A post for the lurking (and not so lurking) lefties who are drawn here like moths to a bright light, offered in the genuine spirit of human compassion, for you know not what you have become.
Nick Cohen, on the ” inversion of principles” of his former comrades;

I’m sure that any halfway competent political philosopher could rip the assumptions of modern middle-class left-wingery apart. Why is it right to support a free market in sexual relationships but oppose free-market economics, for instance? But his criticisms would have little impact. It’s like a religion: the contradictions are obvious to outsiders but don’t disturb the faithful. You believe when you’re in its warm embrace. Alas, I’m out. Last week, after 44 years of regular church-going, the bell tolled, the book was closed and the candle was extinguished. I was excommunicated.
[…]
Auden noticed a retreat from universal principles in the 1930s – communism was fine in ‘semi-barbaric’ Russia but would have been a screaming outrage in a civilised country. He should have been alive today. With no socialism to provide international solidarity, good motives of tolerance and respect for other cultures have had the unintended consequence of leading a large part of post-modern liberal opinion into the position of 19th-century imperialists. It is presumptuous and oppressive to suggest that other cultures want the liberties we take for granted, their argument runs. So it may be, but believe that and the upshot is that democracy, feminism and human rights become good for whites but not for browns and brown-skinned people who contradict you are the tools of the neo-conservatives.
On the other hand when confronted with a movement of contemporary imperialism – Islamism wants an empire from the Philippines to Gibraltar – and which is tyrannical, homophobic, misogynist, racist and homicidal to boot, they feel it is valid because it is against Western culture. It expresses its feelings in a regrettably brutal manner perhaps, but that can’t hide its authenticity.

Read the rest.
Via the “inexplicably popular” Wretchard who adds;

The hollowing out of the Left — the death of its Bolshevik core — is one of the great unwritten stories of the late twentieth century. The decline of the cadre of professional revolutionaries at its center was simultaneously matched by the inrush from the periphery of the network of sympathizers, fellow travelers and “useful fools” which it once adopted as protective coloration. It was a classic case of the inmates taking over an asylum from which the keepers had fled. … the freak show of autonomists, zapatistas, rage-against-the-machine cultists, transgender spokespersons, abortion rights activists, militant gay and lesbians and tattered academics that characterize today’s Left. … To experience any real militancy, today’s Left wing activists must attach themselves as pathetic dogs to Islamic causes like the International Solidarity Movement. There, they can indulge their fantasy of advancing world socialism while objectively dying for Osama Bin Laden or Yasser Arafat. The circle is complete. The roles have been reversed.
The heirs to moribund Bolshevism have now become the “useful fools”, the protective coloration of a dynamic militant Islamism.

Jeff Goldstein misses the mark on the NCAA’s pronouncement that they will ban “the use of American Indian mascots by sports teams during its postseason tournaments”*.

The time to fight these irrational feints to “tolerance”–which have progressed to the point where we are now routinely airbrushing from our own history anything even remotely controversial, all for the benefit of minority self-identifiers vying for poltical control over a given identity group (a lucrative and quite powerful position to hold, as I’m sure Jesse Jackson can attest)–is now.
The slippery slope of politically correct linguistic accomodation has put us in the pathetic–and intellectually ridiculous–position of being afraid even now to identify our enemy in the “War on Terror”–which (as everyone knows but few will say publicly), is Islamic radicalism–particularly, the Wahhabist strain of Islam.
Words matter. And ceding control over language to special interest groups is a recipe for social disaster–particularly in a society supposedly designed around the rights of the individual. Edward Said and his academic ilk perfected this linguistic hijacking procedure, wherein political groups–under the guise of ethnic authenticity–laid claim to important terms of debate, then wielded control of those terms as a way to delegitimize critics. And the very same thing is happening here–a testament to how deeply rooted Said’s principles have become in the academy and on the policy level, and a running indictment on intellectual bankruptcy of our modern intelligensia.
Time to push back.

As a Canadian, I know the pain it causes me to see the word “Canuck” mocking me from the jersies of Swedish-born hockey players.
My good friend Goldstein suffers from the insensitivity of one who has yet to walk a mile in our Sorels – it’s not as though he is forced to endure indignities like “the New York Rangers pumelled the Charleston Chasidics in a game that was decidedly one sided”, 8 foot plush foam Stars of David cavorting with cheerleaders on the basketball courts, or insensitive gentiles in the stands waving the “mighty Menorah” at opposing teams.
Consulting my sports library, I reread my copy of the leaflet, “A Century of Jewish Sports Legends” – yet could find no rabbinical equivalent of the “San Diego Padres”. Could it be that Jews themselves recognize that the misappropriation of ones culture and faith by creators of sports logos is demeaning?
Say it isn’t so, my intolerant friend. Say it isn’t so.

Richard Aboulafia is the head of the Teal Group;

This delightful image of a bygone world was stunningly re-created in May when Bombardier received promises of $700 million in launch aid for its CSeries of 110/135-seat jetliners. Ottawa kicked in $320 million, Quebec $280 million, while the UK, hoping to replicate the DeLorean car experience in Northern Ireland, committed $100 million. I was disappointed to read this on the wires; I was hoping to see this nostalgic moment in a theater on a grainy black and white newsreel, with smiling, trench-coated ministers standing in front of DC-2s and De Havilland Dragon Rapides.
[…]
The 110/135-seat CSeries market is better than the 100-seat BRJ-X market, in the same way that death by hanging is way better than death by disembowelment. A revolutionary 110/135-seat design might just be competitive here. But the CSeries is stunningly non-revolutionary. So, this project would never happen without John Q. Mountie.
Even with this help, it still probably won’t happen. Government aid can help a marginal business case go ahead, as with the A380 or Japan’s aerostructure work. But no amount of sweetening — and the Canadian/UK offering is so sweet it’s saccharine — can make the CSeries go. The two major engine players in this class (CFM and IAE) responded to this sweet, yummy maple-flavored aid by just walking away.
If the CSeries was just a bad idea, it wouldn’t be a big deal. Bad ideas happen in this industry. If they didn’t, critics like me would be out of a job. What elevates the CSeries from “bad” to “carnivorously destructive” is what it means for the rest of Canada’s aerospace industry. It will suck up hundreds of millions of dollars, money that will be siphoned off from everything else.
Worse, the Canadian Government wants a vertically Canadian plane. David Emerson, Canada’s Minister of Industry, said “Canadian firms play key roles in many existing global aerospace projects, and the Government of Canada will work with companies across the aerospace industry to promote their capabilities to participate with Bombardier in the CSeries.” This means risk would be kept in country. If the CSeries fails, most of Canada’s aerospace suppliers will be dragged down with it.

Just another day in Paul Martin’s Bananada – where no price is too high when it comes to short term electoral gain in Quebec.

Via local radio: the Supreme Court of Canada has suspended their decision to strike down the Quebec private health-care ban case for 12 months.
Put your hand up if this surprises you.
update – and that isn’t all. They’re going to revisit the decision;

How can we solve African poverty? Certainly not by throwing them a rock concert.

Over at Tart Cider, Chris Selley (tipping hat to none other than that well-regarded intellectual paperweight, Antonia Zerbisias) fairly reeks of dismissiveness towards this post focusing on the inability of the CBC to comprehend that a state-funded media ought not declare itself neutral towards an enemy bent on its destruction.
Though I knew it was a waste of electrons, I left a comment and moved on.
Then, as it so happened, I surfed over to Norm Geras’ site to read this by Alan Johnston;

I’ve had enough. I awoke today at 7am. By 7.23am I’d heard two apologias for suicide bombing. I wake to the BBC’s Today programme, you see. A nice woman presenter politely thanked both apologists very much for their time.
I turned off and turned on my PC. At the BBC website I find the Tory Party Vice- Chair Sayeeda Warsi saying, ‘Mr Blair should negotiate with the terrorists. We need to bring these groups into the fold of the democratic process. As long as we exclude them and don’t hear them out, we will allow them to continue their hate.’
I reflect that I last heard this from Tony Benn � the hero of my youth whom I now think a dangerous political idiot – speaking on BBC’s Newsnight on the evening of 7/7 (and before that from Mo Mowlam about Bin Laden). I then notice the BBC has a story about ‘Muslim reactions to 7/7’. First voice up, top of the screen, is Dr Imran Waheed, the media representative of Hizb ut-Tahrir (Britain), who says, ‘What is required is for the whole society to accept responsibility for 7/7’. Hizb ut-Tahrir is a racist anti-Semitic organisation that supports suicide bombings.

So to Chris Selley, whose defense of the CBC’s aversion to the use of the word “terrorist” seems to boil down to “everyone else is doing it”, all I can offer is tosecond Mr. Johnston’s advice – that you might try reading a little less Amazing Wonderdog and a little more Tony Blair.
Or Norm Geras, for that matter.

Mark Johnson, Imprint staff. (U of Waterloo)

Like many Canadians, I reacted with a mixture of shock, sorrow and anger to the news of the horrifying terrorist attacks in downtown London, now dubbed “7/7.” The disaster, which took the lives of 52 people and counting, has even been referred to as England’s own September 11th.
I see things entirely differently. The deluded band of egocentric, paranoid terrorists that I think have made up the present and past governments of the United States of America has been launching petty, cowardly attacks on legitimate sovereign nations for decades, and 9/11 was something they had coming to them.
The World Trade Centre and the Pentagon I think were government-connected targets, and those attacks were not aimed at the general population.
In London, on the other hand, it was the mass transit system that was blown up, harming no one but civilians. The bombings were evidently retaliation for the British involvement in the American-led invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.
After the Madrid bombings, which were timed to coincide with a national election, Spanish voters threw out an arrogant liar of a president � who sent their troops to die in Iraq � and elected a socialist who soon withdrew the troops to safety. In doing so, Spain wisely diminished its chances of provoking another attack.
We in Canada think of ourselves as relatively safe from terrorists, but were it not for the intelligent, thoughtful decision of an awesome former Prime Minister, Jean Chr�tien, to keep our troops out of the Iraq quagmire, it’s more than likely that we’d now be in line for some sort of terrorist attack.
Thank heavens we had (and continue to have) the Liberal Party of Canada in office!
[…]
R.I.P. to the victims of the London massacre and likewise to the victims of the U.S./U.K. massacres in Iraq and elsewhere. What goes around comes around, I suppose.

[emphasis mine]
Mark’s Angelfire homepage is probably subject to bandwidth limits, so I’ve quoted it in the extended entry.

“I serve as a director for the Liberal Party of Canada in my riding of Kitchener-Conestoga, and am obviously also a member of that prestigious political party. “

*Information was current as of Feb. 2005 – still trying to get confirmation on his current status with the riding ass’n.

Continue reading →

“Activities which degrade men or women through sexual stereotyping, or exploit the bodies of men, women, boys or girls solely for the purpose of attracting attention, are not permitted on Nathan Phillips Square.”

There, says Ms. Reid. Miss Universa non grata. She can come. But no sash, no tiara.

The big parade ends Gay Pride week which began on June 18th when the Rainbow Flag was raised in Nathan Philips Square in front of City Hall.

More photos of the welcomed parade participants. Not work safe.
(Not lunch safe, for that matter.)

I opined some time ago, that those who were coming down on the pro side of same sex marriage hadn’t considered all the consequences – one being the newly elevated status of gay couples when petitioning courts for custody of children from one partner’s previous marriage. (Contrary to popular belief, homosexuals have always had the right to marry. My long list of divorced gay friends puts to the lie to that one.) I asked the hypothetical question: “How would a judge view a situation in which a former husband, who, after leaving his wife for a new lover turned spouse, petitions for primary custody of his young children, on the basis of higher income and more stable home life, complete with the ability of his new partner to be a “stay at home” parent? What of her concerns about her sons being raised by a gay man she barely knows – can she even give voice to those?”
Now, “Angry” has a not so hypothetical case regarding adoption.

Would he [an Ontario family law judge], once gay marriage was entrenched, and in keeping with our government’s current equity legislation in the workplace, feel obliged to fast-track gays’ access to available children to make up for “past injustices” and their “disability” on the procreative front? And what about a single mother willing to give up her child for adoption, provided the baby went to a heterosexual couple? Whose rights would be privileged, hers or those of gay adoptive applicants?
The judge paused, then said, “I haven’t ever really thought about it.” Eventually the judge opined that a gay married couple’s rights should trump a biological mother’s right to have her child raised in a normative family. And on further reflection, he decided, he would also be partial to equity adoption policies for gays.

Discuss. (Be sure to read his post and the comments, first)
And be civil, or you’ll be tossed.

Success doesn’t pay.

“Just imagine working hard to build up a life and a future for your family, then someone comes and takes it all away and nothing can be done about it. The perpetrators have impunity. No, not Africa, its down home Manitoba where its good to be the chief.”

Some stories just tell themselves…..

B.C.’s Human Rights Tribunal has ruled that the International Village Mall in Vancouver discriminated against aboriginal people.
Complainant Gladys Radek was awarded $15,000 in the tribunal’s decision Wednesday. Radek claimed she and other native people had been discriminated against by security guards at the mall, who continually barred them from entering the mall.
Human Rights Tribunal member Lindsay Lyster agreed. In her decision, she says the mall’s owner, Henderson Development, and Securigard, the mall’s former security company, “established a pattern of systemic discrimination.”
[…]
It was mall policy to deny access to people who had dirty clothing, open sores and wounds, red eyes, and who were acting intoxicated. Lyster ruled that the policy created practices that had an unfair and discriminatory effect on aboriginal people.

H/T Vancouver Housing Market Blog
update
Maxed Out Mama has read the ruling in full and has provided some damning quotes from the judge that may actually reinforce the CBC’s quote above – which I originally thought was just very poorly thought out wording. (Bonus – Ward Churchill makes an “anonymous” appearance in the comments!)

CNN (Reuters);

The European Commission said it was initiating legal action against 11 states which had failed to incorporate the rules into national noise pollution legislation, which should have been done by July 2004.
The states are Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Finland, France, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Portugal and Britain.
[…]
The rules require states to draw maps that track the level of noise from cars, planes, machinery and other sources in areas inhabited by more than 100,000 people. Busy intersections or traffic networks are also targeted.
Once the maps are established, the states must formulate a plan to make the area quieter.

Via Blog Quebecois who thinks it’s a clever counter-terrorist initiative. On the other hand, Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas did have this to say;

“The EU’s objective is to substantially reduce the number of people in Europe affected by noise by 2012..”

So, I suppose there are alternative ways to meet the objective….

” . . . It’s important for each and every Saskatchewan citizen to phone their relatives in Alberta and make sure that publicly in Alberta the Canadian perspective around community responsibility for health care remains at the forefront of what the policymakers are doing.” – Saskatchewan Health Minister John Nilson

Those would be same relatives who left Saskatchewan’s glorious utopian system behind in search of… what do they call it, again … ?
Oh, right – “Not Saskatchewan”.
David Maclean asks how long it’s going to be before some intrepid reporter asks Nilson ” whether it is at all appropriate for a minister of the crown to organizing political campaigns in other provinces. “
(Via Dust My Broom.)

As the post mortems continue over the conviction of David Ahenakew, I am reminded of a post by “Raskolnikov” at Dust My Broom” this past April;

It looks like the radical left�s investment in the Aboriginal community is finally paying off. While aboriginal students across the country study the evil ways of Europeans, imbibing lefty saints like Foucault and Said, the Big Pimp Indians are laying the foundation of absurd logic and hatred that the left needs in place to perpetuate future generations of dissent. For anyone who has studied history, this should ring an ominous bell.
[…]
Pick up books assigned to studies of native history, self-government or politics, and the radical bent is obvious. For all the lip service about how we have to turn to our elders and our traditions for guidance, it would appear that our elders include Noam Chomsky and our traditions include anarchy. We are supposed to be peace-loving people yet we study and believe theories espousing violent revolution, anarchy and reverse-racism. Go to sites like Friends of Grassy Narrows, Resist, Redwire or Winnipeg IndyMedia and you can see, for yourself, the radicalism that permeates the aboriginal community, at least among the activists. Even more tragic, few stop to wonder about this and can only resort to inane rebuttals about the oppression being so deterministic how can we do anything else but long for bloodshed and violence? It’s our only option.
Now, with people like David Ahenakew and Terry Nelson, who, despite being an illiterate criminal is still a “role model” in the sense that he shows how horribly easy it is to become chief when you don’t let things like a lack of spelling skills and morals handcuff you, spurting their racist bile, the radical left sowing has produced its first sprout peeking out of the dirt.
Ahenakew is the most obvious product of such indoctrination: the Jews started WWII, they control the world, are a disease, they slaughter innocent Palestinians on their way to charity drives. He may as well be reading from The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, or, for that matter, an Eric Margolis column.

You need to read it all.

Peter Warren is reading emails of listeners who are on waiting lists for heart pacemakers.
Some of the writers have been waiting for months for consultations with a specialist (with no surgery in sight) including those whose symptoms have rendered them incapacitated.
So, to our “Two Tier Medicare Would Destroy Canadian Identity And Turn Us Into Godfull Americans” flapping mouths in media – who’s going to be first to ask her office how long Queen Adrienne waited for hers?

If you are 80 years old, unwell, and live in the province of Manitoba, seeing your doctor may just cost you and your family everything they own.

“I commend the RCMP for their approach.There are people who have been denied opportunities for much too long simply because they don’t show ability in their desired field. Our belated recognition as a society of the emotional wounds caused by overly strict hiring standards is a watershed event.
This more enlightened approach to hiring should be more broadly implemented, so as to include fire and rescue workers, surgeons, airline pilots, electricians, civil engineers, air-traffic controllers, S.W.A.T. team snipers, rodeo clowns…
Together, we can make this a better world.”

…because good journalism entails understanding more than just the neighborhood you grew up in.

Amen.

In a story revealing that Canadian physicians are setting aside doses of the antiviral drug Tamiflu for family and friends in the event that forecasts of a bird flu pandemic are borne out, the CBC lists the reasons against “stockpiling”:

Infectious disease specialist Dr. Allison McGeer of Toronto’s Mount Sinai said she understands why some of her colleagues are acquiring a personal stockpile of Tamiflu. Ethically, though, she said the federal government should be protecting everyone.
“The best protection if we don’t have vaccine is one dose of prophylactic for every Canadian for every day for two waves of the pandemic,” McGeer said.
The idea of personal stockpiles of Tamiflu worries most public health officials like McGeer, and some are advising doctors against writing the prescriptions.
The reasons against stockpiling are:

The resistance hypothesis � Widespread use of Tamiflu among patients with influenza could lead to resistant strains of flu, potentially making the drug useless.

Shelf-life: Tamiflu is only guaranteed for five years, yet no one knows when a pandemic will hit.

Equity: At $5 per pill, not everyone will be able to afford a personal stockpile.

Emphasis mine.
We have just been reminded that simply having the financial resources to purchase your own medications is reason enough to be denied access to them.
This is what Trudeaupia has come to. We are rapidly moving past the “equity” of months long waiting lists and zero-tier Health Care Prohibition Zones into a hyper-socialist model where “universality” is defined as a government policy that applies as equally to health care denied as it does health care provided.
With a shelf life of 5 years, a family’s investment in Tamiflu works out to $1 a year per pill, per person. In the insanity that has become the Canadian health care system, this fact is actually cited as a reason not to allow Canadians to make it.
Without saying so in so many words, official government policy towards the pandemic we are all being warned is coming, is this: until every Canadian can afford to set aside a handful of $5 pills, death equity for Canadians will remain official Canadian Government policy.