Some of my readers are Toronto-area, like I am. I noticed today on my lunch break, while I cut through BCE Place in the business district that the CNIB (Canadian National Institute for the Blind) have a stand set up to sell little pots of Crocuses (crocai??). Can I please ask anyone who may pass through the area today to pick one up? They are only $4, and it's a good cause.

The only reason I ask is that a very dear friend of mine - my best friend's mother, in fact - lost her sight a couple of years ago though a horrible illness, and now depends on many of the programs and services offered by the CNIB.

And before you ask, yes, I will be pestering you to buy daffodils for cancer in couple of months, so be warned!

Thanks everyone. I appreciate it.

RG

I have gone to some of the main news sites to find the most touching pictures of the Iraq election. There were so many to choose from!


A man holds up his finger, stained with purple ink. The ink is to show he ahs already voted. If only America and Canada were so simple in their ideas for voting day, perhaps we'd have less voter fraud.

A man lets his child put the ballot in the box. Judging my the man's appearance, it is likely this is the first vote any of them have seen in their lives. He is letting his children participate in something that they will do again and again throughout their lives, thanks to this historic day. I think this picture is wonderful.


Kurdish supporters marching peacefully in support of their candidate.


People flock from all over to get to the polls. It is like a pilgrimage. It is quite likely the most important day of their lives. For years to come, they will tell their children and grandchildren about this day, and when they do, they will not think of the acts of violence, or the sporadic deaths across the country; instead they will tell of how long they had waited for the opportunity to choose their leader.

Update: ETA, the Basque terrorist group, is claiming responsibility. Apparently they were considerate enough to call the hotel and warn them, and it appears the hotel was evacuated. The reason for my concern is that the Alicante coast in Spain at this time of the year is crawling with British tourists. Add to that a British C-130 just came down outside of Baghdad, and you can see the reason to worry. I hope no one was hurt in Spain.

Oh f**k a hotel in Madrid has just been hit in Madrid! As I am writing this, a hotel on the Costa Blanca. More to come as it happens.

Iraq is reporting a 72% voter turnout! I think this is fantastic news. It was a country that was obviously craving democracy, despite the cost. And the cost didn't seem to be very high. The Bush hating CNN is reporting 22 killed. That's like a normal day at the market in the Middle East. But of course, it has to be big news in the MSM, because they hate, hate, hate George W.

But even CNN couldn't help but report the main facts of the day:

Even in Fallujah, the devastated Sunni city west of Baghdad that was a militant stronghold until a U.S. assault in November, a slow stream of people turned out, confounding expectations.

"We want to be like other Iraqis, we don't want to always be in opposition," said Ahmed Jassim, smiling after voting.

In Baquba, a rebellious city northeast of Baghdad, crowds clapped and cheered at one voting station. In Mosul, scene of some of the worst insurgent attacks in recent months, U.S. and local officials said turnout was surprisingly high.

I'm sure they typed those words with clenched teeth!

In Canada, with 11,000 Iraqi's "officially" living here, more than 8,000 turned out to register their votes across this already democratic (for now) country, where I'm sure they felt safer.

Mr. Right and I were walking through our neighborhood this afternoon, on our way home from doing some shopping. As we passed by a Catholic church, I slowed down to look at the mass times on the board outside.

Mr. Right: What are you doing, woman?

Me: Nothing.

Mr. Right: You're thinking about going back to mass?? Why?

Me: You'll laugh.

Mr. Right: You want to join the ranks, don't you? To show that there's still a few left on this side of the fight?

Dammit, that's why I married him. I don't have to say all the crazy stuff that goes through my mind - he already knows. He knows that I'm thinking of going back to church, because I don't know how else I can fight a war I wasn't invited to or make my thoughts count regarding gay marriage, or prove that Canada is still a Christain country, and that Christians just want to co-exist with everyone else - we don't want to blow them up.

Mr. Right knows that the occasional thought goes through my head that we should have babies, if for no other reason than the Muslim birthrate is a zillion times higher than everyone else's, and I feel like we're slacking. But he also knows that I don't want to have babies, because there might not be a world free of dhimmitude for them to live in.

So the big question is: will I return to the fold of the Roman Catholic church? I have no idea. But the thought has been with me for a few weeks now. I'll let you know if/when...

I just did a little on-line shopping for some items I've wanted for a while. In fact, I've set up a CafePress shop for Girl on the Right. There are a few items in there just now, and I'll be designing more as time passes, and I can gather more artwork. I made myself a hooded zip-up sweatshirt jacket, and a tank top to go underneath. Go have a look.

The federal government, and Corrections Canada, seems to have an overabundance of my tax money to spend:

Correctional Service Canada is setting up inmate-operated tattoo services at six federal prisons, including one in Kingston, to stem the spread of infectious diseases such as hepatitis C.

Corrections officials say they know prisoners have long used odd objects for tattooing, such as old VCR motors and the casings from pens. They say there's no way to guarantee the cleanliness of such items.

The director general of health services for the Correctional Service says an estimated 40 per cent of inmates will receive a tattoo during their sentence.

"Those who are not infected are exposed to potentially acquiring disease while they are in prison," said Dr. Françoise Bouchard. "Then we are increasing the risk to the general population when they're going back in the community."

My first tatoo cost me $75. My second one was bigger, and cost me $150 (worth every penny!). Since this is ridiculous project is going to be organized by a government body, I can only speculate that each tiny "maple leaf" or "heart" or "mom" is going to cost tax payers $500. Why? Who knows?! Everything goes up in price when it's a government idea - that's just the way it is.

I was reading an article this morning (I'm on news overload, and can't remember where) that said Canada may have to increase tuition costs and have less government money involved in our universities. I remember thinkg to myself "Do you think with the leftover money, the Government will cut taxes?" And the I realized that no, they won't. And they won't put that former university money into the hospitals or the police budgets or the military. No, instead, the money will be used to fund a study into the psychological effects of being a child born to a one-eyed, one-legged, black albino mother and a father who smokes, and who lives north of Kujuak. Because that's what our government does. They do not pass the savings on to you (they are not Wal Mart). Instead, they find an absolute waste of a study or organization that could easily be funded by local charities, and they pour my money (and yours) into them, without ever dropping me a line to say "Hey, here's the plan - what do you think?"

The American Princess has an excellent post regarding the rights of homosexuals as relating to the gay-marriage debate. Homosexuals are described as Super Citizens who are not only different from the rest of us, but superior, in that their rights to be "free" and "respected" trump yours and mine.

In her post she links to this article, from Mens News Daily.

The Super Citizens have struck their latest blow to our rights in my home state of Pennsylvania, in the well known case of the "Philadelphia 11", or "Philadelphia 5", or the "Philadelphia 4, plus one minor, who despite being ignored by the press is still being prosecuted." Whatever you call it, the situation is the same. Several people are being put on trial for having the audacity to say they believe homosexuality is wrong.

Despite what you may have read, this is not a case of judicial activism. Philadelphia Municipal Court Judge William Austin Meehan has a long, solid, history of upholding the letter of the law as it was written. Nor is the problem the law itself. Title 18 of the "Consolidated Pennsylvania Statutes" regarding Crimes and Offenses has no language or penalties that differ greatly from any of the other 49 states. In fact, 18 Pa.C.S. 5504 (e) clearly states that the sections on hate crimes "shall not apply... to any Constitutionally protected activity." A good law, a good judge, and two groups of people peacefully assembling to exercise their First Amendment rights. So what went wrong? Nothing except that one of the groups of protestors chose to read Bible verses to America's untouchable elite, homosexual activists. Now, this small group of Christians must face the full wrath of the militant homosexual lobby for infringing on their self created right to be above all reproach.

Note: I have decided to keep this post to the top for the rest of the day. I am continuing to post, so if you've already stopped by today, just scroll down to find the newer posts. - RG
Despite growing up in a predominantly Jewish suburb as a child, none of my friends had an uncle or a grandparent, or anyone else who was directly affected by WWII. In fact, the only ones I ever knew that had anything to do with the war were my own grandfather and great-uncle, who had served. Never were there class projects done about the horrors of the Holocaust. Sure, it was taught, and we all read Eli Wiesel's Night, but there were no personal recollections. I actually grew up thinking that everyone who survived the Holocaust must have moved to New York City, because I only ever heard about survivors from television shows based there.

I was fascinated by accounts of Nazi hunters tracking down old men in Brazil to charge them with crimes nearly half a century old. I was horrified to find out that Mr. Right's grandfather was a soldier in the German Army, until I learned the whole story: The German's shipped his parents off to Auschwitz, and held them there until the oldest sons enlisted. His mother died of TB shortly after her release. Thankfully, my grandfather-in-law stayed far away from those camps. His job was on the ground (and in the air), fighting the Allies. If he had been involved in Final Solution, I don't think I would have the relationship with him that I have today.

Since I have no personal or even hand-me-down recollection to share with all of you, I would like to direct you to Right Thinking Girl, who has done an excellent short work of fiction, entitled Seven. She posted this yesterday, but I felt it was more appropriate to link to it today. Please read it and enjoy - it's not very long, and it's wonderfully written and very touching. Here is an excerpt.

Upstairs in the children's suite, Amalie couldn't sleep. She kept thinking about her mother's face after the phone call and she wanted her mother to tell her what had happened, but of course there would be no explanation coming. She would simply be told that mother wasn't feeling well, and she shouldn't worry. Amalie told herself to sleep and forget all about it, but it was no good. Finally, she got out of bed and walked down the dark hallway to the room where Ben slept. She didn't knock, but simply turned the knob and walked inside. Ben stirred under his blanket when she sat down on the edge of his bed. She had not been inside this room since Ben had moved in. He had pinned a large map of Europe on the wall. Different colored tacks were placed over the countries. She had no idea what they signified.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

"Why are you living with us?" she asked.

Ben sat up. "I don't know," he said. "I think it's because my grandfather is Jewish."

That wasn't the first time she'd heard that word, but it was the first time she'd ever been that close to it. It felt dangerous. All of life was a mystery, but grownups believed that just because they didn't talk in front of you that they could somehow protect you from those mysteries. But she didn't want to be protected. She wanted to understand the phone call, and Ben's presence in the Loire.

Amalie suddenly felt very sorry for Ben, being in France when his home was in Austria, being so far away from his father. She might try to be more kind. Of course, her own father was in Paris, and it had been weeks since she'd seen him.

You're putting me to sleep here!

BBC chiefs ruled Wednesday that a comedy show called "TV's Greatest Moments" should not have shown a clip of narcolepsy sufferers falling asleep at a help-group meeting.

The footage, which had originally formed part of a serious documentary into sleep disorder problems, was greeted with uproarious laughter by the audience when it appeared on the prime-time "2002 Greatest TV Moments" show.

The Narcolepsy Association UK (UKAN), which represents people who are prone to sleep disorder attacks, said the clip lampooned the condition, and encouraged the public to ridicule and humiliate sufferers.

The clip had initially been considered acceptable by the BBC's head of program complaints but a committee of five BBC governors later supported UKAN and ruled it was inappropriate to show the footage out of context.

"The audience of 2002 Greatest TV Moments knew nothing about the condition or the effect it had on sufferers' lives. Because the clip had been presented out of its original context, the audience had reacted to it with laughter," the committee said.

However it rejected UKAN's complaints about two other BBC programs on the subject, "Living Nightmare" and "Nap Attack" which had included the offending clip, saying they had been factual and informative.

Most of the nervous bloggers I know have been unwilling to give Mahmoud Abbas too much credit without knowing he's not going to turn into another Arafat. But today...

The Palestinian leadership banned civilians Thursday from carrying weapons its latest step aimed at reining in violence while awaiting Israel's response to a proposed mutual ceasefire.

If enforced, the ban on weapons would be a strong move against guerrilla groups, whose gunmen often openly brandish their automatic weapons in the streets of Gaza and the West Bank - reflecting the lack of control by the Palestinian security forces.

In the next step to impose order, the Palestinian security forces were preparing to move into the volatile southern Gaza Strip to prevent rocket and other attacks into Israel, extending their control from the northern part of Gaza, where they deployed earlier.

I can't help but cling to the hope that we might actually be getting somewhere with the Middle East.

I had my meeting with them tonight. It was like a cult. A voice on the stereo telling you to change machines every thirty seconds, groups of women standing around with their fingers on their throats (checking pulse rate), and perfect strangers just walking up to me out of the blue to ask if I was new, and to welcome me. Needless to say - I joined. It was just such a comfortable cult, oops, I mean environment... I couldn't help but feel I had found a place I wouldn't dread going to every night.

It appears France wants to do what they do best, and they would like the rest of the world to join them. No, I don't mean surrendering - I mean taxing. And boy, are they taxing.

They would like to raise taxes on fuel (yikes - that's the last thing anybody needs right now!) and airline tickes (double-yikes!), and give the extra income to curing AIDS.

Chirac said the levy could be imposed on international financial transactions without hampering markets, but it could also be raised by taxing fuel for air and sea transport, or levying $1 on every airline ticket sold in the world.

"It would allow us to mobilise $10 billion a year," he said.

Chirac said the money raised would be used not only to make medicines available to far more AIDS sufferers but also to finance research into a vaccine and develop prevention campaigns.

Chriac, of course, called for this to be discussed and sanctionned by the UN.

Hat tip to Little Green Footballs for this story.

A Kuwaiti man who had just returned from his holy pilgrimage to Mecca got the idea into his head that his fourteen year old virgin daughter was having sex. So he knelt her down in front of her siblings, and slit her throat.

Adnan Enezi - an employee in the Islamic Affairs ministry - had just returned from the pilgrimage to Mecca.

He allegedly bound and blindfolded his daughter, Haifa, knelt her down in front of her two brothers and sister and then cut her throat.

Forensic tests showed Haifa was still a virgin, police sources said. Mr Enezi is being questioned about the case.

Thousands of women are killed by relatives each year in the Middle East and Asia in so-called honour crimes - usually over suspected adultery, pre-marital sex or after having being raped, or marrying without family consent.

The suspect - who is also undergoing mental health tests - was separated from his wife, and has been imprisoned in Saudi Arabia for 18 months for his extremist activities, the al-Rai al-Am newspaper reported.

The daily said that after cutting Haifa's throat the first time, he swapped the knife for one with a sharper blade as she bled and screamed in front of her siblings.

Al-Qabas daily said the brothers and sister fled from the house after the murder, while their uncle took their sister to a hospital, but she had already died.

I can't imagine a place where this is considered common practice, where it is normal, and where he will probably only be fined for his crime. Yet as we in the West preach tolerance and inclusion from the rooftops, instead of integration and Western values, we are opening the door for this practice in Canada and the United States. Honor killings are already a common occurence in Britain.

My husband is a newcomer to Canada, but he shares it's values. Is it because he's a Christain, like the majority? Maybe. But it can't be that only white Christians come to Canada and the U.S. to start new lives. Both countries have open door policies for all religions, colors, creeds, and persuasions. But at what point is the government allowed to step in and say "Welcome to Canada - try being a Canadian."? Never, it seems. We are perfectly content to have groups of immigrants live in sects and tight knit communities around the country, stirring dissent, and all the while wailing against the values of the country they have chosen, because those values are not the same as in their home country. And we, as North Americans (or Britans), smile and nod, and let them recreate homelands that were obviously so terrifying that these people were forced to leave them. It doesn't make any sense. More should be done to integrate the more vulnerable ones into real Canadian society, so that they do not fall victim to the plagues of their homeland - plagues like honor killings.

Angry is having a good old fashioned rant about how the Chairman of the Polices Services Board, Pam McConnell, is a criminal-hugging lefty, and how Canada's gun laws only allow Angry to defend himself with a baseball bat... or a hug. Sweet.

I can see why a Police Services Board is necessary in a city that has had so much corruption in its force, but someone a little more politically neutral than Pam McConnell might better serve the needs of not only the residents of this city, but of those whose job it is to police it.

From an article in the normally liberal Toronto Star:

The appointment is a sign of failure at city hall and Queen's Park. It's never good to have a politician heading the board that is to provide balanced, thoughtful, civilian oversight of the police.

There are too many opportunities for conflicts and false perceptions in a job that's already difficult. There's no need to cloud it with political agenda and partisan sniping.

It has been customary to fill the job with a civilian who staffs the board with full-time purpose and dedication: a round-the-clock public presence at police headquarters. City hall knows this and so does Queen's Park. Yet, both governments failed to manoeuvre civilian appointments and vacancies in such a way as to equip the board with a qualified and experienced roster of members ready to assume the duties.

I'm a little slow on the uptake sometimes, so I only just discovered Conservative Hipster, through his most recent post about the upcoming Iraqi elections.

We enjoy such freedom and liberty here in Canada--and I think we take it for granted. Big time. If one country isn't free then we in the global community should be ashamed of ourselves. And yes, that goes for Saudi Arabia and all the other US allies who are just as oppresive and need a swift kick in the behind to get them thinking straight.

I wasn't a huge fan of the war, to be honest. And I shook my head when they called off the search for WMDs. But if there is a good reason to be in this war, this is it: to fight for the rights for Iraqis to do what only 35-odd percent of Canadians can't be bothered to do.

Vote.

We've all done it. Stood at a bus stop with our other half, and kissed them one last time before getting on the bus. Most drivers are patient enough to wait. Some become irritable and tell you to hurry up. None of them kill you. Till now.

A passenger was crushed to death under a coach after the driver refused to wait while the man snatched a farewell kiss, a court has heard.
Andrew Burke, 20, dashed to get back on the coach after it started to pull away as he said goodbye to his girlfriend.

The court heard the man from Croydon, south London, was dragged under the vehicle at Leicester's bus station.

Andrew Hessey, of Birchwood Road, Alfreton, Derbys, denies causing death by dangerous driving in October 2003.


'Let me on'


Mr Burke died instantly in front of his girlfriend after being clipped by the front-left wheel-arch and then crushed under the back wheels, a jury was told.

Leicester Crown Court heard how Mr Hessey closed the coach door and moved off as the couple kissed next to the steps of the vehicle.

David Herbert, prosecuting, said Mr Hessey could have been "in no doubt" that Mr Burke was running alongside the Volvo coach at St Margaret's bus station

Mr Herbert told the jury: "The defendant knew at all times that Mr Burke was there and yet despite that the defendant started to accelerate as he began to make his left hand turn."

Passengers heard Mr Burke banging on the door and begging to be let on, but Mr Hessey moved off again when the light turned green.

He was standing next to the closed door when the coach turned left, hitting him and dragging him beneath the wheels as his girlfriend looked on the court heard.

The trial continues.

Well, thanks to Angry in Toronto, the subject has finally been put to me. But before I weigh in on the great abortion debate, I want to make it clear that I do not particularly welcome the subject on this site, and it is not really up for further discussion.

As I said below, I am thinking of joining Curves gym this month. Angry pointed out their support of pro-life charities. I know all about it. I am a conservative, and a Republican (or Tory here in Canuckistan). I am a woman. For the most part, the two groups go well together. Except over abortion.

When I was single, I had a great deal of fun. The fun I had was careful, and never put anyone at risk for disease or pregnancy. I was obsessive about protection, and all the other good things that some pro-lifers and the Catholic church lump in with abortion. Because I had a head on my shoulders, and paid attention to what I was doing, I never needed to resort to an abortion. Not even after I was raped. But I liked knowing that if all else failed, I had one final option.

I do not wish to have children, and I have made this clear in the past, so it's not news to any of my regular readers. Because of this, I must remain ever vigilant against some stray sperm with nefarious intent. A simple solution would be a tubal ligation, but according to doctors I have consulted on both sides of the Atlantic, they will not do it until I am over thirty, or I've had at least one pregnancy. Not one child - one pregnancy. Just what are they suggesting I do? Get pregnant and abort, just so I never have to get pregnant again? With that sick plan in mind from my doctors, I'm sorry that abortion is so readily available, because if it wasn't, they wouldn't make such a horrific suggestion to me.

On the other hand (there are too many hands to this argument), if someone goes out and gets themselves pregnant without meaning to, they might very well have been foolish - or downright stupid. I can be smug and say that, because I got away with it. But how smug do I want to be? If a girl of say 17 years gets pregnant because she has a history of promiscuity or unsafe sex, there is a really good chance that it's going to scare some sense into her. And once scared - really and truly terrified - it might change her for the better. It might make her more responsible in her sexual life. I don't think that her youth needs to end there. Like going bankrupt, there is a final step you can take. It's one you have to really think about, and have to accept deep inside yourself for what it means, but that choice is there.

Yet, I have seen that choice abused firsthand. A girl I went to highschool with got pregnant, but not scared. She's had two abortions. I don't think what she did was right. One abortion is choosing your life over that of someone else's, and some of us may have to do that at some point in our lives, in some way or another. Two abortions is a senseless waste.

I have seen the same photos as everyone else: the curled up foetus at 6 weeks, ten weeks, three months. They are disgusting, but I am not moved by them. I have seen too much death in those I am attached to, to mourn the death of someone I've never met, and didn't plan to. Show me a woman with cancer, a woman who weighs 43lbs because her body is eating itself and the chemo is making it worse, and you'll see a cause I will fight for. And don't give me the "What if the baby grew up to cure cancer?" speech. It takes teams of people to find a cure for a disease. If my hypothetical baby grew up to take the credit for it, it would only be because he happened to be the front-man of his research team.

I have already said in my Middle-Right Manifesto on the homepage that if you want an abortion, go pay for it yourself, and make sure it's a clean one. Above all, I don't want to see backroom abortions happening again. To see what people did back before Roe vs Wade was what truly made my skin crawl. Not the photos of the little man inside - the photos of women bleeding to death silently, made to feel ashamed because they had sex. Sex has been around forever, and abortion has been around almost as long. It will be around as long as women continue to disrespect their bodies by having unprotected sex. And with my history, I'd be a liar to preach abstinance. So instead I choose to preach education.

If I were to find myself in an unfortunate situation today, I have another option. Not to raise the baby, but to give it away. I already know who I would give it to, because they are so desperate for a child, and the waiting lists are so long. I have, in fact, already offered to do this for them, and they have declined on the grounds that it is too much to ask of someone. But if there was no turning back, they would welcome this child into their stable and loving home.

So although it sounds callous for me to say it - I really do not care about the abortion debate one way or the other. I have other avenues to explore, but someone else might not. I am not angry or supportive toward either side of the debate, because I can clearly see both sides, and why both factions feel the way they do. This is perhaps the only major political issue that I am completely neutral on, and that is why it has never appeared on this blog, nor will it again.

The gym I plan to join supports pro-life organizations. So do most Republicans and conservatives. I align myself with these political entities not because of abortion, but because of other values that are like my own. You can't agree with an entire political or social philosophy all of the time. That makes a person a sycophant. Or a raving radical, which is much worse. So yes, pro-Iraq war, pro-war on terror, pro-tax cuts, anti-gay marriage, but pro-choice.

I welcome discussion on all topics on this board, but I warn you now, I will not tolerate the spam associated with extremists on either side of this particular fence. I am no more intersted in what the hairy-chinned feminists have to say than I am in seeing those little alien-like pictures again. Neither will move me, and neither will sway me. Both will simply serve to annoy me.

If anyone needs me, I'll be at the gym.

I tried a new sushi place in downtown Toronto last night, and I highly recommend it. Banzai Sushi is located at 134 Peter Street, just south of Queen.

I have been aquiring and honing my palate for sushi since 1998, and have tried many places around the globe since (and have discovered that many of those places will make you very, very sick), but this is by far the best and freshest I have had. I admit I am not very adventurous when it comes to what I order, although I have long since graduated from the California Roll to pieces of sushi and even occasional sashimi (if you know what I'm talking about, it means you like sushi, and you have to try this restaurant!).

Mr. Right and I had the place pretty much to ourselves, as we arrived just after they opened for dinner. The decor is funky and modern, with a large screen playing Manga in the middle, and touch screens at every table that provide the menu, tips on sushi etiquette, and you can also use the screens to chat with other tables!

I met the owner, who chatted a while with us since it wasn't busy. The staff was brilliant and friendly, willing to talk us through everything, and gave me an excellent recommendation to try one of the chef's specialities. Mr. Right won't eat anything if it's not cooked, but the menu more than provided for him.

We both left happy, and the bill was average for a Toronto retaurant (Toronto is an expensive city, but I'm used to paying $15 for a single breakfast now, so the $75 we payed, tax in, for dinner didn't seem like much).

If we ever get around to holding a Toronto-area Conservative Blogger conference (read: piss-up and rant session), might I suggest Banzai for our get-together?

I have been trying to decide over the past few days whther to join a Curves gym, or another nearby fitness centre based on the Curves concept. So I did a little research.

Gary Heavin, founder and CEO of Curves international, made a corporate donation of $25,000 to the GOP.

Sounds good to me. Besides, their price is better.

Since we're on the subject of Genocide, have a look at this article out of Britain.

BRITISH Muslims are to boycott this week's commemoration of the liberation of Auschwitz because they claim it is not racially inclusive and does not commemorate the victims of the Palestinian conflict.

Can I just point out that the Palestinian "conflict" is a war in which it took both sides to begin? Palestine hates Israel. Israel hates Palestine. These are people that have been throwing rocks at each other for centuries, and if there is any resemblance between what happened in Europe in the 30's and 40's, it is only that a whole bunch of JEWS have been killed. If, and I say IF Palestinians have been secretly removed from their homes in the middle of the night to be held in camps until they are exterminated (which there is, of course, no evidence to support), it is because they are not above using the same treatment against Isaelis. It works both ways.

The liberation of Auschwitz has nothing to do with Palestinian conflict or Muslims in general. It's not all about you!

Iqbal Sacranie, secretary-general of the Muslim Council of Britain, has written to Charles Clarke, the home secretary, saying the body will not attend the event unless it includes the "holocaust" of the Palestinian intifada. {i'm sure they will be sorely missed - RG]

He said similar events held in other European countries was an "inclusive day" that commemorated deaths in Palestine, Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia, as well as the former Nazi death camps.

That might have something to do with Europe being a bunch of pro-Islamic, UN-controlled, spineless sissies. I wonder if the Muslim community would have attended in Spain if the comemmoration had included the deaths of all those people in the Madrid bombing, which was carried out by Muslim extremists. I think not. After all, those who died were not at fault for anything except living in a country that was - at the time - working to fight terrorists and despots in Iraq. They were killed because they were Christian, and in league with the Great Satan. The Jihad that is being waged against the West is a new kind of Holocaust, and one that should be fought tooth and nail. Whether the Muslim Council of Britain and CAIR like it or not.

In this week of Holocaust memorials and tributes; this week when the UN is out there once more talking the talk, there is a terrifying reminder here at home of how easy it is to ignore genocide, even when it's right under your nose.

Or at least that's what some inane animal rights group would have you believe:

TORONTO – Public hearings into legislation to sharply restrict ownership of some dog breeds heard Monday from a critic who referred to a ban on pit bull terriers as "canine genocide."

Cathy Prothro, president of the American Staffordshire Terrier Club of Canada, told a legislative committee that the proposed law unfairly blames pit bulls for attacks against humans by all breeds of dogs.

Prothro also said there is "no scientific proof that genetics cause a breed of dog to be aggressive."

"For this type of racial profiling, it amounts to nothing more than canine ethnic cleansing," she told the committee on its first day of hearings.

No, really. She actually said "ethnic cleansing" when talking about vicious dogs - during Holocaust remembrance week. I'm sure she could have been at work that day, but perhaps decided to close the yoga studio so she could attend this hearing. Thankfully, her nonsense was balanced about by facts:

Monday's hearing also heard from a Toronto woman who described the injuries inflicted on her five-year-old daughter by a pit bull in 1994.

"The beast left a gaping hole just under the eye so deep you could see the little bones in her face," said Louise Ellis, whose daughter needed more than 300 stitches after the attack.

"The owner said it was friendly, and it was okay to pat it."

UPDATE: Looks like Angry in Toronto got to this story before I did, and spent a bit more time on it, too. Dude has lots of time on his hands, judging by the consitently well-thought-out and interesting posts he delivers. If you haven't read him before, now's a good time to start.

Thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of children have been orphaned by the Tsunami. Countries like China, Japan, the United States, and Canada have been emptying their pockets to do whatever is necessary to help rebuild communities that have been devastated. It's bad enough that Indonesia wants us to pull troops out, because they don't want any outside interference, but now the ungratefulness is coming from within.

I found the link to the story via Proud To Be Canadian.

A CANADIAN Islamic group is vowing to prevent the adoption by Christian families of Muslim children orphaned in the tsunami disaster. "Canadian Muslims will not allow that the custody of Muslim orphan children to be given to Christian families or any non-Muslim families," reads a release issued yesterday by the Islamic Supreme Council of Canada.

"We will chase down any Christian group that does anything beyond offering aid," Hasri Husan, the leader of a militant Muslim group that is operating a refugee camp in Indonesia, told AP before making a slashing motion across his throat.
I am angry enough that they are so ungrateful as to want to kick us out of their countries when we are feeding and sheltering their vulnerable, but now they have the unbelievable gall to say that Christians shouldn't give their orphans a caring home? Where do they think all this charity is coming from, anyway? The Muslim countries have already been criticized for the amount of aid they haven't given. Now they have even more reason to be ashamed of themselves. Unfortunately, humility and good sense are virtues that Allah did not equip them with.

'At this festive season of the year, Mr. Scrooge,'
said the gentleman, taking up a pen, 'it is more than
usually desirable that we should make some slight
provision for the Poor and Destitute, who suffer
greatly at the present time. Many thousands are in
want of common necessaries; hundreds of thousands
are in want of common comforts, sir.'

'Are there no prisons?' asked Scrooge.

'Plenty of prisons,' said the gentleman, laying down
the pen again.

'And the Union workhouses?' demanded Scrooge.
'Are they still in operation?'

'They are. Still,' returned the gentleman, 'I wish
I could say they were not.'

'The Treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigour,
then?' said Scrooge.

'Both very busy, sir.'

'Oh! I was afraid, from what you said at first,
that something had occurred to stop them in their
useful course,' said Scrooge. 'I'm very glad to
hear it.'

This ran through my mind today while I was out walking over my lunchbreak. While Ebenezer Scrooge was hardly the soul of Christian charity, he might not have been too far off the right track.

Toronto's mayor, David Miller, got into hot water last week, because he wants to clear the homeless off of city property, beginning with City Hall at Nathan Philips Square. It's an admirable goal, as far as I'm concerned, and in the same lines as a man I well respect: Rudy Giuliani. In liberal New York, there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth when he came out with his various zero-tolerance policies, but frankly, New York is a hard-working and affluent city, and it should reflect that. A huge part of the Toronto economy, like New York, is based on tourism. Toronto has had enough troubles over the past few years, what with SARS, blackouts, 9/11 (like everybody else) and whatever else you could throw at them, and to have vagrants begging on street corners and sleeping on the lawn at City Hall kind of sends the wrong message to families looking for a fun, safe place to spend their vacation dollars.

Miller's plan isn't to shove everyone into workhouses, or to reinstitute debtor's prisons (Heaven knows I would be there alongside most of my fellow countrymen and women, and there would be few people left to run the country!). His plan is simply to build more affordable housing, open more shelters, hire more outreach owrkers to coax people into one of the aforementioned options, and failing that - and only failing all that - jail or mental hospitals would be considered. Considered, people!

Of course, the liberal left is squawking about the usual human rights violations (I have decided that only the very poor and the criminal element actually have human rights. The rest of us are S.O.L.), and how these people shouldn't be treated like criminals or crazy people, just because they don't want to leave the streets.

Let's think about that, okay? This past week, it has averaged -25 degrees celcius in Toronto. Our already existing outreach workers have been patrolling the streets, trying to convince people to come inside. They won't. They out and out refuse. Why is that? Has anyone ever bothered to find out? Well, the outreach workers theorize that these "rough sleepers" are too troubled, or too distrusting to take the help that's offered.

My own theory is that they either want to remain untraceable, or they are mentally ill. If they wish to remain below the radar, it is probably because they have committed a crime. Therefore, putting them in prison isn't a bad thing. After all, that's what the prisons are there for. Some of them are runaways, and they need more help than anybody. We can't just leave them there. I know our system isn't great, but it has to be better than the streets. Perhaps it's our fostercare system that needs overhauling, so that these kids aren't being abused by foster parents who are just doing the duty to grab monthly checks from the government.

If they are mentally ill - and I don't mean stark raving mad; many are just messed up, or biochemically unbalanced, and would be so easy to treat - shouldn't they get help, in order to put their lives back on track? The Mental Health Act is a very gray area when it comes to detaining people against their will, but tell me what's worse: Taking an unwilling person into a health centre and helping him get through his addiction/depression/trauma/disorder, or sending the city morgue to pick his frozen body up off the lawn of City Hall before it opens for business?

During my lunchtime stroll today, I came across many who fit into that category. My office is in the corporate district, which borders the shopping district. For the more enterprising homeless man or woman, this is a perfect area for pandering, or for selling those newspapers that help give them an income and a sense of self-worth. People in this area from 9-5 are well-off, with money to spend. So the entreprenurial class of homeless come down to solicit. Fine. These guys are generally harmless, and strangely polite. I always get a "good day, ma'am" from a man outside Starbucks. But most of those guys were hiding from the cold today. The ones that were out were scary (Was that politically incorrect? Frankly, I don't give a sh*t.). One of them, as I stepped out of the Eaton Centre, began swearing at me, and looking back over his shoulder to hurl nasty remarks at me. I couldn't think what I could have done to him. Did I hit him with the door as I came out? Then, as we passed another building, he in the lead, and me trying to keep a distance behind, a lady stepped out, and he switched his focus to her. There was the man behind me on the way back to the office, who was grumbling and swearing to himself. There was the one on the corner who asked a man for spare change, and when the man said no, he became belligerent.

Canada is a socialist country (despite it's claims to the contrary), and it does more for it's poor than many other places, including the U.S. We've got the free healthcare, social housing, welfare - in fact, I can think of only Britain that goes further out of their way to accommodate. What more can we do? How much more are we expected to tolerate on our streets? Miller is standing up and offering a solution, and he's got balls to do it. I hope he follows through. Next winter probably won't be any warmer than this one has been.

Johnny Carson died this morning. I had no idea he was even sick.

"Mr. Carson passed away peacefully early Sunday morning," his nephew, Jeff Sotzing, told The Associated Press. "He was surrounded by his family, whose loss will be immeasurable."

I found this at Thinking Right. Please read it's it's beautiful.

WINNIPEG - Staff at Headingly jail have started confiscating Bibles after discovering prisoners were using the pages for roll-your-own smokes.

The provincial jails are supposed to be tobacco-free, but enterprising inmates have come up with their own smokes - a combination of leaves from tea bags and Nicorette gum that is boiled, dried and rolled in the thin pages of the New or Old Testament.

I have so many feelings about this. I am not an overtly religious person. I classify myself as a Christian, although I subscribe to no particular denomination. They are destroying the Bible - which, if they tried to do that to the Koran, they would be killed. They are buring books. For which there is no excuse, even if they are a bunch of illiterate criminals (okay, bring on the criminal rights advocates: I love those guys!). They are destroying property meant for the enjoyment of all (I decline to agree with Cathy Sandney, the prison's superintendant, when she says

"They may have to pay for it. Normally, there's a consequence when you destroy government property."

since the books have been donated by the Gideons).

They are already in prison, which means that there's no further punishment for them. However I would suggest that once they have been identified, that it should be noted on their record for their parole hearings. Anyone shameless enough to destroy the Bible in order to fulfill his own craving - even though that craving contravenes the law of the prison - is likely to re-offend, and should not be granted early discharge.

New Sisyphus has an amusing and intersting Fisking of a Thomas L. Friedman New York Times article on U.S.-EU relations.

Go have a look - I have to earn my keep today, so this should keep you busy for a while. My favorite bit?

The anti-tax thing we'll take gladly. We believe the USG should take what
is necessary for the government's core functions and the rest of the income
belongs to the American people. And that anti-national-health-care crack is
pretty revealing, isn't it? Haven't the Democrats been assuring us since
HillaryCare that they aren't for national health care? And, it works so well!
You can tell by the hordes of Canadians dying of cancer not fleeing to the US
for health care. I mean when some rich Middle Eastern prince is sick they always
fly off for treatment at the East Bigglesforth Hospital in Dorwestershire and
not, say, Mt Sinai in
New York City. Everyone knows this.

We are led, by events and common sense, to one conclusion: The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands. The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world.

My favorite passage from the Inauguration speech of George W. Bush, January 20, 2005.

The main story today is the inauguration of President Bush for his second term. Although I know it is unlikely to reach him - at least not in a timely fashion - I sent a note to the White House with my congratulations:

Dear Mr. President

It was with a hopeful heart I watched you elected from my living room in Toronto, and my thoughts will be with you at your Inauguration.

Canada may have let you down time and again throughout your first term as President, but I want you to know that you, and the United States of America, still have friends in Canada who believe in you. If I could have voted for you, I would have!

So please accept my and my husband’s heartfelt congratulations as you enter your second term. May you bring peace where there was none before, may you and your country stay safe, and (I know this is a stretch) may the rest of the world once again realize the friend they have in America, and strengthen friendships they had let slip.

Michael Moore's Bodyguard Arrested on Airport Gun Charge

Police took Patrick Burke, who says Moore employs him, into custody after he declared he was carrying a firearm at a ticket counter. Burke is licensed to carry a firearm in Florida and California, but not in New York. Burke was taken to Queens central booking and could potentially be charged with a felony for the incident.

Moore's 2003 Oscar-winning film "Bowling for Columbine" criticizes what Moore calls America's "culture of fear" and its obsession with guns.

I read this article on BBC News this morning, and something just doesn't seem right about it. It's... funny, and I don't think it was meant that way.

I post in its entirety, so that you, too, will see that it seems to have been written by Lewis Carroll.

Licensing laws will soon be relaxed, prompting fears about increased binge drinking. But is alcohol to blame or is it a matter of taste?

When 24-hour licensing comes into force next month opponents of the scheme are bracing themselves for the nation's High Streets to become no-go areas at night.

But while they are convinced the relaxation of opening hours can only lead to more binge drinking, others argue people's uneducated palates are the problem - not their alcohol consumption.

"Nowadays 22-year-olds are drinking flavours no more challenging than what they were drinking at 12, it's alcoholic fruit juice," says Peter Haydon, author of Beer and Britannia: An Inebriated History of Britain.

"Most have been raised on a diet of processed food and sweet flavours, unlike older generations. They haven't made the transition to more complicated tastes, something drinks companies have exploited. That has a bigger influence on binge drinking than longer open hours ever will.

"Drinking alcohol is not a challenging experience for young people any more. I remember my first taste of alcohol was disgusting because it was beer. But as I grew up I learnt to appreciate the taste and got into the more complicate flavours of real ale and wines."

He argues that linking binge drinking with longer opening hours is disingenuous; it needs to be included in the debate about diet and obesity.

Gin fever

"The British are big drinkers, it has always been part of our culture," he says. "That is who we are and we shouldn't wring our hands and try to suppress that. We should look at the debate more sensibly and look at what, where and how people are drinking.

"Beer is food, it is nutritional. A lot of what people drink today is muck. If you take away the pressure of the current opening hours people will have more time to consider what they are drinking, will start trading up their drinks and behave more responsibly."

It's something the Campaign for Real Ale (Camra) agrees with.

"Longer opening hours aren't the issue. If you want a drink you can already get it at any time as supermarkets and local shops are already open 24 hours-a-day selling alcohol," says Iain Loe, Camra's research and information manager.

"Relaxing licensing laws is a sensible move. To tackle binge drinking you need to start by educating youngsters and looking at what they drink and the way those drinks are targeted at them."

History appears to back their arguments. Britons have always drunk, sometimes washing down breakfast, lunch and dinner with ale. But some of the biggest problems with alcohol have come about when beer and wine have been replaced as the drink of choice.

When gin was popularised in the 1700s drunkenness became such a problem the government passed the Gin Act in an attempt to restrict the production and sale of it. By 1727 England was consuming roughly five million gallons of gin a year - quite a feat for a population of only six million.

Damage

"Back in the 1700s beer was safer to drink than water because it was boiled as part of the brewing process," says Haydon.

"There were dire consequences when gin was popularised. Half the nation was drunk."

Nutritionist Gale Kennedy agrees binge drinking needs to be part of the debate on the nation's health, but argues that relaxing licensing laws will not help the problem.

"Binge drinking should be part of the debate about the nation's diet. Just as you need to educate people about what food is good for them, you need to educate them about what they drink and why," she says.

"But until we do that longer opening hours will not help. It is like a red flag to a bull to people who don't understand what damage they are doing to themselves. I can take on board the arguments about taste, and agree some alcohol does have nutritional value, but I'm not sure if everyone turned into real ale drinkers overnight the problem of binge drinking would be solved."

I especially like the part about beer being "food. It is nutritional." On that basis, my father shouldn't have died when his liver rotted away - in fact, he should have lived forever.

The article seems to indicate that 1) Brits have always been alcoholics - I thought I was the only one who had noticed this, and 2) they would drink less if they refined their palates. I don't get it. Yes, I understand that alcopops have increased drinking in women and teens, but the writer, Denise Winterman, seems to be saying that her fellow countrymen have no taste. Which is a bold statement that I will have to chew on for a while before I decide if I agree with it. She also seems to be pointing out that they are stupid. I have to admit, I've been out in Glasgow and Edinburgh more than once on a Friday or a Saturday night, and I've thought the same thing myself. But usually, if I was out at the pub, I was being pretty daft myself, so it would be like the pot and the kettle. I always thought it was the weather that made them (and me) drink so much. Whether the drinks went down easy or hard, I just wanted to forget it was raining. Even being back in Canada, where we have all four seasons instead of permanent November, I drink more in the winter than I do when it's sunny and warm. Most people do. In fact, we Canadians needed an excuse to drink huge amounts of our nasty-tasting but brilliantly strong beer, so we invented hockey. This year we drink because we're depressed about the lack of hockey.

He argues that linking binge drinking with longer opening hours is disingenuous; it needs to be included in the debate about diet and obesity.

I can see it now: "Okay kids, today we're going to learn about beer. I would have brought samples for you - but you're only eight years old!!

I found a new blog through Little Green Footballs, called New Sisyphus (which is a phrase that shouldn't be read too quickly). The inaugural post is LONG! But totally worth it.

Regarding the 1996 Welfare Reforms:

"The current debate over welfare reform involves conflicting visions of society and the impact of welfare on human behavior. Real reform will not be achieved until specific core assumptions which form the foundation of the modern welfare state have been overturned and discarded. From its onset, the liberal welfare state has been founded on faulty logic. This flawed logic, embedded in nearly all liberal thinking about welfare, runs something like this:

PREMISE #1: Children in families with higher income seem to do better in life.

PREMISE #2: Welfare can easily raise family income.

Conclusion: Therefore, welfare is good for kids.

* * *

It is useful to examine each of these cardinal liberal tenets individually. The first is that raising incomes is crucial to the well-being and success of children. The common liberal corollary to this premise is that poverty "causes" such problems as crime, school failure, low cognitive ability, illegitimacy, low work ethic and skills, and drug use. Hence, reducing poverty through greater welfare spending will reduce most social problems. History refutes this belief. In 1950, nearly a third of the U.S. population was poor (twice the current rate). In the 1920s, roughly half of the population was poor by today's standard. If the theory that "poverty" causes social problems were true, we should have had far more social problems in those earlier periods then we do today. But crime and most other social problems have increased rather than fallen since these earlier periods."

A highly intelligent blogger working for the State Department.

At the risk of starting a conspiracy rumor, doesn't this sound like something straight out of Godfather III? I can just picture some high-up aide to the pope telling Michael Corleone to "take care of it."

A 66-year-old Syrian Catholic archbishop kidnapped by masked gunmen was freed today, a day after his abduction, without the payment of any ransom, the Vatican said.

But I'm glad. If it would help end the violence in Iraq, I would be perfectly happy to see the U.S. send in the Mafia.

I have an appointment with my bank tomorrow on my lunch hour, to help me sort out my finances now that I will be living back in Canada again. The last time I lived here, I was a single, carefree person who didn't really care about tomorrow. Now I'm a boring old married person, and it's time to think about things like life insurance, if not retirement savings. I would like to make one point, though: There is no woman in my family who has lived to retirment age. I do not expect to be the first. There is a faulty gene somewhere. But when my mother died lo these many years ago, my father was entitled to all her pension and retirement savings - which wasn't much.

Perhaps if she had known Babs, and taught me to do the same...

One of the greatest gifts we can give our son is an education about money. At fifteen months old, he's too young to understand the lessons, but we're starting anyway. Every cent he gets (mostly money from Grandparents at his birthday and Christmas) gets divided up. 50% he can spend (or we do for him at this point), 25% goes in his savings, and 25% goes to the orphanage in Russia from which he was adopted. Right now, since I control his spending money, it goes primarily to new books. Kids can have too many toys, but they can't have too many books. Once he's old enough to make choices we'll work on making appropriate ones, but I know he'll buy a lot of garbage. That's ok. We've all done it. Still do. But I want him to understand that a lot has to be put away for the future. And as much needs to go to those less fortunate. For now, it's the orphanage. Later, he can help choose.

My taxes do not pay for FOX News. If I want to watch it, I will pay for it myself. I do not wish to watch or support it, I will withhold my money.

However, like the British with BBC, my Canadian tax dollars go to fund the CBC (annoyingly, though, CBC still has commercials, which makes me wonder why they need my tax money). I have no control over whether or not I choose to support this station. If I had the choice, and they decided to show a movie that glorifies Mohammed Atta and the other 9/11 hijackers, I could shut it off, and not give my support. However, tonight they will show The Hamburg Cell, which makes the terrorists into heroes, and although I might decide not to give my money to their sponsors, I can do nothing about the fact that I have already paid CBC to broadcast this docudrama. I can write all the letters of protest that I want, but at the end of each tax year, CBC will just smile and hold out its hand.

The liberal Canadians who have decided to block FOX had the choice to do this. I do not have this option. No matter what channel I decide to watch tonight, I will still be paying the CBC. My dhimmi tax, if you will.

I have done a bit of updating at the Parlour page, and included my review of Reading Lolita in Tehran, which I'm reading now.

I haven't had much chance to read the paper this morning, or check the other blogs. It's going to be a busy weekend, but hopefully I'll be able to pop in from time to time.

I have received emails from a few of you asking what I think about this "torture trial" going on in the U.S. Part of the reason I haven't said anything about it is that I am under-versed in the nuances of the Geneva Convention, plus I tend to disregard most of what Amnesty International complains about in any given year. While I feel they do a bang-up job alerting the world to atrocities around the globe, such as systemic rape and female genital mutilation in third world countries, I feel they also have a tendancy to let common sense go by the wayside in an effort to look for trouble where none exists. Perhaps it is an occupational hazard for those of a bleeding heart nature - they get so involved in doing good deeds that eventually their minds snap, and they can only see the evil in people, despite claims to the opposite.

I can only offer opinion on this torture business, bacause as I said, I don't have a full grasp, so I will not pretend that I do. I leave such dishonesty to the left, and CBS.

Torture, as I define it, is physically painful, and psychologically damaging. Cutting a prisoner's fingers or toes off would be torture. Starvation would be torture. Threatening to rape his wife - torture. But making fun of him, and humiliating him? That's just highschool.

I have been half-heartedly following this story since it broke last year, and I have yet to hear anything done to these prisoners that I myself did not suffer worse in my teens. I was a bullied child. Beaten regularly for being poor, fat, having bad hair. I wasn't cool. I frequently had to change my locker because my previous one had been glued shut or burned. I was a geek, and I was smarter than most of the dope addicts I went to school with. Where the f**k was Amnesty International when I was 14? If highschool isn't a system that endorses and promotes abuse, I don't know what would be. But did I write letters to my local MP, or set out press releases? No. I just shut up and got on with it, and I was a scared kid with no one to turn to. If I could do it, then surely these "men" who have been arrested on suspicion of far worse crimes that I ever committed can get through it and cut the whinging.

It is also my understanding that in order to deal with a terrorist - especially one of Islamic descent who believes in honor above all - is to break his spirit a little. I'm not saying turn the guy into an emotional vegetable, but bring him down a notch or two. As a military interrogator, you probably have to fit the method to the person. And in the case of Islamic men, to be ridiculed by a female, or to be humiliated by one of the Great Satan's army, is just the ticket.

It is also my contention that the U.S. is paying lip service to these trials, because frankly, they have better things to do right now. Such as feed a bunch of ungrateful people overseas, and bring a democratic election to a country that Amnesty International must have thought was doing just fine on its own. The United States has been fighting a losing battle against anti-American propaganda. So it is trying to clean up its image by scapegoating these soldiers. Just like CBS scapegoated a few of its producers, instead of out and out placing the blame on Dan Rather, who had more than enough clout to refuse to report the Bush story if he had any concerns as to its authenticity. But that puts me a little off topic.

If frustration is a form of torture, that I am going to write to the UN, and tell them I am a victim of political torture and humiliation, at their own hands. I am frustrated and haunted by the rhetoric coming from the Left. What, Mr. Annan, do you suggest I do about it?

Since I still have a British Residency permit pasted into my passport, I suppose I should comment on the Harry-in-a-Nazi-uniform scandal. Since the British were far more active than the Americans in freeing the Jews and bringing down the Nazis (no reflection on the Americans - they has shit going on in the Pacific they needed to worry about), I can see why the British would be outraged at Harry's behavior.

But let's put it in perspective, shall we? Hitler was a bad, bad man. That point is not up for debate anywhere, anytime. But so is Osama bin Laden, and somw wank of a comedian crashed the gates at Prince William's 21st birthday party dressed as OBL. The scandal surrounding that? People were angry that palace security was so easily breached. No one was up in arms that someone thought it was funny to dress as a terrorist. I'm not saying OBL and Hitler are in the same league, either - Hitler killed over 6 million Jews - but then again, if bin Laden had his way, they probably would be.

This is from The American Spectator:

A line of cobblestones in the street marks where the Wall once ran through the middle of town. Just on the East German side of Friedrichstrasse, in an empty lot, is a field of crosses honoring those who died trying to escape the totalitarian rule of East Germany.

A few yards from this memorial was Checkpoint Charlie, the entry point from the Soviet sector of East Berlin to the American sector. ... Just yards from Joachim's cross and the place where Fechter bled to death, tourists can buy kitschy Communist Party paraphernalia, mock uniforms, and Soviet hats, just like the ones worn by the guards on the East German side of Checkpoint Charlie.

You could probably guess that they don't sell kid-sized Nazi uniforms at Auschwitz.

We know that Nazis are not funny. When are we going to learn this about Soviet Communism?

Josef Stalin was responsible for the deaths of an estimated eight to 20 million people during his rule. You can buy a Stalin poster or tee-shirt at Checkpoint Charlie today -- and people do. Tourists from the U.S., Canada, and Europe can be seen on the streets of Berlin sporting their Stalin clothes.

I imagine most of this is ironic humor, mock-celebrating the idols of a failed system. The German reverence (or display of reverence at least) for Adolf Hitler also reached absurd levels, but little German kids don't sport their Führer gear around the city.

Humor is a necessary outlet of fear and anger. Sometimes the only way to deal with terrible things is to joke about it. We joke about Osama bin Laden even though the thought of September 11 makes me clench my jaw. Mel Brooks' The Producers is full of Hitler humor.

Dictators and terrorists have a funny aspect: they are ridiculously self-important in a way that deserves mockery. But we also know that joking about mass-murders shows disrespect to the murdered.

You can drink in a trendy bar in West Berlin where exotically dressed attractive women sip $10 martinis that young men in $800 suits bought them, and a mural of Mao Tse-tung covers the back wall. Mao's "cultural revolution" resulted, too, in countless deaths.

I, personally, have had dinner in a trendy Glasgow restaurant called Café Mao. So you can see that people around the world decide which dictators are cool, and which ones are not. But for the British themselves, who are paying a huge amount of tax every year to support the Royals, I agree that it is an outrage. There are still people living in the UK today who were present on VE-Day, who stormed the beaches, and who took Hitler down. And to have the family of the most expensive council estate in England snub their noses at them is a crying shame.

Immigration Minister Judy Sgro, criticized at the end of 2004 for granting a work permit to a stripper who worked on her campaign, is to resign over pizza. Really. I'm not making it up.

Affidavit says she promised aid in return for pizza

Minister accused of ordering arrest to save her job

These are the headlines in today's Toronto Star.

Federal Immigration Minister Judy Sgro will step down today following allegations she promised a Brampton man asylum in Canada in exchange for assisting in her election campaign.

Sgro's decision to step aside came only hours after the Toronto Star obtained a copy of an affidavit in which pizza shop owner Harjit Singh claims Sgro pressed him to supply food and workers for her campaign last spring.

Singh, a father of three facing deportation from Canada, alleges in the sworn affidavit filed in the Federal Court of Canada in Toronto yesterday that when word of his arrangement with Sgro started to leak out, Sgro suddenly reneged on the deal and last month ordered his arrest and removal from Canada "to save her job."

Last night, federal sources confirmed that Sgro, 60, already at the centre of an ethics investigation over her conduct as immigration minister, would be leaving cabinet until she can clear her name.

My only regret is that I didn't contact this woman myself to speed up Mr. Right's resident application. I'm sure he could have mowed her lawn or something in return. But other than that, I am happy to see one less corrupt Liberal in office.

Go home! is what aid forces are being told in Indonesia.

The U.S. ambassador here said on Thursday that the United States was not troubled by the demands by the Indonesian government that aid workers in Aceh Province register and that all foreign troops be gone by the end of March.

My own husband used to get upset because I would never ask for or accept help. My trademark phrase was "Don't do me any f**kin' favors!" But this goes beyond the pale. People from countries around the world have raached out to those in Indonesia, and we're hardly being thanked for it.

The timetable for the withdrawal of foreign troops was made public a day after the commander of the Indonesian military announced restrictions on the movement of foreign aid workers.

The military has fought a civil war against separatist rebels here for 30 years and has kept Aceh virtually sealed to outsiders in that period. President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono is a former general and a strong defender of the military role in the province.

Western military officials said the Indonesian Army, the backbone of the nation's strong sense of sovereignty, was being cooperative but touchy about the foreign troops working here.

Despite the best attempts to censor our American news here in Canada, the CRTC has been overwhelmed by requests to bring FOX News into our country. So what are the civil servants and bleeding hearts going to do about it?

Attention, blue-state parents. Are you worried about what your children are seeing on TV? Have you caught them ogling Ann Coulter and Sean Hannity as they engage in explicit acts of love with Bush administration policies?
Now you can protect your little liberals from hard-core right-wing positions the same way you censor cable porn. For just $8.95, The FOXBlocker eliminates the risk of exposure to Fox News Channel.

Sam Kimery and Joshua Montgomery, who are marketing the device, say it employs the technology already used to filter adult content.

And every time someone orders one of the gizmos from Foxblocker.com, Fox advertisers receive E-mail telling them that another consumer has just said no to Rupert Murdoch's brand of "fair and balanced news."

"We hope that companies will see people actually paying to block channels that won't offer alternative views, and then rethink how they spend their advertising dollars," Montgomery tells Variety V Life magazine.

Is Fox worried about this new product?

"I mean, clearly, it's not working," a Fox News rep told us. "Our ratings continue to skyrocket."

I found the link to this absurdity through this site. Always nice to see another Canadian conservative. There might be hope for this country after all. Check the blog out - it's a good read.

I apologize for the light posting yesterday and today, but they've actually given me work to do at the office! Gone are the pre-Christmas days of blogging and long lunches. I'll catch up this evening.

RG

How many of you can fit the words "myopic zeal" into conversation today, without mentioning the CBS affair?

T.O. police arrest man posing as Red Cross workerCTV.ca News Staff

Toronto police have arrested a man who was allegedly defrauding people by posing as a Red Cross worker collecting money for tsunami disaster relief.

Police stopped the man on an unrelated traffic offence Saturday. He was pulled over for driving a car with improper licence plates.

That's when police found that he was carrying false Red Cross identification. A search of his vehicle uncovered fake contribution lists.

Police say the man complemented his scam by providing contributors with phony tax receipts. They also uncovered bogus donation forms for a non-existent Christian organization that was supposedly collecting on behalf of the Red Cross.

The Toronto Police Service said in a statement: "He would produce a charitable tally tax list with the heading for a religious institution named 'Inter Schools Denominational and Christian Centre'. This institution does not exist."

The man was also found with a list showing he raised over $240 from about 20 people across Toronto.

"None of collected funds was finding its way to any organization that is any way connected with the Red Cross or any other legitimate charities supporting the Tsunami relief efforts," police said.

Elmon Muringwa, 44, is to appear in bail court on Sunday on charges of fraud under $5,000. He is a Zimbabwean refugee claimant.

Police are asking anyone who think they made a donation to Muringwa to contact them.

I, like zillions of others last night, watched the first two episodes of 24. It's a show that I was riveted to in the first season, but I have found that it is becoming predictable in its unpredictability, like an M. Night Shamalyan movie. You just know that Jack will shoot the witness, that a damsel will be in distress, and that whole families can be wiped out in a heartbeat. And that in the end, Jack will get the girl. Unless she's a spy. Then he'll shoot her.

As for the anti-Muslim sentiment that has had CAIR up in arms (everything has CAIR up in arms - they're like an imported version of the NAACP, and few people take them very seriously), I was expecting worse. From the outcry we've heard in the newspapers and on the web, it sounded like the "bad guys" would be stereotyped, swarthy guys, segregating their women, wearing the little prayer caps, and facing east while they discuss blowing up America. All I saw was a clever guy who allowed his wife to speak and make suggestions, dealing with the age-old adolescent problem of not liking your son's choice of mate. His wife was not in a chador - she was in makeup (and lots of it). And their choice of actor for the role was brilliant, since I would swear I've seen that guy play the "evil Jew" role somewhere else. I think he's known in Hollywood as Stereotype Man.

While this season of 24 may continue to hold my attention, I doubt very much it will have the same bragging rights as the first season, when my doctor told me to cut it out of my routine, because my blood pressure was too high.

In my last post, I detailed how we're losing a battle for our own culture and religion, in order to be fair and democratic to those of another culture.

This guy said it better.

What else has to happen before the European public and its political leadership get it? There is a sort of crusade underway, an especially perfidious crusade consisting of systematic attacks by fanatic Muslims, focused on civilians and directed against our free, open Western societies. It is a conflict that will most likely last longer than the great military conflicts of the last century -- a conflict conducted by an enemy that cannot be tamed by tolerance and accommodation but only spurred on by such gestures, which will be mistaken for signs of weakness.

Two recent American presidents had the courage needed for anti-appeasement: Reagan and Bush. Reagan ended the Cold War and Bush, supported only by the social democrat Blair acting on moral conviction, recognized the danger in the Islamic fight against democracy. His place in history will have to be evaluated after a number of years have passed.

In the meantime, Europe sits back with charismatic self-confidence in the multicultural corner instead of defending liberal society's values and being an attractive center of power on the same playing field as the true great powers, America and China. On the contrary-we Europeans present ourselves, in contrast to the intolerant, as world champions in tolerance, which even (Germany's Interior Minister) Otto Schily justifiably criticizes. Why? Because we're so moral? I fear it's more because we're so materialistic.

For his policies, Bush risks the fall of the dollar, huge amounts of additional national debt and a massive and persistent burden on the American economy-because everything is at stake.

While the alleged capitalistic robber barons in American know their priorities, we timidly defend our social welfare systems. Stay out of it! It could get expensive. We'd rather discuss the 35-hour workweek or our dental health plan coverage. Or listen to TV pastors preach about "reaching out to murderers." These days, Europe reminds me of an elderly aunt who hides her last pieces of jewelry with shaking hands when she notices a robber has broken into a neighbor's house. Europe, thy name is cowardice.

Yeah - what he said.

Matthias Dopfner in an article for Front Page Magazine.

Europe, and especially France, have been major pro-Islamic supporters ever since 9/11. Germany, of course, doesn't want to step on the toes of any minority, lest they be rebranded as Nazis after their long struggle to shed the image. So what happens to these countries who allow their feeding hands to be bitten time and again?
Little Green Footballs has the link to this story:

Berning isn't a nosy meddler. She is the principal at Rixdorfer school in the Berlin neighborhood known as Little Istanbul, where Turkish markets line the streets and Muslim worshipers file into discreet prayer rooms down back alleys. And these days her job is complicated by a widening gulf among her students. There have been more fights and more name-calling incidents at Rixdorfer, Berning says, since a German court granted an umbrella group called the Islamic Federation the right to teach religion classes in Berlin schools--where 8 percent of students are Turkish Muslims. Muslim girls are dropping out of sports classes and field trips, she says, and there are fewer friendships between Muslim and non-Muslim students. Although the Islamic Federation is under observation by the German Office for the Protection of the Constitution, which suspects the group of being an extremist organization, the religion classes continue.

And

In Germany, where the chancellor and five of his cabinet members chose to drop the "so help me God" portion of their respective oaths of office, only 3 percent of Protestants routinely attend church on Sundays. In England, Anglicans are now a minority. And in France, there are only 25,000 Roman Catholic priests--most past retirement age--in a country that is home to the largest Muslim population in Europe (5 million in a population of 60 million).

As this population continues to grow into a political force--if Turkey joins the EU, Muslims could account for 1 in 5 Europeans by 2050--the question becomes whether Islam is compatible with the Continent's secular democracies. Kadriye Aydin, a 34-year-old family and immigration lawyer born and raised in Germany, says her Muslim faith and democratic ideals coexist. Many Europeans, she says, "do not understand that it is possible to combine both identities, to be both a Muslim and a European who believes in democracy."

These days, though, European television is packed with exposes of the anti-West preachings by radical Muslim figures, from the Turkish imam caught urging those assembled in a Bavarian prayer room to "take advantage of democracy to further our cause" to another Berlin-based imam filmed asserting that Germans were smelly sinners who would go to hell. Faced with deportation, the imam apologized for "my personal inability to adequately explain some things to the Muslim community without denigrating other cultures and religions."

Deception? Such incidents fuel fears that Muslim immigrants are exploiting liberal western values to spread religious radicalism, says Valerie Amiraux, a political scientist specializing in Islam in secular society at the National Center for Scientific Research in Amiens, France. What's more, she says, "after the days of Theo van Gogh, there was a sense that giving a place to multiculturalism may lead to violence and political disorder." Following that murder, parliamentarians in the traditionally liberal Netherlands began calling for mandatory Dutch classes in light of reports that half of Muslims in the Netherlands don't speak the language. Politicians are crafting initiatives to limit low-income housing for new immigrants and restrict the arrival of mail-order Muslim brides from the Middle East. Germany likewise is considering measures to force imams to preach in German.

It is worth reading this whole article. I have lived in Scotland, where other than an ongoing rivalry between the Catholic Celtic Football Club and the Protestant Rangers FC, there isn't much in the way of racism. But on more than one occasion, I walked through the heart of downtown Glasgow and passed a booth set up in favor of securing a Palestine state in the Middle East. The vitriol coming from those working the booth, as well as the Birkenstock-wearing, dreadlocked, spacey-eyed students who flocked to support their cause was distressing. I guess they figured that since Scotland only has about five Jews (two of whom I know personally), they could get away with it, and no one would complain. Saturday after Saturday they would set up on Argyle or Sauchiehall Streets, and collect signatures on their various petitions.

At the offices of the Islamic Federation in Berlin's Kreuzberg neighborhood, a leafy, canal-lined residential area for the city's more-established Muslim families, Islamic Federation Chairman Burhan Kesici reports that he, too, has heard about the trouble with the Muslim children at Rixdorfer Elementary. His students have been calling non-Muslim classmates pork-eaters and the like. This, he acknowledges, is not good. "But there is no more trust left in the German system," says Kesici. "And times have changed. There are more and more Muslim people living here, and [German authorities] have to realize this and change their structures, so the problems don't become worse." Principal Berning, he says, has been in no hurry to work with him. Berning responds that she won't work with radicals, and she often puts down the telephone and walks away from it while Kesici is talking. They are at a stalemate, but 15 more schools in Berlin alone are scheduled to initiate Islamic education classes this year.

I don't see why the German authorities have to change their standards for those who have chosen to move there. A person, be they a refugee or an economic immigrant, moves to a country because they feel it is a better life than what they had in their homeland. Why would they then try to turn their new home into a frightening replica of their old one? It has to be considered that perhaps they did not move there to escape or improve, but to slowly and surely convert the masses to Islam. After all, it is one of the main tenets of the Islamic religion: Convert them, or enslave them.

Part of me wants to say that Europe has only itself to blame for letting it get so out of hand, but they are not alone in it. And with Western Democracy being what it is, we choose to see the good in everyone. We do not want to believe that someone might have come to harm us. The West is great because it allows a person to be who they want to be. Unfortunately, that Western right is being taken advantage of, and fighting dirty might be the only way to save us. And if that happens, there will be no more Western democracy. We will become "them". Either way, they win.

I keep reading articles about Muslim groups getting offended and upset about the upcoming season three of Fox's 24. The opening episode is to feature a Muslim family plotting to set off a bomb to kill Americans. For the usual reasons - Allah, blah, blah, infidels, blah, blah, Great Satan, blah, blah - well, you get the point.

An American-Islamic group has blasted the makers of Kiefer Sutherland's hit TV drama 24 after learning the first episode of the new season portrays a Muslim family as terrorists.

Officials at the Council on American-Islamic Relations were made aware of the controversial episode after upset Muslims got hold of a promotional preview of the show, which airs next week.

The council's spokeswoman Rabiah Ahmed says she's particularly disturbed by one scene, in which an American-Muslim teenager plots to kill Americans.

She adds: "It casts a cloud of suspicion over every American-Muslim family out there."

Bosses at TV network Fox, who air the show, have yet to counter the comments.

Nor should they. I was a child of the eighties, and I'm sure many of my readers are, too. If you are, you will remember that every blockbuster movie featured russian spies, plotting to destroy America, and even worse, every sitcom had at least one "Russian Defector" character. All of them played by Yakov Smirnoff. For all we know, Yakov was the only Russian to actually defect to America.


Did we ever hear the Russians complaining that they were being stereotyped, or that they were being branded as terrorists (or just bad comedians)? No.

And back during/after WWII? The Germans. Every one of them portrayed as a Nazi. Was it true? No. Was it just propaganda? Sometimes, but most of the time it was just entertainment. People are more likely to identify with a film or a show if it portrays their real fears. And like it or not, many of us are afraid of Muslims. But we're not allowed to talk about it.

Paramount Pictures, the studio producing The Sum of All Fears, would probably have been much more nervous over its release had the screenplay followed Tom Clancy's 1991 bestseller more closely.

In Clancy's original work the terrorists were Muslim.

But in the movie adaptation they have been changed to European neo-Nazi villains, who hope that detonating a nuclear device at the Superbowl will confuse the US and set off nuclear exchange between American and Russia that will assure their mutual destruction.

Pressure to change the identities of the terrorists came during early stages of production from the US based Council on American-Islamic Relations, who viewed Clancy's novel as a Muslim-bashing tome.

The organisation's spokesman, Ibrahim Hooper, is relieved the film's producers decided not to make the terrorists Muslim, particularly in light of the 11 September attacks.

Why not? CNN had already brought Tom Clancy into interview on 9/11, so he could point out all the similarities between his book and the WTC. I once heard someone say that "When a significant number of attacks can be attributed to those of a particular race or faith, it ceases to be racial profiling, and becomes a description of the criminal."

So, the Islamic community needs to realize that the way to get us to not be afraid of them isn't to censor us, but for them to stop plotting to kill us. If they stop preaching for our demise, we'll stop portraying them as the enemy. Just like the fall of communism ended Yakov Smirnoff's television career.

Federal authorities searched Wednesday for a man using a Middle Eastern name and possibly bogus construction credentials to try to purchase large quantities of an explosive ingredient used by Timothy McVeigh to blow up the Oklahoma City federal building.

Scary stuff. It's getting to the point where Americans are nearly paranoid enough (and rightly so) to start making fertilizer a controlled substance.

ATF was asking the fertilizer and explosives industries to help locate the man and to report any suspicious inquiries for the fertilizer chemical ammonium nitrate, which is used to make so-called fertilizer bombs.

"We're still running down leads. But we thought it would be prudent putting out an advisory to the fertilizer industry," said Tom Mangin, an ATF agent in Phoenix, where the investigation is centered.

The suspect also made several Internet e-mail inquiries to vendors seeking to buy between 500 to 1,000 metric tons of the explosive a quantity larger than McVeigh used to bomb the Oklahoma City federal building in April 1995 but smaller than amounts companies typically might buy in bulk for construction, explosives or farm work.

I'm having a little trouble doing the math here. Maybe you can help me out.

• Democrat Hillary Clinton wants affordable healthcare for all - an admirable goal.
• President Bush is trying to cap "pain & suffering" malpractice payments so that doctors can pay less for insurance, thereby reducing the cost of medical care in America - sounds like both sides are working toward the same goal...
• Opponents of Bush (could that be the Democrats???) are against the idea, saying the only ones who will win in this deal are the insurance companies, and not the poor, helpless victims (not to belittle those with legitimate claims, but seriously, how many claims are actually legitimate?).
• Many of those against the cap are personal injury lawyers - obviously.
• Democratic Vice Presidential Nominee John Edwards is a personal injury lawyer.

My question - do the Democrats even know what the hell they are in favor of?

Bush will start the effort on Wednesday with his first big speech of the new year on a trip to Madison County, Illinois, which the White House called a magnet for so-called "junk" lawsuits. Spokesman Scott McClellan said the county was "the single best place in the country for trial lawyers to sue."

Bush would limit damages awarded by a jury for pain and suffering in malpractice lawsuits to $250,000. His plan would still allow unlimited damages to cover economic losses. His idea is to change a system that he says allows lawyers to hit the jackpot with big-dollar awards.

"We have a broken medical liability system," McClellan said.

Trial lawyers say Bush is trying to limit Americans' legal rights and is faking a crisis while protecting the profits of insurance companies, many of whom helped him win re-election in November and who have to pay out the large awards.

...

Phil Singer, a spokesman for Nevada Democratic Sen. Harry Reid, the new minority leader in the Senate, said if Congress wants to control rising malpractice insurance premiums, "then we must enact tough insurance reforms to promote real competition in the insurance industry."

So it's the insurance companies' fault? But they are actually paying out more than they are taking in, from bogus "pain and suffering" claims! If I were in the insurance business, and I was losing more than I was making, I would have to charge my clients more. And in turn, my clients would have to charge thier clients more. It just makes good business sense. Unless you're a personal injury lawyer. Then, everything is somebody else's fault. The doctors, the insurance companies, the neighbor down the street who recommended that doctor in the first place. Perhaps, if the payouts weren't so large, fewer bogus claims would be made. Capping the payments is a win-win situation. Except, of course, if you are an ambulance chasing parasite.

The Democrats need to all sit down together and decide what they really want: Cheaper health care, or higher payouts?