Depressed because no one believes your nutty conspiracy theories? Then have I got the right therapist for you!

Are you distraught from having to face callous throngs of ignorant masses who not only dismiss your superior understanding of the world, but mock you for it?

Is the day-to-day oppression of life in a heteronormative, sexist, imperialist, colonialist, racist society like Canada's giving you the doldrums?

Are the frustrations overwhelming from knowing that the 9-11 attacks on New York and Washington were really a plot contrived by Neo-Cons and Zionists, and yet George W. Bush and Dick Cheney remain unpunished?

Have you become clinically depressed when your attempts at economically crippling the Zionist state of Israel go bust because pesky Jews come and buy out all the products you want to boycott?

Then Diana Ralph could be the right therapist for you!

Diana Ralph, denouncing Israel 
at the United Church of Canada

Ms Ralph is a noted 9-11 conspiracy theorist and hater of Israel who had been on a long medical leave from her position at Carleton University prior to her 2011 retirement.  Yet such challenges didn't prevent the industrious Ms Ralph from founding the wacko organization Independent Jewish Voices, a group of irrational, conspiratorial-minded Munchausen Jews (and quite a few pretend Jews)  who are devoted to the elimination of the Jewish State.

Now Ms Ralph has resurfaced as a therapist in private practice to serve the needs of a very particular type of the mentally ill.

As she aureately puts it:    

You always have been and always will be good, wise, intelligent, beautiful, generous, loving, honest, flexible, zestful, happy, innocent, and unique. Like the Sun, these aspects of yourself are always there. The messages you internalized when you got hurt act like clouds blocking your ability to see the Sun.

I help you to clear away the clouded (incorrect) messages about yourself, to notice again your inherent amazing self, and to free your ability to act in terms of those realities.

The healing process can begin with her services, such as anti-oppression counselling:

We all have been hurt by societal oppressions (sexism, racism, homophobia, able-ism, as well as oppressions from social class, language, religious upbringing, and societal oppression of men). I can help you heal from these hurts and regain your full pride and joy in life. I have devoted my life to ending oppression and injustice. In addition to being a therapist, I am a community organizer and activist on a broad range of issues. I validate the specific damaging impacts of societal oppressions.. 

But it doesn't stop there! There are other services Ms Ralph offers, like addiction counselling, and let`s face it - all of us are addicted to something.  And don`t be discouraged just because for one of  her "addictions counselling" resources, Ms Ralph links to Gabor Mate, whom UBC Sociology Professor Emeritus Werner Cohn recently described as a charlatan. 

Because if you`re at the stage where you need Diana Ralph`s help, you probably have much greater concerns.

Provincial Liberal candidate Milczyn enraged by Ford support for Doug Holyday

...Milczyn — a member of Ford’s executive committee — confirmed Monday he is firing back at the mayor and “his political machine” who have entered the byelection “in a very unusual way.”

“They have endorsed Holyday, made media statements in his support, campaigned for him and attended his public events — this is not typical behaviour for a mayor,” Milczyn said in an e-mail statement to the Toronto Sun.

“The Fords have made this byelection about themselves, and are attempting to use this vote for their own personal validation.

Ford's full support for Doug Holyday comes as no surprise. When I interviewed Rob Ford while he was running for mayor in 2010, I asked him who he admired  most in politics and next to his father, who was a Progressive Conservative MPP, Doug Holyday was the man for whom the then candidate expressed the most admiration.

Canada's best known anti-Israel fanatics see the light and boycott Muslim dictatorships?

Canadians to Boycott Arab and Iranian Goods*

                                       News Release

  

No. NR -  314,003

For Immediate Distribution

 

               OTTAWA,  July 29 (ARP News Service) --  Boycott campaigns against the Arab world and Iran that will require the cooperation of every lover of Middle East freedom have been launched by a group of outspoken Canadians, it was announced today by its leader Ehab Lotayef, a computer technician at McGill University.

            "It is high time we exposed the crimes against humanity committed by the modern pharoahs of the Muslim Middle East.  Hosni Mubarak and Col. Muammar Gadaffi, who enslaved the long-suffering Egyptian and Libyan peoples with 30-year old dictatorships unprecedented in modern history, have now been ousted, as has Mubarak's successor, but democracy is still not on the horizon.

             Meanwhile, Bahrain, Yemen, Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon and Jordan are being ruled by hereditary fascist thugs and usurpers who are massacring their own people ," Lotayef stated.

            Speaking to hundreds of Muslim and Syrian Canadians on Parliament Hill, the Egyptian- Canadian activist who is a moderate member of the Muslim Brotherhood, blasted the Arab and Iranian regimes for plundering their countries' wealth and depriving their people of their basic human rights. He particularly upbraided Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Iran for their entrenched system of apartheid against their Christian Copt, Maronite, Melkite, Palestinian, Berber, Sunni, Shia and Kurd populations.

             Lotayef, who has long sailed the seas for the seething Arab masses oppressed by their corrupt rulers, bewailed the thousands of civilians recently massacred by the Arab and Iranian security forces in the streets of  Cairo, Alexandria, Aleppo, Teheran, Manama,  Damascus, Deraa, Latakia, Homs, Amman, Jeddah, Gaza City, Taiz and Sanaa.

             "It is simply incomprehensible that these bloodthirsty governments are committing genocide against their own people," he exclaimed.

              As a consequence, his new organization -- Canadians for Boycotting Arab and Iranian Goods (CBAIG) --  will be demanding that Canadian importers immediately terminate their contracts for the purchases of petroleum, petrochemicals, plastics, cotton yarn and garments, rugs, fertilisers, majhool dates, taboule, figs, and sheet metal from these countries. In addition, all Canadian firms with investments and joint ventures in these tyrannies, including Atco International, SNC-Lavalin, Suncor, Bombardier, Caisse Desjardins and the Royal Bank of Canada, will be pressured to divest their assets from them.

              Of equal weight is our campaign for the Harper government  to implement sanctions by halting its arms shipments to the Nazi-like governments of Bahrain and Saudi Arabia.

                 

             "We are confident that the international community - and particularly the Canadian and Quebecois publics - is prepared to support our initiative until the vicious dictatorships of the Arab Middle East and Iran are overthrown and their civilian populations are finally endowed with classical democracy," Lotayef affirmed.

            "The welfare of the beleaguered Arab and Iranian people must be our number one priority," he stated.

  

            The new boycott campaign is supported by the NDP and Vancouver Caucuses, the Winnipeg Peace Alliance, Stop the War, Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East, York Federation of Students, the Tamil National Council of Canada,  CUPE Ontario Section, the Association of Arab Students and Professors in Canada, KAIROS Canada, the Canadian Postal Workers Union, the League for Iranian Democracy, the Federation des Enseignants du Quebec as well as dozens of Pentecostal and United Church of Canada ministers led by Thom Davies of Wesley Urban Ministries in Hamilton, Ontario.

              CBAIG co-founder Karen Devito, the recently-remarried Vancouver socialite, noted the illegitimate Muslim government leaders of the Middle East are being targeted by her followers with arrest warrants should they step foot on Canadian soil or seek asylum here. Under the international law of universal jurisdiction, war criminals and their genocidal ilk are liable to arrest upon the issuance of a certification by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service.

             She emphasized that her group's actions were in complete fulfilment of the treasured Canadian tradition of seeking justice for suffering humanity.  Moreover, it has the complete approval of her strategic adviser, the world-renowned author Naomi Klein, a veteran critic of Arab war crimes. 

              "We must lose no time in bringing  Assad and the Iranian mullahs to the gallows just as Bin Laden and Gaddafi were so quickly dispatched. These greasy rats must be torn limb from limb," she stated to tumultuous applause from the demonstrators.

 .

              "And let us not forget to overthrow the corrupt rulers of the Muslim Palestinians in the Hamas and Fatah movements who have immiserated their people by stealing their hard-earned wages to pad their Swiss bank accounts," Devito added.

              Casting aside her life-time enmity towards Israel, Devito pleaded with the Jewish state to invade Syria and Iran and wipe out their respective Palestinian-hating feudal Shi'ite ruling classes.

              A humanitarian gesture of this sort under the UN's Doctrine of the Responsibility to Protect can lead to the toppling of their authoritarian regimes and the implementation of the  Universal Declaration of Human Rights and all the Geneva Conventions,'' she posited. 

             "As for our myriad of friends among the general public, we sincerely hope they will be moved to embrace the boycott of Arab and Iranian goods with the objective of  liberating the oppressed Arab masses, " Lotayef and Devito concluded.

              CBAIG is also pleased to announce that its founder Ehab Lotayef and strong supporter, Prof. Diane Lamoureux of Laval University, will shortly be crossing the Turkish frontier into Syria where they will document for Canadians the Holocaust naqba that is being inflicted upon the Palestinians by their Syrian Arab brethren.

              Some 3,000 Palestinian children have already been slaughtered and gassed with the sarin nerve gas agent near Yarmouk, 65,000 adults and their families have been turned into refugees fleeing to Jordan and Lebanon, while 80 percent of the total 520,000 Palestinian population has been displaced from their homes.

              Horrific barbarism is occurring at 14 concentration camps where Syrian militias are daily ripping out the intestines of hundreds of Palestinians and eating their raw livers, kidneys and hearts as reported by Russian President Vladimir Putin at the recent G-8 Summit.

               CBAIG is extremely proud of the self-sacrifice of Ehab Lotayef and Prof. Lamoureux as should be all Canadians who are invited to massively boycott these outlaw countries.   

        

                                                                         - 30 -

  

 For Information:

 Ehab Lotayef

 CBAIG Founder and Spokesperson

 McGill University Computer Lab

 Montreal, QC

 lotayef@gmail.com

  

 Karen Devito, Co-Founder CBAIG

 Vancouver, BC

 devitokaren@gmail.com

 Prof. Diane Lamoureux

 Laval University

 Quebec City, QC

 diane.lamoureux@pol.ulaval.ca

     

Jesus T. Vasquez

Director, Comunications

Mississauga, ON

j.terrencevasquez@gmail.com

  

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*This Onionesque news release highlights the hypocrisy of the fanatics who fixate on trying to demonize Israel,  the country with the highest standards of human rights in the Middle East, while ignoring the barbarous abuses committed by its neighbors.

Of course this isn't real - and the people devoted to the idiocy parodied in it are likely too ideologically fixated, or just too plain stupid to get the irony... or their facts straight. 

This is evidently based on a similar parody to have emerged in the UK. There is also a New Zealand version. 

Amusingly, the humorless, conspiracy-obsessed radicals of the anti-Israel movement failed to comprehend the release was meant as parody and took it as some "hoax" and  misinformation campaign

Actually, some of my best friends have been librarians..

No one should have to hide who they are to mollify the bigotry of others..

"I live openly with pride with Mika in the present too having decided that remaining in the closet only enables those who harbour prejudice"

h/t Blazing Cat Fur

Champagne Communist

From the Canadian Metal band Helix..

This is the official video for their latest song:



h/t Matthew Lau

Adam Vaughan Is A Liar: Toronto Taxpayers Coalition

Toronto Taxpayers Coalition has come out and called Adam Vaughan "a liar".

The coalition's accusation stems from comments Vaughan made during a debate on Thursday July 18th at City Council. At the meeting, Adam Vaughan alleged the Toronto Taxpayers Coalition submitted a petition which included the signatures of people who "didn't even exist". "

Anyone who reviews the transcripts will come to the same conclusion – Adam Vaughan lied," stated coalition president Matthew McGuire. "Adam Vaughan made a calculated decision to hide behind the protection granted by speaking during a council debate to tell several lies and avoid scrutiny from the Integrity Commissioner. Adam Vaughan is an out-and-out liar."

Zimmerman, Martin, the media, racism and hypocrisy

There is another terribly sad facet to the Martin/Zimmerman tragedy.

Racism does still exist. It is deplorable when it occurs and needs to be addressed. But the Zimmerman case is indicative of the approach that the media and our political leaders take to racism. They don't deal with facts but promulgate symbols and falsehoods. Worse, they rely on what others have asserted without ascertaining facts for themselves. In the process. by seeing "race" in everything that happens anywhere, these people are practicing a new form of racism that lacks the self-awareness to recognize what they are doing.

What happened in Florida when Treyvon Martin was shot was the result of two people making stupid mistakes. The aftermath saw one life ended and another ruined, and it was needless. However, as people like Bill Cosby have noted, there is no proof that is was caused by racism.

Denouncing the Zimmerman verdict and Zimmerman himself as "racist" has become emblematic of proclaiming "I am not a racist." Despite the facts, which all point to the fact that race was not the cause of the events that led to Treyvon Martin's death.

So as much as racism is a horrendous ongoing blister in our society, we are facing a devastating cancer which is equally problematic. That being the poisonous, self-destructive instinct to accept narratives without ascertaining their veracity. There is nothing new to this manifestation of most people to want to be seen to be "a good person" without actually putting in the most basic work of finding out whether what they are saying is true.

Because the real tragedy we a\re viewing as a result of the Zimmerman verdict is that being perceived to be a good person is valued more highly than actually being one.

The article below from Reason.com tells important facts that have escaped most of the mainstream narrative:

More than a week after George Zimmerman’s acquittal in the fatal shooting of black teenager Trayvon Martin, the backlash against the verdict continues. President Obama spoke some undeniable truths when he noted that the African-American community’s intense reaction to the case must be seen in the context of a long, terrible history of racism. But there is another context too: that of an ideology-based, media-driven false narrative that has distorted a tragedy into a racist outrage.

This narrative has transformed Zimmerman, a man of racially mixed heritage that included white, Hispanic and black roots (a grandmother who helped raise him had an Afro-Peruvian father), into an honorary white male steeped in white privilege. It has cast him as a virulent racist even though he once had a black business partner, mentored African-American kids, lived in a neighborhood about 20 percent black, and participated in complaints about a white police lieutenant’s son getting away with beating a homeless black man.

Read the rest of this article at REASON.COM 

Another TDSB-related case of plagiarism

Matthew Lau, a young writer who has been the (credited) source of a number of items in Eye on A Crazy Planet had a recent article that he wrote for the website The Propagandist plagiarized by a Liberal Party staffer.

Even the headlines were identical.

It's good that the Liberal Party is finally taking notice of the important issues Matthew brought up in his article "The Toronto District School Board's plan to decolonize education".  The concern would seem more sincere if they actually looked into it themselves rather than just lift someone else's work and try to take credit for it.

Justin Trudeau: Useful idiot

Tarek Fatah on Justin Trudeau: `He has no strategy. He`s too dumb to have a strategy`

VIDEO: Police shooting at Dundas & Bellwoods in Toronto

A guy on a streetcar had a knife. The cops surrounded him and ordered him repeatedly to drop it. He wouldn't, then they shot him

More HERE

Russian phone thief messes with wrong woman

This footage from a Russian subway shows a thief attempting to rob a woman of her iPhone.

The creep picked the wrong woman - what she does is amazing:

NDP's Paul Dewar fined for making robocalls

OTTAWA-GATINEAU, July 26, 2013 — Today, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) announced that it has issued two notices of violation totalling $17,000 in penalties as part of a wide-ranging investigation into the use of robocalls by political parties, elected officials and telemarketers.

The CRTC received the cooperation of Mr. Paul Dewar, M.P., who entered into a settlement agreement and paid a $7000 administrative monetary penalty for violating the Unsolicited Telecommunications Rules. In an unrelated investigation, Strategic Communications Inc. also cooperated, agreed to settle and paid a penalty of $10,000 for similar violations.

h/t BC Blue

Hudak charges release of Attorney General's report on Gas Plant Scandal delayed to cover for Liberals in by-elections

Tory leader Tim Hudak says the Liberal government is sitting on a “smoking gun” auditor general’s report which details the costs to taxpayers for cancelling a controversial Oakville gas plant.

Hudak levelled the charge in Scarborough Thursday morning. The report is being delayed because of five crucial byelections scheduled for next week, he said.

Next step Total Recall: Scientists implant mouse with false memory

(ISNS) -- “Memory is deceptive because it is colored by today’s events,” said Albert Einstein.  It is also deceptive because it is frequently wrong, sometimes dangerously so. 

Scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have developed the ability to implant mice with false memories. The memories can be easily induced and are just as strong as real memories, physiological proof of something psychologists and lawyers have known for years.

More at Inside Science

Egyptian judge orders deposed leader Mohamed Morsi jailed for collaborating with terror group Hamas

(CNN) -- Deposed Egyptian President Mohamed Morsy has been ordered jailed for 15 days over accusations of collaborating with Hamas to release himself and other Muslim Brotherhood members from prison in 2011 and attacking police stations, Egyptian media reported Friday.

More Here

Man playing God: The dubious ethics of creating children with three genetic parents

The United Kingdom Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority has been in the news for giving the go-ahead to creating three-genetic-parent human embryos.

An embryo has two types of DNA: central nucleus DNA inherited from both its mother and father, and mitochondrial DNA (mDNA) inherited only from its mother. This mDNA can be defective in that it carries genes for serious diseases, such as muscular dystrophy, or it cannot sustain the life of the cells it powers. The three-genetic-parent embryos would have a central nucleus with DNA from its intended mother’s ovum and father’s sperm, and mitochondrial DNA from another woman’s ovum.

The procedure involves creating an embryo from the intended mother’s ovum and father’s sperm, removing the nuclear DNA from the second woman’s ovum leaving behind the mDNA, and transferring the embryo’s central nuclear DNA to the enucleated ovum. The goal is to allow a woman with defective mDNA to have a baby who will inherit most of her genes, but not the defective mDNA.

Is using this procedure ethical?

h/t Brian Lilley

Ironic Human Rights complaint about "heteronormative" A&W Mama and Papa burgers dismissed

Following a bizarre correspondence with an anonymous letter-writer, Ontario’s human rights tribunal has strongly dismissed claims that the A&W fast food chain’s Burger Family poses a threat to the self-respect of the LGBT community.

The complaint — filed last month by a man posing as a radical lesbian feminist — demanded $50,000 from the restaurant chain, alleging that its trademark Papa, Mama, Grandpa and Teen burgers were “an attack on my womyn identity.”

More at The NATIONAL POST

Officials identify Canadian suspect in Bulgaria bus bombing

Bulgarian authorities have identified two suspects – including a man holding Canadian citizenship -- wanted in connection with a deadly bomb attack that killed five Israeli tourists and a Bulgarian bus driver last summer.

Photos of suspects Hassan El Hajj Hassan, 25, and Meliad Farah, 32, were released by officials Thursday in a bid to help apprehend them. A third suspect involved in the bombing died in the attack and was not identified.

h/t Five Feet of Fury

Turkish Girl Buried Alive For Talking To Boys

...Turkish police discovered the body after acting on an anonymous tip. The tipster told police that the girl was killed after a family council meeting, and had been buried under a chicken pen. Police say that the girl had complained two months earlier that her grandfather beat her for talking to boys.

The girl, identified by police only by her initials M.M., was said to have a large amount of soil in her stomach and lungs, indicating she had been buried alive.

"The autopsy result is blood-curdling. According to our findings, the girl - who had no bruises on her body and no sign of narcotics or poison in her blood - was alive and fully conscious when she was buried,"one anonymous expert said.

Eliot Spitzer’s Creepy New Ad

The best thing Eliot Spitzer has going for his race to be New York City comptroller is that voters don’t pay enough attention to the job to be overly concerned about the potential damage someone as destructive as Spitzer can cause in the office. (Stop random New Yorkers on the street and ask them if they even know who their current comptroller is; many won’t, even though he’s currently also running for mayor.)

But they should be concerned, because the job of comptroller, which involves financial management and oversight for the city, is one that Spitzer is almost uniquely unqualified for. What’s more, Spitzer is so lost in his own world of narcissistic hyperactivity that his campaign is determined to remind voters just how unqualified he is for the job. Take his latest ad, titled “Empty,” which is predicated on the belief that New Yorkers would vote for someone who promises to bring the city to financial ruin

Heather Mallick's public descent into madness continues

Jonathan Kay on Mallick's Toronto Star column today: "one of the most bizarre and incomprehensible oped columns ever published by a Canadian broadsheet newspaper"

...It’s not snobbery, like the appalling Prince Charles and the dreadful Camilla calling themselves “Fred and Gladys” as a private joke during their affair, as though there is something disgusting about couples called Fred and Gladys, which there might well be. I have not met them.

It’s just that despite the fact that Kate and William are not snobs, the royal baby will not be called “Greg Thompson.”

But there is no reason on earth why the kinglet should not be called “Greg Thompson” and why thousands of people in years to come should not name their babies “Greg Thompson” in an effort to capture some of the royal fairy dust. “Greg Thompson” is a perfectly pleasant name and its owners are doubtless good people whom I would be pleased to know. 

I have no interest in the royal nonsense. I like Kate and William because I am toned to like Diana’s offspring, poor things — I did love that woman — but it’s not a generational interest because I am not a snob. I’m interested in who your parents were only because they were the people responsible for you being so messed up, a subject of fascination.

This still doesn't top her infamous "Hate f*ck with Rob Ford" column

Pink Floyd's Roger Waters uses his Belgium concert to boast that he's an anti-Semitic douche

Some concert goers were left feeling uncomfortably numb at a Roger Waters performance in Belgium last week when a black balloon in the shape of a wild pig – bearing a Jewish Star of David as well as symbols of dictatorial regimes from around the world – floated above the audience.

“I came to the concert because I really like his music, without any connection to his political stance toward Israel,” Alon Onfus Asif, an Israeli living in Belgium, told YNetNews.com. “And I had a lot of fun, until I noticed the Star of David, on the inflatable pig. That was the only religious-national symbol which appeared among other symbols for fascism, dictatorships and oppression of people. Waters crossed the line and gave expression to an anti-Semitic message, beyond all his messages of anti-militancy.”

Waters recently sat on the so called Russell Tribunal on Palestine, a kangaroo court in which that shallow nitwit participated with a group of hand-picked clowns, including the mentally degenerating Alice Walker, who has repeatedly professed her insane belief that the world is controlled by space lizards. She recently disclosed the "race" of space lizards in question and it turns out they are a creation of Marvel Comics.

These are the types of hateful imbeciles that lead the current anti-Israel movement.

More at Elder of Ziyon

Kathleen Wynne's Ontario - Idle No More lawbreakers get a free pass from prosecution

 

TORONTO - In a rare move for a police chief, OPP Commissioner Chris Lewis says he "disagrees" with a decision by the Napanee Crown attorney to not bring to trial charges against several First Nations protesters in January's Idle No More rail blockade near Marysville.

"A thorough investigation was conducted by our criminal investigators," Lewis acknowledged this week. "They felt strongly that grounds to charge a number of the key protesters criminally existed, particularly given that this blockade was more than a brief inconvenience to a few people."

But, sources told the Toronto Sun, even with a police decision to lay charges the Crown rejected the notion.

Government Audit finds Canadian Islamic "charity" ISNA may have funded terrorists

Money raised by an Islamic charity created to help Canada’s poor and needy instead went overseas, potentially into the hands of violent militants, a government audit has found.

The federal charity watchdog is now threatening to revoke the charity status of Mississauga’s ISNA (Islamic Society of North America) Development Foundation.

A Canada Revenue Agency audit revealed the foundation shipped more than $280,000 to a Pakistan-based agency, cash the government fears went to supporting the Hizbul Mujahideen — a militant group that seeks the secession of Kashmir from India.

This is the same ISNA to which Liberal Party Leader Justin Trudeau pandered last week, flouting the warning that the Muslim Canadian Congress gave him for appearing at one of their events.

Parhaps the next time Mr. Trudeau feels the need to look into the "root causes" of something, he might investigate the root causes of slimy political pandering and sheer stupidity.

What is dyslexia?

h/t 1309

Not the kind of endorsement he was hoping for - NY Democratic Congressman says Weiner needs 'psychiatric help'

When it comes to Anthony Weiner's run for mayor of New York City, Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) is not parsing words: he wants Weiner out.

"I think he should withdraw, I think he needs serious psychiatric help," Nadler told members of the press today. "He should take care of his own problems and let New York figure its policies and its mayor."

Nadler, whose congressional district includes a large swath of Manhattan and Brooklyn, said that the fact that Weiner — a former congressman himself — continued his behavior after he resigned should make New Yorkers question whether they can trust him.

"I mean, to have done it again after what we went through in the resignation, he has shown himself to be a serial liar. You can't believe him, and he's also shown monumentally bad judgment," Nadler said. "How can you trust his judgment as a mayor?"

Cheap Trick and John Lennon

This didn't make the final version of Lennon's last album, 1980's Double Fantasy, but...

It was producer Jack Douglas who suggested Lennon use the guys from Cheap Trick as backing band on the tune, and so it was, on Aug 12,1980 Carlos and Nielson layed it down, with legendary bassist Tony Levin.

University of Southern California's idiotic responses to campus rapes

The U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights (OCR) has launched an investigation into the University of Southern California's response to rape reports. More than thirteen students filed a Title IX  claim in May, saying they had been victims of "extensive failures on the part of USC administrators and the Department of Public Safety (DPS) in responding to reports of sexual violence on campus," and the specifics of the allegations are horrifying.  

One student, who remains anonymous, said a Department of Public Safety (DPS) detective told her campus police determined no rape occurred in her case because her alleged rapist did not orgasm. 

John Robson: A summer full of ink

Aaaaah, summer. When young people shed their bulky clothes and show remarkable quantities of … ink.

Seriously, what’s with all the tattoos?

You may call me stuffy without fear of contradiction. But it’s not a particularly fine line between daring and stupid and it shouldn’t be drawn on your skin with blurry ink.

Yes, blurry. I know death is just a distant rumour to the young. But so, apparently, is the fact that as you age bits of you, often your favourite bits, start to do stupid gravity tricks.

More at LILLEY'S PAD

Misuse of taxpayer funds and total incompetence - welcome to Kathleen Wynne's Ontario

The Vitamin Myth: Why We Think We Need Supplements

On October 10, 2011, researchers from the University of Minnesota found that women who took supplemental multivitamins died at rates higher than those who didn't. Two days later, researchers from the Cleveland Clinic found that men who took vitamin E had an increased risk of prostate cancer. "It's been a tough week for vitamins," said Carrie Gann of ABC News. 

These findings weren't new. Seven previous studies had already shown that vitamins increased the risk of cancer and heart disease and shortened lives. Still, in 2012, more than half of all Americans took some form of vitamin supplements. What few people realize, however, is that their fascination with vitamins can be traced back to one man. A man who was so spectacularly right that he won two Nobel Prizes and so spectacularly wrong that he was arguably the world's greatest quack.

More at THE ATLANTIC

The Best Flight Attendant Ever

I just had to post this picture for no reason

Robyn Urback: One unionized cup of coffee? That’ll be $8.95

Consider, for a moment, a scenario in which Halifax baristas are successful in their bid to unionize coffee shop workers across the city. Impassioned by the power of assembly, these organized employees decide to campaign for medical benefits from their employers, though the request is swiftly and firmly denied. A labour struggle then ensues in which baristas walk off the job, throwing the city into a caffeine panic and forcing the Nova Scotia government to step in and declare the job an essential service. Baristas begrudgingly return to their posts, though they now serve the bitterest of cups, both literally and figuratively. The city is never the same.

Perhaps it’s a bit of hypothetical hyperbole (well, maybe just the “essential service” part), but that scenario may not be that far off from what awaits the people in Halifax.

More at THE NATIONAL POST

Barack Obama honors anti-Semitic conspiracy theorist

"Michelle and I were saddened to learn of the passing of Helen Thomas.  Helen was a true pioneer, opening doors and breaking down barriers for generations of women in journalism.  She covered every White House since President Kennedy’s, and during that time she never failed to keep presidents – myself included – on their toes.  What made Helen the “Dean of the White House Press Corps” was not just the length of her tenure, but her fierce belief that our democracy works best when we ask tough questions and hold our leaders to account.  Our thoughts are with Helen’s family, her friends, and the colleagues who respected her so deeply."

From Thomas' 2011 Playboy interview:

PLAYBOY: Let’s get to something else you said more recently. In a speech in Detroit last December, you told an Arab group, “We are owned by the propagandists against the Arabs. There’s no question about that. Congress, the White House and Hollywood, Wall Street, are owned by the Zionists. No question, in my opinion. They put their money where their mouth is. We’re being pushed into a wrong direction in every way.” Do you stand by that statement?

THOMAS: Yes, I do. I know it was horrendous, but I know it’s true. Tell me it’s not true and I’ll be happy to be contradicted. I’m just saying they’re using their power, and they have power in every direction.

PLAYBOY: That stereotype of Jewish control has been around for more than a century. Do you actually think there’s a secret Jewish conspiracy at work in this country?

THOMAS: Not a secret. It’s very open. What do you mean secret? ... [Jews have] power over the White House, power over Congress. ... Everybody is in the pocket of the Israeli lobbies, which are funded by wealthy supporters, including those from Hollywood. Same thing with the financial markets. There’s total control.

PLAYBOY: Who are you thinking about specifically? Who are the Jews with the most influence?

THOMAS: I’m not going to name names. What, am I going to name the Ponzi guy on Wall Street [Bernard Madoff] or the others? No.

PLAYBOY: Then how do you make the claim that Jews are running the country?

THOMAS: I want you to look at the Congress that just came in.

PLAYBOY: In America you’re talking about a relatively small community. Jews make up roughly two percent of the U.S. population. On a worldwide level, the percentage is well under one percent. Those numbers don’t exactly spell domination.

THOMAS: I get where you’re leading with this. You know damn well the power they have. It isn’t the two percent. It’s real power when you own the White House, when you own these other places in terms of your political persuasion. Of course they have power. You don’t deny that. You’re Jewish, aren’t you?

PLAYBOY: Yes.

THOMAS: That’s what I thought. Well, you know damn well they have power.

PLAYBOY: Were you surprised that people like David Duke and even Hezbollah came out and said you were courageous and a hero for them?

THOMAS: I don’t want to be a hero to anyone. I just want to be me, and I want to tell the truth. I want everyone to accept the truth.

h/t Werner C.

According to the European Union, some "occupied territories" count more than others

"Occupied Territories": What About Cyprus, Kashmir, Tibet?

By Douglas Murray:

This latest decision tells us nothing about Israel or the West Bank. But it tells us what we need to know about the EU.

What about Cyprus? That is just one of the questions that Israelis and Europeans should be pondering now that the European Union has again decided that it should dictate Israeli border and security policy.

Last week the European Union issued a ban on funding of, or cooperation with, any Israeli institutions that are shown to operate in what it calls the "occupied territories" – meaning the West Bank, or Judea and Samaria. Never mind that -- as Palestinian groups have already admitted -- the ban will affect Palestinians as much as Israelis. In its perpetual rush to find new double-standards to enforce, the EU has rushed straight in, regardless.

More HERE

Sumos, Seahorses, and Bicycles - the art of the lovely Lichia Liu

Lichia Liu creates whimsical, original art that you can get directly from her, in greeting card form too..

Being a Taiwanese-Canadian with connections to Japan, many of my drawings contain references that are not apparent if you are not familiar with Asian culture.  However, it becomes all the more personal and delightful when the reference is caught.  When one of my clients saw my egg-cake animal drawing, she immediately cried out “bungeoppang!” — a Korean fish-shaped pastry filled with red bean.  

"Incompetence is the worst form of corruption." With Kathleen Wynne's government, it's one of many types you'll get

Kathleen Wynne's new appointee as Education Minister is a stooge put in place to rubber stamp the agenda Ontario's current Premier wanted when she held that Ministerial portfolio.

The reprehensible Sex Ed curriculum that sexualizes young children which was shepparded by Wynne's chosen Deputy, the accused child pornographer Ben Levin, was only a part of the plan to introduce social engineering into the way children are taught.

Liz Sandals, Ontario's Minister of Education, has admitted she hasn't and likely won't read the curriculum she will sign off on. From the way she comes across, it sounds like she wouldn't understand it even if she did read it.

Background on what is happening in Ontario's schools HERE and HERE and HERE

Letting the Air out of Michael Moore

People weren’t as shocked by the news of Michael Moore’s pending divorce as they were at the thought of some poor woman marrying him in the first place.

The filmmaker-provocateur is almost a decade past his best-before date; his award-winning Fahrenheit 9/11 came out in 2004 and earned Moore millions of bucks and brand-name fame, not to mention the honor of sharing Jimmy Carter’s VIP box at the DNC.

While he may not provoke the same passionate hatred or admiration he once did, Moore remains familiar enough to merit headlines about his personal life.

More at Taki's Magazine   

George Zimmerman Emerged From Hiding for Truck Crash Rescue

You couldn't make this kind of stuff up...



h/t flea

The Toronto Star's vendetta against Rob Ford has turned it into the Wyle E.Coyote of newspapers

The last two years have seen The Toronto Star become the Wyle E. Coyote of newspapers. Their editors and reporters have had all their outlandish attempts to dislodge Toronto's Mayor Rob Ford from office fail abysmally with their intended target emerging more secure after each disastrous effort.

Even worse for The Star, like the cartoon character pathologically obsessed with hunting down the Road Runner, every one of their plans ends up blowing up in their faces, with the self-inflicted damage making them look increasingly ridiculous.

The Star's obsession with Ford and the discreditable approach they have taken to persecuting him has resulted in half of Toronto thinking the newspaper is flat-out lying in its reporting. 

Contacts inside The Star's headquarters at One Yonge Street describe an environment where detestation of Ford is so open and pervasive that seasoned adults who should be planning their retirement have adopted all the dignity and intellectual vigor of Beavis and Butthead.

Toronto Mayor Rob Ford

"Ford's so stupid! hehehehehe!" 

"He's fat and gross!"  

"Yeah, he's fat, gross and stupid! Heehee!"

That is an actual conversation that was described to me as having occurred between two senior Toronto Star writers. And it reflects in their coverage of everything related to Rob Ford.

At first it was The Star's editorial writers who were infected worst by their deranged fixation on Ford. Articles by Rosie DiManno, whose writing indicated she was infuriated beyond coherence, and many from Heather Mallick, including one in which she envisioned a sordid, semi-date rape by Rob Ford, suggest mental illness on the part of some Star editorialists.

That disease has spread to its reporters as well. Yesterday, Doug Ford, the Etobicoke Counselor who is the mayor's brother, railed against Star reporter Robyn Doolittle, who went all the way to Florida to try to dredge up any material on Ford's family background she could find, including about Ford's elderly, widowed mother.

Robyn Doolittle
(via twitter)

On Ford's radio show Sunday, a caller who manages the condominium where Ford's mother lives described an encounter with Dooloittle:

“She was interrogating me sort of for answers and I gave her truthful answers and finally the way she was talking to me, I said ‘Are you a reporter?’” he said. “And she says to me ‘Well I do work for a newspaper but this has nothing to do with the newspaper, this is a personal history that I’m compiling.’”

Never, since Confederation, has there been the type of invasive, personally motivated vindictiveness in the coverage of a Toronto mayor by a newspaper like the Toronto Star's treatment of Rob Ford.

Ford has never been accused of misusing public funds or corruption in office. He hasn't sold out the city to unions or special interests like his predecessor, whom The Star did its best to shield.

The campaign against Rob Ford is due to pompous elitists at The Star thinking their interests and their image is threatened by a plain-speaking populist.

And the irony of the matter is that The Toronto's Star's image is getting worse every day due to Ford. Not by what he is doing, but by how foolish and desperate The Star looks with each idiotic maneuver they try to pull to bring Ford down.