Aboriginal Hunger Strike diversion - On Native Reserves, where is the money actually going???

Monies that should go to provide better housing, education and water treatment are diverted for other things at the discretion of the leadership and often at the expense of the people living on the reserve but the politically correct don’t want to discuss that. 

It has become a culture of dependence based on a culture of victimization that is used by too many aboriginal leaders as a diversion from their own failure to meet the needs of their people through better governance and management of their resources. 

It is true that the Indian Act needs to be eliminated and nobody would be happier to see it go than the Federal Government. The fact that it still exists is a testament to the fact that First Nations want it both ways. They want the rights and benefits provided under the act without any of the responsibilities that would come without the act in place. 

Too many have the same adolescent concept of being sovereign nations as nationalists do in Quebec. They want to be masters in their own house but have Canadians foot the bill for it. That isn’t sovereignty, that’s petulance and merely the illusion of independence.

h-t Blazing Cat Fur 

Muslim fanatics attempt to shut down free speech with lawfare

From Kathy Shaidle at Five Feet of Fury:

As we’ve known for some time, Canadian Muslims have been putting together a lawfare case designed to silence my husband’s blog, BlazingCatFur.

Now they’ve admitted this online at a Khomenist site, asking for donations to support The Man Who Is Suing Us in separate actions related to Canada’s Human Rights Commissions.

They specifically say they are targeting my husband because he is a “Zionist.”

(Note too that they spout the usual stuff about just wanting to be good Canadians in multicultural, inter-faith-dialogue Canada — while planning to destroy anyone who dares to criticize them.)

Toronto Mayor Rob Ford wins libel trial - judge finds plaintiff to be a fraudster and liar

Ford was sued by over a Toronto Sun interview in which he said an untendered contract awarded to Tuggs Inc for a concession at the city`s boardwalk smacks of corruption.

Tuggs owner George Foulidis sued Ford for libel and the case was dismissed on interesting grounds. Evidently, George Foulidis was not listed as a senior officer of Tugs Inc when Ford`s interview took place. George Foulidis`brother Konstantinos was the one who was listed as the president, secretary and treasurer. Therefore no reasonable person would have taken Ford`s comments about Tuggs to refer to George Foulidis.


The judge also noted that the plaintiff, George Foulidis was a fraudster and a liar.

Which would give him something in common with lots of people out to get Rob Ford.

You can read the judgement here

Robert Bork and the birth of modern hyper-partisanship

Rivalry and competition between political parties is the essence of democracy. It's as old as politics and will never cease. But at the core of the legislative process in western democracies, there used to be the idea that the interests of the pubic should take precedence over the opportunity to get one upmanship over the opposition. The Democratic Party's' treatment of Robert Bork during his 1987 nomination to the US Supreme Court changed all that.

It also changed the nature of the highest judicial appointments in America from taking the best and the brightest to the quietest and most pliable.

Bork, who died last week at the age of 85, was nominated by President Ronald Reagan to replace retiring Justice Lewis Powell. By any conceivable legal standard, Bork was eminently qualified to take a seat on the highest court. As an Appellate Judge he wrote the majority of the judgments for the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia from 1982 to 1988 without once having a decision overturned by the Supreme Court. His Achilles Heel was that he was outspoken.

President Ronald Reagan with Robert Bork

A prominent legal scholar and thinker, he has published books and written decisions that made his position on the law and the Constitution clear.

After almost two full presidential terms of Ronald Reagan riding roughshod over the Democrats, and with another election looming, Ted Kennedy and his party decided to flex their muscles to try to reassert their place in the power sphere.  Bork was the opportunity they saw to get there.

Bork was publicly vilified, lied about and ultimately rejected as a Supreme Court justice. And though they won the battle, it was a Pyrrhic victory. An enduing, spiralling, petty tit-for-tat in Congress has lasted for the last quarter century that has made cooperation between the Republicans and Democrats increasingly difficult.

And since 1987, Presidents knew that strong, publicly stated opinions of outstanding legal minds would make  them assailable to the vicious, unfounded attacks launched by Kennedy and his colleagues against Bork. So less forthright, less brilliant, and less vulnerable jurists who were quietly vetted by presidential administrations became Supreme Court appointees.

Bork's defeat became America's open wound.

With his death, now might be an appropriate time to look back and see if there is a way to start healing a still debilitated process.

Playing politics with Roma refugee claims

Hungarians call their country Magyarország. Literally translated, it means country of the Magyars-  a distinct race of people who compose 92.3% of the country’s population. In comparison, 1.9% of the country’s population is Roma. So, out of 10 million Hungarians, only 190,000 are Roma. Politically, the Roma have very little power. 

Are Hungarians more racist than other cultures? After living and working there for three years, I have to say that they are- at least, more overtly so. Many Magyars have anger and hate for the Roma- equally, many Roma have anger and hate the Magyars. And, from my experiences walking through Budapest with an African-American friend, both sides are completely freaked out by black people. Much of Hungary’s roots comes from the peasantry- peasants aren’t well known for their tolerance towards outsiders.    

Racial tensions have got quite high in a few towns. 

UPDATE (Jan 7/13): The main point of the blog piece with the link above by GenuineWitty is that the validity of refugee claims by the Roma from Hungary are dubious at best. However a reader of Hungarian heritage took offence at the assertion that Magyars are particularly racist and sent in the following comment and asked it be posted anonymously in the main text of the item – as this is significant and rather interesting information, I agreed :

Magyars, like any ethnic group, contain good and bad people in proportions probably no different than any other group, although in my experience, the good far outweigh the bad. I take great exception to the statement that Hungarians are particularly racist. The amount of racism towards minorities in Hungary is no more and probably less than in any other European country.

I do agree with the blog author’s assertion (that can be read in the link) that the Roma refugee claims from Hungary are bogus, but he identified one town as being egregiously racist and the background information proves that it is not true.

In the town of Gyöngyöspata, there were considerable tensions between the Magyar and Roma communities due to the conduct of Roma criminal gangs which were pilfering from non-Roma citizens. The GenuineWitty blog implied that a local militia was formed by racists to intimidate the Roma. That implication is misleading and unfair. He failed to state that there were a great number of incidents there where Roma criminals were thieving from Magyars and violently assaulting people who complained to the police.  The town’s local police detachment closed down at that time and the citizens had no other recourse to protect their property and personal safety other than to form a local militia. Their actions were not racist, these were citizens banding together to protect their lives from criminals.

I hope in the future, before making baseless accusations and slanderously tarring all Hungarians with the label of being racist, people will look more closely at the facts and understand that Magyar can just as easily be the victims of racist misrepresentation as the Roma or any other ethnic group.

Merry Christmas from Eye on a Crazy Planet!

Your chance to help fight against suppression of free speech

EMERGENCY FUNDRAISER FOR BLOGGER BLAZINGCATFUR

MONDAY JANUARY 7TH,   7:30 PM

TORONTO ZIONIST CENTER,  788 MARLEE AVENUE

For additional information call JDL at 416-736-7000

LET US START 2013 THE RIGHT WAY.  BLAZINGCATFUR NEEDS OUR FULL SUPPORT

A LEGAL FUNDRAISER FOR A CANADIAN BLOGGER ENDORSED BY MARK STEYN.

Canada officially declares Iran a terror state

The government of Canada made changes to the Criminal Code yesterday in which Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Qods Force has been declared a terrorist entity.

The IRGC Qods Force is wholly funded by the government of Iran and the Canadian declaration and is further emphasis by the NATO member that Iran is considered a terrorist state. According to the announcement by Public Safety Minister Vic Toews:

“The list of terrorist entities sends a strong message that Canada will not tolerate terrorist activities, including terrorist financing, or those who support such activities,” said Minister Toews. “That is why Canada has made the principled decision to add the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Qods Force to the list.”

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Qods Force is the clandestine branch of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps responsible for extraterritorial operations, and for exporting the Iranian Revolution through activities such as facilitating terrorist operations.  The Qods Force provides arms, funding and paramilitary training to extremist groups, including the Taliban, Lebanese Hizballah, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command. Earlier this year, under the Justice for Victims of Terrorism Act, the Government of Canada listed Iran as a state that supports terrorism.

In another significant move, the Canadian government also removed the Mujahedin-e-Khalq from the list of terror organizations. The MEK is a rebel group opposing the Iranian regime.

Iran's Press TV says Israel behind Connecticut mass murder

According to PressTV, Iran’s state-run English language media outlet, Israeli death squads were responsible for last week’s shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary that took the lives of 20 children and a number of adults. You’re not misreading that.    

The article fashions the wild ravings of Michael Harris, a former gubernatorial candidate from Arizona and present day neo-Nazi ally, into the narrative, invoking Lee Harvey Oswald and other points of conspiratorial fascination.

I had an overcooked steak the other day - no doubt that too was a Zionist plot. The Press TV article was written by a cretin named Gordon Duff, Senior Editor of Veterans Today,  an online Mecca for 9-11 conspiracy crazies and Holocaust deniers.

PRESS TV is the same outfit that Justin Trudeau's brother and senior political adviser Alexandre partnered up with for his pro-Iran propaganda documentary. 

h/t Blazing Cat Fur

Obama is giving high-tech weaponry to Muslim Brotherhood

US sending 20 more F-16s to Egypt, despite turmoil in Cairo

h/t Small Dead Animals

Liberal leadership candidate Garneau refuses to attend Trudeau's Islamic revival conference

Justin Trudeau is addressing an Islamic conference this week featuring speakers who support terror groups and Islamic extremism.

According to the Toronto Sun:   Liberal leadership candidate Marc Garneau said, “As an MP I’m ready to meet with any group at any time to talk about our shared values of peace, tolerance and equality. In this case, I have concerns. One reason I wouldn’t attend myself is because I’m not sure (these people) share those same values.”






Update (h/t Blazing Cat Fur):   The Friends of Hamas, otherwise known as the Canadian Council on American-Islamic relations, is upset with Garneau for his statement. With enemies like those, it's yet another positive indication that Garneau is by far the Liberal's best hope.

Good news everyone! Canadian school kids are now getting Marxist indoctrination in Math class

More on this here

special thanks to SdaMatt2a for the video

Kathy Shaidle's Adventures in Radio

...the Montreal Massacre is held up as proof that all (white) men are wife-beating rapists-in-waiting, and all guns are penis substitutes that should be banned. 

The nation’s flags—I’m not joking—are flown at half-mast. It’s a liberal High Holy Day, commemorated most seriously at college campuses.   

Hence the University of Western Ontario’s student radio station’s decision to ban male voices on the air this December 6.

This left Ontario libertarians Robert Metz and Robert Vaughan with a dilemma. Their show Just Right airs on CHRW every Thursday and comprises the only hour of the week devoted to non-Marxist programming. 

Banned from their own program, the Bobs asked me and our mutual vagina-having friend Mary Lou Ambrogio of the International Free Press Society to sit in for them. We agreed. I announced my guest-hosting gig on my blog.

That’s when Warren Kinsella tried to prevent me from going on the air.

Read all of Kathy's piece at TAKI'S MAGAZINE

Justin Trudeau may be a suicide bomb for the Liberal Party of Canada

They have a brilliant candidate in Marc Garneau, but the Liberals may choose Trudeau as the newest way to alienate Canadian voters

Canada, US, U.K. reject UN control of Internet

Canada said it was forced to reject the proposed treaty because of its commitment to an Internet "in which people are free to participate, communicate, organize and exchange information."

Iran's Agents In Canada Plan TTC Advertising Campaign

The Islamic Shia Ithna Asheri Jamaat or ISIJ, an organization with its own sordid history, is headed by Maulana Sayyid Muhammad Rizvi. Rizvi is a founder of the Ahlul Bayt Assembly Of Canada. Web site - http://islamabc.org/

The Ahlul Bayt Society is a propaganda front for the Iranian regime as detailed in this report byMemri.org. 

Read more on this at BLAZING CAT FUR

U of T's Women' s Studies is producing hateful totalitarians

The Men's Rights movement strikes me as a silly but harmless minor phenomenon. It's not something I've ever inquired about seriously and it only ever evoked snippets of imagery, like a vague memory of Robert Bly's Iron John, which inspired some men to go out into the woods in groups and howl at each other or some such nonsense. It sounded more like a Wolfmen's Rights movement and seemed about as frivolous as being a vampire aficionado.

However, the world and the relationship between the sexes has changed a great deal in the last forty years and it certainly is a subject that merits exploration from a variety of perspectives. A Men's Rights group at the University of Toronto brought in Dr. Warren Farrell, one of the better known theorists on the subject,  last month to discuss some of the issues related to the changing expectations that males have to face in our evolving culture.

That infuriated a group of U of T's Women's Studies students and in the spirit of academic freedom promoted in that department and in the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, they attempted to shut Farrell's speech down.

Falsely and maliciously attempting to portray anything to do with Men's Rights groups as "promotion of rape culture," protesters barricaded the speech, trying to prevent entry and attacked police officers there.

The communist-dominated University of Toronto Student's Union issued a statement that the protest was an "information picket." But the video below shows that unless their definition of information includes physical assault, deprivation of free speech, vitriolic, profane insults and shrill hysteria, U of T's Student Union contains blatant liars.



Anyone who chooses Women's Studies as their area of academic pursuit is unlikely to have made that choice as a preference over advanced physics or medicine. But even from the sub-par intellects of these people, their behavior is abysmal, suggesting mental illness rather than political objections. Evidently operating from idiotic assumptions they were conditioned to accept in Women's Studies, they label anything that challenges their position in the pecking order of victimology as "hate speech."

Farrell's talk, which can be seen in its entirety below, seems thoughtful, balanced and addresses some interesting concerns. Only the most melodramatic imagination combined with deceitful intent could construe it as anything resembling 'hate.'



The Farrell lecture on November 16  eventually was able to take place, but only through the stringent efforts of police. The University of Toronto's Provost finally got around to issuing a statement on the matter on December 11, but that seemed to mainly deal with concern for the well-being of histrionic protesters who were exposed and identified on a Men's Rights website.

I am unlikely to take much of an interest in the Men's Rights movement since, despite the best efforts of some of the imbeciles in Gender and Women's Studies programs, I've never felt particularly oppressed as a male in society.  (That of course does not include a couple of my prior romantic relationships, but I'm not disposed towards blaming the whole world for my own choices and I've always managed to escape with my hide more-or-less intact.) However the totalitarianism and hatred promoted in Women's and Gender Studies manifested by a proclivity to suppress ideas and free speech, could  blow up in their faces.

Who knows? The way things are going, and thanks to some boneheads at the University of Toronto acting in the name of feminism,  it wouldn't be surprising if Men's Rights became the next big civil rights issue.


h/t GenuineWitty

Crazy, thy name is Blakeney

Our old friend, weirdo conspiracy theorist Joshua Blakeney, is up to his old tricks.

Here's a new definition for ironic - Blakeney is boasting on his website that his articles have been quoted in The National Post. Indeed they have - but only for the purpose of ridiculing him. Perhaps Blakeney is just a believer in the old adage, "there's no such thing as bad publicity."

Liberal leadership candidate Justin Trudeau and Islamic terror...the links continue

Justin Trudeau's senior policy adviser, who also happens to be his brother Alexandre, is a propagandist for the brutal, terror-sponsoring regime in Iran.

Now the would be Prime Minister who is seeking the leadership of the Liberal Party of Canada plans to deliver the keynote address to a conference sponsored by a group with links to the Hamas terror organization.

It's no longer a question of whether Mr. Trudeau the younger is just stupid, but whether he is stupid and evil. Or is he just so unprincipled and hungry for power, he'll make a deal with anyone?

Blazing Cat Fur Legal Defense Fund Drive

Blazing Cat Fur is a blog that is responsible for drawing attention to a great number of extremely serious matters of public interest.

His work, on a number of occasions, has led to municipal, provincial and federal government action. Items such as the Valley Park Mosqueteria and the East End Hate Madrassa are but two of the recent stories that never would have seen the light of day were it not for Blazing Cat Fur's exposure of them. The mainstream media appropriate the investigative work he does on his blog, without credit, on almost a daily basis.

Blazing Cat Fur is being sued by serial litigator Richard Warman for $500,000 for linking an item on his blog to Mark Steyn's website. It costs money to combat immoral abuses of the legal system.

If you are interested in preserving free speech and battling against those who would take your free speech rights away, a donation to the Blazing Cat Fur Legal Defense Fund is a great place to start.

The link for more information is HERE.

US will attack Iran in 4-5 months if they don't give up nukes

Washington has decided to negotiate directly with Iran, and will resort to military force in four or five months if diplomacy can’t persuade Tehran to relinquish its alleged atomic weapons program, Israel’s Channel 10 News reported on Tuesday night, quoting a senior American official.

Plus: Canada imposes sanctions against Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps

Steven Crowder gets assaulted by union thugs

At Michigan protest about new Right-to-Work legislation

In order to de-stigmatize mental illness, new Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of mental disorders declares everyone is crazy

Well..not exactly, but it's getting pretty darn close to that.

Nelson Mandela lied about Communist Party membership

The former South African president, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993, has always denied being a member of the South African branch of the movement, which mounted an armed campaign of guerrilla resistance along with the ANC.

But research by a British historian, Professor Stephen Ellis, has unearthed fresh evidence that during his early years as an activist, Mr Mandela did hold senior rank in the South African Communist Party, or SACP. He says Mr Mandela joined the SACP to enlist the help of the Communist superpowers for the ANC's campaign of armed resistance to white rule.

His book also provides fresh detail on how the ANC's military wing had bomb-making lessons from the IRA, and intelligence training from the East German Stasi, which it used to carry out brutal interrogations of suspected "spies" at secret prison camps.

Mercury Fog hits California Redwoods

Mercury tends to show up in strange places, like swordfish and sharks. Now researchers have detected small amounts of mercury in the fog that bathes the California redwoods, near Santa Cruz.

More and podcast at Scientific American

Toronto Star's Zerb lauds violent anarchist criminal halfwit - gee, who'd have thunk that?

Let’s begin with the title where she labels Hiscocks a “G20 Activist”. To label Hiscocks as an activist is to insult all of the people who do hard work to make change in this world. She was convicted for the same activities as Alex Hundert- training people to damage buildings and stores in downtown Toronto, and how to ‘de-arrest’ people from the police. The word for what Hiscocks did was ‘criminal’, not ‘activist’.     

Next, without questioning her poor logic, Zerbisias explains Hiscock’s complaint how she was unfairly put into maximum security without any sort of an explanation why. Are they kidding? Hiscocks was put into maximum security because she’s an evangelist for promoting violence and chaos on the streets of Toronto. It’s quite simple really- your average Grade Five student could understand this.    

Hiscocks crossed a serious line by teaching and encouraging kids to ‘de-arrest’ each other- a violent act by its definition.  She put a lot of young and impressionable kids at risk. She’s is in her late 30′s, the people she was training were often just out of high school. Encouraging younger people to getting into physical confrontations with the police is the height of irresponsibility.

Blame Canada: The Palestinian Version

A musical message from the Palestinian Minister of Uncontrollable Rage:





And as a bonus treat... the original:



h/t Blazing Cat Fur

Rick McGinnis on annual movie events and the decline of western cultural values

I probably watched this every year from the moment it became a staple of TV programming around the beginning of December - those "movie events" that the networks would advertise as if it were a really big deal that a movie, a real movie made for a lot of money with stars that showed in theatres and everything, was actually going to be on your TV! On Saturday night! Broughtto you by Ford!

Ford may yet win his appeal

The act, by the biggest of stretches, has no reasonable application to the Ford situation.

Paul Daly, associate law professor at the University of Montreal, says the MCIA is clearly not aimed at a Ford situation. The act, he said in an interview, is there to “prevent politicians from awarding contracts to their buddies, or making secret profits off the backs of taxpayers. That’s what you’re really worried about.” Mr. Daly adds, in a post on his Administrative Law Matters blog, that “objectively speaking, Ford simply did not have a ‘pecuniary interest’ which would justify depriving him of his right to speak and vote.”

Even the trial judge agreed that “there was absolutely no issue of corruption or pecuniary gain” on Mr. Ford’s part, a comment that — significantly — was repeated Wednesday by Superior Court Justice Gladys Pardu when she allowed Mr. Ford to stay in office until the appeal.

Furthermore, the $3,150 imbedded in council resolutions is an artificial pecuniary interest fabricated by other council members mostly to set Rob Ford up for embarrassment back in 2010. Then a councillor, Mr. Ford had used council stationary to solicit donations to his high school football charity — something he has admitted was “a mistake.”

Mischievous anti-Ford council members adopted the city Integity Commissioner’s recommendation to make Mr. Ford “reimburse” the $3,150 contributed by local businesses to the football charity. Under the City of Toronto Act, however, council had no authority to make any such order. Council can only punish Mr. Ford by either issuing a reprimand or by suspending Mr. Ford’s remuneration “for a period of up to 90 days.”

Libby Davies & Naomi Klein poverty pimping in Vancouver

“Unlike those investments, projects like Sequel 138 don’t require grants or ongoing subsidies from taxpayers, Maxwell said.” 

Projects like this can also build healthy communities. Kids who live in mixed-use buildings aren’t stigmatized for living in ‘the projects’. Ideas and communities intermingle- people learn to better tolerate and accept each other. This isn’t a utopian ideal- it actually works in many cities. Sequel 138 won’t bring us salvation- but it’s an important step forwards.    

So, considering this- why are the radicals so hell-bent against this project? Is it just the jobs?     

Of course not, it’s about their base of power. Think about it- if developers build 20 Sequel 138′s in Vancouver-East they will bring a significant change to the riding’s demographics. Despite creating 360 high-quality (and low maintenance) social housing units, they’ll bring hundreds of less radical (and less malleable) home owners. 

Communism Kills

An Open Letter to Toronto District School Board Chair Bolton and Director Spence regarding the Board's Strategy Consultations

Dear Trustee Bolton and Director Spence:

I am the Co-Chair of the Parents’/School Council at Central Technical School in Toronto, which as you know is one of the largest high schools in the city with a student population of over 1900.

Regarding the current consultations conducted by the TDSB for the K-12 Strategy for the coming years, there is an issue of very serious concern about which I would like to offer my comments.

The so-called social justice aspects of the curriculum frequently reflect a subjective and highly politicized interpretation of the word “justice”. As such, the way it is approached needs a very serious review, and in my opinion a complete overhaul. 

There are inappropriate attempts in the TDSB to integrate so-called social justice aspects into subjects like Math, where questions such as “Calculate how 5 global social issues could be solved if the US military budget were applied to them” are posed to children in their mid-teens. The obvious implication is that military budgets and the military in democratic countries like the US and Canada somehow detract from the resolution of social problems. What are not addressed are the catastrophic results that would occur if democracies did not have the means to protect themselves. Anyone who is familiar with European history between the World Wars understands the horrendous consequences of Britain and France’s decision to decommission most of its naval capabilities after WW1. One can have reasonable debates about such matters, but the clear purpose of questions of the nature in the example provided is to indoctrinate to a particular type of thinking. And frankly, the people at OISE (The Ontario Institute for Studies in Education) who have designed such questions have nowhere near the knowledge in geo-political affairs or history required to understand them thoroughly.

That is reflected further in the way the TDSB teaches about such issues as the internment of Japanese-Canadians during World War 2. It is right and proper this be taught.  But it is taught in middle school to students who are not instructed about the causes and history of the Second World War. Nor, as in innumerable such examples, are they yet provided with reasonable context, such as the treatment of minorities by Imperial Japan prior to and during the war. The result is an implication that Canada is and was a particularly and unusually racist country for its time when that is historically untrue.

In fact, the TDSB’s providing politicized indoctrination under the guise of social justice is becoming pervasive through the system. I was at the TDSB Futures conference earlier this year where Director Spence delivered an address. One of the keynote speakers was Tim Wise, who blamed the inequities in the education system on “white privilege.” That fatuous reasoning left absent the fact that inequities in education in Canada transcend racial divisions and far more often than not are independent of them. More alarming, Mr. Wise, with the apparent approbation of the TDSB, said that education needs to focus less on the individual and more on the collective, including collective racial identities.

                                                                                                                          

This flouts everything opponents of racism have been fighting for many years. As a society, we have been working towards achieving a color-blind world that deals with individuals as such and not as part of separate collectives differentiated by ‘race’ or ‘color.’

It is deeply disturbing that, while with the best of motives, the TDSB, has been working to counter such progress through its use of ill-advised trends put forward by politicized activists in the education system and in politicized programs in institutions like OISE.

These are but a very few of many examples currently occurring within the TDSB.

These questions are designed through programs at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, which has programs that specifically advocate for teachers to be activists against neo-liberalism (i.e. free-market, liberal democracies) in schools. These same people frequently advocate for solidarity with Communist Cuba. It should not be necessary to point out how disturbing it is that our children’s’ curriculum are in many instances designed by people who advocate against a system  that has produced the freest, most prosperous societies in the world’s history in favor of a repressive, totalitarian society that imprisons dissenters. Yet because of its recurrence in the TDSB, such admonitions are regrettably necessary and will be for the foreseeable future.

Honest people can disagree about ideas and we should always strive for improvement. People have a right to hold different opinions on how to approach the matters discussed above. Unfortunately, the term “critical thinking” which is so often used by TDSB personnel in describing the approach they want to instil actually means trying to create a “group think” that is critical of our democratic foundations while promoting ideologies that are antithetical to them.

Social justice for someone who admires Che Guevara has a very different meaning for those of us who believe in free speech and parliamentary democracy.  People have the right to share their views with their children on their own time, but not to attempt to indoctrinate the children in Toronto’s public school system with them. 

Some of the fault for the concerns I have delineated rests squarely with the Ontario Ministry of Education, which is responsible for the Province’s curriculum. But much of it also rests with the TDSB.

With the challenges facing our children, who will grow up in a world undergoing a technological revolution, the limited time they spend in schools should focus on giving them the tools they need for success in such a world. This is the focus on which I hope the TDSB will concentrate going forward.

Sincerely,

Richard Klagsbrun

Yay! Canadian sort of distinguishes herself by winning Bad Sex in Fiction Award

Author Nancy Huston

Auberon Waugh established the prize in 1993 to draw attention to the “crude, tasteless, and often perfunctory use of redundant passages of sexual description in contemporary novels, and to discourage it.”...

“Infrared” tells the story of a painful Florentine family holiday endured by Rena Greenblatt, a photographer who takes infrared images of her lovers at intimate moments.

“The Canon is part of my body,” Huston’s heroine confides. She isn’t coy when it comes to describing her encounters.

“Kamal and I are totally immersed in flesh, that archaic kingdom that brings forth tears and terrors, nightmares, babies and bedazzlements. The word pleasure is far too weak for what transpires there. So is the word bliss.”

Instead, she tries musical metaphors, bad Italian and images of “undulating space where the undulating skies make your non-body undulate.”

Get a copy of CBC Exposed signed by author Brian Lilley

A Postal Union that is vile and wastes your taxes

They are betraying both postal workers who pay dues and the public who pay taxes

Thomas Sowell on the hypocrisy of liberal/socialist elites

h/t Small Dead Animals

Slumdog Millionaire

The whole movie - at least until YouTube takes it down

Need for tighter sanctions on Iranian airlines

An ex-Russian passenger plane (Tu-154), previously owned by the state-run 'Iran AirTours' airlines is now converted by the 'Iranian Aircraft Manufacturing Industries' as a military testbed. Look closely at the tail section of the above aircraft and you'll be able to see a nose section (orange cone) of an F-5A fighter jet. The caption from the original photo says this airplane will be able to carry/test UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles) in the future. This jetliner was located at the IRGC's ramp in Tehran's Mehrabad airport.

Not-too-bright Liberal leadership candidate thinks his age is his best qualification

And he may be right

Jew-hating United Church members pretending to be self-hating Jews

Those who have encountered the anti-Israel group called "Independent Jewish Voices" could be forgiven for understanding them to be a group of emotionally-unstable fanatics whose primary purpose is to dispel the stereotype that Jews are smart. The group was founded under the leadership of 9-11 conspiracy theorist Diana Ralph while she was on a 'medical leave' from Carleton University, and its membership is made up mainly of old, unhappy, childless socialists who present themselves as Jews who want their opposition to Israel to be known.

But it turns out that Independent Jewish Voices may not be Jewish at all, at least if one of their representatives is telling the truth.

One of the group's spokesmen with the very Jewish-sounding name of Robert Allison did an interview  presented by the anti-capitalist website rabble.ca in which he was asked about the origins of Independent Jewish Voices. He answered that it began in 2006, when the United Church of Canada was considering a resolution (similar to one eventually passed this year) calling for the boycott of Israel. The resolution instigated accusations of the United Church being anti-Semitic, and according to Allison, "this alarmed some members of the United Church who happened to be Jews." They then formed Independent Jewish Voices of Canada.

The relationship between the two organizations is such that the United Church helped pay  expenses for Independent Jewish Voices' founding conference, making the organization a child of the Boshevist, weak-kneed branch of Protestantism.

The United Church of Canada is a Christian denomination that at least on paper accepts the divinity of Jesus Christ. Anyone who accepts that Christ is God and is a member of a church with that belief is a Christian.  Judaism explicitly rejects Jesus' divinity.

Independent Jewish Voices' claim that they are members of the United Church who happen to be Jews is about as valid as someone who says they are a Sunni Muslim who happens to be a member of the Roman Catholic Church.  These are mutually exclusive terms and you're either one or the other. By their professed beliefs and actions, it seems clear that Independent Jewish Voices is made up of Christians masquerading as Jews for the sole purpose of attempting to lend a sick pseudo-legitimacy to their demonization of the Jewish state.

Mr. Allison tries to explain in the interview that support for Israel violates the principles of Judaism. Nothing could be more indicative that he and his group understand nothing about the basis of the religion they claim to hold. All it takes is a reading of the Old Testament, the core document of Judaic belief, to see the inextricable link between Israel and Jews. It is repeated over and over in text upon text. By embracing the anti-Semitic Kairos Palestine document that seeks to deny a theological basis for the relationship between Israel and the Jewish people, these anti-Israel Jewish poseurs betray that their closest link to Judaism is when they eat bagels and lox.

Unlike most of the misfits of Independent Jewish Voices, I was born after the creation of the State of Israel in 1948. My belief in Israel's validity is based not on religion but on the morality of a democratic, freedom-loving,  pluralistic western ally existing in the midst of barbarism and totalitarianism.

But anyone seeking to deny Israel on the basis of Judaism is doing something so absurd as to completely discredit their intellect if not their motives. Just what do they think "The Promised Land" means? Do they realize where it is, and according to the Bible, to whom it was promised and by Whom?

There is something else fake Jews and so-called progressive Christians who actually believe in Judeo-Christian principles should keep in mind.  It doesn't require a nuanced reading of the Bible, both the New Testament and Old,  to see that God always takes a very poor view of the enemies of Israel. If these people genuinely believe in the tenets of the religions they claim, they should be very, very worried indeed.


UPDATE- December 4: The pseudo-Jews of Independent Jewish Voices are again trying to give cover to pathological,  obsessive hatred of Israel, such as that promoted by the fanatical, neo-Marxist website rabble.ca, which is closely associated with NDP Deputy Leader Libby Davies.

A further bit of insight into the mind-set of the flakes in Independent (not really) Jewish Voices comes from an interview one of its founders, Sid Shniad, did with anti-Semitic author Gilad Atzmon.

Sid Shniad: For most of my adult life, I have been active in non-Jewish Palestinian solidarity organisations, antiwar work, and left politics and resisted becoming involved in organisations that were identified as Jewish. But I have come to the conclusion that Jews with good politics on the issue of Israel and Palestine have a uniquely important role to play in combating the influence of the reactionary Zionist organisations that tend to dominate the Jewish community and providing telling criticism of the Israeli government. 

GA: Now I am very happy because for the first time you really start to address my question. You also admit that, Zionist organizations dominate the Jewish community.    

Sid Shniad: This realisation has led me to become active in creating Independent Jewish Voices in Canada in the last two years, where we have found that the organized presence of Jews who militantly oppose Zionist organisations and the Israeli government provides breathing space and a degree of comfort for both Jews and non-Jews who are uncomfortable with what Israel and its allies are doing, but who have been reluctant to come out of the closet on these issues.

The interview is quite revealing - for all his malignancy, Atzmon, who was born a Jew, never cloaks his anti-Semitism or anti-Zionism in the pretense of a religion which he has renounced. Shniad, like his fellow Independent Jewish United Church of Canada Voices stooges, makes it clear that his self-identification as a Jew has come late and  for one and only one real purpose - to demonize Israel.

Blogwrath among the Khadrites

From experience, I warned Blogwrath that a night with the asinine moral and cultural relativists who advocate for convicted terrorist Omar Khadr would be inane and boring.

An apology is owed.

I grossly understated the risks. Sorry Blogwrath. I should have warned you enduring the tedium of a Rick Salutin lecture falls somewhere between water-boarding and having your fingernails pulled in terms of cruel and unusual punishment.

The National Post`s Jonathan Kay wrote about Salutin before the latter was dismissed from the Globe and Mail, ``After 17 years as a Globe columnist, one suspects, Salutin apparently has gotten to the stage where he simply throws a bunch of buzz phrases in the air — imperialism, Guantanamo, oil, Omar Khadr, "honest broker" — and lets his readers write their own column``

Evidently not much has changed.  The rest of the panel didn`t sound any more interesting, but Blogwrath`s colorful account is excellent and will make you grateful he attended on your behalf. 

Some good and bad ideas about democracy

The Vancouver Sun has an interesting column by Andrew Coyne in which he makes an argument for proportional representation.

I've always argued that system is far less democratic than our first-past-the-post system for some reasons that its proponents fail to recognize. In the first place, under a proportionate system, political parties rather than the electorate choose which individuals are the legislative representatives.

Thus proportionate representation ignores the basic reality that many, if not most voters cast their ballot for the person rather than the party. There are some complex formulas that PR advocates put forward that they claim addresses that, but in fact doesn't. Under any formulation, you would have people in Parliament who received no direct votes from the public.

However, Coyne does make some valid observations, such as:

"You don’t actually vote against a party. When you mark your ballot, you vote for the party of your choice. The people who voted for the Liberal, Green, and NDP candidates in Calgary Centre did not vote against the Conservative candidate, nor did they vote for some coalition of “the left.” They voted for the parties they voted for. 

When people talk about a party winning because the vote was split, all they really mean is: that party got the most votes. The vote was “split” against all the parties in Calgary Centre, as it is in every riding at every election. It’s just that the Conservative candidate got the most votes. The same applies to the last general election. The other parties may wish to frame the issue in terms of vote splitting. But if any of them had got the most votes that’s the last you’d hear about it."

and the article is worth a read.