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Sunday, October 28, 2012

Justin Trudeau's brother and political advisor works with Iran to help its nuclear program

Alexandre Trudeau, son of late Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, and brother and senior political adviser to Liberal leadership candidate Justin, has been working with the Iranian government to create propaganda to whitewash its nuclear arms program.    

Press TV, the Iranian state-owned propaganda organ, was a co-producer of the documentary The New Great Game, which  was produced and directed by Alexandre Trudeau. According to Honest Reporting Canada Executive Director Mike Fegelman, in the film, the Liberal MP's brother "reports that Iran's atomic ambitions are for "defensive" purposes only, serving as an effective "deterrent" against Israeli "aggression" and belligerence."     

Today,  Trudeau's Press TV associates claimed that al Quada operates on behalf of Israel.   

Trudeau's documentary was recently broadcast on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the news division of which has maintained a long-standing anti-Israel bias. Along with vehemently anti-Israel NDP MP Libby Davies and a coterie of fanatics including the notorious Ali Mallah, Alexandre Trudeau was also listed as an endorser of the so called Gaza Freedom March in which Arab and international activists attempted to violently storm Israel's borders, resulting in a number of people being killed.   

The participation of Alexandre Trudeau at such a high level of his brother's campaign suggests that were Justin Trudeau to win his party's nomination, the Liberal Party of Canada could move to extremist anti-Israel positions.

UPDATE: More support for dictators - see link to Alexandre Trudeau`s fawning 2006 column about Fidel Castro.

UPDATE 2: Trudeau takes a fascinatingly deceitful approach with his documentary. 

In Part 2  after raising the idea of the US aiding a preemptive Israeli strike on Iran`s nuclear facilities, Trudeau shows Harvard professor and historian Niall Ferguson  asking,   `From the vantage point of many Americans the answer must be `no.`  Why should we do that, we`ve just done a couple of nasty expensive wars in Afghanistan and in Iraq. What`s in it for us?`

Trudeau abruptly edited the statement there, creating the clear impression that Ferguson opposes such a move when the exact opposite is true.  Anyone who knows Ferguson knows he was speaking rhetorically and would have explained that if more were shown. Ferguson wrote a piece for The Daily Beast in which he wrote, `There are plenty of arguments against an Israeli attack on Iran. And all of them are bad.`  In that piece, Ferguson explicitly argues for America to support an Israeli strike on Iran.

But under the tutelage of Alexandre Trudeau`s propaganda, people who are uninformed about the matter, as most CBC viewers are likely to be,  would come away believing a lie .







Madonna booed at New Orleans concert while trying get audience to vote for Obama


NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- Madonna drew boos and triggered a walkout by several concertgoers after she touted President Barack Obama on her "MDNA Tour" in New Orleans. 
The Material Girl asked during Saturday night's performance: "Who's registered to vote?" She added: "I don't care who you vote for as long as you vote for Obama.



h-t Drudge Report 

Glitter arrested for sex crimes again

Most people couldn't name a single Gary Glitter song, but you do know one of his hits. Rock n' Roll Part 2 is heard in sports stadiums all over the world as a rallying theme as popular as Queen's We Will Rock You.

Glitter was arrested yesterday as part of an investigation for the sexual exploitation of minors dating back over 40 years.

The former glam rock star was jailed in Vietnam in 2006 for similar charges.





Gary Glitter released from jail in Vietnam by itnnews

Saturday, October 27, 2012

Money and US elections

From The Saturday Evening Post:

In 2008 Barack Obama, a longtime proponent of campaign-finance reform, did so well at raising funds that he broke a pledge and renounced public financing, so that there would be no limit on his fundraising. He spent a record $745 million winning the presidency. Then in 2010 came the Supreme Court’s notorious Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision. That ruled that there could be no limit on “independent expenditures,” for they amounted to “political speech” protected by the First Amendment. As a result of that, the super PAC was born. The amount of outside money spent on presidential elections went up 164 percent between 2004 and 2008 and another 135 percent by 2012.

Friday, October 26, 2012

Election fail: New Obama campaign ad suggests he really does want to f**k America

I only first heard of Lena Dunham last week, when the media covered this minor celebrity who thinks child molesting murderers are a great topic for twitter jokes. The good news is that I'm sure the massive tattoos on her flabby arms won't make her look like a complete skank when she turns 40....




h/t BlazingCatFur

University of Toronto professor who facilitated classroom anti-Semitism accuses government of practicing "democratic racism"

Who says there`s a decline in Canada`s manufacturing sector? There is a burgeoning racism industry thriving in the halls of Canadian universities where racism, even when non-existent, is manufactured by professors and their eager students to justify otherwise lacklustre fields of study. Ironically some of these spurious charges of racism originate from people who themselves practiced confirmed bigotry against minorities.

The latest example comes from a University of Toronto Sociology professor who was at the center of a storm of controversy after she oversaw a classroom "Jew count" and made anti-Semitic remarks. She now is  making a dubious accusation against the Canadian government of engaging in racist policies by requiring immigrants to have Canadian experience.

Rupaleem Bhuyan, an Assistant Professor at the University of Toronto`s School of Social Work had, according to former PhD Programs Director Adrienne Chambon, endorsed some of her visible minority students' refusal to attend a field trip to a Jewish geriatric center by saying, `‘racialized’ students come from underprivileged backgrounds and were justified in not wanting to be around old Jews because they are rich and would make them uneasy . ` Bhuyan, along with Izumi Sakamoto, the new acting PhD Programs Director at the university`s Factor-Inwentash School of Social Work, has produced a report claiming that federal immigration policies are a form of, as they term it, `democratic racism.``

The smiling faces of the authors of the document "Democratic Racism: The Case of Canadian Experience" look like a generic advertisement for a union promoting its multicultural values, but the content is somewhat more insidious. It alleges that the Federal Skilled Worker Program, which is designed to facilitate admission of the most proficient and adept immigrants who are able to make economic contributions to Canada is in their words, " a particular form of racist exclusion of immigrants of colour that dismisses the reality of racism and immigrant experience while simultaneously maintaining Canada as a tolerant white society."

And how, you may well ask, is this white supremacy being enforced by the Canadian government? By giving preference to immigrants who speak one of Canada's two official languages and having work experience which would enable them to quickly adapt to Canadian economic culture. If you think those are reasonable factors in determining who would make a good immigrant, a coven of crackpot academics maintains it is part of a secret agenda to enforce "a particular form of racial discourse in a multicultural society that signals Canadian ambiguity and ambivalence towards ‘visible minorities’ (the Canadian polite term for people of colour) who are maintained as outsiders."

Absent from their brilliant analysis are facts such as India, which is rapidly becoming the most populous country on Earth and one that is primarily non-white, has English as one of its official languages and immigrants from that country qualify more readily under Canada's admissibility criteria.  Haiti is a French speaking country and its immigrants have an advantage in applications for Quebec residency that white, non-francophone Eastern Europeans would not have. Of course, we're discussing the profound postulations of Social Science academics, so we shouldn't allow ourselves to get hung up on minutiae like relevant facts and details.

Rather than being convincing about their outlandish position, which lines up with radical, fanatical organizations like No One Is Illegal, which advocate that Canada should have no immigration restrictions whatsoever, our group of sophomoric professors devalue the meaning of racism by corrupting its meaning and applying it for their own distorted purposes.

Along those lines, it is noteworthy that the Community Partner for the research on their study was the Chinese Canadian National Council Toronto Chapter. That organization's current Executive Director, May Lui, is a former comment moderator for the ultra-left wing website rabble.ca who has actually claimed she was the victim of sexist oppression because she didn't receive prompt service at a downtown Toronto hardware store.

In fact, even the authors of Democratic Racism: The case for Canadian Experience suggest a modicum of self-awareness and appear to realize how ridiculous their position is, even as they try to make it, when they wrote about the government's policy being that , "Its power lies in its commonsensical and elusive nature, further mystifying it and making antiracist critique more difficult." Yes, mystifying indeed are the ways of those who operate outside the bubble of academic self-indulgence. One almost feels sympathy for these silly people. It must be so hard to be an anti-racist agitator when you have to concede that the positions you so vehemently oppose are based on common sense!

Study co-author Bhuyan is a non-white immigrant who, as she makes the point of mentioning in n the first paragraph of her University of Toronto biography "is a second-generation immigrant of Assamese/Indian heritage"  who was born and raised in the USA. Along with the all co-authors of her paper, she seems to have slipped through the cracks of our immigration system they believe is designed to maintain white hegemony and have somehow evidently managed to benefit from the "Canadian experience".  One of the paradoxes multiculturalism is that the second generation tends to romanticize their parents' culture while ignoring the reasons they abandoned it for a better life in the west. In striving to attack the foundations of our culture to ostensibly better it, they would transform it into one to which their parents would never have wanted to come

Thursday, October 25, 2012

Cloud Atlas looks like a bloated piece of crap

Add up hot, self-indulgent filmmakers, a huge budget with loads of special effects, a muddled script without a  lead character with whom an audience can strongly identify and The Wachowski Siblings`new movie Cloud Atlas is the result.

Here is a five and a half minute trailer Warner put out and after watching it, it still isn`t clear what the movie is about.

(Most apt review blurb comes from Karina Longworth at the LA Weekly: `One man's ambitious, iconoclastic, like-nothing-ever-before-seen passion project is another man's Battlefield Earth.``)




It looks like the biggest huge budget mess since Sucker Punch



Much more interesting is the real life and very public metamorphosis of Cloud Atlas co-director Lana Wachowski.

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Speaking truth to scumbags - Foreign Minister Baird lambastes Iran, Uganda and Syria for Human Rights abuses

QUEBEC - Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird abandoned host-country niceties Monday as he levelled a blistering attack against the human rights records of Iran, Syria and Uganda before some 1,400 international parliamentarians gathered for the Inter-Parliamentary Union in Quebec.   
..Baird also took on the Ugandan government again for its treatment of gays and lesbians. He mentioned the case of a young activist who was recently beaten to death.    
The criticism didn't sit well with the speaker of the Ugandan Parliament, Rebecca Kadaga, who asked for the opportunity to respond. She spoke of Baird's "arrogance" and "ignorance" and demanded an apology.   
"If homosexuality is a value for the Canadian people, that's not a problem for us, that's it's issue, but one shouldn't force Ugandans to accept homosexuality because we're not Canadian citizens," Kadaga said to applause from the floor. 

..Addressing 1,400 lawmakers at the gathering in Quebec City, Canadian Foreign Minister John Baird said Bahais and Christians in Iran were “consistently threatened with death and torture, simply for believing.”
He also said “the evil regime in Iran... remains the most significant threat to global peace and security,” accusing Tehran of fomenting hatred against the Jewish people and supporting terrorist groups.

Trump's challenge to Obama - clever or silly?

Celebrity rich dude Donald Trump has been teasing a "big announcement" about President Barack Obama for a few days. It turns out the announcement was actually about Donald Trump.

If Obama releases his college and passport applications and records by 5 PM on October 31, Trump has pledged to give $5 Million to the charity of the President's choosing.

While on the surface, this seems like self-promoting grandstanding from a wealthy Republican who has made no secret of his animosity towards the President, there is a clever aspect to all this.

With less than two weeks to the US election, Obama's response could be a major factor. If Obama declines the offer, the question will be 'what is he hiding?'  As Forbes contributor Rick Ungar noted, even if Obama releases the documents, sceptics will, as with his long-form birth certificate, challenge their authenticity.

Whether this has any affect on the election is hard to say, but it is doing what Trump intended, which is to put the attention-seeking developer into the limelight.

Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Former NDP leadership candidate Romeo Saganash thinks public drunkenness makes him more Prime Ministerial, like John A MacDonald

NDP MP Romeo Saganash was booted off an Air Canada flight for passing out drunk on a couple of seats prior to take off on Friday. The flight was delayed half an hour as he was helped off the plane.

Said Saganash, ""I am not looking at excuses"  and he then attempted to provide a laundry list of excuses to absolve himself for his bufoonish behavior. They included  "I know that profound scars were left on me because of my time in residential school" and even the preposterous explanation that "the death of my friend and mentor, Jack Layton, also greatly affected me."   kakasksa Drunk drivers, like Toronto City Councilor Ana Bialao, should try that one.."yes your honor, I was over the limit, but I a am still in mourning for Jack Layton. And I could really use a good shiatsu."

Naturally, Saganash is using the tried and tested "alcoholism is a disease" line. Norm Macdonald covered that one pretty well: (Norm Macdonald video cannot be viewed in Canada)









Hollywood reacts to Ann Coulter calling Obama a "retard"

Foreign policy debate shows a smug, glib Obama is willing to weaken America

The notable moment when Republican Presidential nominee's charge of  Barack Obama weakening the US Navy by allowing the number of vessels to diminish to its lowest levels since the First World War was answered by the president, "Well, Governor, we also have fewer horses and bayonets..we have these things called aircraft carriers, where planes land on them, we have these things that go under water, nuclear submarines.."

What may have escaped President Obama's military planning genius is that America's adversaries also have those technologies. Obama's unsurpassed arrogance doesn't seem to have allowed for the notion that his desire to reduce the massive trillion dollar debt he racked up by diminishing America's security capabilities is short sighted, both financially and by risking American lives.

As former US Ambassador to the United Nations put it last week, "it's American weakness, not strength, that America's enemies find provocative."

Obama is making the United States weaker than it has been at any time since Jimmy Carter was president. Carter's weak, inept handling of Iran in 1979 didn't save any American lives, it only deferred death which came back to haunt the United States with interest. Carter's weakness emboldened Iran, through its ally  Hezbollah, to murder 241 Marines in Beirut in 1983, to support the insurgency in Iraq and the Taliban in  Afghanistan. Together, these Iranian-sponsored acts have cost the lives of thousands of American military personnel and which would not have happened if Carter had effectively managed Iran.

There is a reason the Iranian mullahs want Obama to defeat Mitt Romney in the election next month. They see weakness in Obama.

Obama desperately wants America to be likes, but more damaging, he does not see the United States as a force for good in the world, which is why is keeps impairing its global power and influence. His promise conveyed to Vladimir Putin to be more flexible after his presumed reelection was a concession to Russian demands that America not have an effective missile defense.

Among the many foreign policy concerns Obama evidently doesn't understand is the difference between a geo-political adversary, which Romney correctly identifies and a terrorist threat, which Obama apparently thinks is the same thing.

When Obama said to Romney last night, "the 1980's are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back" he should have taken his own advice. American missile defense is not aimed at Russia but at smaller rogue states. Russia, like Obama still thinks in terms of 1980's era mutually assured destruction scenarios.  But warfare and strategy have moved past the dilettante who currently occupies the Oval Office.

At his Toronto talk last week, Ambassador Bolton joked that whenever they want to cheer themselves up at the Kremlin, they play the Obama "flexible" tape over and over to remind themselves what a weak adversary they have in the White House. It's no wonder that Vladimir Putin has endorsed Obama's reelection hoping to meet opposite a spineless American leadership for the next four years.

But with Iran rapidly moving towards nuclear weapons capability, the Muslim Middle East in turmoil, Russia looking to reassert itself by giving diplomatic cover to North Korea, Syria and Iran at the expense of American influence and China building up its military, a second Obama term is something both America and the free world can ill afford










James Bond and Iron Man - new movie trailers





Monday, October 22, 2012

Middle Eastern Islam is incompatible with western civilization

Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood President Mohammed Morsi spent the weekend devoutly praying as his Imam preached,  "Allah, destroy the Jews and their supporters."

Imagine the outcry if any western leader had attended a religious service and was seen praying in accession while a cleric asked God to destroy the Muslims.

There would be a maelstrom of calls for his resignation, for apologies and for him to renounce the service and the cleric. But in Egypt, like the rest of the Muslim Middle East, it's just another day at the office.

Professor Salim Mansur argued recently before a Parliamentary Commission in Ottawa that Canada should halt Muslim immigration as the values brought in by Muslim immigrants threaten western liberal democratic values.

I have opposed immigration curbs on the basis of religion, but instances like these are indications that we should be extremely judicious on allowing in immigrants from countries like Egypt and Pakistan where such bigotry and barbarity are the norm.




Sunday, October 21, 2012

Iranian regime hoping for Obama win


The Iranian regime seems to have a rooting interest in the upcoming U.S. presidential election, according to a review of online writers and bloggers in Iran.    
"Many in Iran are concerned that a Republican win means war,” an engineering student from Tehran named Sharhad blogged on Saturday. “The regime has plastered footage from war-torn Afghanistan and Iraq all over state TV, warning the people that this is what our country will look like if a Republican takes over in the U.S,” he wrote.     
"If there's a victory for President Obama, the 5+1 countries as well as the United States will make good with Iran," predicted a political blogger inside Iran, only hours after Saturday’s New York Times report that U.S. and Iranian officials had agreed “in principle for the first time” to discuss Iran’s ongoing nuclear program.


Saturday, October 20, 2012

Hope and Change in America - Romney holds on to lead in polls

According to the Gallup organization, Mitt Romney has maintained his lead over Barack Obama in polls for the week of October 13 to 19.

Among registered voters, Romney leads Obama 48% to 46%. The trend leading up to the final presidential debate on Monday favors Romney with his lead increasing to 6% among likely voters with the Republican candidate leading Obama 51% to 45%.




Hezbollah murders Sunni General in Lebanon - drives country into chaos

The Shite terrorist group Hezbollah used a car bomb to murder Lebanese General Wissam al-Hassan yesterday. A Sunni, al-Hassam was a leader of the investigation that attributed the murder of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri to Hezbollah. In Ottawa in 2010, Hezbollah supporter George Galloway had warned of violent retaliation from his terrorist friends in the wake of that investigation laying blame on them.

Iran-supported Hezbollah is linked to Iranian ally Bashar al-Assad, Syria`s ruler, while the Sunni opposition in Lebanon has sided with rebels trying to unseat the Syrian dictatorship. The murder of al-Hasam, along with the serious injuring of dozens of others in a car bomb attack, has led to the resignation of the Lebanese Cabinet as the conflict in the neighbouring country threatens to create chaos in a fractious Lebanon.

Former UN Ambassador Bolton warns of American decline under a 2nd Obama term

On a mini tour of Canadian cities Calgary and Toronto last Wednesday and Thursday, John Bolton, America's former Ambassador to the UN spoke of dire consequences for America's position in the world if Barack Obama is elected to a second term.

"It's not American strength but American weakness that our enemies find provocative," warned Bolton, a current adviser to Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney.

Barack Obama is the first US president in history to effectively renounce American exceptionalism, a term first described by the Frenchman Alexis de Tocqueville. The desire to be liked seems foremost in Obama's foreign policy goals, but Bolton observed it's easy to get one's adversaries to like you if you make concessions to them. Obama is a president who is happy to make concessions to Russia and China who have both stymied American interests repeatedly under his presidency. They have blocked sanctions against Iran and Syria and have provided diplomatic cover for North Korea.

Regarding the Iranian push to acquire a nuclear weapon, were Obama to be reelected, that would be a near certainty. Sanctions may be hurting Iran`s economy, but they are having no affect on its nuclear program and military action or regime change there is the only way of preventing their getting a nuclear bomb.

Iran`s largest embassy in the world is in Venezuela, not because of long-standing cultural ties, as Bolton noted, but because the authoritarian regime of Iranian ally Hugo Chavez is helping Iran launder oil money to circumvent international banking sanctions.

American military strength is at its weakest since Jimmy Carter, whose policies Obama has been increasingly replicating. If Bolton is correct, an unhindered Obama, who was disclosed to have promised Russian President Medvedev that he would have ` more flexibility` to make further concessions and weaken American missile defenses in a second term, would lead the United States down a disastrous path given the opportunity.


Tuesday, October 16, 2012

After the Romney Obama debate

A much more spirited performance out of Barack Obama in tonight's debate may have given him a slight edge in terms of delivery. Romney highlighted that we in Canada have a 20% lower corporate tax rate, which is one of the reasons our economy is better than that of the USA. But Mitt Romney's hammering Obama about his economic stewardship made an important factor very clear. It's not Romney who is Obama's most formidable foe. What should sink the president's hope for re-election is Obama's own dismal record.

Be it energy policy, unemployment, immigration reform, national security, foreign policy, the economic recovery and the deficit, Barack Obama has been incompetent his role as president of the United States.

If Obama's record of failure is rewarded with another term, there is no reason to think he will do any better. There are, however, plenty of reasons to think America's divisive, inept Chief Executive will make things even worse.

Live Debate Coverage - Obama vs Romney Foreign Policy Debate

The debate begins at 9 PM Eastern time

Live coverage can be seen here




Just out of curiousity, where is the Liberal outrage about the proroguing of Ontario's legislature?

A minority government faces a contempt motion and the head of government prorogues the legislature to get his party in order.

That happened a couple of years ago when Stephen Harper did it at the federal level and the Liberals were calling for mass demonstrations.

Now Dalton McGuinty does it and...we see what hypocrites the Liberals are.

The resignation last night of McGuinty leaves the question of who on his caucus will run for the leadership.

The Ontario Liberal caucus sucks. The Premier who said he wanted to be the "Education Primier" appointed Laurel Broten,  Ontario's worst ever Minister of Education. With former Attorney General Michael Bryant, McGuinty's best potential successor, having a cloud of disgrace hanging over him after his killing of a bicycle courier, Children and Youth Service Minister Eric Hoskins may be among the best on the weak Liberal bench.

Tavis Smiley spreading Farrakhan's message of anti-Semitism on PBS

From Werner Cohn:

"The guest of the show was Phyllis Bennis, Institute for Policy Studies, known for her radical anti-Israel views.   
Things started badly when Ms. Bennis opined that, according to common opinion, Israel assassinated five Iranian scientists.  This was given, more or less, as fact rather than conjecture.  
Shortly thereafter, Mr. Smiley opined as follows:  "let's be frank about it, Jewish money matters" in the current election campaign, referring to Jewish contributors to Romney.    
Then Ms. Bennis, approximately as follows:  no no no, it's not Jewish money that is so bad, it's pro-Israel money.  I'm Jewish myself, and I am not one of those bad Jews.   
Then the clincher by Ms. Bennis, which was left unchallenged by Mr. Smiley (I'm quoting from memory):  one of the troubles with both sides in the presidential campaign is that they do not challenge the "war crimes" of Israel.     
So the viewer was left with the following impression:  1) "Jewish money" is a problem, but apparently not Presbyterian or Baptist money (acc. to Mr. Smiley);  and 2) Israel has committed war crimes, given as a fact without qualification.    
Conclusion:  a hateful, anti-Semitic, biased message on Public Television, brought to you, in part, with taxpayer money."

Smiley is palley with the lunatic hatemonger Louis Farrakhan, so it's no surprising they hold similar views about "Jew money"




Sunday, October 14, 2012

John Bolton on the Obama/Clinton rift over the murders of US Embassy staff in Libya



Remember, you can still get tickets to see Bolton in conversation with SUN TV's Brian Lilley this week in Calgary and Toronto by clicking the ad below




plus...

Felix Baumgartner's freefall from space - LIVE STREAM



h/t Small Dead Animals

Thousands of British Muslims protest against Google



A protest by thousands of British Muslims outside the offices of Google in London today is just the first in an orchestrated attempt to force the company to remove an anti-Islamic film from website YouTube.   
Thousands of Muslims travelled from as far as Glasgow to take part in the demonstration, ahead of a planned million-strong march in Hyde Park in coming weeks.   
Anger over the 'Innocence of Muslims', which the organisers say insults the Prophet Mohammad and demeans Muslims, remains available to watch on the video website YouTube, a subsidiary of Google.

Shades of Luka Magnotta! - Cannibalism in China

Forgotten amid western fears of domination by the juggernaut of the Chinese economy is that modernity has not yet reached most of the one billion plus people in the People's Republic.

Other than business news and the occasional human rights story, there is little occidentals hear about internal Chinese goings on. But the proprietor of a local restaurant who keeps up with news from home told me about this story that a Korean news service broke about the Chines government warning people off capsules that supposedly have invigorating powers and are made from human flesh.

Keep in mind that tigers and white rhinoceroses have been hunted to near extinction because of eastern belief that their body parts were essential for traditional remedies and aphrodisiacs.

Apparently, human flesh is believed by some in China to have similar properties.

The story reports that there are "deadly super bacteria" in the human flesh capsules being sold there.

If true, this sort of thing could explain why such devastating viruses have originated in that part of the world.

The link to the Korean News Service item is here (use google translate, which unfortunately is poor for that item, but you'll get the gist of it).

--  --  --  --  --

In other horrifying news from abroad, four students at the Nigerian University of Port Harcourt were tortured and burnt alive after being accused of stealing laptops and cell phones. The video can be viewed here, but be warned,  it is extremely graphic and disturbing.

Saturday, October 13, 2012

Canada's "Old Left" still pushing the vapid, irrelevant Occupy Movement


From Greg Renouf's  blog Genuine Witty:
..They’re the people who hijacked the Occupy movement and changed the focus from being about problems with the banks and corporations to focussing on issues like identity politics, and promoting the NDP. In Canada, one of the commonalities of the Activistocrats is that most of them have connections to Judy Rebick- one of the queens of this country’s old-left…   
Rebick is a well-known feminist, and a professor at Ryerson university. Rebick is also deeply connected to the NDP- including radicals like CAW economist Jim Stanford, Former NDP MP (and shoplifter) Svend Robinson and radical NDP  MP Libby Davies. Rebick also has very tight ties with Alex Hundert, a currently incarcerated criminal who was a ringleader for the violence at Toronto’s G20- and, with Harsha Walia (who was at the G20 wearing a mask) an advocate for the violence on Vancouver’s streets during the 2010 Olympics.
Rebick was also the founder of Rabble.ca, a radical online publication funded by the unions. Rabble is famous for it’s lock-step support of old-left policies- they’ve been caught publishing a number of outright lies. Rabble has also labelled the vandals from the G20 as ‘political prisoners’, and has given a lot of support to Black Bloc anarchists. Rabble is also well-known as the slander machine of the old-left, I know this from experience after they published (and quickly retracted) two stories slandering your’s truly.
When it comes to the radical old-left, and violent anarchists, Judy Rebick is the Kevin Bacon of both worlds…


At Occupy Toronto in Oct. 2011
Does the woman holding the sign understand the irony?


Did Biden's performance hurt or help?

When your opponents can make an attack ad out of your performance, it's usually not an indicator of your having done a good job.

Republican National Committee releases Biden - Laughing at the Issues video from the Vice-Presidential debate

Friday, October 12, 2012

It's become a crime to drive with Israeli flags in Dearborn Michigan


"On 9-14-2012, Dearborn Fordson High School principal called the police on me for driving with 2 Israeli flags on my truck.

"The Dearborn police were one car behind me when this student threw a bottle on my windshield. The police did not stop the student, but instead stopped me for 30 minutes asking me why I would display Israeli flags on my truck."

Breaking - Ed Klein on The Clinton-Obama rift


...After Bill Clinton delivered his electrifying speech at the Democratic National Convention, many political observers concluded that the Clintons and Obamas had called a truce to their long-running feud. Under their armistice, Clinton agreed to make speeches and appear in TV commercials for Obama, acting like a booster rocket for the Democratic ticket in the remaining weeks of the campaign. 
..In fact, since the convention, Clinton and Obama have had a serious falling-out over two issues: the president’s preparation and lamentable performance in his debate with Mitt Romney, and the question of who should be assigned blame — Obama or Secretary of State Hillary Clinton — for the intelligence and security screw-up in Benghazi, Libya.    
This new rift, which the Clintons and Obamas have managed to keep secret from the media, has poisoned their relations to such an extent that it could conceivably have an impact on the outcome of the presidential election.     
...“Bill thought that he and Obama were on friendly terms after the convention,” one source told me. “He couldn’t believe that the White House didn’t even extend him the courtesy of a return phone call. He concluded that Obama’s arrogance knows no bounds.”

Last night's Vice Presidential Debate on Video



Biden may not have been sipping Kool-Aid on stage, but it was clear by his smug, smiling, smirky, and snearing delivery that he was trying to sell it to the American people. They drank it four years ago, Joe, but this time Americans are taking the water much more seriously.    
Biden's a decent guy but Thursday he was thrown into the quarterback's role which Obama abandoned in the Romney debate. While he moved the ball downfield at times, Biden relied on the same, status-quo playcalling --blaming everyone else for the poor performance of the team in the field. Almost on cue, Biden's finger-pointing offense sputtered. And when he should have walked off the field, he rudely tried to hog the ball. Maybe he thought the replacement refs were running the show. Whatever, Cranky Biden took too many snaps, and fumbled away a chance to make it heroically across the goal line.
..Biden interrupted Congressman Ryan 82 times in 90 minutes. The rudeness reaffirmed how the Obama administration has talked down to the American people since 2008 in a very partisan and divisive manner. It was evident in Biden's high-strung defense of Obamacare which, as Ryan countered, is not a bipartisan law, imposes 12 of 18 new taxes on the middle class, and robs Medicare recipients of $720 billion in services. Biden laughed it off. Independent voters watching at home probably didn't.



Bonus - Eye of the Sparrow - a bad lip reading of the Presidential debate

Thursday, October 11, 2012

As Bill 115 dispute drags, parents need to ensure School Trustees are putting children first

Always on the lookout for new ways to get into trouble, last week I became the co-Chair of the Parents Council (what used to be called PTA in America) for this academic year at one of Toronto's largest high schools.  Central Technical School is at the heart of Toronto's downtown Ward 10 and in addition to an outstanding football legacy, boasts the best high school fine arts and computer programs in the city.

Since we hadn't yet appointed a regular delegate to it, one of my first duties was to attend a meeting of what is known as the Ward 10 Council. The meeting has parent representatives from all of the schools in the Ward, community members and representatives from the Toronto District School Board (TDSB) , a body of which I have been highly critical in the past for using the education system to indoctrinate children to particular (and frequently peculiar) social beliefs. The meeting was held in a sparse room at the Scadding Court Community Centre, which is on the northwestern edge of the notoriously crime-infested Alexandra Park community housing neighborhood. Among the thirty or so people in attendance was the ward's School Trustee, who is also the Chair of the Board of Trustees, Chris Bolton.

The Liberal Government's Bill 115 which, among other aspects, will freeze pay increases to teachers' salaries, was the subject of lengthy discussion. Bolton twice repeated the phrase "real or imagined" when discussing the government's concerns about the need for fiscal restraint that has led to the introduction of Bill 115.  It's in no one's imagination that Ontario's credit rating was downgraded earlier this year, that we are facing huge deficits and there is need to make sure we don't spend more money than we take in. What, if any concern Mr. Bolton has for those governmental responsibilities went unaddressed at the meeting. But there were other priorities he did make clear.

The particular focus on Bill 115 that evening was the way that Teachers' Unions reactions to it will affect extracurricular school programs. Regardless of the varied opinions about the merits and wisdom of the concerned unions and the sometimes bizarre dictates of the TDSB, there was unanimity in recognizing that individual teachers are for the most part exemplary, dedicated individuals tasked with performing a difficult job and generally are very good at it.

However, some teachers are withdrawing their participation in extracurricular activities, hoping that parents will register enough displeasure that it will put negotiating pressure on the Provincial government.  The result being that many children will lose out on a valuable part of their school experience as long as the dispute continues.

One parent representing an elementary school introduced the possibility of qualified parent volunteers taking on supervision of extracurricular activities until teachers resumed that task.His understanding was that Parents' Councils are able to take out insurance so that it was permissible and he wanted clarification on that from School Board Chair Bolton.

With what appeared to be great reluctance, Bolton conceded that as long as the school principle was on premises, such insurance could be acquired and parents could indeed facilitate on-site after-school programming. After 6 PM, the principle's presence was not required and anyone could get a permit to use school premises for activities.

What seemed to me of greater priority to Mr. Bolton was his stated concern that teachers and their unions would be offended that parents were undermining their efforts at putting pressure on the government.

Red flags went up as soon as I heard that remark. Speaking up, I felt the need to remind Mr. Bolton that we all recognized the fine work of most teachers. But insofar as any trade-offs in the labor dispute goes, it's the interests of the children that need to be his first priority. Mr. Bolton gave a response that acknowledged that. But a number of us remained unconvinced about his willingness to follow through.

Mr. Bolton is closely affiliated with local City Councilor Adam Vaughan, who is considered one of the leaders of the "left wing" of Toronto's City Council. Though unions are prohibited from making direct financial donations, they make significant contributions to campaigns of politicians they support, like Vaughan and Bolton, by strongly encouraging members to volunteering manpower.

Following the meeting I was approached by some of the parents there. One of them said to me about Bolton, "he obviously knew about it, but wasn't going to say a word about us being able to continue extracurricular activities unless someone had brought it up."  Many came out of the meeting unsure of whose interests he was trying to protect.

The episode was a reminder that parents cannot simply trust to the faith that their School Trustees are acting in their interests rather than those of the unions on whose support they have become accustomed. I am not sure of  Mr. Bolton's or each school trustee's priorities. Clearly it is incumbent on any parent who cares about their child's well-being that they let these elected representatives know that we will be watching to ensure they put our children ahead of their political concerns.


Tuesday, October 9, 2012

New poll shows Romney has 4 point lead over Obama among likely voters


From Pew Research:
Fully 66% of registered voters say Romney did the better job in last Wednesday’s debate, compared with just 20% who say Obama did better. A majority (64%) of voters who watched the debate describe it as mostly informative; just 26% say it was mostly confusing.
In turn, Romney has drawn even with Obama in the presidential race among registered voters (46% to 46%) after trailing by nine points (42% to 51%) in September. Among likely voters, Romney holds a slight 49% to 45% edge over Obama. 


Sesame Street wants Obama to take Big Bird ad down


The production company behind Sesame Street is asking political campaigns to refrain from using their characters in campaign ads — including an Obama campaign ad that uses Big Bird.
"Sesame Workshop is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization and we do not endorse candidates or participate in political campaigns. We have approved no campaign ads, and as is our general practice, have requested that the ad be taken down," the company said in a Tuesday statement.


Highlights from London Mayor Boris Johnson's speech to the British Tory conference

Some funny stuff here - he's quite the charismatic speaker...

Thomas Sowell on America's "Phony-in-Chief"


From The American Spectator:
..In his speech -- delivered in a ghetto-style accent that Obama doesn't use anywhere except when he is addressing a black audience -- he charged the federal government with not showing the same concern for the people of New Orleans after hurricane Katrina hit as they had shown for the people of New York after the 9/11 attacks, or the people of Florida after hurricane Andrew hit.
Departing from his prepared remarks, he mentioned the Stafford Act, which requires communities receiving federal disaster relief to contribute 10 percent as much as the federal government does.
Senator Obama, as he was then, pointed out that this requirement was waived in the case of New York and Florida because the people there were considered to be "part of the American family." But the people in New Orleans -- predominantly black -- "they don't care about as much," according to Barack Obama.
If you want to know what community organizers do, this is it -- rub people's emotions raw to hype their resentments. And this was Barack Obama in his old community organizer role, a role that should have warned those who thought that he was someone who would bring us together, when he was all too well practiced in the arts of polarizing us apart.
Why is the date of this speech important? Because, less than two weeks earlier, on May 24, 2007, the United States Senate had in fact voted 80-14 to waive the Stafford Act requirement for New Orleans, as it had waived that requirement for New York and Florida. More federal money was spent rebuilding New Orleans than was spent in New York after 9/11 and in Florida after hurricane Andrew, combined.


Monday, October 8, 2012

Wikileaks founder Assange screws over friends and supporters - leaving them on the hook to pay for bail-term violations


Former BBC journalist Vaughan Smith, who hosted Assange at his country house for more than a year as the WikiLeaks founder fought extradition, was among the nine supporters who had argued that they should not be punished for trying to “serve the public interest” in the case.
But Chief Magistrate Howard Riddle on Monday ordered them to pay 93,500 pounds ($150,000) by Nov. 6, saying that while he accepted the supporters had acted in good faith, they had failed in their “basic duty” to ensure Assange surrendered.
“They must have understood the risk and the concerns of the courts,” he said in his ruling, ordering each of the nine to pay part of 140,000 pounds ($224,300) originally pledged.

Dead Heat! Post election poll shows debate winner Romney tied with Obama

PRINCETON, NJ -- Registered voters' preferences for president are evenly split in the first three days of Gallup tracking since last Wednesday's presidential debate. In the three days prior to the debate, Barack Obama had a five-percentage-point edge among registered voters.



Socialist morons at website of NDP Deputy Leader's spouse want violent revolution (again)

The imbeciles at rabble.ca, the website published by the same-sex spouse of NDP Deputy Leader Libby Davies, are frustrated that the majority of the Canadian public doesn't vote for their vision of socialist totalitarianism.

So not for the first time, they are debating the merits of violent revolution in Canada in a forum called "What if the black bloc have the right idea?"

Here are a few samples:


Do we have to wait till feudalism sets in completely before we do something? Its doubtful we would have the brains or nerve to stand up even then.
Im not a member of the black bloc but increasingly my thinking is becoming more radical then theirs.
Dont you guys/girls get sick of the insanity going on with conservatives? Whats your tipping point? When your children get indoctrinated? When would you be willing to do anything to get rid of conservatives?



"..once again we have this confusion about peaceful vs. violent. Violent actions are necessary in various forms all the time, both offensively and defensively."


Im not a communist but who says a violent takeover would be for the worst? Honestly.
I am not a violent person but when the choices, more and more, appear to be "be quiet and grab your ankles" or a radical takeover, what hope is there for anyone on the left?!
Where is any progress? Waiting and the usual outlets arent working.


"Well, pacifism is a pathology in many respects. It's the very same condition the state relinquishes to the masses as their right, when it graciously allows people the freedom to say almost anything they want, individually or in groups, so long as none of the projects of the corporate state are seriously interrupted.  It's the equivalent of the corporate state telling protesters to 'knock yourselves out,' and in return pacifism agrees to perform the ritual of democratic dissent to assist in maintaining the general facade; to be conducted from approved assembly areas and along agreed upon routes, with the requisite papers in order."


"First off just because most of the western world hasent had a coup that doesnt mean it isent necessary."
"Im not just talking about bricks in windows, im talking about storming parliament, at what point does that become a reasonable thing to do."



What better way to celebrate Canadian Thanksgiving than with William Shatner frying a turkey?

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!




Sunday, October 7, 2012

Tony Soprano is back!...selling satellite TV in Israel

Don't worry!
The commercial is in English with Hebrew subtitles




You might also enjoy this very interesting retrospective article in Vanity Fair featuring The Sopranos actors and creator looking back at the series.


Pakistani Intelligence Service behind attack on Buddhist temples in Bangladesh


From Bangladesh's Weekly Blitz:
Pakistani spy agency Inter-Service Intelligence [ISI] is believed to be mastermind behind pre-planned attack on the Buddhist monasteries in Bangladesh. Extremist Muslims and some unidentified people, who are believed to be Rohingyas from the neighboring Myanmar vandalised and set on fire Buddhist monasteries on September 30, 2012 on hearing of a Facebook post desecrating the Qur'an, which was tagged on the wall of a Buddhist youth by someone else. Within 24 hours of this notoriety, a fresh spate of sectarian violence, two more Buddhist monasteries were burnt down in the same locality. In Patiya of Chittagong, more than 500 workers of Western Marine set on fire two Buddhist temples, Kalagaon Ratnankur Bouddha Bihar and Lakhera Abhoy Bouddha Bihar, and a Hindu temple, Kalagaon Nabarun Sangha Durgabari after midnight past September 30. The total number of damaged temples in Cox's Bazar and Chittagong now stands at 22.   
According to information, agents and operatives of ISI became extremely active for past few months within the Chittagong Hill Tract areas under the garb of non governmental organizations. They have been giving provocations to the Muslim population in that area of "conspiracy of vested quarters" of evicting them [Bangla speaking people] from Chittagong Hill Tract areas with the help of the ruling party. They were even instigated of waging secret war against the religious minority groups in the locality, compelling them to migrate to India or Myanmar.
 

Saturday, October 6, 2012

From the Legion of Decency - the Scroungers and the CRTC's stifling of competition


Although Steve McQueen achieved icon status with his role as “The Cooler King” in “The Great Escape”, my favorite character in that film was James Garner as Hendley, “The Scrounger” .

Hendley could get you anything you wanted. Didn’t matter that he was just another lowly dogface in a heavily guarded Nazi POW camp, you wanted something, he found it for you.

State of the art forgery tools, cameras and dark room chemicals, classified documents. Didn’t matter. You wanted it, Hendley made sure you got it.

There’s something irresistible about somebody who can deliver whatever you want whenever you want it. It’s like having your own private Las Vegas.

We apparently have a lot of people like Hendley in Canada these days. All of them either work in broadcasting or at regulating it....