.. wrong.. it's still Lenin

So, of course it's no surprise that the radical socialists at the Council of Canadians' online media partner,  rabble.ca are filled with admiration and nostalgia for him in a feature titled "Moscow: Red souls in repose":

Lenin may have set them free almost 100 years ago, but for better or worse another Vladimir, current prime minister Vladimir Putin, has set them on the road to capitalism and rampant consumerism.

Marc Garneau: The Future of the Canadian Liberal Party?

Marc Garneau and his team do not want this story published.

I know that because his media representative explicitly told me so.

Eye on a Crazy Planet recently ran a poll asking readers who they would like to see as the leader of the Canadian Liberal Party. The poll was unscientific and the response was much lower than the previous poll asking about whether the US should bomb Iran (a resounding 'yes' from a big majority of you on that one).

This poll very intentionally listed only 3 candidates by name. That was because there is a dearth of potential leaders who excite the public among the group who have vied for the top position in the Liberal party since Stephane Dion's unsuccessful term which began in 2006.

Two in the poll were the ones most frequently associated with the current Liberal leadership, Michael Ignatieff and Bob Rae, and a third, Quebce MP for the riding of Westmount--Ville-Marie, Quebec, Marc Garneau.

While none polled well, Garneau polled better than either Ignatieff and Rae. And looking to the future, the Liberals need to consider looking past the leadership of Michael Ignatieff.

Ignatieff is an intelligent, honest leader with sound policies. He is also uncharismatic and has failed to excite the Canadian electorate.

Bob Rae is a nice guy. He's a smart guy.His policies are thoughtful and reasonable. Enough time has transpired since his unsuccessful term as Premier of Ontario that a lot of that baggage has been shed, along with his old NDP membership card. But in my assessment, his time to lead the Liberal Party of Canada has passed. That time should have been in 2006 when the Liberals made the incomprehensible choice of Dion. The reactions to Rae nation-wide suggest that he could not win a national election.

So who does the Liberal Party have? None of the leadership contenders from '06 show any real promise. The two strongest of that crop, among those not already mentioned, would be Gerrard Kennedy and Ken Dryden. Kennedy's policy positions have always made him a much better fit for the NDP than the Liberals, but his ambition took him to the party where he felt he could achieve more power. He would be a disastrous Prime Minister.

Ken Dryden's personality as a politician is a lot like that of...well.. a goalie.He is exceptionally bright, but as a speaker is dull and uninspiring. As in his previous life, he's great at preventing the other side from scoring goals against him. But winning a game requires more than just not losing. It requires someone who can score and Ken has never been that guy.

There are some who have mentioned Justin Trudeau. Trudeau the younger has none of his father's adroit political skills. He's basically a name and a good haircut.

Marc Garneau, the Liberals' Critic for Industry, Science and Technology, is someone who may represent the best hope the Liberals have for regaining the national leadership in the foreseeable future.

He has the obvious necessary criteria of intellect, speaking ability and thoughtful policy positions.

But he has a lot more. All the successful Liberal Prime Ministers since Confederation, with the sole exception of William Lyon Mackenzie King, were Quebecois, like Garneau. For the Liberals to be able to get an effective majority, they need to be able to win over a large part of the Quebec electorate and Garneau, who is the chair of the Quebec Liberal Caucus, can do that.

But he also has to be able to win over much of the rest of Canada and as Canada's first astronaut, Garneau is and was a national hero before his entry into politics. He is a popular figure across the country who already has had two schools in Ontario named after him. The Liberals under Garneau would be able to win seats in every province, and could easily take their traditional majorities in both Quebec and Ontario. Something that no Liberal has done since prior to the 1993 election.

It should be clear that Garneau's staff has emphatically denied that they have ambitions or are thinking this way right now. They say they are solely focussed on being part of Michael Ignatieff's team and that they fully support his vision and the way he has put together a team of great parliamentarians who will be able to go out and win the next election.

They also say the think Mr. Ignatieff is doing a "great" job as Liberal Party Leader.

Okay. But for the sake of argument, let's assume the polls are right and the rest of Canada doesn't agree with that assessment of Mr. Ignatieff.

If that's the case, then while Marc Garneau may not be thinking of positioning himself for the Liberal leadership, he should be.

Tony Curtis: "I just f^cked Yvonne DeCarlo!"

Tony Curtis was one of the greats and will be missed with his passing last week.

The volume comes down on obnoxious TV commercials

Legislation to turn down the volume on those loud TV commercials that send couch potatoes diving for their remote controls looks like it'll soon become law.

The Senate unanimously passed a bill late Wednesday to require television stations and cable companies to keep commercials at the same volume as the programs they interrupt.


More here

Ward 21 Councillor Joe Mihevc: If Rob Ford becomes mayor, the world as you know it will come to an end (or words to that effect)

Leftist Toronto City Councillor Joe Mihevc is a supporter of David Miller, whose disgraceful performance  as mayor during the civic strike in his last term had killed his hopes for re-election. But Mihevc has reluctantly turned his back on fellow Miller "progressive" Joe Pantalone.

Mihevc advocates strategic voting for George "Captain eHealth" Smitherman because in his words, front-running Rob Ford  "would destroy so much that we value about our city – its diversity, animated neighbourhoods, care for the newcomers and the poor, our quality of life." I guess that is Mihevc's way of saying 'implement policies which would reduce the city's skyrocketing debt and cut the bloated waste at city hall.'

Or maybe it's his way of saying Ford is going to try to get to the bottom of why the St. Clair streetcar fiasco, which was budgeted at $43 million, ended up costing $120 million.

Mihevc's hysteria continues with: "Under Rob Ford, City Council will not function, our city agencies will be in disarray, economic development will be hurt and our city will suffer in many ways."

I was waiting for the part where Mihevc describes how the earth will open to the sulphuric pits of hell,  and how the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse will ride their steeds in a crimson sky above the CN Tower which will be transformed into a pillar of fire, but he didn't go quite that far.

I also didn't notice the part where Joe tells you how popular he is with the city's unions who dread Ford clamping down on them on behalf of the city's taxpayers.

Sure Joe. Whatever you say. There's a good candidate running in Ward 21 named Shimmy Posen.

And Joe, if you're reading this, as I expect you or one of your staffers will be, it would have been one thing if you had endorsed Smitherman by extolling his virtues. But evidently that task was too challenging (I don't disagree with you there), so you felt the need to lay on ridiculous invective about Ford. That's an insult to the intelligence of your constituents and invites this sort of response.


Read Joe Mihevc's statement here.

UPDATE: Joe Mihevc said in a press conference that he spoke with Pantalone about where his endorsement would go, but The National Post reports:

Mr. Pantalone was completely shocked by Mr. Mihevc’s “incomprehensible” decision to support his opponent, which he clearly took personally. “I don’t know how Joe Mihevc can explain his position to his progressive base. He should be ashamed of himself,” Mr. Pantalone said last night, after a debate. “He didn’t even give me the decency of a phone call, after all the years we’ve known each other. I thought we were friends.”

Iranian officials mock new US santions

Via Planet Iran:

Iranian authorities mocked the recent blacklisting of eight Iranian senior officials by the US.

Speaker of the parliament, Ali Larijani announced that US plan on freezing the assets of eight Iranian officials and refusing US visas to them is a “meaningless child play in the international arena.”

The US targeted eight Iranian officials for alleged human rights abuses in the widespread protests to the controversial re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad last summer announcing that they have included their names in their list of sanctions.

By the order of Barack Obama, all US organizations and bodies are prohibited from having any dealings with these individuals while their assets are to be frozen and travel restrictions are also to be set against them.

Iranian Interior Minister, Mohammad Najjar, who is one of the eight people on that list, announced: “US actions with regards to human rights are highly contradictory.”

“They can have my nonexistent assets wherever they are,” Najjar added; “…furthermore, I never had any plans to travel to America.”

John Baglow chooses the 40th Anniversary of the October Crisis to sarcastically complain that the government is mishandling and overstating the threat of domestic terrorism

From Baglow's column in today's National Post, titled The terrorists in our midst:

Vic Toews, our Minister of Public Safety, is quoted as saying:

"[I]t’s so very important that we have cooperation from the groups where these individuals are coming out of so that our security authorities can better assess the situation and protect Canadians."

He was referring specifically to the case of three Muslim students who have gone missing. There is suspicion, and only suspicion at this point, that the three are training somewhere in Jihadistan and planning to come back to Canada as fully-trained terrorists.

The article continues:

The minister, who represents a southern Manitoba riding, urged groups that have spawned extremists to report their suspicions and held up Somali Canadians as an example.

Balgow soon gets into his mendacious sarcasm:

I know, at first hand, that communities can spawn radicalism. And I want to do something about it. 

The first hurdle to overcome is to figure out which community gave rise to me. The white community? The Christian-in-name-only (United Church) community? The anglophone community? The central Canada community? The NDP community? All of the above? Still more?

I ask only because I demand to know what leaders were accountable for me, and disgracefully dropped the ball, allowing me to flourish in their midst. 

Once we have that one figured out, I’ll know where to begin. As a conscientious citizen who believes in the rule of law, I want to keep an eye on those in my community who might be up to no good.

It probably escaped Baglow's attention (or maybe not) that today is the 40th anniversary of the beginning of the October Crisis. For those unfamiliar, that was when a Quebecois separatist group, the FLQ, kidnapped British Trade Commissioner James Cross and Quebec Labour Minister Pierre Laporte. Laporte was murdered by these fiends.

Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau invoked the War Measures Act to declare martial law in Quebec until the crisis was resolved.

Canada is currently in a war in Afghanistan fighting the jihadists that Baglow stupidly underestimates.

The reason that terror plots in Canada can be dismissed by Baglow in the way he does is because CSIS, the RCMP, local police and agencies working under the aegis of the Department of National Defence are doing their jobs well.

We live in a democracy. We are the government. So when the government asks us for help in preserving our own safety, we can choose to mock and do nothing like Baglow, or we can provide what help we can when those opportunities arise.

Baglow and his friends on the fringes have become increasingly shrill as his ideology has become more marginalized within the mainstream of Canadian society. It must be hard for him to sit on the sidelines, knowing how much better things would be if only people outside the NDP's Socialist Caucus took him seriously.

Syria hopes to boost image by taking Iraq's old spot in Axis of Evil

Now that post-invasion Iraq has moved towards being a (problematic) democracy, there's a vacancy in the Axis of Evil. North Korea and Iran have a firm lock on their spots. There are a number of contenders including Yemen, Somalia, Lebanon, but none have the credentials of support for terror and belligerence that Syria does.

And you have to have mutual cooperation to be part of an axis. Syria's hereditary president, Bashar al-Assad, reinforced that on a recent visit to Iran, where he boasted of the two countries' "exceptional ties,"  probably referring to their mutual cooperation in establishing, arming, and assisting the terror group Hezbollah in Lebanon, which acts at the behest of Damascus and Tehran.